The “Married at First Sight” Season 3 couples are 38 days into their six-week marriage experiment, and with Decision Day looming in next Tuesday’s episode, the newlyweds are running out of time to choose to stay together or get divorced.
The season’s penultimate episode is always branded “last chance at romance” — though two of our three couples have yet to even kiss.
Tres, however, pulls out enough romance for everyone, surprising his wife Vanessa with a weekend trip to a bed-and-breakfast — complete with red roses, a private car to pick her up, a romantic dinner and breakfast in bed.
Their trip gets cut short when Tres has an allergic reaction while horseback riding. But the gesture gets him back in Vanessa’s good graces after arguing at the beginning of the episode about where they’re going to live after the experiment ends. At least they are the one couple that already seems to be making plans for after the TV show ends.
After David and Ashley’s epic fight over him asking another woman for drinks (platonically, he insists), he returns from his four-day trip to Buffalo, NY, and says the two words Ashley’s been waiting to hear the whole time: “I’m sorry.”
She accepts his apology and seems willing to move past it, so the two decide to get out of the house and go ziplining in an attempt to have some fun, which seems to work. They bond over their shared fear at jumping off a tall tower (Ashley even kisses him on the cheek before he jumps!), and David sees the activity as a good metaphor for their relationship.
“Come Decision Day, we may not think it is the best idea to stay married, but if we stay together we’re going to land softly,” he tells the camera. “Not without your heart dropping out of your chest first — but we’re going to be OK.”
But the big question is, does Ashley feel the same way?
The night’s biggest 180 comes from Sam and Neil, who start the episode apart with him attending a family wedding in Las Vegas. During a video chat, Neil asks Sam if she misses him, and before admitting that she does, she asks the question back, to which he returns a curt “no.”
He doesn’t mean it personally, explaining to her that it takes him a while to miss anybody, but the damage is done — a hurt Sam abruptly ends the call and angrily rants to the camera.
“I really, wholeheartedly thought that he was going to say yes,” she says. “I’m at a loss for words. I don’t want to talk to him tomorrow. He doesn’t deserve to talk to me.”
Neil realizes his comment was insensitive and returns from Vegas with flowers and handpicked gifts for Sam — which literally makes her cry tears of joy. She tells the camera that, for the first time, she feels like she wants to change her last name.
“I wanted [this marriage] to work so bad and now I feel like it will, “ she says. “We’re gonna stay married and figure it out together and I feel like we actually are a unit now.”
Next week: Decision Day!