Tears, Strippers And… Well, Anthony: ‘Married At First Sight’ Was Mad Disturbing Last Night

There’s nothing I like more than getting home after a long day at work, putting my feet up and watching a bunch of people with blow-dried hair yell at each other over empty champagne bottles. Pure bliss, love to feel lightly anxious before bed!!

If you haven’t watched Married at First Sight since the weeks-long extravaganza where they married all the strangers off according to height order compatibility, the couples are now forced to go to a weekly dinner party where they interact and get ratshit. They also live in the same apartment building, like some terrible version of The Secret Life of Us. Everyone (except Sean and Susan) seem slightly unhappy. Everything is going exactly to plan.

“This year we’ve decided to move the couples in together, so they have more opportunities to fight and get drunk,” says Dr. Trisha serenely.

The big news around the apartment block is that Simon got a haircut. Never has a haircut attracted so much fanfare and admiration. The contestants all revel in Simon’s new look while lightly insulting him at the same time. “You look a hundred times better,” says Anthony. “You’re hot now!!” say several of the women. “I think I’m gonna cry,” says Nick, which is a bit weird.

Now that Simon has had a haircut, Eleni can literally not keep her hands off him. She reiterates to everyone how indifferent and frankly, mildly repulsed, she was by Simon before he had a haircut. “This one here is like flies to a piece of shit,” Simon says about his wife. It’s so romantic.

John Aiken pops up to say, “You can tell people are physically attracted to each other because they look deeply into each other’s eyes”. The way that Eleni conveys that she is physically attracted to her husband is by announcing to the room that she can’t stay for a drink because she wants to go and have sex. Everyone starts laughing maniacally, which makes me think that none of them are having sex.

Then, because this show, the producers show Eleni and Simon going to bed. Simon says, “Let’s see what we can do about that!” (???) and then says, “Let the games begin” and that was the last thing I saw before I voluntarily submitted myself to a convent, sorry.

Sean and Susan are still happy. “I wanna give Susan a bit of a pamper day,” Sean says, so gets up early and gets her a tall purple flower. She is happy.

The other couple that seem to be actually happy aren’t even one of the original couples — it’s Andrew and Cheryl! Andrew was dumped on his wedding day! Cheryl’s husband was flirting with other contestants on the show!

“WE’VE NEVER EXPERIENCED THIS BEFORE!!!” says John Aiken and then describes Cheryl and Andrew as both being from “failed marriages”, but then forgives these two very attractive people for failing the experiment because they have found a “connection” with each other.

It also helps that Cheryl asked John Aiken’s permission.

Andrew and Cheryl have scintillating conversations like, “I’m glad we’ve done this”/”Yeah, I’m glad we’ve done this” and they both like cheese. “Andrew and I both had partners who hated us,” explains Cheryl. “Cheryl is hot,” explains Andrew.

Meanwhile a voiceover re-introduces “resident blunt talker, Anthony” who since the wedding has become, ah, a blunt-talker. He says ‘blunt’ things like, “Nadia is mine”. Nadia seems to stage subtle protests against his dominance, like highlighting how unfit he is compared to her. “I don’t mind. As long as he’s strong enough to throw me around occasionally,” Nadia says. “NOT LIKE THAT!!” she adds, laughing. Wait… then in what way do you mean, Nadia?

As they all get ready to go to the piss-up dinner party, yew yew, Anthony — presumably already having informed Nadia that they were dressing in white tonight — says that he predicted which couples would split up ages ago. “The ones who I thought would fail FAILED. And failed MISERABLY,” he says. What an empathetic gent.

Andrew and Cheryl are a bit nervous. Cheryl is worried what people will think because she already got married once! Knowing that they’ve assembled some truly petty people, the judges are thrilled. “DO YOU THINK THERE’S FRICTION HERE!!!!” John Aiken says, frothing.

Wine glasses just immediately materialise in everyone’s hands and Anthony takes it upon himself to make a toast about how they all are “12 amazing people” who are ultimately “a little bit boring”. It goes down a treat.

The judges explain that Anthony is “the alpha” now, by which they mean he’s acting like a bit of douchebag. John Aiken remarks that tonight “we need Nadia to step up and say something” to balance out Anthony and also, they’ve forgotten what her voice sounds like, pray4Nadia.

Then Andrew and Chery waltz in. Everyone is shocked to their very core!!! Anthony makes a big show of standing up and throwing his arms in the air. “I KNEW IT!” he exclaims, even though he certainly did not know it, no sir.

Everyone is so happy to see Andrew, but barely acknowledge Cheryl. Cheryl fears their judgement because we’re all human, you know. But then, what reason would these people have to be exclusively hostile to her? Nah, no reason!

“It was obvious you were coming back, but not with Cheryl,” says Anthony. Oh, okay.

Cheryl explains that she wasn’t feeling it with Jonathan and she got along with Andrew and they decided to give it a go. One of the twins says, “So YOU instigated it?” Both the twins and Anthony suspect that Cheryl is here for the “wrong reasons”; the right reasons being to give drunken toasts about how boring you find your dinner companions.

Anthony refuses to leave Cheryl alone for the rest of the night.

“You married a guy, then you married another guy?’ says one twin, savagely. “It doesn’t look great on my part…” says Cheryl, mentally making a note of every exit in the building. Susan and Sean think that Cheryl seems relaxed, and say that they want to stick up for her. However Anthony — protector of monogamy, champion of that guy whose name he can’t remember, the one who rejected Cheryl, and drinker of wines — refuses to leave her alone.

“You were VERY upset though,” he says. “And you’re like a different person tonight.” Everyone knows that if you are upset one night and then relaxed another night, you are a fake person who is racked with falsehoods, case closed.

Anthony’s problem seems to be that Cheryl is getting a “second chance” something he absolutely does not blame Andrew for. He begins muttering to himself like a madman: “Shit got real… good luck to you both… you’ll need it”. Wtf, who is this furious mumbling man.

Dr. Trisha, who is thrilled, thinks Anthony is threatened because the new couple is glamorous, or whatever. ” I love watching those two together,” says John Aiken, like he created them from clay. “They are the leaders in this competition,” Anthony says. “It’s not a competition,” Nadia says, despondent.

As Anthony continues to announce to the room that Cheryl “does not deserve a second chance” and yelling “BULLSHIT” across the table, Cheryl politely excuses herself and Nadia follows her. Nadia tells Cheryl that she shouldn’t listen to those who “meddle”. In the other room, Anthony reminds Andrew that he thinks he’s great, and then Andrew and Sean pretend to be horses.

“It’s absolutely remarkable to me that they’ve rallied around Andrew and made Cheryl out to be the villain!” says John Aiken, flummoxed. The female psychologists are like “… really?”

While this fight is happening, another fight is happening between Nick and one of the twins because he likes to go to the strip club sometimes “three times a night”. Nick claims that he goes for “a sit and a good conversation”. Haha, okay.

Anyway, Anthony is still staring at Cheryl. He is every drunk man you have ever disliked at a party. “I’m just trying to see if she has the right intentions,” he whispers to his wife, who politely asks him to stop acting like a fucking serial killer. “Why do YOU think you deserve a second chance?” he says louder, looking at Cheryl over a sea of used champagne flutes and red, oily-stained wine glasses standing like little tiny soldiers on a terrible battleground.

Before Cheryl can even answer, Anthony says “YOU deserved a second chance because she left you night one,” and points to Andrew, three wine glasses in front of him. “I’m not so sure you did though Cheryl.” Okay, what is happening with this pointy-haired nightmare now.

Cheryl cries. “This is your chance to prove to us who you are,” says Nick, relieved they are no longer talking about how he sometimes goes to the strippers three times in one night. “You’re going to look like a fucking idiot if you get it wrong,” says Anthony. “Back off!” thinks Andrew.

Then Nadia, beautiful compassionate Nadia, tells Anthony to “be sensitive and stop”. Anthony, taken aback by the sound of Nadia’s voice, apologises immediately. Okay seriously though, how do we get Nadia off this show.

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Married at First Sight is on Channel 9 on Monday at 7.30pm.