(Warning: This recap contains very, very angry stream of consciousness, because I am very, very angry.)
Everyone sat down to tonight's episode of Married At First Sight NZ just devastated that the stilted conversation and angsty drunk backstabbing of Monday's cocktail party was over and we - Oh what was that? It's still going? Oh, thank God!
After several quite large nights, I was feeling a little regretful about some of my behaviour this weekend. But tonight's episode was a nice reminder that no matter how badly behaved I was, nothing can top the clusterf**k of behaviour seen from some of the couples on tonight's ep.
We continued with a divided room: the 'Pretty Committee' (cool!) on one couch, the discarded rest on another. While Vicky and Ben bonded over both thinking their respective husbands were ugly AF (how nice for close friends and family to watch), the tension between Luke and Lacey soared to new heights.
Lacey cried in the bathroom, Luke sulked in a corner and complained to people. It was pretty epic.
There to try and mend the divide was Dom, who seemed to take their breakup the hardest. He was also apparently shouldering the emotion of every grieving person he had ever met, a small child who has just lost their balloon, and the Syrian war crisis.
A real contender for one of the most bizarre moments was Dom bawling to the camera, grieving Luke and Lacey's break-up. "It's soooo saaaaaad," he hiccupped with tears running off his little face in floods.
In case the group didn't already seem like 14-year-olds at a disco, Lacey sent her friends to go have a 'chat' with Luke, where they smiled a lot while telling him he was basically the worst person ever to walk the planet.
It was like Mean Girls but without the jokes.
But Luke and Lacey weren't the only clusterf**k.
Aaron and Ben were certainly strong contenders, as they flip-flopped between complaining about each other and kissing on the mouth.
Ben got pretty drunk and talked a lot about how he doesn't want to have husband. Aaron got pretty drunk and talked about how much it sucked that his husband didn't want to have sex with him.
Then they had the most forced pash of all time, which was easily one of the most uncomfortable kisses I've ever seen, and actually caused me to go "arghhhhh" and push my chair away from my desk. I have witnesses.
Hadyn and Bel also held their own in tonight's 'WTF' awards, as it emerged that Lacey's twin sister (remember her?) was meant to go on a date with 'The Genetic Pitbull' - but Hadyn stood her up because he thought she was just a bit of a "fangirl".
Luckily Brett was there to smile and talk lots about how much he loved his wife and the beers and the people and the cheese and crackers. Theory: Brett is an actor, placed on the show to make every guy watching this with their girlfriend think, "F**k you Brett."
I just found myself getting more and more irritated as the evening wore on. You could fill a book with the amount of expletives I burst out with while watching, much to the delight of all my co-workers trying to conduct interviews and stuff around me.
The next day dawned bright and sunny enough for Hadyn to go for a solo brooding walk through the park. After recovering from their earlier issues, it would seem that once again, not all is happy as a clam in Hadyn and Bel world. According to Bel, Hadyn has been messaging Vicky with the two of them saying how they should have been matched.
That seems a sensible move that was going to have no negative ramifications on national television whatsoever.
Apart from our Angel and Brett, there is nobody who has come off well in this episode. Luke, Lacey, Vicky, Ben, Aaron, the motel owner who thought this tiny painting looked good on this large wall.
But then we had five minutes of relief with Brett and Angel in the park just mucking around and playing with doggos and doing yoga and walking away from the camera a lot, which did seem like an excuse for many shots of Angel's bum, but we play on.
Their therapy session was just one big happy lovin', only marred by the weird amount of blue tape on the sole of Tony's shoes.
Honestly, I don't even want to go too hard into the counselling sessions about the other couples. It's getting exhausting writing about all the negativity all the time.
Ben talked a lot about how much he hated camping, in a tone most war veterans use to reflect their time in 'Nam. Lacey and Luke talked a lot about how things are really shitty between them. I chose to focus on the fun nail Lacey was spouting.
Honestly, how are these guys going to recover from this? And where the hell is Lacey going? Girl, if I have to stay and stick this out, SO DO YOU.
Married At First Sight airs Sunday and Monday nights on Three. Watch the full episode again on ThreeNow.
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