Hi again, fellow humans who have become worryingly invested in the love lives of strangers, and welcome to this recap of Married At First Sight NZ.
- MAFS episode 8 recap: It's all gone to the dogs
- MAFS episode 7 recap: Burnt croissants and burning questions
All of our newlyweds decided to stay in the experiment after the first commitment ceremony, despite the high volumes of death-threats, denial and David's skincare.
Now, there are a bunch more home visits to rattle through, which are set to be more awkward than that time my boyfriend went for a hi-five instead of a handshake when meeting my dad.
Sam and Tayler
Sam can't understand why his husband is so nervous about his home visit, but then proceeds to ransack Tayler's kitchen like a hangry Gordon Ramsay on an episode of Kitchen Nightmares.
"Penis pasta - great! Increases in size when cooked - great!" he says, clutching a packet of the offending novelty food item.
Things go from bad to worse when Sam meets Tayler's hot flatmate Tony, who has clearly been shredding for R & V since he was an infant.
Suddenly, Sam is behaving like a thirsty mum who's been allowed to join her daughter's hen's night - tugging at his wedding ring, giggling and asking hot Tony to strip and show off his abs.
"Your flatmate seems cool," Sam later tells Tayler, with all the subtlety of a bulldozer.
After schooling Sam on a high-ropes course, Tayler's newfound confidence sees him tell off a drunk guy who interrupts his interview; but it doesn't quite give him the boost to tell Sam to lay the hell off.
Ottie and Gareth
Time to head to Gareth's place, "where he still lives with his parents" says the voiceover dude condescendingly, clearly jealous that Gazza's crib seems to come with its own vineyard.
"I don't know why there are so many f**king pillows," Gareth observes while checking out the spare room, which sounds strangely like me regaining consciousness after a K Mart shopping blackout.
Above the bed hangs Ottie's wedding bouquet, which she describes as "decayed and horrifying" - a bit rich, considering her house is full of skulls, bugs and babies that bleed out of their eyes.
Gareth's parents are just the cutest, and they're obsessed with Ottie, despite the fact she made their son get the word "dickhead" tattooed on his thigh.
Ottie's girl gang is less than thrilled with Gaz, though, who seems to have thrown the towel in after a long afternoon of sculling wine and attempting to convince Ottie he doesn't care about having kids.
Wayne and Ksenia
With things going from awful to abysmal, Wayne calls an emergency expert meeting to establish if he and Ksenia are "up shit creek".
As we all know, the answer is unequivocally: "without a paddle", but everyone decides to humour them anyway.
Frankly, I think the experts were just pleased to be invited to hang out somewhere with windows, but eventually they came to the shocking conclusion Ksenia doesn't really rate Wayne, like, at all.
"We need more time, where we can just sit on the beach and watch the sunset," Wayne suggests, prompting Ksenia to roll her eyes and my heart to shatter into a thousand tiny pieces.
Later, the pair sit down for a one-on-one in which her majesty demands more compliments, despite Wayne having told her she looked nice literally three seconds earlier. Choice!
Monique and Fraser
Guys, Monique does not have the 'Eee! Feeling'.
Presumably, instead, she has the 'Urrgheh Feeling', based on the noise she keeps making when getting a tour of her husband Fraser's bedroom.
To be fair, it was a room fit for a recently-divorced music teacher: single mattress on the floor, wardrobe full of piano ties and waistcoats, a silky kimono to wear on those lonely nights.
Monique goes on to tackle several awkward chats, including fudging the question of whether she's "seen Fraser's dick" (she hasn't) and telling Fraser about the whole lack of 'Eee! Feeling'.
Julia and David
David's still cleansing, toning and moisturising, and for some reason, that's still an issue for Julia.
Her husband tries to distract her with home-made pumpkin chips, a short performance on his drum kit and a night around the fire with some pals, but to no avail.
David's last hope is to smear some dirt on his face and begin to liberally apply Lynx Africa instead of a shower in order to demonstrate the true "masculinity" that Julia's affections require.
Meanwhile, Dan and Yuki were nowhere to be found in this whirlwind of sexual tension and negativity, probably because they were peacefully slumbering in a basket of kittens or something equally as adorable.
In other happy news, next week promises some sort of hellish dinner party/torture session in which the couples are forced to ask each other difficult personal questions in front of their peers! Yay!
Married At First Sight NZ airs on Sundays at 7pm, and Mondays and Tuesdays at 7.30pm on Three. Previous episodes can be viewed on ThreeNow.
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