It’s FINAL WEEK (I think? I can never tell, I’m in MAFS purgatory) of this show we love to hate and hate to love. How much time have we wasted being psychotically invested in these people? How many brilliant things could we have done with our lives with that time? Lol who cares.
We’ve hit home stretch, and honestly I will miss these gorgeous fuckwits. I will! I’ll be following all the juicy/usually fake gossip like my life depends on it. But first, let’s recap tonight’s ep.
So we’re still at the Boiz/Girlz nights, and the first thing we cop is all the bros saying who they’d have preferred to be matched with. Or something – basically who their ideal woman is in the experiment. Everyone’s like Connie, Connie, Connie – but Jonethen’s like “Stacey, but Connie’s personality.” ??? Huh? Since when? What is even happening. This is such a late in the game announcement, I’m frankly shocked it’s the first time we’re hearing about it. Are we gonna see a Jonnie/Stacey hook up at the reunion? I mean, I’m not NOT here for it.
Of course Seb refuses to play and says “Lizzie. Everything Lizzie”. Christ alive, man.
Anyway, at some point Josh (who cares) and Poo Toilet Dave (even less cares) show up, but everyone’s talking about Ivan. Will he show up and face Josh and Michael after being such a dirty dog to them? Bitch bitch moan moan about Ivan.
Nothing much is happening with the girls night, either. Stacey’s still filthy at Hayley but spends the whole time glaring into her Mojito instead of saying anything, while Hayley tells the table it took the experiment to realise she had someone in front of her the whole time. She’s loving life, which enrages Stacey into an even deeper level of Mojito Glare.
FINALLY, Ivan shows up to the boys party. Immediately, talk turns to him throwing Michael and Josh under the bus. He says he only asked Josh “kind of” to bring up a convo, but Michael says he asked them to bring up him and Aleks fucking, but he says no he didn’t – it’s the same shit, different toot. Everyone’s bored. Steve’s bored. Mikey’s bored. I’m bored. My dog is bored. Her half-chewed baseball is bored.
The only person not bored is Michael, because he really, really wants Ivan to admit it.
It’s quite funny considering he refuses to admit he pashed Hayley, but also I’ve stopped caring about these stale problems. GIVE ME THE STACEY CHEATING SCANDAL OR NOTHING. We do cop another hint this ep – Ivan tells the boys he knows a lot of what’s been happening behind closed doors. He also uses unnecessary finger quotes. Then he tells the camera “Michael’s day will come”.
Over with the girls, Hayley is loved up and still crowing on about it. It’s a pretty nice ending for her, and you can tell most of the women love it. Except Stacey, of course. Her Mojito Glaring has turned into word vomit, as she attacks Hayley for accusing her of a fake law degree (true) and bringing her two ~precious innocent children~ into it (what).
Sorry, Hayley literally just said “aren’t you 26 with two kids, how did you become a lawyer”? That’s hardly attacking your kids, Stace. Anyway, she’s at Hayley for never liking her, and Lizzie – forever inserting herself into other people’s business – turns to Cathy to ask what’s true. Cathy says Hayley has indeed never liked Stacey before taking a *sips tea* slurp of her cocktail.
The argument continues on – Stacey says she’s the victim and Hayley is getting off scot free and Hayley attacked her first (wait, didn’t Stacey say mean shit first?). Hayley keeps throwing jabs at Stacey’s law degree and calls her a chihuahua. It’s kind of all bad, but I also get mad Mean Girl vibes from Stacey so I’m kinda team Hayley here. But as Poppy says, they’ve both said mean things. No one’s an angel right now.
FOR SOME REASON THOUGH, Lizzie is getting more and more riled up on Stacey’s behalf. Again, Stacey accuses Hayley of bringing her kids into it and Hayley snaps, yelling “I said how did you get a law degree, you’ve been popping kids out since you were 19 c**t!” Ok even I was a bit like, ooft that was a LOT.
That’s the last straw for Lizzie “this is also my business somehow!!” Sobinoff, who stands over Hayley yelling DISGUSTING DISGUSTING DISGUSTING, lets Stacey throw a NAPKIN IN HAYLEY’S FACE, then walks off arm in arm with her.
It’s just a bit gross because Stacey has bullied Hayley with this shit since the minute it happened, so I was pretty surprised Lizzie took her side.
They go off, and everyone else is like a mix of WTF just happened / Taylor Swift when Kanye interrupted her.
Old mate who the fuck are you tells us you simply do NOT bring people’s kids into it. That she doesn’t have kids but you know what she does have? A CAT. And if you bring her cat into it, hoooo boy.
Over in Time Out, Stacey is continuing to play full victim while accusing Hayley of playing full victim, saying she’s never apologised (she absolutely has).
Lizzie tells Seb how she went Full Lizzie, and he’s mildly alarmed but also says she hasn’t been that way with him, so he’s still all good. I *think* that’s a nice thing to say? I can’t decide. Anyway, we have more pressing things to discuss – guys, Connie is making an unhinged scrapbook.
YES, REALLY. Connie has clearly learned nothing from the last, well, FOREVER. Because she still doesn’t seem to get how there’s caring in a nice, normal way and then smothering someone with your love and attention.
Meanwhile Jonethen, increasingly revealing strong whiffs of fuckboy, says he is STILL figuring out how he feels about Connie romantically? Dude, you wrote leave THREE TIMES. Can we just have some consistency here.
Connie preps Jonnie for their date. She says it’s going to be just like super fun, just like fun hey, so fun, heaps fun.
He seems quietly alarmed at her enthusiasm but relatively upbeat about being stuck in serviced apartment purgatory with her this week.
KC and Drew are also going on a date, it involves a boat, it looks fucking freezing.
Back to Connie, who has basically pretzelled herself into a triangle trying to impress Jonnie with how Cool Girl she is. She’s rented a Cool Girl yellow kombi. She’s taking him Cool Girl surfing. She’s Cool Girl laughing at everything. It’s just… it’s shit to watch. She shouldn’t have to try so hard!!! If he doesn’t like you, fuck him off!!!! Connie!!!! How many times have I told you!!!
And of course we cop a flash back to Loser Connie who is literally not even a loser? Like fuck guys I walk my dog in a parka too, JFC.
They make it to the beach, and Connie reveals the next stage of her Cool Girl Date. It’s a pair of togs with her face on them!
An even more alarming piece of attire is revealed, however – SOCKETTES.
Anyway, Jonnie puts them on after we endure a montage of 3/10 fun times Connie and Jonethen have had. I have to admit they’re pretty – funny?
But JUST when I was coming around to this date and maybe considering it to be Connie’s favourite word – FUN – it’s then revealed that no, Connie and Jonethen aren’t going for a fun surf together. JONNIE is going for a fun surf, while Connie watches like an actual sad loser from the sand.
I think this was my limit with the togs, to be honest:
They sit down for an intense and freezing conversation about it being the final date. For a bit I was fixated on this vibe like Jonnie was going to KISS Connie, but then I saw this legend in the background:
Just phenomenal photobombing energy there. Anyway, I feel like for the entire beach convo Jonnie’s MAYBE keen on Connie again but now SHE’S friend-zoning him? She gives him this absolutely unsexual hug, for example:
Over to KC and Drew, who are dancing on the boat. By dancing, I mean KC has whipped out her Dance Moms moves.
Then they sit down to talk hard truths. KC feels like she’s had to prove herself to Drew because he thought she was materialistic. She doesn’t expect him to move to Sydney immediately, but she wants to know he really likes her, because she really likes him.
He SAYS he really likes her, but through the whole convo he looks like a trapped asparagus awaiting imminent boiling death, so.
Wanna see another trapped asparagus?
It’s Jonethen! Listening to Connie tell him how she wrote stay because she felt she owed it to the girl she was before! Jk jk, her speech is pretty genuine – like maybe she really IS here just to finish the ~journey~. He’s gotten her a gift – it’s a penguin called Conniethen.
Connie reacts like he just gave her the keys to his fedora-laden bachelor pad.
Then it’s time for her to give him her far more insane gift of Our. Family. ALBUM!
It is seriously as unhinged as the one in How To Lose A Guy. Look.
Jonnie says he loves it but his body language says how many 24 hour cycles until I can yeet myself out of this experiment and into my Instagram DM’s from mid-tier bikini influencers.
Connie even put her “stay” card in there:
At the end of it all, he says some nice/vague stuff to camera about Connie growing as a person and it’s nice seeing it. Then to Connie he says “I’m glad you wrote stay”. It’s ABSOLUTELY an off-hand comment, like “glad you wrote stay so we could share this nice friendly moment”, but Connie immediately goes “DO YOU MEAN THAT.”
If I could sum up their date, it’s like we watched Connie try her damned hardest to be the Cool Girl, but you simply cannot fake that shit for longer than a couple of hours. At the end of the day, your real (intense, chaotic, but ALSO EXCELLENT) self will come out – so the moral is just be yourself and fuck off anyone who doesn’t like youuuuuu, Connie you beautiful bitch! LOVE YOURSELF!
Anyway tomorrow night we get to see Mishel and Steve fly their car crash relationship off into the abyss, so there’s something.
Melissa Mason is the Managing Editor (Sydney) at Pedestrian. She’s also the co-host of the All Aussie Mystery Hour podcast, and posts shit content on Instagram.
