With just a week to go until “Decision Day”, it’s crunch time for the couples: commit or split?
Fresh from the insult of Lachlan driving off into the night last week, angst-ridden Clare opens the show, her motivational quotes in the background. “It’s a bit heartbreaking,” she says, her face contorted with tears – but Roni and Michael are the ones who call it quits.
Finally they decide to bury the dead horse they’ve been flogging for the past five weeks. Thankfully, though, we still score a front-row seat for the death throes.
But first we’re treated to a serve of Alex and Zoe, the only couple with what passes for a functional relationship. Cosmopolitan career girl Zoe gives the suburban plumber a taste of city life and Alex seems genuinely flummoxed by the dimensions of her 24th floor CBD apartment.
“Where’s the kitchen bench?” he asks, as if it might have been stolen. And in her apparently minimalist bedroom, he asks, “Were you robbed?” – possibly because she doesn’t share his penchant for parking a motorcycle in the spare room.
Next she takes him to the NGV – or the “National Garlery of Art”, as he calls it. Kulcha, says Zoe, is important to her. By the end of the visit, it’s important to him, too. Alex casts an eye over one collection, declares, “They’re so 19th century” and leaves the gallery a freshly minted art critic.
Meanwhile, in a fit of rationality, Clare makes a mad dash to Lachlan’s farm to salvage her marriage. As she arrives, she tells us, “I don’t like fighting, ever.” Which would sound no less ridiculous coming from Mike Tyson.
“Hopefully he appreciates me being here and making an effort and a little bit of a sacrifice,” she says, before canoodling with him among the cows. And then: “Hopefully he appreciates me being here and making an effort.” What does she want? A medal or a Mars bar?
Cut to what seems like dawn breaking over Alex’s house and ever-present portaloo – and Zoe in the kitchen with a glass of wine. As all good wives should, she has taken the day off to prepare a roast chicken for her husband. New to this whole kitchen caper, she asks the cameraman if she can cook the chook in its plastic supermarket packaging, which doesn’t bode well. Nor does her bidding the bird good luck as she closes the oven door.
It’s just as well she’s a Hornbag.
Still, Alex is stoked. After his laundry fantasy was fulfilled last week, he can’t believe his luck when Zoe greets him wearing an apron and hands him a beer. “Jeepers! This is amazing!” says Alex, as he sits on what looks like one of 12 leather recliners laid end-to-end in an L-shape configuration.
“I was a housewife,” says Zoe, “and I enjoyed it.” Which seems like a win-win, but then Alex snaps – and storms off before dessert. “I’m sick of being f—ing treated like someone who needs a housewife,” he fumes. He drives off and oven-mitted Zoe is left bewildered. As if her philosophical throwback to the ’50s hadn’t caused her enough whiplash.
Eventually, though, High Vis turns up, cools off in the shower, and tells Zoe he’s looking for love, not a housewife. They hug it out and Zoe says, “I don’t think anything but amazing about you.” Later, they both admit they’re falling in love and she tells him, “I don’t just give my heart just for little bite sizes.” What they lack in wordsmithery, though, they make up for in sincerity.
But then it’s back to Roni and Michael. Time to kill this thing. “I’m sorry but I’m not in love,” says Michael. Roni packs while he looks on in a disturbing embroidered T-shirt and baseball cap. He points out that her ring is on the bench and she says she’s leaving it. “I’ll keep yours here then,” he says, possibly planning a quick trip to Cash Converters once she’s out the door.
With Roni and Michael dispatched, it’s time for the other couples to meet the in-laws. (At this point, Michelle and James make their token appearance of the episode, this time 20 metres up in the air, inexplicably perched on an Inspector Gadget platform overlooking a Canberra paddock.)
It’s all looking good for Clare and Lachlan, as Lachlan’s mother notes a spark in her son’s eye and he tells us, “Clare makes me very happy.”
But, yet again, it can’t last. She needs her daily hit of drama and this time she’s annoyed that he hasn’t tongue-pashed her in front of his parent. So she skulks off to seek sanctuary in her bedroom.
In a case of TV déjà vu, war-weary Lachlan closes the episode, angry and over it. “We just need to have a bit of smooth sailing,” he says. “I’m just thinking, what’s going to be next?”
So are we, Lachlan. So are we.
It may be easy to skewer the show, but it’s a whole lot harder to switch it off.
