No. More. WEDDINGS! Thank sweet baby cheeses! Crack open the Passion Pop and grab a Salada! Sorry, but those events were getting bloody boring and I for one am MORE than ready for some MAFS screaming matches and cheating spouses, aren’t you?
We’re onto our last few honeymoons, but first we have to check back in with our couples post-wedding night. First up, Stacey and Michael. I need to draw your immediate attention to this unhinged excuse for a suitcase:
Who even has those bags outside of a storage unit, let alone uses them for their honeymoon luggage? It’s chaotic energy and I’m frankly impressed.
No seks ensued last night after we left Stacey and Michael, or so they say – there’s a HINT of “we’re sayingggg nothing happened but our eyes say something happened”, but you can never tell if it’s editing or not at this stage. A cheeky wristy? A little handsy time? We are not to know, and fair enough.
Over at Casa Steve & Mishel, and we finally learn that yes, Mishel’s CPAP machine is not for eternal beauty as The Daily Mail made it out to be today (wot) but for a snoring problem, as is NORMAL. She kept the entire hotel block awake and alert with her sub-woofer nose, but Steve seems to be okay with it. They seem way more touchy-feely with each other.
Slippy slippy under the door come the honeymoon letters – Connie and JonEthEn are headed to Broome, Stacey and Michael are off to Fiji, Mishel and Steve are off to Queenstown NZ and seem to think this is hilarious, either because they fucking hate the idea of bungee jumping off shit which they’ll no doubt be forced to do, or because they think they scored the best honeymoon:
But by far the most hilarious honeymoon – and also the one I’d personally want to be on – is Ivan and Aleks, who score Palazzo Versace on the Goldie.
Within minutes, Ivan has gone a bit pink. I think this guy might be a burner, which isn’t going to bode well for him on the Goldie.
He says he feels like Pablo Escobar in Palazzo Versace, and honestly it’s an uncanny likeness.
We hop over to Stacey and Michael, who are having a romantic dinner in the middle of hotel reception:
Stacey tells Michael she has her guard up big time when it comes to relationships, but that she’s working on it and wants to be here for the experiment. She also asks about his large wallet. KIDDING!
Michael, of course, fucks it royally almost immediately. We revisit them in the morning and it’s truly an iconic MAFS moment, you guys. Michael is telling the camera the in’s and out’s of how he fucked things (went out drinking, met some other couples, started being a douchelord to Stacey) while Stacey sits there mentally working out which plastic lamp in their hotel room would give him the most severe concussion.
He then tells us that in the morning, instead of working their shit out he went for a run (!!!) with one of his new BFFL’s from the night before (!!!!). And then he played on his phone when she did try to talk about it all! I cannot express how much I adored Stacey’s face this entire sequence.
I think Michael might still be drunk, which is even more amazing. Honestly, this is the kind of talent I wanted to see on this show.
In Michael’s defence, he starts proper grovelling, saying stuff like “I ran from my problems and I need to stop doing that”, but Stacey rudely goes on her phone and is all “that’s why you’re single mate, and you’ll stay single”.
But also – Michael keeps saying “cuts like butter, her words” which makes no sense.
After the ad break we come BACK to these guys, which is wild. The fight is still going on – Michael has now evolved into Brene Brown, saying stuff like “I can’t turn water to wine, I’m not Jesus” and “words have the power to bring down mountains”.
Meanwhile on sunburn watch:
Eventually Stacey relents enough to continue being in Michael’s presence, but you can really see she has proper issues with being hurt. I felt sorry for her after a while – and I did think (ugh I can’t believe I’m saying this) Michael recognised this and was overcoming his own stubbornness for the sake of her feelings.
YUCK. DON’T MAKE ME LIKE THESE PEOPLE, MAFS.
Over to Connie and Joneeeeetheeeeeen, who still haven’t kissed, which I actually find super cute?? JonEthEn says he’s a slow burn “like a snail”, and often goes on several dates before he makes a move.
Back to Aleks and Ivan, and Aleks has organised a town car to do mainies in.
In the car, Ivan answers his work phone – he’s been on it a lot on their honeymoon and Aleks is off it. They have a little argument about it, but then! Ivan’s phone goes missing. I’m 99% sure the producer in the car with them swiped it for drama.
We choof over to Queenstown to see what Steve and Mishel are up to. Turns out it’s Steve shitting his pants while Mishel pleads with him to lose a limb on the giant swing.
They’re dressed like Cool Boomers, or at least Boomers Trying To Be Cool.
Instead of perishing on the giant swing, they do the Big Baby Luge, which Steve is chuffed about. Until he absolutely CANES himself on the SLOW LUGE. Outstanding areas. Just absolutely totals himself and rips his $300 cargo pants. Mishel is laughing. I am laughing. We’re all laughing. Bonding over Steve’s humiliation on the under 5’s ride,
Mishel gives him heaps of shit and I fucking love this woman. She’s my favourite, there, I said it. I actually love this couple.
Back on the GC, Ivan is elbow deep in the Rolls Royce. The driver is completely and 100% done with his shit, by the way.
Ivan tells us he used to be a mechanic, and if he could just take a bit of the seat off he’d have it.
Back to Mishel and Steve – now they’re skiing! Turns out Steve is a *bit* better than Mishel at skiing though.
Eventually she bails early, which means Steve also has to bail early – and he’s not happy about it.
Over to Connie and JonEthEn, my OTHER favourite couple, who still haven’t kissed but easily have the strongest, most intense sexual tension of all the couples. They’re frolicking in the pool and I am legit watching like this:
It’s the fucking cutest thing, guys. If you didn’t watch and you just read this recap, I DEMAND you go watch just them in the pool, at least. It’ll make you believe in love again.
Maybe stop watching the minute they start hovering around each other preparing to kiss. I went from beside myself with happiness to recoiling into the groove of my couch. There is nothing – NOTHING – more uncomfortable than watching two people decide whether to kiss or not.
They don’t kiss. So we watched all that awkward shit for NOTHING! Nothing!!
Back to Stacey and Michael, who go kayaking and then settle in for a cheese and a wine – none of those shithouse 2-pieces-of-celery platters from the first meet ups, as the producers prove with 4 billion close camera pans.
Stacey decides she needs to open up to Michael some more, and tells her about her dad dying by suicide and her brother dying in a motorcycle accident. He’s actually really good about it (I know, I was shocked too) and they seem to want to murder each other less.
Over with Mishel and Steve, and they’re having a tiff over Mishel’s apparent complaining. She says she just fucking hates the cold, actually. SAME, GIRL.
Their argument is pretty mature, until Mishel uses the word “fuck” and Steve fundamentally loses it. He simply cannot hear the word fuck! He says “don’t sit there and EFF at me, don’t EFF at me”. I’m sorry Steve, are you my sensible conservative Christian dad? You actually might be. Dad hasn’t called me in a couple of weeks…
Anyway Steve is like, really, really riled up in both the heebies and the jeebies about the EFF word. He does not like the eff word! Do not effing eff him ever you effwit! In the end, Mishel – who is totally like, um, fuck yas I’ll say what I want – apologises to keep the peace.
They plan an Italian dinner, and we go back to Connie and JonEthEn. They’re having dinner in the loo, maybe!
They talk about nothing for a while before, obviously, finally kissing. I was waiting for this ALL episode and yet… I was UNPREPARED FOR JONETHEN LITERALLY SWALLOWING CONNIE’S ENTIRE MOUTH.
The kiss is… it’s sex. It is literally sex. I think Connie’s pregnant with triplets. It is so hot and full-on, they just launched themselves about 4000m ahead of all the other couples in the sex race (there’s a sex race).
It’s revolting to watch, but also they are SMITTEN as hell. I really, really hope Joneeeetheeeen is actually smitten and not doing that thing fuckboys do where they are all “ohhhh you’re so amazing ohhhhh my dream girl waaaaaa let’s go on a weekender” and then two days later are like “sorry, who is this” when you text them.
Over to Ivan, who has well and truly lost his phone in the bowels of the Rolls Royce, and has also well and truly grinded every gear of the Rolls driver.
Ivan gets over it pretty quickly though, which impresses Aleks.
Over with Stacey and Michael, and oh my god, they’ve done the rumpy and the pumpy.
It is supremely awkward watching them recount their night of sexy times. Don’t make people do it! It’s weird! And clinical! But also always make them do it, I live for this shit. Michael swears he is going to treat Stacey like a queen, etc etc. As if hahahahahaha give them a week, and there will be some more drama.
Until tomorrow my friends!
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.
