What Actually Happened With Cortney's Ring On Married At First Sight: The First Year?

Are we possibly starting to see why Neph got divorced and his current girlfriend hates him?

For TV purposes, Jason meets up with Neph to tell him about the fight Jason and Cortney had about money -- specifically, about Jason's personal bank account to which Cortney does not have access, in the last episode. "But it's your money," says Neph. "As long as your bills are paid, what does it matter?" Well, look. I've said before that I think it's weird when married couples don't share finances, but if that's something both parties agree upon, then it's none of my business. The issue, NEPH, is that Cortney didn't agree with Jason limiting Cortney's access to a portion of his money -- admittedly, at least partly for her sake and the sake of "surprising" her with the new engagement ring she has been demanding since this show was last on in the year 2015, but still -- so it's not crazy for Cortney to get suspicious about what he might be doing with it. In other words, there's more to this issue than just making sure bills are paid, and just because that line works for Neph when he uses it on his unemployed girlfriend Jasmine to whom he's not married does not mean it's going to be an effective argument for a married person to make to his spouse, and furthermore, that line doesn't work on Jasmine who I assume is spending every moment of her life that we don't see her stewing about Neph's house and the fact that he didn't put her name on the title. When Neph's current relationship breaks up, in part, because he has a Ricky Ricardo mentality with regard to women and money, no one within the sound of my voice/range of my posts will be shocked.

"I don't do laundry"???

According to Jason, this is something Cortney said in a fight about housekeeping. What does that mean? She wears things once and throws them away? At some point she and Jason negotiated that laundry would be one of his chores and she's planning to stick to that until they both die? She only sends her laundry out? If it's that last one, it's another piece of the puzzle of Cortney's bad finances (that and her also having said she makes money to buy things she likes and shop, which we all probably could have guessed). Of course stupid Neph wouldn't ask any follow-ups. That's why I need to host the next reunion.

Is the worst thing about being on a candid reality having to take exercise classes as a backdrop for expository conversations with friends?

Last week, it was indoor rock climbing. This week, Cortney makes her poor friend Chantel meet her at a kickboxing class so she can announce, "This is a way for me to get my anger out!!!" Chantel, next time tell her it's mani-pedis or you have "the flu."

Did Jason actually say, "I'm a firefighter. I save lives. What does a makeup artist do"?

Obviously, he is right that makeup artists don't save lives (other than, perhaps, for people like me with hella shiny T-zones). But I feel like if he had said that, we would have seen footage, and if the camera crew wasn't there, the production would have made them re-enact it or at least mandated a Diary Cam entry from Cortney on it, because that's a shitty thing to say. Lots of people have jobs less noble and important than firefighters' -- like, I would venture to say, 98% of people with jobs. So it's not really fair for Jason to try to win arguments by citing his daily sacrifice compared to Cortney's. (For one thing, would he want Cortney to try to be a firefighter? Does she seem like someone who's suited to saving lives?) I just don't believe Jason would even try to say something that crappy, but I believe even less that it wouldn't have been a cataclysm in their relationship -- and a gift to the show -- if he had. Doesn't it seem more likely that Cortney has attributed this statement to Jason, in conversation with Chantel, because it's something she FEELS Jason actually thinks?

Has Jamie given up on the idea of loving Doug?

Here's what she tells Dr. Johnny: "I want him to be in love with me, and I want it to be lifelong, and I really want to feel it." Here's what I'm not hearing: "I want to be married to someone I love. I want to foster my love for Doug. I love Doug." Jamie's feelings are kind of irrelevant to her brand, when you think about it. She only needs Doug to love her. Failing that, faking it convincingly might be good enough.

...So he needs to work on that.

Jamie's false eyelashes...come off?

I would have thought she had an eyelash weave or something.

This feels more intimate than seeing her actually naked.

What actually happened with Cortney's ring?

So the official story is that Cortney waited for a time Jason wasn't present to take off her (show-purchased) engagement ring and throw it down the sink, to punish Jason. She's even kind of defiant about it: "By me throwing the ring down the drain, I was showing Jason that the way he was making me feel, I didn't want to do it anymore, and I wasn't going to do it anymore." And yet...again, the cameras didn't record this?

Later, Cortney and Jason nervously discuss the matter while they wait for a plumber to arrive and check the pipe to see if the ring might have gotten stuck in a U under the sink. But as Jason notes, it doesn't even look like the holes in the drain are big enough for a ring to get through. And we also see Cortney running water in the (single) sink in the moments before the plumber gets there to investigate. MAYBE IF YOU'RE WORRIED ABOUT SOMETHING GETTING WASHED AWAY, YOU RINSE SHIT OFF IN THE BATHROOM FOR A WHILE? I mean, I doubt either of these boobs is doing much cooking, and we know Cortney's not washing a dish. It's a moot point anyway: the plumber takes the pipes apart, and there's no ring to be found.

So what do we think happened? The official cover story? Basically that story except "maybe" Cortney really shoved it down the sink and made sure it got washed away in order to try to force Jason to accelerate his ring-buying timeline because, I don't know, she thinks he'd be worried about her walking around the world with a naked left ring finger because 500 guys a day are going to be trying to proposition her? Do we think Jason and Cortney cooked up this scheme to claim it on their apartment insurance? Does a couple with as many money problems as these two even HAVE apartment insurance? Would the show have to pay for insurance because they shoot there? Do we at least all agree that this story is a tissue of lies? And that now Cortney has to shut up about getting a new ring FOREVER?!