Nadia talks back to controlling husband Anthony on MAFS.
Nadia talks back to controlling husband Anthony on MAFS.
After weeks of being controlled by her arrogant husband Anthony, Married At First Sight's Nadia has left him gobsmacked by deciding to - gasp - talk back.
If you recall, Anthony's old-fashioned and just a bit of a jerk in general. He's rude and controlling. He has opinions about Nadia's boobs, calls her frigid and thinks she should relocate to a different state to serve him as his wife.
And she's had enough.
On Tuesday night's episode we see the second instalment of all the couples' final dates before they take some time apart before the vow renewal ceremony.
For Nadia, her big date finishes with a dinner at which Anthony basically tells her he doesn't see the big whoop in her uprooting her life in Brisbane and moving to Sydney so she can cook him dinner.
"The prospect of moving my life is not that daunting to me," he says, dismissing her feelings. "I've done it, I've lived in other countries. You pick up your stuff, you move somewhere else."
And then, for the first time, Nadia dares to talk back to her controlling husband.
"So much bullsh*t," she mumbles while chewing food.
Anthony can't fathom that a woman - a WOMAN - would dare talk back to him.
That face.
"What does that mean?" he questions her.
She says it means she doesn't want to be the one always making the compromises.
Anthony then poses a little hypothetical scenario that backfires.
"Let's say we've been seeing each other for the same amount of time. And I asked you out again for another date. Would you say yes?"
He's pretty confident her answer will be yes. But then Nadia shuts him down.
"I don't know," she says with a mouthful of food.
"Nom nom nom NO nom nom ..."
Fed up with the fact Anthony just expects her to move states for him even after he's spent the last two months acting like a complete jerk, Nadia mocks his clueless expectations.
"So I'm just gonna pack my bags right now and I'm gonna get on the next flight to Anthony's arms?," she says sarcastically about his demands. "Is that what happens?"
We all hope the Jetstar flight to Anthony's Arms is cancelled due to a passive aggressive thunder storm.
He then serves up some classic Anthony and talks down to his wife again.
"I've said all I can. Now I'm just wasting breath," he says.
"You've got a bit of thinking to do. Your head space is a bit confused and I can see that."
After dinner Nadia invites Vanessa out for a "crisis chat". That's not just me calling it that. Even voice-over lady Georgie Gardner describes it that way.
Nadia monologues for 30 minutes to Vanessa about how she can't believe Anthony and she wants to see more commitment from him before she even thinks about giving it herself.
"Mmmm," Vanessa responds, disinterested. She doesn't have time for Nadia's problems. She's got bigger fish to fry with her husband, who doesn't speak any words at all.
At least your husband says things.
In the most unnatural scene that's ever been filmed in this series, producers have placed two bean bags out the front of an inner-city apartment building where Anthony and Nick - two people who've barely spoken to each other on the show - discuss Anthony's marriage.
In one final task from the psychologists, Anthony and Nadia are given a DVD of their wedding day to watch. It should be a fun activity but it only drags up Nadia's doubts.
"Do you think I'm the same person that you met there that day?" a beaming Anthony asks her, completely forgetting about the fact he was a rat over dinner.
Nadia's unsure of what to say. As she sits in silence for an awkwardly long time, we watch a montage of all the times Anthony was a mean jerk over the past few weeks.
"It's not the same Anthony sitting next to me," Nadia tells us. "Who even is that person?."
On a beach, Michelle is copping the last of her final date with Jesse. He's about to roll out his big surprise: a recital of the letter he's written her.
He unfolds it and begins sounding out the words. A clunky metaphor about a door is the main focus.
"I have seen the door and, for me to walk through it, I need you to find it and walk through it with me," he stumbles.
" ... And if you were to find the door that I have found and allow yourself to walk through it, this could be a relationship that lasts a lifetime," he adds, hammering the door symbolism again.
In no twist at all, he ends the letter with more mentions about doors.
"I'm just hoping you find the door like I have."
Throughout the entire recital Michelle looks like she'd rather have one of her boobs slammed in a door.
Michelle isn't as jazzed about the door as Jesse is.
The next day Michelle finally gets to meet up with her twin sister Sharon, telling her about the lacklustre date and all the doors.
Sharon replies: "Oh wow, that's really cool. I HAD THE BEST DATE EVER. NICK BOUGHT ME LUNA PARK!
"NICK WROTE ME A NOVEL AND BOUND IT BY HAND IN ANTIQUE LEATHER!
"NICK SAID HE LOVES ME!"
All these things actually kind of did happen but they're also slightly embellished by me. Either way, Michelle is perturbed.
"Mmm, yeah, great, that's wonderful, tell me more."
"I'm really happy for her," Michelle lies.
On a farmstay in the middle of nowhere, Sean and Susan are also enjoying the last moments of their final date. They pretend they don't know whether they'll stay together, but we all know they will.
Because we now have video footage of Susan flying in the face of Anthony's previous accusations that she's not a "horsewoman".
And now that Susan has debunked Anthony's myth about "horsemen" and "horsewomen", we can all go back to only using the politically correct term of "horsepeople".
Horse + woman
For more observations on doors and bean bags, follow me on Twitter: @hellojamesweir
• Married At First Sight Australia airs on Three Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
