This Horrific Dinner Party On ‘Married At First Sight’ Was Australian TV At Its Finest

Maybe you haven’t been watching Married at First Sight, but I’d hazard a guess that many people you know watch it. And today, for better or worse, they were all talking about “the dinner party” and some gregarious fellow called “Jono”.

A quick recap: the premise of the show is right there in the title, just like War and Peace. Also like in War and Peace, these couples are matched by “relationship experts” who empirically decide which heterosexual person goes with which other heterosexual person, and then give them a too-tight suit and too-tight GHD curls and off they trot down the aisle to meet their husband/wife for the first time. It’s pretty much just another contender in the endless parade of weird Australian dating shows, which should be really funny but are often very depressing.

(But hey, relax! They’re not really married! That’s against the law in Australia! You have to register for marriage a month and a day in advance, so it’s only a commitment ceremony. If you think this is an act of contrition by Channel Nine for marrying strangers when same-sex couples can’t wed in this country, don’t worry it’s just a legal technicality, this show is still a toilet!)

We’re now up to episode five so the four couples have gotten married, gone on a weird honeymoon and have been forced to move in together. Everyone seems to have have generally gotten along as well as any attractive people being filmed making out in pools can get along. That is, except for Clare and Jono.

Jono made himself look like a nightmare garbage person on the wedding day, saying in voiceover that his bride was “not what I ordered” as she stood next to him during the ceremony. But really, both of them say pretty nasty things to each other and last week Jono took his stuff and split.

In last night’s episode, it’s been four days since Jono has left Clare’s house in Melbourne and he hasn’t really contacted her since. “It made me feel very rejected,” Clare says, sad in bed with her dog.

That’s when Relationship Expert John Aiken chimes in, and says that their relationship breakdown is 100 percent not his fault because they are technically compatible, so they must be fucking it up somehow. John Aiken keeps referring to “the experiment” with such dramatic inflection, that I think he eventually plans to sew all the contestants together top-to-tail.

Jono and Clare used to get on great, though! There’s a montage of the good times: laughing over dinner, Clare calling Jono a “bitch” while kayaking, them fighting on a beach… oh, wait. Now Clare is left at home, listening to the Glee version of ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ except she HAS stopped believing, or maybe she just really likes Glee. All that’s left of Jono is a t-shirt*. A t-shirt that mockingly says, “TRUST ME”.

*a prop t-shirt.

Jono meanwhile, is looking forward to “hanging out with boys” which is something he hasn’t been able to do for the last week. He tells the lads that he and Clare clash, but his mate Jayden reckons he’s like that with all the birds!

Jono says “that’s not what I ordered!” once again, just in case you forgot he was a nonsense machine between ad breaks. They all laugh then Jayden clarifies she’s not a Quarter Pounder by saying “You’re not at Maccas!” He then adds to the camera “I don’t know if he’ll ever love anyone as much as he loves himself”. Ho ho, some hard truths there from Jayden and the boys!!!

The other couples are going so well that it’s almost fucking sickening. Like, you want these people to be happy and find love, but this is like Instagram Fake Love where they think they’re going okay because they both like oysters and think that Seinfeld is funny.

Xavier and Simone can’t wait to meet the other couples at the upcoming dinner party in the Blue Mountains. “Babe should we take this masking tape to tape up all the relationships that have fallen apart?” Xavier says. They laugh heartily and smugly — the laugh you can only laugh when you’re beautiful, sexually active and have a BMI index rating that you like to advertise.

John Aiken is super psyched about the meeting too, saying that “the next step in the experiment” is to force these strangers to interact with other strangers, with the express purpose of comparing themselves to other couples in a “confined space”. Because happiness isn’t happiness, until other people can be intimidated by your happiness!

All the couples gather at the Blue Mountains (including Clare and Jono, separately, because Clare “doesn’t want to give up” and Jono likes free hooch as much as the next person). Simone smugly says to Xavier, “I honestly hope everyone is happy, it would be so awkward to hear that people are on the wrong track”. Oh Jesus, what a NIGHTMARE it would be to hear that someone’s happiness did not match your own at an event that is basically a happiness competition, what an ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE.

Clare arrives at the Blue Mountains cabin and admits that she kind of still likes Jono. Jono says he can see the ways he could improve the relationship, but doesn’t want to. Look, it’s pretty clear that you would rather be force-fed spoons of hot lava than hang out with this person, Jono. When Clare asks him about the state of their relationship, Jono reassuringly replies: “Ah… it’ll be interesting to meet the other couples tonight!”

The couple break up. Clare is very upset at being dumped on television, just before she has to appear at a dinner party for the purposes of television. Jono says helpfully, “Just because she’s 32 years old, this isn’t her last chance” with a facial expression of someone who a) thinks that this is absolutely her last chance at marriage, and b) has never actually met an unmarried 32-year-old woman and wonders if all their parts still work the same.

John Aiken is joined by two similarly crazed relationship experts, who are watching live footage of the dinner party, kind of like in Saw but less fun. “I’m looking forward to them comparing themselves to other people,” John Aiken says, and they all nod and start sharpening their hacksaws.

Jono turns up to the dinner party alone and all the other couples are simultaneously shocked and elated. Jono says he and Clare split because they are both “too outspoken” and they all congratulate for him for coming and think that he is “courageous” for fulfilling a contractual obligation. Then Clare arrives and Jono audibly says, “Oh, shit”. What a swell guy.

They all sit down to dinner, and the relationship experts are absolutely wetting themselves with glee when they see how unhappy Jono and Clare are. “THEY’RE NOT MAKING EYE CONTACT!” one says, frothing at the mouth. “THEY’RE NOT BEING PRESENT”, “YEP, YEP”, “CLASSIC CLASSIC”.

All anyone wants to talk about is their romantic weddings and whether they kissed at the ceremony. “WE DID!!!!” Simone says, knowing that she is winning the happiness competition and is now the Queen of Happiness.

“They must all be going, ‘what’s going on with Jono and Clare?’ It’s almost become the elephant in the room!” one of the relationship experts says, her eyes rolling back in her head in ecstasy. One of the contestants Christine, finally caves and asks. Jono jumps in and explains: “we clash a lot”. Clare looks like she wants to walk into the sea. Ten seconds after she begins to explain her side, Jono makes this face:

Jono reckons that when Clare tells stories, “she doesn’t mind speaking for me or telling the story over me”. Man, that must be terrible. Oh except, that’s exactly what Jono is doing to Clare. Clare explains quietly that she wants marriage and children and that Jono is a “ghost husband” who is scared of crocodiles. She turns to him and exclaims: “HE SAYS HE DOESN’T EVEN BELIEVE IN CONFLICT IN RELATIONSHIPS, TELL THEM, TELL THEM WHAT YOU SAID.”

At this point, it’s hard to know who we are supposed to feel mad at because I want them to all Picnic at Hanging Rock into the mountains and never return. “At the end of the day, this was an experiment and it failed,” Jono says. “I’m only 28, this isn’t my last chance.” You know, not like when you’re in your thirties, and reality TV is your only chance at romantic happiness. BLOODY NAILED IT, JONO!!

“I’M ACTUALLY GOING TO GO TO THE TOILET,” Clare says, uttering the most dramatic sentence to also contain the word “toilet” in the history of Australian television. Then, in the best PSA about drinking on an empty stomach that I’ve ever seen, Clare yells from the stairs: “SEE I’M 32, SO I ACTUALLY CARE”.

Simone follows Clare to the bathroom and keeps reassuring her that this is not “the be all and end all” of her search for love, as if Clare’s spinster ship is just waiting outside to take her to an island of unmarried 32-year-old women who spend their time reading Eat Pray Love, crying into tasteless Greek yoghurt and bathing in loneliness.

While they are in the other room, 39-year-old Christine explains to the table that women in their thirties cop a lot of pressure when it comes to marriage. “If you meet someone when you’re 25 that’s like, shit, 65 years! Too long together!” she says, before Erin tells her that she, in fact, is 25.

Christine can’t understand why Erin is here, because Erin is young and attractive. “There are a lot of dickheads out there, and I think I’ve met most of them,” says Erin, clutching Bryce’s hand until it turns white. “Yeah me too,” says Clare taking a gulp of wine. Jono gestures that she means him and everyone laughs. “I’m kidding!” says Jono. “I’m not,” says Clare.

“I’m a very sexual being, and it’s hard to have sex with someone who is not there,” Clare says.

Clare, who thinks she cannot have sex with a “ghost husband”, ergo probably has never seen Ghost, prompts Jono to admit that he didn’t want to have sex with her because he wasn’t sure if he liked her. Christine thinks his justification is “beautiful”. Erin admits that she “nearly shat herself”. The tide has turned on the table’s opinion of Jono.

The girls chat after dinner about how awkward it must be for Clare that they’re all happy (Erin literally says “no offence”). You see, Erin is the sort of person who says things like, “I’m the sort of person who…”. Erin explains to Clare that Jono is actually respectful, and that Clare is the one who is negative (“She is nailing this, at 25!” the experts remark, falling to the ground in fits of bliss). Clare says, “But he’s never travelled out of Australia and his favourite movie is Happy Feet!” Everyone agrees that maybe he is trash then, and they cheer. All these couples are 10,000 percent having relief sex tonight.

Clare cries in bed, which is sad. She’s proud of herself for, “wearing eye make-up and going to that dinner” which might be the saddest sentence I have ever heard on Australian TV. Jono goes back to the room and takes off his wedding ring in the jacuzzi by himself. His marriage is over.

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