Could It Be More Obvious That Married At First Sight: The First Year's Doug Remains Married Out Of Contractual Obligation?

How dare this show continue dangling The Ex in front of us?

When this show took off for its midseason break last year, it left us at the start of Doug and Jamie's journey to meet The Ex on the way to Jamie's sister Amylynn's wedding. When we pick back up, it's like no time has passed: Doug is still busting with excitement at the idea of Doug and The Ex finally meeting, while Doug remains both wary and suspicious that Jamie's left "stuff" at his place with ulterior motives about keeping The Ex as The Possible Future. And then suddenly Doug -- who, as we're about to be reminded later in the episode, is not especially responsible or good at planning -- gets the idea that they should just check in with The Ex and make sure they're still on for today. GREAT IDEA! Jamie texts The Ex, and WHAT DO YOU FUCKING KNOW? HE'S NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO MAKE IT. WHAT A BUMMER.

I already thought it was pretty goddamn cheap for the show's producers to break up the season right before this meeting that, for real, the entire season to date has supposedly been building to, and if that sounds like an exaggeration on my part, may I please direct you to my coverage of those first seven episodes for a reminder of just how much and often Jamie would "happen" to bring this guy up in conversation. So to set expectations with that cliffhanger and then not have them pay off one tiny bit feels like a real middle finger to the viewer. I didn't care about The Ex until the show made me. If he's not going to appear, what was the point of making him such an issue in the marriage and so central to this storyline? I mean, they talk about this guy more than anyone talks about Neph, and NEPH IS ACTUALLY ON THE SHOW. I JUST DON'T GET IT.

Shouldn't Jason and Cortney be better actors by now?

I can't and won't complain that Jason's Private Pain regarding his father and half-siblings only takes up one scene in this episode. I will complain that Jason's ability to portray the sadness and disappointment we're supposed to think he harbors about his broken family is still so limited.

Both Jason and Cortney can both barely keep embarrassed smiles off their faces while they're talking about Jason's anguish over his sister's failure to have immediately answered his email -- and honestly, given that they're in their third year of being reality TV stars, they should be more convincing. If they can't commit to this manufactured storyline, why must we?

Did Neph really think there was a chance Jasmine might not come back from Texas?

After leaving things on what we're supposed to think were iffy terms, Jasmine and Neph are reunited upon her return from visiting her family in Texas, about which he remarks, "It says something that she came back." Does it?! Because she moved. In. With him. Of course Jasmine is lonely, and granted she still hasn't put down that many roots in New York -- she hasn't gotten a job, and the only other woman her own age that she knows is apparently Cortney, who seems to hate her -- but if Neph really thought there was a chance that Jasmine might leave and never come back, then I really wonder why the next conversation we see them have ever happened.

Jasmine is twenty-eight?!

Whoooooooo that's a real immature twenty-eight.

Does Jamie actually think Doug cares what she does anymore?

When the stripper at Amylynn's bachelorette party starts dancing up on her, Jamie giggles at him, "My husband is not okay with this." But that's just for show/the show, right? Because at this point, I'm fairly certain Doug doesn't care what she does with her junk or the junk of others.

What does Doug think he is wearing to this wedding?

So after the failed meeting with The Ex, Doug drove another half-hour back to their place in New Jersey so that he and Jamie could each get in their own cars, with her turning back around to go up the night before the wedding for the bachelorette party and him staying at their place that night to do "some work" (read: enjoy a peaceful night without Jamie's demands and complaints). I can only assume it's because Jamie's not there to crack the whip that this is the state of his wedding attire:

There's this cool new thing some people do with clothes before they wear them to important events. It's called ironing? Though I don't know why I'm focused on that when the location of the wrinkles on these chinos makes it clear they haven't even been washed since the last time Doug wore them. Also: fucking chinos to a wedding? THAT HE'S OFFICIATING?! Stop giving New Jersey an even WORSE name, Doug, damn.

Jamie's mom "isn't the most reliable person"?

I feel like this is something that might have come up at some point before now. (Sarcasm.)

Did we all enjoy the proof that Jamie does her makeup like a drag queen?

So many highlighters and shades.

At least she's making an effort, unlike her husband.

Who in the actual fuck does Jamie think she is giving anyone advice about how to comport herself on her wedding day?!

"Have fun," Jamie tells Amylynn. "It goes by so fast, and before you know it, it's like, 'Oh! I just got married!'" I can only assume Jamie's forgotten that we all saw her wedding day, which she mostly spent crying and shrinking from her new husband's touch. Where does she get the balls to tell Amylynn -- WHO WAS THERE -- how to get the most out of her blessed nuptials? She is the Serena Williams of being full of shit.

...Okay, was I possibly too hasty giving Doug shit for his wedding outfit?

No. All these guests should have stepped it up -- particularly Jamie "Visible Black Bra Straps" Otis-Hehner considering what a big goddamn deal she's about to make about Doug's reverence for the occasion.

Can one of this show's therapists please order Cortney to shut up about this ring she wants Jason to buy for her?

Or, better yet, can someone who's actually effective and good at his or her job do it, since Dr. Pepper evidently has not come close to remediating Jamie's myriad issues in all the time those two have been talking? I just can't believe this ring/proposal fixation of Cortney's is still a topic of conversation at all. As I kept saying throughout the front half of this season: Cortney already got married. If she decided that one didn't count because it wasn't Jason "choosing" her, then isn't that what the vow renewal was supposed to have addressed? And if Jason does bow to her absurd need to be given a ring he chose and a proposal he (as opposed to the show's "experts") makes to her, is she then going to require a third wedding? How many times is Jason going to have to commit himself to Cortney before she'll finally be satisfied that he rully rully means it?

Have Neph and Jasmine ever had an actual conversation about how buying a house is going to work and/or what it means?

I know we've already seen them tour houses with an eye to acquiring one so that they can, at last, move out of Neph's mom's house -- as they should. But I can't help thinking Neph has spent this whole time avoiding the question of who's actually buying it and therefore who gets to make the decision until he could do it in front of the cameras so that Jasmine couldn't freak out on him. I'm kind of on Neph's side here: if Jasmine isn't contributing to the purchase price of the house -- and no part of the scene in which he tells her (over dinner, in a public place, no fool he) that he already put an offer on one while she was out of town suggests that she planned to or that he expected her to -- then which house Neph buys with his own money is not really something she needs to agree on before he goes through with it, and she certainly shouldn't have her name on the deed if she's not chipping in. I will grant that Jasmine's evidently put a lot of import on the purchase of the house because, in her mind, it's the last step before their engagement, and if that were the case, then I would be more inclined to agree with her that his money is their money and the house they're going to live in belongs to both of them. But Neph has been clear for a while in show time that he has no plans to propose any time soon, so if she's come up with a whole story in her own mind about what (his) buying a house will mean for their relationship, that's on her.

...that said: in Jasmine's slight defense, Neph's been clear about that on camera. I wouldn't necessarily rule out the possibility that he told her all kinds of half-truths about his intentions in order to get her to move to New York, and then started walking back his promises when she actually got there, in which case he's obviously to blame for her fantasies about their immediate future together. But also, given what a sucky drip Jasmine is, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that she came up with those fantasies on her own, either. I guess what I'm saying is that they're annoying both separately and together and I don't think they should continue pursuing what is clearly a doomed relationship given that they're not even kind of on the same page with it.

Could it be more obvious that Doug remains married only out of contractual obligation?

Doug could not do more to show Jamie -- and her entire family -- how little he cares about this wedding and, by extension, Jamie's feelings. Bailing on going up with her the night before when they were already in the car on the road there was a pretty big sign of how checked out he is -- and, like, not to say he should be as psyched about this event as Jamie and her 5000 marabou accessories were, but participating in your spouse's sibling's wedding isn't something that one can generally count on being excused from. Doug then arrives at the wedding -- which, let me just say again, he is officiating -- just half an hour before it's supposed to start. This is a drive he knows; he's made it before. So when he gets there as close to the start of the wedding as a semi-decent person could possibly defend as acceptable, it's not an accident. He didn't want to get there so early that he'd have to hang around talking to Jamie's family while he waited for the ceremony to start, and he left New Jersey late enough to ensure that he wouldn't have to.

Then, when Jamie takes him aside to tell him how inconsiderate he was to have cut it so close -- a rare instance of Jamie being right -- he doesn't apologize (or, at least, not that makes the edit; later, Jamie says he didn't, and the evidence we get seems to bear that out). When she tells him she wishes he'd been there earlier, he says, "I tried," which: not credible. When she tells him how stressful it was for her and for THE BRIDE to wait for him having no idea when he was going to make it -- remember, he claimed in his first phone call that he was probably going to get there around 1:30 or 2, despite the fact that his GPS said it would be 2:30...and then it actually ended up being an hour later even than that -- he says, "I get that." When she says, "It's seriously not okay," we get something that's almost an apology -- "Yeah, I feel bad about it" -- but then isn't.

THEN, after fucking up the first half of the day, he announces that there's more to come, because he's about to leave -- before the reception even starts, apparently. What's so pressing that Doug has to return to New Jersey immediately -- more "work"? No, he has a softball game. Now, those who watched these two in the first season of Married First Sight will remember what a big fucking deal Doug's family made about his softball team -- specifically, what a terrible wife Jamie was whenever she'd miss a game -- to work, in another state. And supposedly this game is "in honour" of some coach who died, so of all the games Doug could miss this season (my guess? He never has missed one and never will), this would be the worst. Doug notes that Amylynn's wedding had moved up from its original date so that both of these huge, important life events happened to end up on the same weekend, I guess to try to convince Jamie that this makes it okay for him to blow out of Amylynn's wedding before drinks are even served. Jamie is not convinced, bitterly telling Doug, "My sister gets married once in a lifetime" (in this family? I'm not so sure) and "Don't be like my effing mother."

Jamie's attempted guilt-tripping has no effect on Doug, and here's why: DOUG DOES NOT CARE ABOUT JAMIE ANYMORE, and nothing could be more glaringly obvious. If he did care about Jamie -- not even as his wife, but as a fellow human being -- he would get that Wedding > Softball Game, I don't care who died. And when Jamie comes home the day after the wedding and immediately starts a fight about his choice to blow it off, not just yelling at him but also crying, he's DICKING AROUND ON HIS PHONE. Doug may have committed to stay married for the rest of Season 2, but he's obviously determined not to do anything to give Jamie hope that their marriage will ever be good again. Doug's body may be here for the fyi paycheque, but his heart peaced out.