James Weir recaps Married At First Sight 2020 episode 31

In a test to see if his wife loves him, a MAFS husband decided to torture her. The only people who were tortured were viewers. James Weir recaps.

The infection rate amid the coronavirus pandemic continues to rise and apparently there’s only one thing toxic enough to withstand and outlive this plague: Married At First Sight.

Despite most of the couples leaving the experiment, Nine is committed to stretching the show out as long as possible and they don’t care how unnecessary or uneventful this final string of episodes is.

They are determined to grab as many eyeballs while they can before their programming schedule is wiped out by COVID-19 restrictions. Network bosses know none of us are going to watch The Voice once they have to start filming it as a Zoom teleconference. We weren’t going to watch it in the first place, but seeing Delta chair-dance on glitchy Skype footage is even less of a selling point.

This show should’ve wrapped weeks ago. After Dr Hayley QC left the ward and retired from the courtroom, there was really no reason to watch.

So what do we witness on Tuesday night? Well, we basically spend 90 minutes hanging out in a crappy car that looks like the one we used to do Maccas runs in while at high school. I guarantee we’d find an old — but still perfectly edible — chip under the passenger seat of this fine chariot.

Look, it’s nicer than my house.

“Welcome to the biggest heap of shit you’ve ever seen driving on the road,” Michael booms while inspecting the Toyota Corolla.

If, like me, you still have the car you had in high school, you’ll take great offence to this. Sor-rrry, Michael! Not all of us have that cold hard ice cube coin.

It’s the final dates tonight and Michael says he wants to test Stacey to see if she can do away with her materialistic expectations and just appreciate who he is as a person.

“So you’re going to lock her in this old Corolla and see how long she lasts while subsisting on the cold fries she finds under the seats?” we ask.

No. Michael doesn’t have the nous to come up with such a genius date. This show is all talk when it comes to its claims of being a social experiment. Nothing happens in this episode and it could’ve been made infinitely more interesting if we just watched live dashcam footage of Stacey locked inside the Toyota while listening to AM radio. And then, as she peers out through the foggy windows, she sees us giving away all her fancy shoes and clothes to Hayley and Poppy. Hindsight’s a cruel dame.

For Michael, this is a true test to see if Stacey loves him unconditionally. That’s probably why he’s wearing these gross service station sunnies.

Were they on a rack next to the Faith Hill CDs?

They drive the Corolla to the side of a busy highway where Michael makes Stacey get out to have lunch. What’s on the menu? A service station sandwich and a lukewarm pie he purchased this morning, probably at the same time he bought those sunnies.

Stacey is humiliated.

“I’m getting eaten by bugs, I’m wearing Valentino on the side of the road sitting on a $20 Bunnings chair,” she snips.

The moment isn’t up there with Laurina’s “dirty rotten street pie” tantrum on The Bachelor but we appreciate producers’ attempts at annoying her.

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To embarrass and taunt her further, we steal her 2012 model black Range Rover and start doing laps up and down the highway, loudly honking and laughing at her out the window while reminding her of the life she once enjoyed.

‘lol omg she must be poor!’

We cruise down to Canberra, crash Stacey’s Range on a pedestrian strip and skip into a wildlife hotel where Lizzie and Seb are staying in a luxurious room that shares a glass wall with the tiger enclosure.

We walk in and find them doing mating calls to each other.

These are totally their sex faces.

We’re disgusted. We quickly unlock the glass window separating the hotel room and the tiger enclosure, push it ajar, and then skip out.

Nice knowing youse!

Meanwhile, Mishel and Steve’s relationship is like this ravaged hunk of fairy floss – disintegrating and shrivelling the longer it’s left in the harsh atmosphere but also trying its hardest to maintain its promise of magic and dreamy good times.

Right now, we all feel a bit like this ravaged skewer of fairy floss.

For more observations on service station sunnies and Faith Hill CDs, follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram: @hellojamesweir

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