Married at First Sight featured Lauren threatening divorce and taking off her wedding ring, Orion deciding he couldn’t come back from Lauren’s ethnic slur, Emily rubbing Brennan the wrong way, and Cameron stepping up during the Season 17 episode that aired Wednesday night on Lifetime.
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Married at First Sight’s seventeenth season was filmed in Denver, CO, and stars Emily and Brennan, Orion and Lauren, Clare and Cameron, and Austin and Becca.
The season’s fifth intended groom, Michael, was unfortunately been jilted at the altar by his match.
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The MAFS season will feature strangers meeting at the wedding altar and then spending about two months embarking on a honeymoon, moving in together, and navigating the joys and struggles of daily life together.
And at the end of the experiment, Married at First Sight’s Season 17 couples will reach “Decision Day” and have to decide whether to remain married or decide to end their marriages and divorce.
The couples were matched by Married at First Sight experts Pastor Calvin Roberson, Dr. Pepper Schwartz, and Dr. Pia Holec.
According to Pastor Cal, this is going to be the “most intense season” of Married at First Sight yet.”
The Married at First Sight broadcast began on Night 6 of marriage with Lauren and Orion’s talk about sex over dinner during their honeymoon in Mexico.
Lauren asked Orion how he felt about the fact she had sex two months prior, which was before she found out that she was engaged to marry a stranger on the show, and Orion appeared surprised and displeased.
“Being honest, it kind of took sex off the table for me,” Orion admitted.
“Okay, what’s next? Sex is done,” Lauren replied with anger and frustration in her voice. “That felt mildly judgy.”
Orion said Lauren’s sexual past was only one factor in his decision not to rush intimacy.
Orion explained how there were a lot of steps to getting to know each other first so they wouldn’t ultimately have sex and regret it. Lauren, however, didn’t think Orion’s story lined up with the conversation they just had, and she accused him of flip-flopping.
“I think we should just have a quiet meal,” Lauren suggested. “I have nothing else to add about sex. I think I would appreciate quietness.”
“Okay,” Orion responded. “If I’m being honest, I’m not really good with the quietness.”
But Lauren said she didn’t have the energy or desire to discuss something when it seemed like nothing constructive was going to come of it. Orion urged her to chat about their issues right away, but she didn’t want to.
“I don’t feel safe. Why does that not speak to you?” Lauren declared, wiping tears from her eyes. “We need ample time to discuss this.”
Orion said, “I’m very sorry if you felt like I was pressing something,” to which Lauren clapped back, “You know damn well that’s not an apology to give someone. You are more mature than to say, ‘I’m sorry that you felt.'”
Orion concluded, “Then I guess I have nothing left to say.”
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Meanwhile, Emily and Brennan dove into deep topics, such as religion. Emily said she had grown up “fake Catholic” while Brennan was raised Jewish.
Emily admitted she didn’t want their kids to be Catholic and so she’d be willing to convert to Judaism for him. She didn’t want to raise her children in a “cult,” and Brennan said it was refreshing to hear Emily be so honest and open.
“I guess we’ll figure this out together,” Emily noted.
On the topic of having kids, Brennan imagined having two boys — or one boy and one girl — and Emily said that was her dream.
Emily and Brennan both wanted their first child to have a sibling, and then they playfully spoke about which football team they were going to root for. The pair agreed that they were going to challenge each other and it was going to be a good thing.
At the end of the night, Lauren and Orion were very quiet in bed.
Orion apologized for not supporting Lauren in the way that she needed in that moment at dinner, and he repeated how her sexual history wasn’t why he wanted to take sex off the table. But Lauren pointed out how he had definitely said that — and she demanded to know why.
“Because it’s kind of the truth,” Orion confessed.
Lauren said when she had sex in December, she hadn’t been selected for the show yet. But Orion mentioned how she had signed up for the show at that point and so she must’ve lacked intention with the process.
Orion admitted he didn’t feel comfortable that Lauren had sex with someone while she was going through the process and committing to marrying a stranger, but Lauren didn’t think there was anything wrong with what she had done.
Lauren insisted her intentions were just as pure as Orion’s intentions were.
Orion claimed he wasn’t judging Lauren for her prior sexual encounter, but Lauren said Orion had suggested she wasn’t moving in the way he’d like his future wife to move.
“No, I just feel very uncomfortable that you did that. You signed up for this,” Orion said.
“That’s not fair. It’s not. And I’m not going to sit here and act like it is fair for you to say that. And I’m going to stand on that sh-t!” Lauren snapped.
Orion repeated how he wasn’t judging Lauren, but Lauren clapped back about how he was making assumptions about her.
Orion admitted the way it came up was careless on his part, and Lauren mentioned how Orion’s truth was his own truth and so he could stand on that.
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On Day 7 of marriage, Cameron woke up with a very bad headache or feeling of pressure in his head, and so he decided to go to a local hospital. Clare was feeling good about the honeymoon so far, but she felt bad about him being in pain.
“The attraction is growing and it’s developing, so that’s kind of a relief for me,” Clare told the Married at First Sight cameras.
Clare and Cameron were enjoying each other’s company, and they discussed how it would be nice to have a little independence in the relationship before settling in with each other at night. Cameron wanted to have a wife in which his problems would melt away upon returning home from work.
Becca then tried to connect with her partner, Austin, by talking about religion, but he didn’t take the bait at all. Becca was a little frustrated, but it seemed Austin was worried this topic was going to be a point of contention for them.
Meanwhile, Lauren decided to extend grace to Orion for their prior sex conversation, but she was feeling unsettled and judged in her marriage.
Emily and Brennan were then shown playing some games around the resort, and it appeared Emily won every round. Emily joked about how he might actually be a left-handed athlete.
Emily asked Brennan, whom she thought had been playing competitively, “Do you like to have fun?”
The comment rubbed Brennan the wrong way, but Emily said she was just joking. Brennan asked Emily if she thought he only cared about winning, but she assured him that wasn’t the case.
Emily apologized to Brennan for the remark that apparently hurt his feelings, but Brennan replied, “Trust me, you’ll know when I’m mad, actually.”
“I’m scared,” Emily admitted.
“It takes a lot,” Brennan said, adding how his parents are the only people in his life who have ever made him really mad.
After Lauren returned to her hotel room from the gym, Lauren told Orion that he clearly hadn’t been his best self at dinner and she wasn’t going to hold the sex complaint over him or their marriage going forward.
Orion shared how he was “in the same boat” but had definitely dropped the ball, and Lauren asked for consistency from Orion in his words.
“I know I got vocally dramatic with you, but my frustrations were so high because I didn’t really feel like you were my husband. I just felt like you were a man that I had met six days ago,” Lauren explained.
Orion said it was fair of Lauren to feel that way, and then Lauren mentioned how she had seen Orion at his best and she was going to choose to believe that’s who he is. With that being said, Lauren concluded, “We’ve got this,” and Orion wiped tears from his eyes.
Austin and Becca, meanwhile, visited the beach. Becca shared how she’s agnostic, and Austin told his wife that he’s Christian. However, Austin’s parents had differences in faith and got along great, and so he wasn’t really worried.
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Becca was convinced she and Austin would be able to overcome adversity and get through a lot together. They had understanding and mutual respect at the core of their relationship so far.
Orion felt like he had failed Lauren and failed their marriage by his choice of words and being so careless with his delivery during the sex talk, but Lauren didn’t feel that way. The pair therefore Zoom chatted with Dr. Pia to try to work out their issues, and Lauren comforted and reassured Orion.
In turn, Orion asked Lauren not to elevate her tone or be so animated during their disagreements because it was a trigger for him.
Orion said he believed that Lauren’s sexual encounter two months prior didn’t have anything to do with her investment in or commitment to the process, and Dr. Pia advised the couple to start having fun.
That night, Cameron gathered with his fellow castmates at dinner — after discovering he had an ear infection — with a giant bouquet of red roses and yellow sunflowers for his wife. Clare thanked Cameron and called him “the bomb” because he had gone out of his way to make her happy.
Austin and Becca gushed about how they really liked each other and had a fabulous honeymoon, especially since they’re both very “weird,” and Brennan announced how he appreciated Emily for being herself and making the trip so much fun.
Emily, however, noted how she could be too sarcastic at times and needed to pay more attention to that in her marriage.
And Lauren announced how she was very sorry for her unintentional joke about Orion’s skin color and how she felt horrible for hurting her husband. Orion admitted in a confessional that Lauren’s joke “cut really deep” and it was the one thing he couldn’t stop thinking about.
Orion struggled to be vulnerable with the other couples about what had taken place, and he acknowledged how it was still a big obstacle for him in his marriage.
On Day 8 of marriage, Cameron was feeling better, and Clare shared how their communication had been lacking but things were getting better. Clare felt abandoned at one point and admitted that she had overreacted, but Cameron didn’t blame her at all for her reaction.
While Cameron and Clare were growing closer together, Orion and Lauren were growing apart.
A dialogue had opened up off-camera in which Orion confessed to Lauren that he wasn’t sure if he could come back from the offensive comment she had made in the hot tub. Orion apparently felt like a minority in his marriage.
“I definitely take ownership of what I said and the impact it has had on my marriage, but the repercussions are going to make me feel equally disconnected from the marriage,” Lauren explained in a confessional. “What a way to end the honeymoon.”
After Becca and Austin spoke about how they were excited to move in together, blend their lives, and show up for each other, Lauren started crying to Clare about how she could barely hold herself together.
“I heard him say that he felt like I didn’t have his back,” Lauren cried.
“There were things that happened to me where I was like, ‘I can give you grace… I know we are working through this,’ but for this, he was like, ‘No, you attacked my community and my culture.’ How many more ways can I say I’m sorry? I am researching and doing what I need to do to figure out how to navigate this.”
Clare thought Orion was being really hard on Lauren, especially when he allegedly told his wife that she was failing their marriage. Lauren felt extremely frustrated and sad, and she didn’t feel understood.
“We had this huge blowup where I was yelling and I asked for a divorce because he told me that he feels like I failed him and I failed the marriage. I took off my ring today because I was just so mad — so f-cking mad,” Lauren lamented to Clare.
“After losing my mom, this is the most difficult — physically and emotionally — thing that I have ever done in my life.”
Orion proceeded to share the story with Pastor Cal via Zoom, and he explained how the weight of Lauren’s joke had really started to bother him. He apparently felt both offended and violated by it.
Pastor Cal said he never anticipated this would be the couple’s conflict, given Lauren is a Black woman had also faced racism and ignorance in her life.
Orion said it was hard to accept Lauren’s apology because she had claimed he was lying about the way things played out. Orion said Lauren had threatened him with divorce and took her ring off, saying she was no longer attracted to him.
“That was a knee-jerk reaction to pain,” Pastor Cal told Orion.
Orion pointed out how Lauren clearly cared about him and they had built a great connection but her joke was still sitting unnaturally with him. Orion also said some of their exchanges got “explosive.”
Lauren then switched places with Orion to speak with Pastor Cal privately. Lauren felt like she absolutely had her husband’s back and had forgiven him for a couple of things, and so that accusation really hurt her feelings.
“It was a joke I never should have said, and yelling and taking the ring off — all of that was wrong… but it’s not that I’m not trying,” Lauren explained to Pastor Cal.
Pastor Cal asked Lauren flat out if she wanted a divorce, and she replied, “No, I was letting my passions override the goal of our marriage.”
Pastor Cal said this was way too heavy of a topic for the start of their marriage, and then he brought the couple together and asked them to fight through imperfection in order to be perfectly perfect for each other.
Lauren told Orion that she understood the magnitude of her ethnical slur and how it affected him, and so it bothered her when he’d clap back and say something like, “You don’t get it!”
Orion explained to Lauren, “I feel like you not only violated me and offended my culture, but I also feel like you offended my family. So there’s a lot more where it extends on my end. I have a whole community that I need to come back to, and they are going to have opinions about this, my mom included.”
Orion said Lauren’s comment had affected him on a very deep level and he wasn’t able to articulate himself because Lauren brought their arguments from “zero to 100.”
Lauren said she and Orion really hadn’t discussed the subject in depth yet but she was researching terms to avoid and also endearing terms to use. Orion, however, declared how that “unfortunately” wasn’t enough for him.
“I can’t get past what was said,” Orion admitted.
“So you cannot forgive her?” Pastor Cal asked.
“The second time I experienced that level [of racism] was with a very crude joke from you,” Orion told Lauren. “It is so sewn into who I am, how I grew up, and where I came from. I can’t do it.”
Lauren walked away in tears, saying she just needed a moment to compose herself. She was frustrated, thinking it didn’t matter what she did to try to correct or resolve the issue.
“I could write a 50-page essay and give a Powerpoint to the entire USA about derogatory terms in this nation, and it wouldn’t matter to him because it’s a ‘him’ thing,” Lauren vented. “There is nothing more I can do. There can’t be more remorse. There’s nothing I can do that I haven’t done.”
“Yeah,” Orion agreed. “I don’t know what more I can say to explain this, but I can’t move past this.”
Lauren had no idea where she and Orion were going to go from there.
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About The Author:
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.