Weddings are beautiful occasions, and they're made even better when your attention-deprived mother-in-law spirals out of control and slags you off to everyone before labelling you a pig and oinking.
It was a spectacular sequence of events on last night's episode of Married At First Sight, and never has the slow unravelling of a passive-aggressive mother-in-law been so thrilling.
On Monday night, we met two more couples but one of them was boring by comparison to the other so they've been cut out of this recap completely. Anthony and Nadia are both non-offensive and you don't get yourself mentioned if you're respectable and behave appropriately.
We want drama. And if you can't provide it, recruit your odd mother. So, meet Scarlett and Anthony.
During the week, 30-year-old Michael is a data entry clerk but, on the weekend, he's a "data entry clerk". That's dirty slang for stripper.
Michael says he's concerned that the girl he's paired with won't be able to accept his job. I think he's referring to the stripping job but he could also mean the data job because honestly that sounds like a snooze.
I'd date entry this clerk.
Michael is very specific and wants someone who is a manic exerciser with small ears and good teeth and someone who's under 60kg. While it sounds like he just wants to adopt a pet whippet, he's firm about finding a wife with these characteristics.
He's paired with Scarlett, a 30-year-old chick from Sydney who lives with her mum. There's so much to say about Scarlett and it's hard to know which points to prioritise.
First up: the American accent that comes in and out and back in again. It's confusing and quite the treat.
Her job title is listed as "aspiring author" and she describes herself as a "chameleon" except she pronounces it as "char-million".
The life of a char-million.
Now onto her mum. Scarlett's mum Marie (pronounced Mar-ee like the magazine) is a complex lady who takes things extremely personally. She pulls a butt-load of facial expressions and I've tried my best to screenshot all of them. I'm not sure if she she's aware of the faces she pulls or if she's just been making these faces forever thinking they look one way when they actually look the other.
Nothing's worse than walking around for years thinking a facial expression you make looks cool and sexy when really it's not. Then one day when you're jazzing through a Westfield, you see your reflection in the window of a Just Jeans and you suddenly realise you actually just look really angry.
So, Scarlett tells her mum about the blind wedding and she's totally cool with it.
Marie's psyched in this episode.
Marie then aggressively tells us this whole scenario will be "terrifying" and we absolutely believe her.
Honestly don't question Marie.
And then Marie's personality turns on a dime and she just looks plain confused while also making the "rock on" hand signs as if she's just suddenly found herself in the mosh pit at a Black Sabbath concert.
We're just as confused.
It's at the wedding ceremony that Marie starts to spiral out of control.
When Michael enters, he walks straight up to the altar, says a general "heyyyy" to the room and then makes a few comments to his family on one side of the venue.
Marie takes this as a kick to the guts and stews over the fact that Michael, a complete stranger, doesn't know who she is and that he doesn't bother to say hello.
She grimaces at him, hoping he sees but he doesn't.
Marie's super easy going.
Marie's distaste escalates throughout the ceremony when Michael, who's in the middle of marrying her daughter, still doesn't take a breather to come over and shoot the breeze.
She turns to fellow guests to make it known.
Marie doesn't get hung up on little details.
"I am very upset," she tells us. "I'm very, very put off. Michael didn't make any eye contact with me."
Then, while seated in the middle of the wedding ceremony, she stares into the camera and asks no one in particular: "AM I INVISIBLE?!"
Michael's so stressed about finding the right moment to tell Scarlett about his side-job as a stripper he doesn't even realise Marie's suffering from a lack of attention.
His lack of care continues to grind her down. And she makes it known. But not in a crazy, passive-aggressive way. She just goes around slagging Michael off to everyone in the room. Including to his own family.
"What's your name?" she asks a random. "Nice to meet you, I'm Marie. So you're a cousin of Michael? He was really rude at the wedding!" she howls.
"Ohhh, I was not happy," she calls across the table to someone else. "Cheesed me off big time".
But this is not enough. Marie is cheesed off and she won't settle until she's analysed and discussed Michael's perceived rudeness with everyone in the room. Probably even the kitchen staff.
"Hello, what's your name?" she asks a young woman, who introduces herself as Alexis, Michael's sister. Marie knows she hooked a big one here and is frothing to tell the sister what a jerk Michael is.
"You're his sister! So lovely of you, Alexis, to come over - because I have not been happy with the groom. Michael never made any eye contact with me when he was standing up there but when the bridesmaids came, he talked to them. Still no eye contact with me whatsoever."
Alexis immediately hates herself for having manners and walking into this mess and wishes she inherited some of that rude attitude her brother apparently has.
Hmmmm....
But Marie isn't done and continues: "It cheesed me off - it didn't go down very well. So that's just my personal, as a sociologist, an observationist. The way he treated me - the mother of the bride - you'd think he'd have more manners! He didn't have any manners! He's got no manners! I was going 'oink oink!' to my group because he was just so rude I felt he was a pig!"
Let's take a moment to catch our breath here. Firstly, I just need to reiterate Marie confidently said she was a sociologist. I'm not questioning her qualifications or ability, but I'm just pointing this out to you all because I feel it's important. Secondly, she called Michael a pig to his sister. It was insane but I also think she's a total baller who should have her own show.
While Marie is oinking at Michael's sister, Scarlett is freaking out because she lost her speech.
"It was really funny. It was my best work!" she whines over and over.
Scarlett really builds this speech up and apparently it's funny - like, Seinfeld funny. We're all super ecstatic when it's found and we finally get to hear the original words of Scarlett the aspiring author.
"I wanted to thank you all for being here today. For taking time off work and coming from all over for the free drinks - I MEAN MY WEDDING," she zings in her first joke. It falls flat but it's a tough mid-week crowd. The edgy one-liners are flying over the guests' heads and no one's catching them.
The speech bombs and family members visibly cringe throughout the comedy act. Except Marie. Marie's laughing and thinks Scarlett should write Julia Louis-Dreyfus' next Emmys speech.
"It's like Ellen!"
Eventually, Marie gets her wish and comes face-to-face with Michael.
"I was starting to think this was like Team One and Team Two," she says to Michael, sizing him up. He has absolutely no idea what's going on.
After she warns the fitness fanatic that he better not even think about dragging her daughter into some sick running cult or - worse yet - an F45 club, they find common ground and settle their differences.
Michael still probably has no idea who he's just spoken to. He's got bigger fish to fry and he's more worried about telling Scarlett about his side-job as a stripper.
His moment comes.
"I uh, uh ... I work for a mining company. I work in the city in an office. I work a 9-5 job. Sit at the computer all day and just ... yeah," he blurts out.
He fails to mention that the computer is usually a drunk woman and he's usually wearing a G-string while he's sitting in front of it, but that's all swings and roundabouts.
He'll eventually tell Scarlett the truth - when they actually get married for real, and he shows up at her bachelorette party as the stripper.
