“With only a week to go, I think all of our couples will be feeling pressured and anxious and really questioning whether the person they’re with has got long-term potential”, says John Aiken, Emeritus Professor of No Shit at Obvious University, at the start of another emotionally fraught edition of Married At First Sight.
And with that, we’re off. How are Australia’s worst couples doing this week? Let’s check in on each one individually.
Zoe And Alex
Cultured Zoe takes affable tradie Alex to the National Gallery of Victoria, presumably hoping that he’ll knock over a priceless Ming vase or laugh at renaissance boobs, but, to her great surprise, he actually enjoys himself and asks some insightful questions about the art.
“Alex has got the kind of mind that’s quite open to learning different things”, she says, amazed by this revelation. I think it said almost exactly the same thing on my grade two report card.
Later, deciding to give this whole fake marriage thing a good honest go, Zoe takes the entire day off work to drink white wine and cook a roast chicken. Given that the chicken came straight out of the plastic like that, she probably devoted more time to one than the other.
“Good luck!” she says to the bird before placing it in a hot oven, thus summing up the entire show in two words.
Alex gets home and heads for the couch, where he puts in a solid couple of hours drinking beer and messaging girls on Tinder to ask if they have pet insurance.
Later, at dinner, she accuses him of being a mummy’s boy, and like every conversation on Married At First Sight, it ends with him storming out. “Don’t worry about dessert – I’m sick of being fuckin treated like someone that needs a housewife,” he says as he evacuates.
#FacesOfMarriedAtFirstSight
They later reconcile, and the narrator helpfully explains that Zoe has abandonment issues because she’s adopted.
Michael And Roni
Things were not great between Michael and Roni last week, unless you’re a fan of crying in the bathroom at dinner parties, in which case, things were fucking excellent between Michael and Roni last week.
Tonight, Relationship Expert Dr. Sabina Read pays a visit to their house of thousand-yard stares, and tries to help them find their spark. Their couples counselling session goes really, really well and they are both very honest about their feelings.
“A lying person covers his mouth with his hand, as if he is trying to prevent the deceitful words from being said.”
“Another sign of lying is scratching the neck below the earlobe around five times. This is also often a sign of doubting or disagreeing with what has been said.”
When we catch up with them again, post-session, the narrator utters what may be the saddest ever sentence in the English language: “Roni and Michael are working hard at getting their relationship back on track by heading out together for a trivia night.”
JESUS, just put them out of their misery, Married At First Sight. The two barely look at each-other all night, and the silence after Roni tells the room that they married when they’d only just met kills her inside.
Later, they play with a deck of relationship cards, given to them by Relationship Expert Dr Sabina Read. Yeah, no, this is the saddest thing that has ever happened on television.
Finally, Michael drops the hammer on their fake relationship. “I’m not in love” he says, breaking it off, as the nation and Roni breathe a collective sigh of relief.
And that’s that. “I deserve the fairytale … I do believe in it, it’ll happen when it’s meant to happen,” she says, as she packs her worldly possessions, which mostly seem to be framed Taylor Swift quotes, into her little blue hatchback, and drives away to a new Michael-free life.
BYEEEE.
Clare And Lachie
Things were pretty much shitsville for Clare and Lachie when he stormed out on her last week, so today, she’s making the effort to drive out to the country to see him, and making a series of totally normal and not excruciatingly uncomfortable facial expressions.
Does anyone remember that diaper-wearing astronaut who drove from Texas to Florida to confront her man and ended up with an episode of Law & Order about her? Clare is channelling her super hard this week.
“Hopefully he appreciates me being here and making an effort and a little bit of a sacrifice,” she says of her lovely day trip to the country. At this point, even the cows are like ‘are you fucking kidding me?’
The above image is like the fiftieth one I have on my computer called SadLachlan.Jpg, so clearly things don’t work out well. After a nice day of patting cows and playing around in hay bales, shit goes south in a big way.
Since Clare came all the way out to the farm, she wants Lachie to prove his devotion by pashing off with her in front of his parents. He’s understandably sort of grossed out by that. She doesn’t understand why it’s a big deal.
Cue crying. Lots of it.
“I’m never on the same page as somebody. I thought I was on the same page as somebody, I really thought I was on the same page. There’s obviously something wrong with me,” she says the next day.
:'(
OMG, Clare, are you okay? If you want to come around to my place, get hammered on cask wine, watch The Devil Wears Prada and pretend none of this ever happened, just say so.
Michelle and James
Who?
–
With one week of Married At First Sight to go and three hypothetical couples still in play, we’re physically and emotionally exhausted, but dammit, we’ll be seeing this thing through to the end.
Will Alex finally learn to wash his own jocks? Will Snoop the dog maul Clare while she sleeps? These and other questions may or may not be answered next week.
(Quotes via Signs Of Lying In Body Language)
