OPINION

Expert John Aiken rolls his eyes for the 54th time this season and it’s not because Kara’s telling us she isn’t attracted to Mike again. Top up your glass of wine, dolls. It’s commitment ceremony time.

Tonight’s episode of Married At First Sight NZ follows the happy couples as they sit down on the couch of truth, receive a roasting from the experts and relive the moments of the week that showed us the best versions of them.

We can already hear the cries telling us, “the editing did me dirty!” Yeah, yeah. See you on Instagram.

In case you’re a first-time watcher, commitment ceremonies are where the contestants get re-mad about the argument they settled three days ago, then write “stay” or “leave” on a flashcard and hold it up so primary school teacher James can give them feedback on their handwriting.

If both write “stay” we get to enjoy another week of watching their perfectly matched relationship flourish, and if they both write “leave”, they disappear with Maddy and Nate and we have a little cry about what could have been.

But if one writes “stay” and one writes “leave”, they’re forced to stay for another week and try to patch up their marriage, just like your great-grandma said she did “back in my day”.

We’ve come so far as a society.

For more Married At First Sight NZ news and all the recaps, click here.

Jesse kicks us off with a commitment ceremony pre-party and sits down with James where he reflects on calling his wife CJ “loopy” and “delusional”.

“It’s just nasty man, last night was a full fight,” he says to his fellow groom and we’re fully expecting his next words to be an apology for offending all the delusional girls in New Zealand.

“It wasn’t nice, it wasn’t pleasant, and I’m not keen to have that in my life,” he says, doubling down.

Your loss Jesse, an Instagram meme told us that with a bit of delusion, you can do anything in life – which is why we are on a “tropical island”, aka the heat pump on 30 degrees, and not in freezing cold Auckland.

Jealous?

We grab our beach bag and head on over to the honesty couch, where John gives everyone a big warm welcome: “Our job is to show you where you’re going wrong.”

Nothing like confronting your worst fear head on.

Sam and James are called to the couch first and they tell the experts they have lots of cuddles and kisses and when it comes to physical intimacy they are “getting there”.

We call their parents and tell them it’s time to have the safe sex chat.

After telling us all they want to stay, it’s on to Steph and Piripi who last at least three minutes before breaking down in tears. We congratulate them for setting a new record for themselves and offer tissues to show we are good cop, while John and Jo Robertson play bad cop and ask what’s going on.

“When we first got married, a few days afterwards we had a bit of an argument and I ended up giving her space but I don’t think that was the right move,” Piripi explains.

“I’ve just always struggled with feeling abandonment, and so to have our first argument and then to wake up without him there, it was tough,” Steph says, wiping away her tears.

Just like the experts, we’re bored. Give us something fresh, something saucy, pull a James and Sam and tell us without telling us that you’ve been reading the sealed section of Cosmopolitan.

While we’re back in Delusional Land dreaming up a drama the producers can only hope for, Steph is listing off her build-a-man wishlist.

Mature, well-travelled, ready to settle down, wears green sparkly eyeshadow to match their green sparkly nails – oh wait.

“Just on that, Steph,” John jumps in, “those people that come into the experiment and say I have a list of ingredients that I must have, those people do badly, not just in the experiment but in love.”

Someone should tell Marvel they have a new villain and his name is John.

Both Steph and Piripi decide to stay, and it’s on to Mike and Kara.

Jo makes small talk with the couple about their week and who gets to answer every single question? Kara! Just kidding, Mike has the talking stick.

Our bride looks like she is about to explode, her eyes say “help” and her social media bio reads #letkaraspeak. We offer her a trip to Delusion Land with us, where her TV marriage experience is more like James and Sam’s and less like a story to tell the girls over many, many drinks.

We take a quick nap while Kara tells the experts she isn’t attracted to Mike before John wakes us up by waving the smell of drama under our noses. Delicious.

“It’s not just about physical attraction, is it?” he asks her.

Kara pauses, she’s still getting used to using her voice. “Nope.”

We immediately sit upright. It’s go time.

“He’s positive every single hour of the day,” she explains. “How can you be positive and be like ‘you’re beautiful and great’ and you say all these kind things to me but it’s like, I’m not, I’m not perfect so tell me what’s wrong?”

Now it’s Mike’s turn to pause. He ponders, is this his opportunity to impress the nation with his life coaching and become the next John Aiken, or to tell his wife what’s wrong with her?

“If you’re struggling to talk about something, I will just help you move more into it because I know that it’s there,” Mike tells his wife, choosing option A.

We turn to Kara. She’s sick of listening to self-help tips and tricks. If she wanted that, she would have married her TikTok for you page, so she looks to John and Jo.

“Why do you feel the need to help her move along?” John asks.

Kara sits back and almost relaxes while Mike takes a breath so deep we’re pretty sure he reached Middle Earth. “Because she talks so hard about herself, you have these set limiting beliefs of yourself.”

“Right there, that’s why I’m doing this,” John almost jumps off the couch. “What’s going on there, Mike, is going to be an issue.”

“What you’re doing there is telling her what she’s doing. What she thinks in a sense, you’re right, she’s wrong. You’re whole, she’s broken.” The MAFS alum puts on his best alpha male voice and comes out as the top life coach in the room.

“It’s a fine line between telling her what you think is going on for her, what are the flaws, what are the strengths, where she needs to go, and sitting back and saying ‘you tell me Kara, you lead, I’ll follow’.”

Mike nods, Kara falls in love … with John. They both decide to stay.

Next up is Jesse and CJ, who are still fighting about a toothbrush. We wonder if John and Jo should sub out for a dentist.

“We had our first tiff with me going to buy a toothbrush and she just thought it was quite strange and kept saying, ‘I just find this really strange that you wanna go buy a toothbrush’,” Jesse explains.

John isn’t buying it and asks CJ for her version of events.

“All of a sudden it was like ‘I need to go, I need to go buy a toothbrush, I need to go brush my teeth’ and I was like ‘okay sweet’, so then went and got one and I was like ‘well, do you want to brush your teeth?’ then and he was like ‘I wanna go back’. I was like ‘well, you’ve got an electric toothbrush at the hotel’.” CJ almost breaks down in tears recalling brushgate.

“Jesse, explain this, why did you need a toothbrush?” John asks.

“It was a really passing comment of just being like s**t my teeth are furry and I need to buy a toothbrush so I bought the toothbrush and that was it, there was nothing else to it,” he explains.

Jo cracks up laughing, we have a chuckle. Colgate knows dental health is no laughing matter and scolds Jesse for not also buying floss. That’s how you get gum disease!

We endure another retelling of brushgate until CJ begins crying, telling the experts that the morning after Jesse brushed his teeth, he said, “If you were on a Hinge dating app right now I wouldn’t want to continue this dating thing.” “That’s really hurt me,” she adds.

“From my perspective it’s a little bit different,” Jesse says and tries to make us all wonder if CJ is the problem. “I don’t have much conflict in my life with family or friends, I never argue with anyone because whenever there is something to talk about I do it then and there.”

CJ tries to stand up for herself but sorry hun, this is Jesse’s Delusion Land, not Jesse and CJ’s Delusion Land. Okay? Get your own.

“Just let me do my side now,” he tells her. “From my perspective, I still didn’t even know what was wrong.”

We can understand how, it’s not like CJ has tried to explain it in detail 15 times in the past two days.

Jo steps in, leans into her girl power era and validates CJ’s feelings, telling Jesse his comment about dating apps isn’t okay. Jesse is trapped, Jesse’s Delusion Land is crumbling, it looks worse than Ken Land when the Barbies took it back.

He does what any man backed into a corner would do. “I actually am sorry for that, it was such a heated argument last night. I’m sorry.”

The experts are satisfied with the progress of brushgate and ask the couple to turn towards each other and share their emotions. It all goes exactly to plan and the pair end up fighting about brushgate once again.

John is done, this is above his pay grade, “The way you argue is toxic,” he declares.

Asking the two to reveal whether they are staying or leaving, Jesse decides he has a bit more arguing in him and writes “Stay”, causing CJ to immediately break down in tears.

“This has been a really, really intense situation for me,” CJ tells us. “For that reason actually chose to leave.”

We envision great-grandma turning in her grave and start to emotionally prepare ourselves for next week’s sequel to brushgate – flossgate.

Married At First Sight New Zealand airs on Three and ThreeNow every Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

Lillie Rohan is a London-based reporter covering lifestyle and entertainment stories who joined the Herald in 2020. She specialises in all things relationships and dating.