MAFS UPDATE #4

Finally, after a brief hiatus for the tedium of obvious stories and yawny witterings, MAFS is back. Last night’s “final dinner party” poked at the zit of festering discontent and splattered it all over the table

BEFORE WE RECAP, LET’S RECAP.

While everyone else was boring, Jess was busy shutting out Mick as she lied her way into a sordid fling with Dan the beefcake. Everyone called it. She denied it. Then she lied her way out of the firing line before proudly exclaiming that she “came here for love” and she “found it with Dan.” Oh the horror.

Apparently it’s not the cheating that anyone cares about. It’s the lying.

Apparently no-one understands that cheating is lying. But whatever.

And that’s where we are today.

Four and a half couples left for the dinner party.

We have Mark and Ning desperately dancing around a definition for “feels” that both can deal with and maybe even get laid.

Cam and Jules who’ve gone from sickeningly sweet to sickeningly sweet with all of the action and intensity of a five-day cricket game.

Mike and Heidi who are a case study in psychological warfare.

And the ever-tedious Martha and Michael. He’s the “nicest guy on the planet. She’s… well, hold the phone… Everyone watch Martha…

And finally there’s Jess and Dan. After proclaiming their undying lust for each other and blowing up the last commitment ceremony with the audacity of outing their affair in front of their partners and so-called friends, Jess and Dan are back as a couple. 

The ‘experts’ pantomimed through a clear brief from the producers that they needed a legitimate way to keep the cheaters. So mansplaining-John proclaims “they stay because it’s an experiment and if we set rules it wouldn’t be an experiment” and so Jess and Dan are in.

Besides, they “came here for love”. Whatever.

AND SO. THE DINNER PARTY.

It started out okay. Some super witty observations from Ning. “It’s not called wife swap, it’s Married at First Sight” she announces, quite correctly. Everyone nods sagely. They feel more cheated than Mick and that other woman whose name we’ve instantly forgotten.
But it is what it is and so it goes. Mike has a pop at Jess. It’s sport. Jess has a pop at Mike. It’s tennis. Dan tries to assert some total lack of authority. Everyone gives him a side glance of ‘Know your place you cheating beefcake’. It settles down.

Just as it’s about to get boring again, mansplaining-John comes in with over-art directed questions from the “honesty box.” We immediately think about a cold cider on a warm afternoon and wonder why someone missed the commercial opportunity. Oh well. 

Ning asked Mark a question. He bumbled through ‘his’ definition of love. She said “great answer” and gave him a kiss. Pavlov’s dog wagged his tale.

Jules proclaimed she was pregnant. Jokes. No-one will forget the frozen moment of “holy f**k” written all over Cam’s face before he unconvincingly lies that “that would have been awesome”. Sweet.

Martha and Mike did something boring. Heidi and Mike still can’t work out whose fault everything is. She thinks it’s his but tells him it’s hers. He gets confused as to why anyone who think a universe revolves around anyone but him. Same old. Same old.

Next up is Jess and Dan. He asks if Mick was done before he showed. She says “no”. And justifies it and witters a bit. Points for honesty. Minus points for stupidity. She gets a free question and turns her puppy dog eyes frock to face him and asks “Do you love me?”

It’s a train smash. He’s got nowhere to go. The experts say “this is difficult to watch” and we agree. But difficult to watch is the point of the show. Bring on the schadenfreude – ‘dig yourself out of that you cheating beefcake’ we think to ourselves.

Dan answers unconvincingly. Jess flutters her eyes like she’s convinced. And we suddenly get overwhelmingly convinced that Jess spends her evenings plaiting the manes of her My Little Ponies. How old is she? Seven?

And then it got good.

Heidi asked Mick some question that was instantly forgettable but highly irrelevant. Because right then, just as the electrician was plugging in some barely believable rhetoric to try and keep himself in the game – Jess giggled. Sparks flew.

Mike went nuts. “I just can’t stand your face” he says in a consistently grown up expression of his feelings. Jess sniped back. Mike got crosser. “But I listened to you,” says Mike in a tacit acknowledgement that both had descended into a Primary School catfight.

And then, in an expert piece of redirection Jess throws a painful grenade at Heidi and Mike and moves all the attention to them. She may be young, but she knows how to fight dirty. And she’s instantly cast in Apprentice 2020: 

The young and the heartless.  

Then Jules stepped in.

“It’s about respect”. She says, with all the mother-hen authority of someone basking in the glow of a recent fake pregnancy. “It’s about respect”.

Unsure as to whether Jules repeated the salient advice, we don’t have to wait long for her to undermine her point and unnecessarily pull Martha into an argument that was already won. She turned heated into explosive “There are women and then there are girls”.

Way to go Jules. You had a good point. You made it well. And then you threw in a grenade.

Martha’s fuse was lit.

“What?” she asks with fair indignity, trying hard not to crack a frown and break her carefully maintain facial skin patterns. “What?” she asks again. (Or doesn’t, we don’t know at this point it’s all too fast and so fun to watch.)

“You don’t understand, we’re millennials.” Exclaims Martha.

And there it is. 

Half the audience jumps behind Martha and doubles their Instagram orders from facepacksandnailgels.com

The other half sighs.

“We’re millennials” she says as if that’s both explanation and excuse for a string of narcissistic mis-steps that leave people looking stupid and hurt.

“We’re millennials” she says, like she’s proud of it.
And honestly who knows what happened next?
Because Martha and Jess are millennials. And that’s their story.

And we all spend the next twenty minutes talking about how world going to hell in a handcart and praying that neither Martha nor Jess are anything like exemplary examples of millennials.

Millennials. WTF? 

Try being human.