James Weir recaps Married At First Sight Australia 2023 episode 20

All the details of the secret MAFS boys’ night are spilt at a boozy dinner party that shocks the experts. James Weir recaps.

Dan wishes he went to the gym for eight hours instead of coming to this dinner.

The Married At First Sight butt-dial heard around Australia continues to be broadcast on loudspeaker during Wednesday night’s dinner party as two of the chatty husbands get served a hefty phone bill and told to pay up.

Is there any other phone-related lingo we’ve missed? Probably. All we know is tonight’s endless talk about the butt-dial could’ve just been summarised in a txt.

It gets so tedious we’re tempted just to hang up.

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It’s the beginning of another boozy weeknight dinner party which means the countdown is on for everyone’s secrets to be revealed. In five, four, three, two …

“I heard Dan saying some nasty sh*t,” Evelyn tells the other wives about the butt-dial call from the secret boys’ night where Dan slagged off Sandy. “I know for a fact he was showing them how hot his previous ex-girlfriends were. Then Rupert came back and got drunk and told me Dan was holding up photos of his ex-girlfriends, belittling Sandy, saying his other girlfriends were way better looking than Sandy was.”

We cut to the dungeon where the experts are watching CCTV of Frankenstein’s freaks.

“This is so disrespectful. Vile,” Mel Schilling shakes her head.

It’s always adorable when the experts pretend to be shocked.

‘We’re shocked, SHOCKED.’

Claire appoints herself the crusader of the group and launches into a speech about misogyny before slamming Dan for gaslighting Sandy, despite her own foray into gaslighting just two weeks ago when she cheated on her husband Jesse.

Claire, shush.

Rupert, the butt-dialler, is forced to explain to the other husbands how his ass made an ass of them.

“Saturday night … I obviously had a few drinks. And basically, don’t know how I butt-dialled …” he trails off.

The other husbands start freaking out. What was heard? Before anyone can snap into damage control, Evelyn calls out Hugo.

“Hugo … I obviously heard some of the words you were saying about Tayla,” she snips.

Everyone turns to him. He tries to shrug it off.

“I complained about how the first two weeks had been going, I complained about the stuff that was said on the couch,” he says, referring to how his wife had declared she wasn’t attracted to him before making him sleep on the floor.

Evelyn raises an eyebrow and snaps into Mum Mode.

“Bullsh*t. Hugo, tell the truth now, please. Don’t make me go there,” she rouses.

Hugo scoffs. “Absolutely go there then.”

Challenge accepted.

“You said you couldn’t stand her,” Evelyn begins. “And you called her a … see-you-next-Tuesday.”

We cut to the experts in the CCTV dungeon and Schilling tosses up whether she wants to get dragged into another C-word scandal:

Absolutely not getting involved.

Evelyn asks Hugo to reveal the rest of his rant, but he denies there was more.

Of course, Evelyn proceeds to fill in the blanks. “So, you did not say that you would rather any other wife than Tayla?”

Tayla commits to her role of innocent victim.

“Seems like, as soon as I turned my back or I wasn’t present, you’ve gone to town on me in literally every way that you could,” she says.

Yeah, Hugo! They’re horrible things to say! Who do you think you are … Tayla?

“I feel like an idiot. I have had his back throughout this experiment,” Tayla says as we all quietly think secret thoughts. “And he’s gone and bagged me out to everyone. He’s just so full of it. There’s some men that talk the talk. And there’s some men that walk the walk. And Hugo wouldn’t know how to hump air.”

Way to go, Tayla! You should make him sleep on the floor, as punishm-

Oh, wait. You already make him do that.

Hugo Armstrong, we’re shocked and disappointed. Tayla is a lot of things. But she does not deserve to be called a cu-

“You’re probably the most f**king annoying person I’ve ever met in my life,” she spits at him.

Another MAFS success story.

Producers have timed things perfectly. They’ve been driving Dan around the block, delaying his entrance so the first half of the episode can be filled with the Hugo revelations.

Now it’s time to flag down the car and shuffle him into the building. Dinner is about to be served. As soon as he enters, everyone prepares to pounce. He rushes to get ahead of the drama.

Ting-ting-ting, he taps a wine glass with his silver bread knife.

When dealing with a PR disaster of this scale, the strategy is simple: deny, deny, deny.

“There was nothing at all that was said with any kind of ill intent or maliciousness,” he insists.

Evelyn QC continues to prosecute. The argument descends into a bunch of drunk adults angrily repeating the phrase “butt-dial”.

“I heard the conversation, it was butt-dialled to me,” Evelyn states.

“Can I ask what time this butt-dial occurred,” Dan replies.

Harrison pipes up. “Did the butt-dial actually happen?”

“You fabricated that this butt-dial happened,” Dan spits at Evelyn.

“I believe the butt-dial happened,” Ollie confirms.

Evelyn says the butt-dial took place between 8pm and 9pm.

“Between eight and nine? I wasn’t even there,” Dan rebuts. “I was … walking with Duncan.”

Ah yeah. “Walking with Duncan,” huh? Is that your new “going to the gym”?

Claire continues her quest to become the star of this drama by blurting out soundbites to make the ad promos.

“Ughhh, there’s a boys club, why don’t you all just go butt-f**k each other?”

Claire, after going on a rant about misogynistic behaviour, you’re now using same-sex relations as a schoolyard insult to embarrass the males at the table and the implication is that there’s something shameful in the act of men having sex with men. Please shush.

Ssssshhhhhhh.

Speaking of weird public comments about sex, Dan pipes up again.

“We did have a beautiful, intimate moment this week,” he tells the group. “Sandy and I had sex.”

Sandy is mortified and drops her head into her hands. It’s certainly not the time or place for this confession, Daniel. Seriously, don’t you have an eight-hour gym session to attend?

Everyone turns on him and he starts screaming, “You don’t know me!” while twitching.

Dan wishes he went to the gym for eight hours instead of coming to this dinner.

Evelyn pulls Dan away and suddenly we find ourselves witnessing Beast Mode vs Mum Mode.

“Look, Dan – here’s the situation. I just want you to tell the truth and say you’re not into Sandy,” she stares him down.

He matches her glare. “That’s not true, though. I am into Sandy. I love Sandy.”

Daniel, we believe your declaration of love for Sandy about as much as we believe you attend the gym eight hours a day.

Beast Mode vs Mum Mode.

It’s around now Dan corners Sandy in the lounge room at the bar and desperately tries to do some superficial course-correcting.

“It hurts me to know that I’ve hurt you,” he puts a hand on his estranged wife’s knee. “I hear you, I see you and I feel you.”

Dan, we hear you, we see you – and we’d like you to shut up and disappear.

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