James Weir recaps Farmer Wants A Wife 2022 episode 2

Only two episodes into Sam Armytage’s TV return and it’s already been shaken up. James Weir recaps.

A brutal blow comes from an unexpected source on Monday night’s Farmer Wants A Wife and shakes up the show just two episodes in, but it’s Australia’s favourite wingwoman Samantha Armytage who gets lumped with a chore more arduous than anything she has faced in her new life on the farm: trying to get decent on-air soundbites out of clueless straight men.

Honestly, with Sam lending her star power to this series and Kruges helming Big Brother, these two ladies are personally shouldering the success of the Seven Network’s annual primetime slate.

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In last night’s premiere, we watched three of the farmers select the five contestants they’ll each bring back to their homestays. And tonight, it’s time for the final two farmers to take their picks. But who exactly are these farmers? The girl farmer Paige and that one who looks like Costa.

L-R: The girl farmer and Costa.

What follows is a rapid-fire round of speed dating, as Farmer Paige and Farmer Benjamin spend about 45 seconds with each hopeful contestant. It leads to scintillating conversation.

“Do ya fish?” some guy asks Paige.

“No,” comes her reply.

It’s the kind of romantic dialogue you’d usually only hear in a sparkly Baz Luhrmann film.

But the Fish Guy is about to get one-upped. Everyone, meet Marty.

“You ride horses and stuff?” he grunts to Paige. “I’m more likely to bet on the horses than ride ‘em.”

By now, Paige’s patience is drained — much like Marty’s savings account after the Melbourne Cup.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had someone on a first date tell me about their gambling,” she cringes to us. “It was a … ahh … little bit of a red flag … but … that’s OK.”

Sure, it’s totally OK! Ya know, until he secretly sells your flock of horses and uses the money to bet on other horses.

Maybe don’t share your ATM pin.

Meanwhile, Farmer Benjamin’s round of speed dating is going tremendously. If we were Marty, we’d place all our money on the girl who thinks she knows a lot about astrology.

“You’re possibility a fire sign — maaaaybe Sagittarius,” Brittani squints at Benjamin.

She’s wrong. But that doesn’t stop her from trying again. And again. How many guesses does she make? Let’s just say Brittani’s guesses exceed the amount of unnecessary letters in her name.

“Because you’re a really good communicator, I thought maybe a Gemini. But then, I was like, WATER SIGN! Are you a Cancer?”

Benjamin is, in fact, not a Cancer. Or anything else she listed.

“I am a … Virgo,” he stares at her.

“I did not pick that,” she shakes her head in disbelief.

No, Brittani. No you did not. But don’t feel bad — you picked literally everything else.

We feel more confident with Marty’s horse racing tips than Brittani’s fortune readings.

On the other side of the farm, producers finally give us what we want: a Samantha Armytage cameo. She goes and checks in on the group of single fellas to see how their speed dates went. But there’s an unforeseen hitch.

You see, the male hopefuls on Farmer Wants A Wife aren’t your usual reality TV contestants. These boys haven’t spent years watching all the ridiculous dating shows. They’re unfamiliar with the game and don’t quite know what they’re supposed to deliver when the cameras are pointing at them. It’s not second nature for them to pick up on the cues and prompts provided by Samantha — which means our girl has to work overtime, fighting for her life to extract soundbites from these bozos.

“How are you all feeling?” Sam poses an unthreatening, open-ended question.

The guys mumble one word answers. Collectively, it forms one vague noise: “Maarghuurrpp”.

Sam tries again. “What were your first impressions of her?”

There’s silence.

“She’s great, ay,” one of the guys eventually shrugs.

Wide-eyed and keeping calm, Sam tries to offer a few more prompts to get the fellas to say something — anything! — about the woman they supposedly want to date.

“She’s gorgeous. And quite tall,” she lists, waiting for the others to add something.

“Yep,” one of the guys nods.

Honestly, it’s hard to say what’s more painful: dealing with these fellas or having to make small talk with Kochie at 4am while he gets his scalp powdered in the neighbouring makeup chair.

Another one of the men pipes up: “We've definitely realised Paige has got (a particular) taste, though, because we’ve worked out we’re all very similar.”

Sam squints at the group.

“Do you think?” her voice goes high. “I can’t see that. I think you’re all very … different.”

Yes. That’s one way to describe them.

Nice, different, unusual.

Coincidentally, the boys have no problem making chitchat a few hours later when they have a boozy dinner with Paige. In fact, one of them goes and says a little too much.

Paige asks all the guys what their stance is on kids. The elderly contestants nearing 40 say they’re all ready for a family. But not everyone is in the same stage of life.

Spiros is too busy being a young, hot Sydney PT.

“Alright, next question …” he mutters, moving the conversation along.

Paige furrows her brow and insists he answer.

“I think ... I don’t know if I’ll have kids or not,” he begrudgingly mumbles.

She barely hears him and requests he repeat himself.

“I said, ‘I think I don’t (wanna) have kids’,” he blurts, looking around at his imaginary group of bros before resentfully skolling the rest of his red wine and immediately regretting the calories.

That’ll be 40 minutes on the elliptical tomorrow.

Paige has seen enough. She calls time on the dinner party and we jump straight to the elimination ceremony, where she’ll do a mass cull and select just five guys to take back to her farmhouse.

Because there are so many contestants and we don’t care about any of them yet, we won’t bother naming anyone. All you need to know is she picks four and then, just as she’s supposed to select her final guy, she drops a bombshell.

“The only thing I can do … is to be really fair and respectful to you all and what you’ve done to be here,” she says, her face serious. “So tonight, I’ll only be asking four of you to join me on the farm.”

It’s a win for Paige. But more importantly, it’s a win for Samantha. One less bozo to make small talk with.

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Thanks Paige. Samantha’s breathing a sigh of relief.