I can’t be the only one who’s starting to find watching Married At First Sight UK arduous. Don't get me wrong. It’s half the length of Love Island and therefore half the commitment. There’s less of the wtf formatting à la Love Trap, Dinner Date or Naked Attraction, nor the toe-curling dialogue of Take Me Out. On paper, all good things.
No, what’s draining me is the lack of likeability among the cast, from Tom’s relentless, unprovoked outbursts to Whitney and Matt’s utterly ridiculous proclamations of ‘love’ to, of course,the allegations against George (which he denies) and hispossessiveness over April. Of course, when watching reality TV that isn’t largely scripted – yes we're looking at you, Made in Chelsea – it’s important to remember that these are real multi-faceted people, with nuance to their histories, trauma, and all the other things that make people into individuals. But as the series progresses, it’s getting harder and harder to see the redeeming qualities in any of them. I’m sure they have them – but the questionable matches made by the experts definitely seems to be bringing out the worst in them.
One thing that makes reality TV compelling to watch is establishing favourites; rooting for them, commiserating with them, making enemies of their enemies. But if you asked me who my favourite is on MAFS — or at least who my favourite couple is — I wouldn’t be able to tell you. Jordan and Chanita seem unproblematic enough, as do Zoe and Jenna (if you take the editing of their seemingly obsessive discussion of Jenna’s veganism earlier in the series with a pinch of salt), but as couples? I’m not convinced by either of them.
And from the merely alright to the veritably terrible, the scales are definitely tipped toward the latter. Sophie, a well heeled career woman who was initially edited into a snob has now seemingly had her agency taken away by a man who’s favourite cuisine is ‘haribo’ (a hilarious one-liner that will go down in history as one of the best but didn’t land well at the top table at their wedding) and his all-together less charming assertion that women shouldn’t have horse legs – in his ‘opinion’, of course. The cultural differences between them were cited by the experts as a reason they would make a good match – the old ‘opposites attract’ malarkey – but really what it’s done has made Sophie’s ambition and good breeding into pretentiousness, and Jonathan’s rough and readiness into callousness and stupidity.
Adrian’s inexplicable excuses for Tom’s repeatedly awful behaviour and his fixation with making enemies, one by one, of all of the girls is getting harder and harder to stomach. Surely there must be a point at which his tantrums become unacceptable? For most people it would have been after the first dinner party – but Adrian’s insistence on dismissing Tom’s behaviour due his emotional complexities is starting to come across as disingenuous. To be fair, though, he had a point when he called Whitney a liar and an adulterer – a line straight out of the Kim Woodburn playbook.
The fact that Kwame and Matt were the only ones to drink when asked if they’d cheated during a game of Never Have I Ever was a surprise to precisely nobody. In fact, the wayMatt has conducted himself since about the second day of the honeymoon has been questionable at best. His point blank refusal to take any accountability for the breakdown of his marriage to Gemma – despite the fact that he couldn’t have made his disdain for her more obvious after evidently deciding he didn’t fancy her early on, visibly shattering her confidence without a second thought – or for admit he’d done anything wrong with Whitney in front of the rest of the group was mind boggling and exposed a stunning amount of entitlement and lack of empathy. Whitney herself has had a traumatic past which has clearly lead to her putting walls up, but that didn’t excuse her patronizing of Duka and blatant disrespect for him from day one: excuse us if we the viewer (not to mention the rest of the group) struggle to take their newfound ‘love’ seriously. Matt claiming he felt like ‘the inside of a baby unicorn’ and Whitney’s masquerading as a happy-go-lucky-in-love kinda gal when we’ve barely seen her crack a smile the whole series is achingly transparent.
But if I did have to pick a favourite individual on this series of MAFS, it would have to be Kasia, who’s disastrous match with Kwame has only served to put across as more poised, more strong-willed, more emotionally intelligent and made of the strongest moral fiber.
Kwame took his cues straight from the ‘I Want A Strong Woman’ handbook but like most of its' disciples, didn’t actually like a strong woman when he got one. His tentativeness in getting intimate with Keisha was perfectly justified – respecting boundaries and consent is of the utmost – but became a massive point of contention when he dug himself an enormous hole by suggesting she didn’t have any agency or a voice in the matter, instead of just admitting, I suspect, that he didn’t fancy her. He even referred to the joint and mutually pleasurable act of having sex as ‘letting me do stuff to her’ on the sofa with the experts. If that’s not a red flag for antiquated and hideously misogynistic views, we don’t know what is.
It’s gone from bad to worse with these two, with Kwame really putting the nail in the coffin of their relationship when he point blank refused to open any part of his life to Kasia during the homestays – almost as if he had no intention of progressing the relationship outside of the experiment, you might say. I’ve found it hard to shake the sense that Kwame has been intentionally trying to make Kasia write leave, rather than writing it himself. Laughing through a story about Kasia’s hardships as a teenaged mum, treating their marriage like a business transaction or merely a route to fame, and then playing the victim with the other husbands and feigning obliviousness as to why she was dissatisfied in the relationship was grating to watch. Last night, despite outrageously claiming he was 'blindsided' by her decision, he got what he wanted when she walked away from the experiment. That, and the Instagram followers.
Last year’s series of MAFS generated two successful couples, with Matt and Daniel celebrating their one-year wedding anniversary and Tayah and Adam set to welcome a baby boy any day now. Both couples were hard not to love, and though 2021’s series had it’s fair share of unlikeable couples, the balance between the two made it a fun series to be a part of. But we can’t imagine we’ll miss too many of the 2022 cast on our screens.