Revelations of pre-wedding hook-ups rock MAFS and end in a crude warning from one of the appalled experts. James Weir recaps.
Married At First Sight is rocked by a double sex-with-an-ex drama on Monday night because of course this show spruiks scandals like they’re a two-for-one value pack of Vileda sponges.
It’s the first commitment ceremony of the season. We all know the drill. The couples sit on a couch in front of the experts and re-hash the same ol’ resentments in scenes that producers should mercilessly cut from the episode like Under The Bridge at a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert. Each contestant then has to write “stay” or “leave” on a flashcard and hold it up – mainly so we can judge their handwriting.
If they both quit, we never see them again, unless we subscribe to their OnlyFans. But if one person writes “leave” and the other writes “stay”, the person who wants to escape is held captive in the marriage against their will for another week while we yell, “Ya trapped!” at the TV.
The decisions made at these commitment ceremonies are big. Even bigger than Jesse’s unnecessary torso tattoo of a lion.
“Tonight’s decision, I’m taking a stand,” Jesse pledges before telling the other husbands to buckle up. “You are going to hear a STORY tonight.”
We sigh. If it’s just the same boring story you told us earlier in the week about how you heard Claire on a loudspeaker call with Adam, we’re not interested in hearing it again. If you’re gonna attend these parts of the experiment, there better be new informatio-
“I have information that I want to bring up at the commitment ceremony,” Lyndall tells us.
Good girl! She’s holding back tears and trying to muster the courage to expose one of her co-stars. Suck it up, Lyndall. The first time exposing someone is always tough but it gets easier. Knock this one outta the park and you’ll get a real adrenaline kick. It’s addictive. Pretty soon, you’ll be exposing people’s secrets every week at these ceremonies.
“This is something that I hoped I could just take to the grave,” she sniffs.
Lynds, really, nothing on this show is that important. We don’t need deathbed confessions.
“There were things that I saw that I didn’t agree with,” her voice cracks.
Well then, it’s settled: see something, say something.
At the commitment ceremony, Jesse and Claire are called up to the couch first. Jesse immediately dobs on his wife and breathlessly recounts the pub night: how Claire got touchy-feely with Adam and how the pair suddenly disappeared only to resurface again on a loudspeaker phone call that rocked the foundations of Trash Tower.
The experts are as bored as we are:
Lyndall is still mustering the courage to reveal her secrets. We shoot her a glare to hurry up.
Claire jumps in to reveal it wasn’t Adam she was on the phone to but, in fact, her dog. Or … the person looking after her dog. We’ve kinda zoned out.
Then Jesse tells the experts he confronted Adam at midnight and politely enquired: “Who the f*** ya on the phone to, c***?”
Mel Schilling’s eyes pop out of her head - but like hell she’s gonna insert herself in another C-word scandal. Uh-uh. Not this time. You only need to touch the frying pan once, right?
“F***,” Lyndall sighs, covering her face with her hands.
She knows the truth isn’t being said.
“Can I?” she blurts before cutting herself off. “I-” she stammers again.
“Say it,” someone whispers. “You gotta say it. Just say it.”
Lyndall sucks in a deep breath. This is it. She’s about to expose one of her co-stars. We couldn’t be more proud.
“I don’t think Jesse is entirely wrong in what he assumed,” she scrunches up her face as the statement tumbles out of her mouth. “That night, we were all having fun. And, I may have misheard, it might’ve been a joke, but I did hear, when I picked up my things to go, Adam said, ‘Don’t go – you know that if you go, I’m gonna go home with Claire.’”
Adam’s wife Janelle knows the cameras are on her. She gives us a ten-out-of-ten reactionary cutaway shot.
“I wouldn’t have said something like that,” Adam gasps, clutching his tattooed-on pearls.
Huh. If only this were a reality show where everyone’s every move was filmed by a crew of TV cameras. Oh well!
After inflaming this situation, the experts offer no advice and instead ask for the flashcards to be revealed.
Jesse decides to leave. And Claire chooses to stay. We all know what that means. YA TRAPPED!
Next up is businesswoman Melinda and her husband Layton, to whom she initially wasn’t attracted. But that has changed. To quote the ghost of Dr Trisha, they’ve been ... un-tah-mut.
“The attraction just … came,” Melinda gushes. “And it came a lot.”
Ew. Melinda. Stop it. You’re driving the horny mum insane.
Ugh, now it’s time for Bronte and Harrison. We just don’t have the energy tonight. They hit the couch and the experts make small talk about how their time has been so far.
“These past few weeks have just been so rough - for both of us,” Bronte says.
For ALL of us, we mutter at the TV.
Harrison, of course, tries to manipulate the conversation.
“It actually hasn’t been that bad for me, if I’m honest,” he smiles, already trying to make his wife look like the problem in the relationship.
Bronte - you hangin’ in there, girl?
Now we start the process of recycling the trash and endure yet another retelling of the wedding where Bronte’s friend alerted her to the fact there was a chick on the outside claiming to be Harrison’s secret girlfriend. Cue the text message screenshots!
“I feel like the truth got skewed,” Harrison explains. “I was seeing people (before) coming into this experiment. I just didn’t feel the need to be faithful to someone I didn’t even know.”
He pauses, allowing a moment for his very reasonable logic to sink in, and waits for the other contestants to hoist him onto their shoulders in support. Things don’t exactly go to plan. Everyone glares. Melinda calls him a bin.
Harrison scrambles.
“I was seeing someone … I didn’t know that she’d develop feelings,” he screws up his face. “My belief is she has developed feelings and was hopeful-”
Sex expert Alessandra cuts him off: “Which would make sense if you’re having f***ed with her a week before going off to marry a stranger!”
Whoa! The teacher just swore! Alessandra is appalled and suddenly finds herself on a roll about this sex-with-an ex scandal.
“The place where your brain needs to be shouldn’t be between somebody else’s legs and body!” she reprimands.
It has taken a few years but we’ve finally gotten Alessandra to loosen up. We like this new side of her.
Harrison wants to get the hell outta here and reveals his flashcard: LEAVE. But not so fast, Harrison. Bronte reveals her decision is to stay in the experiment. Ya trapped!
Now to the second sex-with-an-ex scandal for the evening. Caitlin and Shannon roll up to the couch. Last time we saw them, she’d just caught him on a secret phone call with his ex, for whom he declared his undying love.
On the couch, we dive right in.
“I might still love my ex,” Shannon tells the experts.
It becomes immediately clear his sex-with-an-ex scandal is very similar to Harrison’s sex-with-an-ex scandal. The last time he saw his ex was a few days before the MAFS wedding.
Mel Schilling spells it out.
“So you were intimate with your ex a week before you came into the experiment?” she widens her eyes.
We sigh. Mel, why’d you have to put it so eloquently? If Alessandra were the one handling this controversy, she’d yell, “So you f***ed with her a week before going off to marry a stranger!”
Caitlin chooses to stay. So does Shannon. There are a million problems with this but no one raises any questions because time is running out and we wanna get the horny mum on the couch so we can coax her husband into screaming, “I’m not a human dildo!” again.
Finally, it’s horny mum Melissa’s turn with husband Josh and the countdown is on until he says-
“I want you to like me for me – not because I have a penis!” he whimpers.
Well then. We’ve heard enough. It’s time for the decisions.
Melissa chooses to stay. And so does the penis.
MAFS Australia is available to stream first on ThreeNow or on Three Sunday 7pm and Mon to Weds 7.30pm.
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