While Married At First Sight (MAFS) sure knows how to piss off viewers around Australia and the globe, thankfully we have our MAFS experts — John Aiken, Alessandra Rampolla and Mel Schilling – calling out the MAFS cast members’ atrocious behaviours as they happen.
Without fail, every MAFS season includes some kind of lying, cheating or worse, and, in turn, makes the audience question whether or not their own behaviours in relationships (and life) are acceptable. Or if they’re accepting something they shouldn’t!
Seeing the MAFS experts metaphorically slap the cast on the wrist is like rewinding back to a time when you’d get in trouble with your parents for pooing in the display toilet in IKEA — it’s necessary for them to get in trouble so they learn, but also kind of funny to watch.
Let’s look at all the times the MAFS experts didn’t take any prisoners and spoiler alert: John did most of the heavy lifting in Season 11.
John asking Tori if she’s “for real”
John’s sass was at another level this season, probably because he’s been in this job so long and is quietly quitting before our very eyes. That, or he’s trying to wrap shit up for the night before he falls asleep in front of a televised audience.
Perhaps my favourite bit of sass from John this season was when he asked Tori if she was “for real”.
In MAFS Episode 29, Tori told John that while she’s not in love with Jack, he does make her feel “safe and secure”.
“Are you for real, Tori?” John responded.
“Am I for real?” Tori repeated back to him. The sheer shock in her face when responding, knowing that John was absolutely calling her a bullshitter, was one of the most beautiful exchanges I’ve seen on the MAFS couch.
“Safe and secure after what has been going on throughout this experiment with Jack’s behaviour towards women, towards people in the group, towards you?” John pressed.
Reminder: at this point Jack has told Lauren to put a “muzzle” on, fat-shamed Tristan and offered that the other men could sleep with Tori.
“When he makes statements about women, like ‘muzzle your woman’, that doesn’t make you feel any less safe or secure? It doesn’t dilute your feelings toward him at all?” Mel added.
They make very valid points! Just saying.
Mel comparing her dreamboat husband to nightmare-fuel Jack
In the same episode (John was really on one), the experts further annihilated Tori and Jack’s attempt at expressing their feelings for one another by bringing Mel’s husband into the mix.
When Jack described how he was feeling about Tori as “I’m sleeping really well”, John asked Mel how her husband would describe how he felt about her, in comparison.
Mel’s husband says things like she’s his soulmate and he can stop looking because he’s found the one, which, in comparison to Jack’s sleep routine, made the MAFS couple look very silly.
It was a pleasure to watch. I also enjoyed the condescending tone Mel put on for the performance.
John saying Ridge isn’t “daddy vibes”
OK this wasn’t in a Commitment Ceremony but it was too good not to include.
Throughout MAFS Season 11, it’s been very clear that Ridge‘s maturity levels pose an issue for his relationship with Jade (who is a single mother to her daughter, V).
While the MAFS experts were watching on at the dinner party during MAFS Episode 32, Ridge was making sexual innuendo jokes and Tori told him to grow up.
Over in the viewing room, John told Mel and Alessandra, “I’m not getting a lot of daddy vibes from Ridge.”
It was truly amazing television that I’m not forgetting any time soon.
John telling Ben to ‘Stop It’
During MAFS Episode 21, we said goodbye to Ellie, Ben and Ben’s weird attempts to justify his rollercoaster attitude.
Essentially, Ben has been talking about how much he liked Ellie but would do things, like write a list of what he doesn’t like about her, which would prove otherwise.
When Ben started rattling off excuses for this poor behaviour, John jumped in and told him, “Stop it!”
“You need to start owning your behaviour,” John continued.
Now, it might seem like a fairly mediocre accountability slap, however, the delivery was truly hysterical. Ya had to be there (watching). Relive it for yourself here at the 1:37 mark.
Another honourable mention from this couch session was when John asked Ben if he could hear himself, which was a nice way to sat “you’re talking shit, shut up”. That’s why this trio make the big bucks!
Mel politely reminding Tori what kind of person she’s tolerating
Now this one is less of a burn than a harsh reality, but I want to praise Mel for how she handled Jack telling Jono to put a “muzzle” on Lauren — by explaining to Tori how that’s an issue for her too.
“He’s showing you who he is as a man, what he does under pressure, and he’s showing you his attitude towards women,” Mel told Tori in MAFS Episode 17.
When Tori tried to excuse the behaviour as unusual for Jack, Mel wasn’t tolerating it.
“It seemed very natural. It seemed like a reflex,” Mel responded.
Mel has done a phenomenal job at showing Tori how her husband’s behaviour is overshadowing not only the relationship, but also how Tori feels in the situation.
In MAFS Episode 29, Mel suggested that Tori was more focused on Jack’s naughty list than her feelings towards him. Tori wasn’t buying it, of course, but Mel raised a very valid point in a way that I think cuts deeper than getting in trouble.
It’s giving “not angry just disappointed”.
Alessandra reminding Ben that no context could justify sexism
I won’t lie, Alessandra appears to be less pissed off with this season’s contestants, or perhaps, like me, she is becoming desensitised to these clowns.
That being said, she has had her moments, like when John schooled the men for not speaking up when Jack made the muzzle comment.
When Ben tried to justify his silence by saying he didn’t have the “context” to make a comment as he didn’t hear the entire conversation, Alessandra looked at him with daggers in her eyes.
She asked Ben what type of “context” would have made a comment such as “put a muzzle on your woman” okay, knowing full well that there is no context in which saying that is acceptable.
It was an effortless but powerful dig that made not only Ben but all the men look like fools after deciding not to stand up to sexism.
John telling Jono he’s a shit hubby
Speaking of the men failing to be decent human beings during the “muzzle” ordeal, John telling Jono how he would’ve responded to someone saying the “muzzle” comment to his wife was another zinger.
“If someone said that to me about my wife, I would not back down,” John told Jono.
I’m so glad Jono felt like a shit husband in that moment, because he was. However, I’m glad John took the comment and turned it into an opportunity to educate men everywhere that it is not okay to sit back and be silent when you witness sexism and misogyny.
To be silent is to be compliant.
That wraps up the best moments from the MAFS experts this season, keeping in mind that they usually play back the tapes during the MAFS Reunion and Finale too. I’m already feeling anxious and itchy just thinking about what Tori will see.
I won’t lie, it did feel a little tame this season from the MAFS experts, but maybe that’s because there wasn’t much space for anything other than Jack and Tori VS John?
And really, we shouldn’t be complaining that the people on this show aren’t being assholes 100 per cent of the time. Right?
Chantelle Schmidt is a freelance writer. You can follow her here.
