James Weir recaps Married At First Sight 2018 episode 9

IN EXCRUCIATING scenes on Married At First Sight, two wives were blindsided by their husbands and unceremoniously dumped.

IN EXCRUCIATING scenes on Married At First Sight, two wives have been completely blindsided by their husbands and unceremoniously dumped.

“Douchebag!” an emotional Jo spits as she lashes out at her husband Sean.

“A**hole!” Tracey says to Dean before telling the room of gathered contestants they had passionate sex just moments earlier.

While both Jo and Tracey are technically dumped, the fabulous thing about this show is they’re now still forced to stay with their disinterested husbands for another week.

Let me explain.

Sunday night saw the first of the weekly commitment ceremonies unfold. It’s where the couples are separated and given a piece of scrap paper. They’re tasked with writing down “stay” or “leave” and then we all reconvene and, one-by-one, everyone reveals their cards.

If both partners choose to leave, we watch them say nasty things to each other before pushing them into separate Ubers. But if one chooses to stay and the other chooses to go, then they’re forced to remain in the experiment for one more week despite one of the parties being repulsed by the other.

The latter is the ultimate scenario we hope for in these weekly ceremonies. And Sunday night, we were granted two.

While the husbands and wives part ways to contemplate what they’ll write down, Blair reckons with her decision to wear a statement hat this evening.

When you realise halfway through an event your outfit looks ridiculous.

As Jo makes her way up to the couch to face the experts, she’s still oblivious to the fact her husband Sean does not want to be with her.

Jo’s been lying to herself about the success of her relationship with Sean and now she’s lying to us and the judges even though we’ve witnessed hours of footage documenting the failure.

“OH MY GOD I HAVE NOT LAUGHED SO MUCH IN 20 YEARS!” she tells us, trying to convince us she’s happy.

Asked if she feels any romance, she lies to our faces: “Yeah definitely, oh yeah, yeah definitely … yeah for sure.”

Sean’s answer to the question is a little more accurate: “No, not particularly.”

He can’t pretend anymore.

“This wasn’t the decision I really wanted to make. And I chose to leave,” he says.

Jo acts completely shocked even though there were myriad signs leading up to this moment. Sean refusing to wear his wedding ring or talk to her are perhaps the most obvious of these red flags.

Still, the realisation her husband no longer wants to be with her is devastating. It’s as if she just redecorated her entire home with a bunch of crap from Kmart and then the next day they release the exact same crap but in a rose gold motif. She feels duped.

She holds up her little piece of scrap paper with the word “stay” scrawled on it. Emotionally exhausted, she slaps the paper card down on the Fantastic Furniture couch.

Jo pleads with the experts for the opportunity to change her decision. Nice try, Joanne. But that’s not how this circus rolls. You wrote down stay, so you’re both required to remain in this loveless sham of a marriage for one more week and marinade in the resentment.

“You’re a douchebag,” she spits at Sean.

Jo then takes a cheap shot at the size of Sean’s penis.

Maybe I made this bit up, you’ll never know.

“How could I be so stupid,” Jo cries into the arms of that lady with the Geri Halliwell hair.

“I was 100 per cent blindsided by it,” she sobs, even though blind and deaf people buried underground saw this coming.

Jo’s still crying but we’ve really got to move on so we shove her off the couch and welcome Troy and Ashley.

The judges decide to troll Ashley and ask her if she’s been loving spending time with Troy who I’m still convinced is a fake contestant.

‘I hate you all.’

Ashley explains Troy is intolerable and not at all what she requested. Even though Jo’s own relationship with Sean is in tatters and never even really existed, she delights in Ashley’s smack down.

FYI Jo just hates all men now.

Troy opens his mouth and Mel Schilling zones out, wondering if she’ll ever be able to go back into private practice after this.

‘Maybe I could just work in a deli.’

Next up, Sean and Blair. Sean breaks down and hints at a previous life of destructive behaviour but Blair has bigger things on her mind.

‘So yes to the hat or ...?’

John and Melissa are doing fine and don’t say anything negative and, if I’m honest, she’s being way too lenient of the fact he’s not Polynesian.

When it’s time for Alycia to hit the couch with Mat, she tells us she’s a “glass half full” kinda gal. But when Mathew tells everyone he feels like her brother, the glass is kinda gross no matter what it’s filled with.

Still, they both decide to stay and we have so many questions about how weird this is, but whatever.

For Ryan and Davina, we’re expecting her to finally leave — partly because she hates Ryan but mainly because she wants to be the Vikki to Dean’s Barnaby.

She spends 10 minutes telling us all how much she hates Ryan and why she can’t stand him. But, she’s also learned marriage is about compromise. Yes, she hates her husband. But, you don’t get more Instagram followers by leaving a reality show two weeks in. So, she stays.

You gotta suffer for your Gram.

Most of the couples have been a snooze this episode. But in an explosive end to the evening, Dean and Tracey are invited up to the couch.

Like Jo and Natalie Joyce, Tracey is convinced everything is cool with her marriage. But, she soon learns her husband is just a jerk with a red face.

Tracey gushes to the experts that her marriage is perfect and they’re in synch and the sex is amazing and Dean could be the man she loves. She tells them there’s no doubt she wants to stay.

When your hook-up thinks it’s serious and now you gotta try end it.

Dean decides it’s the right time to tell her, yeah no thank you.

“I’ve got to be real with myself. I actually feel deep down that I don’t know if we’re really right for each other. And I don’t wanna waste anyone's time. But right now, I’m saying leave,” he says.

Tracey can’t believe her fake marriage could just implode like this and says my favourite line of the series.

“We were intimate this morning!” she wails — her cosmetically plumped lips adding a slight lisp to the dramatic confession. Next time a guy breaks up with me in public, I’m going to hysterically scream this at him as people walk by. Complete with lisp.

‘WE HAD THEX THITH MORNING!’

She doesn’t stop with the sex confessions.

“So, what, you can have sex with me and be affectionate with me and not give it a chance?” she hounds him. “It makes you look like an asshole. Like, hit it and quit it, right?”

Dr Trisha doesn’t know what this phrase means and isn’t quite sure how to respond.

*Thinks something in a British accent*

Everyone’s shocked by Dean’s admission. Everyone except Davina. She saw this coming and is super excited that she can now start a new relationship with him on the sly. But — just like when someone tells me gossip about a colleague that I already know — she acts about 25 per cent more shocked than what she needs to.

When the guy you’ve been flirting with dumps his wife for you and you gotta act surprised.

For more observations on rose gold crap from Kmart and an exclusive interview with Blair’s hat, follow me on Twitter: @hellojamesweir

Originally published as James Weir recaps Married At First Sight 2018 episode 9