An urgent warning is issued to the contestants of Farmer Wants A Wife on Sunday night after another teary-eyed city girl is blindsided by the news she’s required to live on an actual farm.
Apparently everyone signed up for the show thinking it was just a cute title and nothing more – a mere suggestion of an aesthetic, if you will. Kinda like when you look in the Harvey Norman catalogue and see a funky tan leather sofa called The Brooklyn. Buying said sofa does not mean you then have to move to Brooklyn.
Anyway, the drama comes to a head at a boozy bush bash where host Sam Armytage is forced to deliver a PSA: Farmer Wants A Wife involves farms.
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Tonight’s episode is a tale with Shakespearean undertones. It’s about two hot people whose romance is obstructed by perhaps one of the most antagonistic forces: a boring remote town.
Susie and Farmer Joe have been digging each other for about a week now. But lately, when they kiss, Susie’s distracted. You can see it in her eyes. There’s a secret lurking: She hates farms.
“I have been really starting to question how I feel about farm life,” she confides in us. “The farm work is not super enjoyable. I am really struggling with the effect that’s having on me and my mind. And thinking about how that would affect me and my happiness long term. It’s weighing on my mind.”
She thought all she’d have to do on this show is wear a fun cowboy hat and sexy cut-off jorts. No one said anything about actually living on a farm. It’s not like Beyonce gave up her Bel-Air mansion just because she sang some country songs on Cowboy Carter.
Looking around the barn that is now her living room, Susie starts hyperventilating. Never before has she felt so isolated. She starts longing for the life she left behind. A life that involves going to Barry’s Bootcamp just for the smoothie bar. A life filled with same-day deliveries from The Iconic.
Later that night, at a drunken bush bash in a random paddock, Susie shares her confession with one of the other city girls.
“The more things we do, the more I recognise that that’s not the lifestyle for me,” she says. “I just don’t know what to do.”
The free booze has already started flowing, so her confession isn’t really heard.
Meanwhile, Joe’s telling the other farmers that Susie’s the perfect girl for him.
“I can see myself falling in love with her,” he swoons.
On cue, producers shove Susie over to crush Joe’s heart.
“You love your horses and you love your farm and you love where you are,” she begins. “You deserve someone who is sure about that lifestyle. And it would be really disingenuous for me to stay. I’ve tried and I realised I don’t like it.”
Joe sighs. “That’s … disappointing.”
Susie then decides to whip out some melodramatic dialogue she read in an old Home And Away script that was left on the back seat of one of the production vehicles.
“I needed to try for ME. And now I need to leave for YOU,” she sobs.
We vom into our Akubras.
If this were real love, Joe would follow Suse to the city and relocate his farm to the rooftop garden of a Meriton skyscraper. But he’s not interested. In a huff, he gathers the rest of the girls and lays down the law.
“I want everyone here to really think about that – if it’s something you truly want,” he grunts. “Because the farm is an extension of me. It’s my life. It’s where I want to be. And that won’t change about me at all.”
The girls try hard to mask their horror.
Then the show’s host Samantha Armytage makes an urgent midnight appearance to scold the girls with a stern warning about Farmer Wants A Wife involving farms.
“When you marry a farmer, you marry the farm,” she declares.
Susie is promptly escorted to a LandCruiser and driven to the nearest airfield. From there, she catches a Rex flight back to her studio apartment in the big smoke, where she probably owns a funky tan leather couch called The Brooklyn.
Facebook: @hellojamesweir