Something wrong, Hol? Photo / Channel 9
Warning: Sexual content
Married At First Sight's sex-crazed Texan husband continues to mortify his wife with bombshells during Sunday night's commitment ceremony, but it's the show's experts who shock us the most when they dub their own experiment a "trash-fest".
And that's a big call coming from them. They've seen a lotta trash.
It's just nice to finally hear them admit it.
You know the drill. The weekly commitment ceremony is a thoughtfully designed activity that allows each couple to pause, reflect and then drag each other in front of the experts as well as the other gathered contestants.
Before arriving, the couples are separated and everyone must write "stay" or "leave" on a piece of paper. Then, after hashing out their issues with the experts, they'll reveal their decisions. If both spouses decide to leave, they're out of our lives forever and we forget they ever existed. But if one person decides to leave and their partner chooses to stay, the doors are locked and the couple is forced to remain in the experiment for one more week. And that's when we all yell at the TV: "Yer trapped!"
All the couples are shuffled into the warehouse and the experts decide who to summon to the couch first. Honestly, we don't know where to begin. Just two weeks in and these poorly paired people are a mess of problems. Trying to sort out all their issues would be like trying to organise the two-for-$30 T-shirt table at a suburban Cotton On.
And that's not a dig at retail workers. When I worked at a Jay Jays in high school, there was one time when I had to organise the discount slogan T-shirt table and, when I reached into the pile, my hand mooshed into a half-eaten cheeseburger.
Speaking of retail work and the customers who make the job a living hell, Tamara is called up to the couch with her husband Brent.
Despite enduring his wife's disturbing rants about retail workers and people with bad cars, Brent tells the experts the marriage is a dream.
Wow, he could've been a lot more harsh. Tamara's probably breathing a sigh of relief that her husband didn't throw her under the bus, Selin-style.
What's her assessment of the marriage so far?
"It's not … baaaad?" she cringes and shrugs, clearly unsure.
After nine seasons of this show, expert Mel Schilling is done with the rubbish and she's ready to start calling people out.
"Well … that sounds like, 'not good'," she states.
Tamara shifts uncomfortably in her seat. "I'm not sure of how I feel. It's been a challenging week."
At first we think she's gonna criticise Brent again — maybe for the quilted leather jacket he's wearing tonight — and then slag off another unsuspecting demographic in the community. (Who might she attack this time? Maybe people who rent books from the library instead of buying them. Or Android users.)
But she surprises us. She brings up her audition tape that was played for Brent earlier in the week. Remember? It was that cute video of her refusing to date poor people who drive crap cars. Turns out, she's now worried about what her husband thinks of her after viewing the judgy tape. Huh. She must be more self-aware than we thought.
Annnnnd then she promptly backflips by refusing to tell Brent that she's okay with his hospitality job.
There's the judgmental girl we know and love.
Brent's furious but Tamara tries to distract everyone by confirming they've had sex.
"I never would've imagined you had sex," expert Alessandra stares at them in shock.
Both of them decide to stay even though the relationship will never last and then Cody and Selina are called up to the couch. It has been a rough week for Selina and she's forced to rehash the awful details for the experts.
She tells them about the Hot Or Not challenge that went awry and how she asked Cody if he wasn't attracted to her because of her nationality and that he clumsily confirmed her suspicions.
Now's the time for Cody to explain. He admits he handled it terribly and blames it on his poor communication skills.
"Ideally, what I should've said was, 'Look, yeah, I haven't dated an Asian girl — but it doesn't mean that's what's going through my head when I see you," he says.
"I've just handled the situation terribly — I've jumbled my words — but as long as you know I look at you and think you are the most gorgeous girl. I wouldn't be in this experiment with anyone else but you. And I know I've done a terrible job."
This situation is just bad. Both choose to stay and we only want the best for Selina. We'd petition for her to be the next Bachelorette but she deserves more than whatever a group of 20-something reality TV producers can scrounge up.
Next up, Jack and Domenica. We just hope to God we can get through this segment without the mention of -
"I am a woman who bleeds monthly," Dom declares. "I'm menstruating and I was horny. And I think that freaked Jack out."
We never thought we'd be so relieved to see Selin. After Dom's confession, we're more than happy to sit through nine minutes of Selin screeching, "You lefffffft!"
"It's been a bit of a trainwreck to tell you the truth," Anthony sighs.
The experts stare at him blankly, as if to say, " … And?"
Sidenote: Anthony still has a graze on his head from when Selin threw him under the bus at the cocktail party.
He rehashes the argument that started it all — how he showed vulnerability on the honeymoon and Selin tried to shame him for it by calling him a "princess" and implying he's not a real man because he calls toasted sandwiches "jaffles" instead of "toasties".
Hearing her own insults repeated aloud, Selin begins to laugh. Schilling cuts in and slaps her down.
"That's not funny. It's really demeaning," she tells Selin.
Selin senses the authorities closing in and tries to weasel out of it.
"I know I probably shouldn't have used the word 'princess' in the real world," she rolls her eyes.
This riles up Schilling even more. The MAFS universe is like the Marvel universe — those within it do not break the fourth wall or imply that the world is anything other than real.
"Well this is the real world," Schilling snaps. "And when you say it like that, he feels like you're making fun of him."
John Aiken decides to pile on and drag Selin for her behaviour at the cocktail party, where she tried to campaign against Anthony and turn the other couples against him.
"It became just a trash-fest," he says.
Finally! It's so good to have you on our side, Aiken. For once, we feel like we're singing from the same hymn sheet.
Both decide to stay and Selin immediately picks up her phone and peruses this week's public transport timetable to see what other buses she can throw Anthony under.
When it comes to Samantha and Al, The World's Oldest Toddler, a sad energy falls over the room.
Al brings up the Hot Or Not challenge.
"I was rated third," he stares at the floor. "I pretended like I was sweet [about it] but I wasn't."
Anyway, both decide to stay and the experts tell Samantha to make it up to her husband by buying him a new Tonka truck.
The best are saved until last. Holly and Andrew. Making them wait until the end was all a tactic to get them even more restless.
After walking up to the couch and plonking down, they sit in silence and stare at the experts. Well, Holly doesn't really stare at them. It's more of a glare for pairing her with sex-crazed peg-phobic Andrew.
The experts stare back with smug grins, pretending they have no idea what's gone on this week.
We know a lot of things about Andrew — mainly that he has an unquenchable thirst for sex and doesn't liking pegging. But we also know he's a skilled communicator. And on the couch, he doesn't hesitate at jumping in to explain to the experts how the week has unfolded.
"On our honeymoon I wanted to try get closer to her and have some type of intimacy and," he pauses for dramatic effect, " … we still haven't even kissed yet."
Bombshell! But how can this be? After all, just a few days ago he told Holly on national TV that she was bad at sex. If they had sex, surely that means they kissed? Or maybe "kissing" is Holly's no-go zone. Just like "pegging" is Andrew's.
Well, Holly is outraged at Andrew ambushing her with a public overshare again and immediately starts serving up outraged facial expressions.
"There's been absolutely no kiss at all and that's a very important thing for me," Andrew continues.
Alessandra interrupts. "I wanna stop you for a second because your face says so much, Holly."
Huh? What? Oh … you mean this face?
After Holly stops rolling her eyes, she decides to offer her own explanation. She confirms they did in fact kiss while they were having sex. But Andrew would like to offer his own thoughts and observations.
"There was absolutely no tongue involved — it was just … more, like, kissing on the mouth," he says. "Like, pecks. Like, that's not an intimate kiss for me — I like more than that. It was awkward to me. I didn't feel like she was present during the process."
Holly brings up the Honesty Box and how Andrew used it as an opportunity to inform her she wasn't good at sex.
Again, Alessandra nails the reactionary cutaway shot.
She fires up and scolds Andrew for adhering to the "honesty" part of the Honesty Box challenge, even though insults masked as truthful confessions are the exact thing the producers hope to provoke with the Honesty Box in the first place.
"I would rather be completely honest with her than sugarcoat anything," Andrew shrugs.
"Wow," Schilling blurts out, one-upping Alessandra's reactionary cutaway shots.
Andrew's on a roll and says he's now not keen to ever have sex with Holly again because of the way she yelled at him. When did she yell at him? Oh, right — after he informed her he was doing her a favour by terminating the relationship immediately because of her desire to have a baby.
It's this comment that forces Schilling's face to start cramping from all the reactionary facial expressions she's serving up.
"Okay, I've gotta jump in here," she says. "All I'm hearing from you, Andrew, is this constant expectation that Holly will take accountability for her behaviour. I'm not hearing a lot about you taking accountability here."
Holly's distraught. Andrews pissed … and probably horny. Now seems like the perfect time to ask them to reveal their decisions.
She chooses to stay. And we just know Andrew's gonna blindside us.
"I was 100 per cent sure about my decision before I even showed up today — throughout the week it's been the same," he says. "But right after I wrote what I was going to write to begin with, I crossed it out and I changed."
He flips the card around. It's a mess of scribble, with the word "leave" crossed out and "stay" jotted instead.
Now it's time for Aiken to throw some sass around.
"Andrew, Andrew. I'm sittin' here scratchin' my head," he says. "After everything you guys have said tonight, I do not understand this decision."
Umm, yeah, Aiken. That's pretty much standard for these commitment ceremonies.
The experts basically beg them both to leave. They're even willing to break the fake rules of the game and authorise the Channel 9 lawyers to free Holly and Andrew from their iron-clad contracts.
But both refuse.
Later, Holly breaks down to us.
"I feel humiliated and I feel embarrassed. We cannot even move forward as friends. If I realised it was gonna be that disgusting, I would not have written 'stay'."
But that's often the case with love. It's surprising, infuriating and disgusting. Like finding a half-eaten cheeseburger in a pile of T-shirts at Jay Jays.
Married at First Sight Australia screens Sunday - Wednesday, on Three.
Golding highlighted her dedication and professionalism.