MAFS MAFS MAFS, all of my life is MAFS I just dream MAFS and eat MAFS for breakfast and yes I’m losing my mind!!!! Aren’t you??? It’s A LOT. This is a lot of episodes!!
But here we are, I’ve signed myself up for this recap purgatory. I have but myself to blame.
Let’s get into it.
Of course, the first couple we revisit are Hayley and David. You can hear the collective intake of breath as all of Australia thinks DIDYOUFUCKDIDYOUFUCKDIDYOUFUCK.
They don’t reveal if they did or didn’t, but that kind of hints that they DID rumpy pumpy. If you don’t, you just say you didn’t. Those are the rules of reality tv, however problematic and frankly grot they may be.
David’s still over the fucking moon with Hayley because, I have now decided, the man has had sex 1.5 times and is just stoked he landed a bombshell of a wife who might be DTF. Hayley, on the other hand, is far more balanced about this whole experiment. She’s seeing how things go, and is also worried about how David’s going to take her drug use past.
I have no idea why she is convinced he’ll lose his shit to find out that *shock* as a teenager *shock* she made questionable decisions *shock*.
Meanwhile over at casa de Chris / Vanessa, things are very non-sexual. Except for the fact that Chris thinks it’s totally fine to slither on in to her bedroom in his reg grundies with his package flopping around.
TBF it’s Vanessa who wanted to sleep in separate beds, and that is fine??? Chris is kinda making it seem weird and I’m like???? Buddy???? She doesn’t know you AT ALL. I too would not really want a lumpy, snoring, hair-shedding bloke flopping his arm over my boobs unintentionally at 2am either.
Everyone choofs off to their respective honeymoons, which are surprisingly luxe considering Aussie reality dating shows are notorious for doing the most budget shit imaginable for this stuff.
We first hang with Poppy and Luke – Poppy is still crying eternally about her kids. I get it, I get it, she misses her babies but I’m also personally bored of the crying and moping, can we get around to the falling in love now? Even her kids on the phone sounded like “mum, relax, also go away we were playing thomas the tank engine”.
She says she’s going to focus on the honeymoon, but we all know she’s absolutely not going to focus on the honeymoon.
Over on Daydream Island, Tash and Amanda are having a real beige time of it.
Amanda’s loving life, but Tash is having second thoughts. She feels there’s no spark with Amanda – the producers really ram this down our throats by showing Amanda being incredibly annoying, trying to get the kangaroos on the island to play with her. Nothing irritates me more than someone who tries to coax animals to them like fucking Sleeping Beauty.
Over at Natasha / Mikey’s honeymoon and everyone’s going abseiling! Because the absolute first thing I do on romantic weekenders is try to bring on a panic attack!
Natasha runs through her list of beauty treatments and mate, I related until we got to “inject my melanotan”. WHAT IS THAT. WHY ARE WE DOING THAT. WHO IS DOING THAT.
Meanwhile it looks like Nine blew the budget flying Hayley and David to Singapore, because their honeymoon consists of feeding turtle pests in the river, flying kites (!!!) and eating Doritos in the park.
Poppy and Luke meanwhile were woken up at satan’s hour to get prepped for hot air ballooning. Poppy SAYS she’s getting along amazingly with Luke, but her face says otherwise.
Back to Amanda, who is sitting around wearing AirPods and looking like she’s a divorcee post court settlement.
She ends up waiting THREE HOURS for Tash, who is over here doing… this:
Meanwhile Amanda gets burnt and ends up like this:
In what might be the best use of imagery, the producers give us an evil stingray shot next to a heart made of coral before the inevitable showdown between these two:
When Tash finally gets to the pool, Amanda’s excited to have romantic chats. Instead, Tash starts reading her “good book”.
Amanda storms off down to the sand, saying she’s frustrated and this isn’t how she pictured her romantic honeymoon with her complete random of a wife. She simply cannot believe it’s turned out to be an awkward as fuck holiday where she’s forced to be bizarrely intimate with someone she barely knows. Absolutely shocking stuff.
Finally, we get to see Cathy and Josh’s honeymoon. I assume this is because it’s actually going to be a success instead of the consecutive mild train disasters we just saw.
We’re put through some absolutely heinous scenes, like Cathy asking Josh if he’s nervous (!!!!) about getting in the spa with her. Oh god that did not have to become so uncomfortable, just get in the spa and don’t talk about it like normal socially avoidant people.
We get a strong view of Josh’s questionable tribal tattoo.
And plenty of slow shots of Cathy’s ass accompanied by sex music.
Naturally, we cop the horny spa kiss.
Over on Daydream Island, Amanda is sitting in a bog contemplating life.
Tash on the other hand has become a yogi.
The fight comes at night over dinner, when they’re forced to hang out. Eventually, Amanda asks point blank if Tash isn’t vibing it, to which Tash replies that she’s not feeling chemistry.
Amanda cries. She’s a crier.
The conversation just gets worse, Amanda is trying to convince Tash they’ve got chemistry, Tash is trying to convince Amanda she’s not a piece of shit human, blah blah.
Amanda eventually decides she’ll sleep in a different room, and they’ll hang out as a couple during the day. I think Tash ideally foresaw a future where she could just entirely avoid Amanda and cop a free holiday.
Amanda gives an emotional speech about putting everything on the line to be there, and feeling like she hasn’t been given a chance, etc etc. I think her main mistake was expecting to find love on this show?? I don’t know, just a thought here. I’m a thoughts gal.
After 84 years, we finally get to see what Vanessa and Chris are up to. Turns out it’s still sleeping in separate beds and making awkward small talk. They fly off to and island, and this abomination of a dip board:
They go for a romantic walk on the beach, and Vanessa makes the first move by holding Chris’ hand.
Things turned sour for David and Hayley overnight, after Hayley gave David shit for his hourly wage as a truckie. So they sit in a bog to discuss it while making sandcastles.
Natasha and Mikey go skiing, all I can think of are her melanotan injections.
Over brekkie the next day, Tash and Amanda completely implode. I can’t decide who I side with – Tash, who is saying she doesn’t want to share a room with Amanda because it makes her feel uncomfy, and is mad that Amanda is pressuring her to do it anyway, or Amanda, who feels like Tash isn’t trying at all.
I’m leaning toward Amanda because when she asks Tash “so is it completely over then? Let’s call it!” Tash has an about-turn and is all “I don’t know what else to do, I’m trying to give it a shot”.
Aka, I’m trying to stay on TV for as long as possible while also not being anywhere near you. Tash just screams “waiting for my teeth whitening ambassadorship” to me.
We revisit everyone else again – Vanessa and Chris share a kiss on a boat. Cathy and whoever this guy is have a sexy bath together.
Natasha and Mikey are making out in bed. Poppy and Luke are making ball jokes. But Hayley and David are… well.
Basically, David cannot let this truckie wage thing go. But then it becomes clear as to why when they start playing a game of truth telling cards (terrible idea). David brings it up and says the specific thing that hurt his feelings was that Hayley said in response “doll, $25 an hour doesn’t cut it with me” or something. Basically that she didn’t approve of his wage.
She’s all OMGHDJFGSK I DID NOT SAY THAT which you can so tell is because she’s doing damage control for the cameras. Either David is a sociopath trying on purpose to gaslight Hayley (could happen) or she fucked up and is covering her tracks.
She’s all “I had to steal food to survive why would I be that rude” which doesn’t really make any sense, anyway she storms off and he storms off, gets another hotel room, and things aren’t looking good.
I’m so happy the MAFS drama has started because I was starting to enter a boredom coma there.
