‘Married At First Sight’ Recap: Blame It On The “Boy High”

Watching Married last night was like trying to wade through a lake of molasses. In concrete boots. While bees were repeatedly stinging your face. It wasn’t great!

If you missed the episode a few nights ago — which will from now on will be referred to as ‘Boys Night’, an early 2000s horror movie title if I ever heard one — basically, Andrew revealed himself to be a secret snake. There can be no doubt about this.

Andrew and Cheryl are not getting on well, and at the husbands-only drinking session, Andrew took the opportunity of her absence to dog her. I don’t know if these dudes forgot they were being filmed or are just so used to getting away with a certain code of behaviour that they didn’t care (uh oh, that’s worse), but they said some mad shitty things about Cheryl.

So Nick, the guy who used to go to the strippers three times in one evening, says to Andrew: “When you’re talking to her, what do you make eye contact with?” (See the thing is, Cheryl has big boobs, some absolutely sensational observational humour from Nick there.) Andrew mimed groping boobs and made jokes about Cheryl being too stupid to hold a conversation.

Happy International Women’s Day, by the way.

Andrew's not holding anything back. ? #9Married pic.twitter.com/cVxcuyQdeD

— MarriedAtFirstSight (@MarriedAU) March 5, 2017

It’s just lads, right? It’s just some lads subtlety undermining their missuses while they’re out of earshot. Pretending that the girls who don’t like them are just braindead bimbos because it’s easier than acknowledging rejection, because that would mean the system is broken.

Andrew knows the game! Dismissing women and making them trivial is what keeps this giant patriarchy machine chugging. So reducing us to a pair of boobs and saying we struggle with basic conversation shames us into our place. It’s not just boys being silly; they know they exist in a world where they can get away with disrespecting women like this — ON CAMERA no less — because centuries of conditioning have told them that there will be no recourse.

It’s cool, though. We know that real high-approval men often get penalised for this kind of ‘harmless talk’. I’m not sweating it.

So glad that Married at First Sight dismantled the patriarchy, thanks team. But you know what? What I am about to say, I am going to say with absolute sincerity with no trace of sarcasm whatsoever: Not All Men.

But we’ll get to that later. Anyway, Cheryl knew Andrew was being nasty about her but didn’t know what he said. Andrew reckons he can’t remember, because he was too drunk. John Aiken’s remedy for this issue is showing Cheryl the tape and — oh wait no, it’s “relationship bootcamp”. At least Big Brother actually showed you when people talked shit about you.

The ‘couple’ are given a “question box” which forces them to talk to each other, I guess. “THIS IS THE LAST CHANCE TO SAVE THEIR RELATIONSHIP,” says John Aiken, because he is determined to make this work. Cheryl seems to be breaking out in some sort of stress rash during the activity (which, same). The question box reveals that they do not have a sexual spark and no longer trust each. So.

But hey, let’s give Andrew the right of reply in all this. Maybe this is all just a big misunderstanding!

“Boys joke about all sort of funny things,” Andrew says, with a flashback to him saying that all Cheryl is capable of is talking about hair extensions and the Kardashians. Hm, never mind.

So, how are the other couples going? Andy and Vanessa are talking about having kids! Alene is trying to sell Sydney to Simon by taking him to the Opera House. He seems to love it!

Michelle was berated by Jesse’s family for not procreating in a timely manner. She’s 31 after all; bloody hell what has she been doing!!!!! She’s suddenly very unsure about Jesse. She cries. He is sad with tea. Everyone is upset.

Now it’s time for the dinner party, which is meant to “strengthen their partnership in a social setting” but is really an excuse for the producers to get the contestants maggoted on sparkling wine, so that they arrive in their tight shirts and tight dresses and just start airing grievances.

Some of the couples are kind of nervous about the dinner party, because they always end in crying and eye-rolling and one of the twins screaming, “I AM NOT A BULLY” at whoever is closest. Susan and Sean still can’t compute that people would be that mean to each other, because they’re angels from another planet.

Simon tells Alene that he definitely didn’t like what the boys said about Cheryl when the wives weren’t around. “For starters, you just don’t talk about women like that,” he says very seriously. Simon is shook.

“It’s not unusual for there to be tension at the dinner party,” John Aiken says, pouring glass after glass of Prosecco and stacking them like a like a glass tower of bad decisions. The experts excitedly watch as the contestants file in and greet each other.

Andy is wearing ripped jeans. “HE’S MAKING A STATEMENT TO THE GROUP!!” the experts say, pissing themselves laughing for some reason. Anthony is discussing how Nadia “makes sure I never go hungry”. “Anthony is certainly proud to brag about Nadia stepping into that traditional women’s role,” says Mel. I like Mel because Mel obviously hates Anthony and has decided that she’s not going to hide it anymore.

Andrew isn’t nervous at all. “Boys are boys. We joke around,” he explains. You said it, Andrew!

John Aiken is deeply disappointed that Cheryl and Andrew have failed the bootcamp and are refusing to engage at the dinner party. “I am disappointed,” he says. They have failed the experiment. They have failed John Aiken. But in another way, they haven’t failed him at all because they have brought a lot of “tension” which the experts only pretend not to like.

Ignoring Cheryl, Andrew chats to the twins about their netball days back in Perth. “THIS IS A NO-NO AT A DINNER PARTY,” says Dr Trisha. The experts think that Andrew is excluding Cheryl on purpose. Though if I was Cheryl, I couldn’t imagine anything worse than pretending to be into that conversation, to be honest.

On the other end of table, Jesse is also being ignored! “Jesse is very intent on his food,” the experts remark. Then Jesse manages to get the whole table’s attention and tells them a cheery anecdote about how to fake your own death, which involves putting a corpse’s teeth in your mouth. No one likes the story. Jesse becomes intent on his food again.

It all gets going once Andrew and the twins discuss who their celebrity free passes would be. Andrew picks 26-year-old Jennifer Lawrence, which checks out. “J-Law has the big hips and the big thighs but she knows how to use it,” says Sharon, so that’s nice.

Andrew then asks a waiter for a pen so he can list the other female celebrities he wants to fuck. Cheryl says nothing. “WILL THIS LEAD TO A TIFF??” he says to Sharon, rolling his eyes. A small explosion goes off in Cheryl’s brain.

“I’m used to those sort of comments from you,” she says. There it is.

Andrew is furious that Cheryl has finally commented on his numerous attempts to humiliate her. “You’re so full of shit, hey,” says Andrew. “I’m full of shit? If you want to go there, let’s go there,” says Cheryl. Andrew then blows up, claiming that he was only “saying what people look like” and anyway, he only did it “two times”.

Cheryl makes this face.

Then Andrew makes a weird pouty face, and says to the twins: “HAVE.YOU.EVER.HEARD.ME.SPEAK.LIKE.THAT?” in what is either designed to be an impression of Cheryl, or of one of those talking fish you can mount on the wall.

“Woah,” say the twins.

“WOAH,” say the experts.

Cheryl decides that she needs to know what was said about her on Boy’s Night once and for all. She asks Nick straight out. Nick seems to have momentarily forgotten how to speak English. “Cheryl, you don’t attack people,” says Andrew. Yeah, totally. Attacking people sucks!

Nick is like, “yeah such an awesome night, with the boys, the boys were great, best night of my life” which lol, and Andrew does that thing that people do when they’ve been caught out but are pretending it’s not the truth, while knowing full well it is the truth, by elongating his vowels so it buys him more time.

“Yooooooouuve gooooot toooo beeee jOOOOOOking,” Andrew says. Then, as if he is having some sort of pinot grigio-triggered fit, just starts saying “BLA BLA BLA!”.

“This is what you shouldn’t do in a relationship,” says Dr Trisha, for those playing at home.

Andrew spends the rest of the dinner admonishing Cheryl for not using the correct tone when asking whether he criticised her in private — without admitting to or apologising for criticising her in private — and mimicking her. It’s like the worst episode of Married With Children or Home Improvement that you’ve ever seen.

And then comes Sean.

Sean quietly says to Andrew that he’s wrong to act like this, because he did say those things about Cheryl. Andrew bangs his glass to get everyone’s attention and says “WE HAVE TO AIR THINGS APPARENTLY” as if Sean had requested to lecture the entire room. “CAN’T WE HAVE A NICE DINNER,” says Sharon, who is usually the one yelling across the table.

Sean points out that Andrew did bag Cheryl, and the 38-year-old man replies “I think you’re tripping, bro”. But Andrew can’t do this alone. He needs back-up. So wouldn’t ya know it, in swings Anthony.

“I have to disagree, I think it was very light-hearted and there was no malice at all,” says Anthony, the man who has called his wife unambitious and lazy. “It was just boys having a bit of a joke”. Anthony says he must have been out of the room when all of those sexist shenanigans were happening. “Same,” says Andrew.

“Nah,” says Simon, suddenly. “You were all there.” AW HELL YEAH, IT’S SIMON.

Despite Simon and Sean calmly explaining what really happened, they are basically ignored. “Jonesy, you are an amazing person,” says Sharon. “Cheryl doesn’t believe it,” Andrew says, as Cheryl is staring into her dessert/the abyss. Anthony explains to Cheryl that Andrew is a gentleman who has treated her SO WELL, so can you just relax?

“It was a boy high,” says Andrew. Anthony knows exactly what he means. Sometimes when you’re around boys and talking about boy things, you say some pretty mean stuff that later on you have to lie about. Anthony and Andrew are in total agreement. Water always finds its own level, I guess.

In the end, Andrew does not apologise. At the suggestion he should apologise, he says: “Hell no”. “Maybe I took it the wrong way,” says Sean. Nadia tells everyone to look after their “own grass” or something. The dinner is over.

“This is… unbelievable,” says John Aiken.

“They… are buying his victim act?” says Dr. Trisha.

“Ah?” says Mel.

The experts are shook. The experiment is not going to plan.

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Read our last Married at First Sight recap here.