‘Seven Year Switch’ Recap: “Fucking Get Your Shit Together, C**t”

The drama hit a high point last night on Seven Year Switch as the couples were reunited after two weeks with their “experimental partners”. They now have seven days before they make a decision on whether they want to stay together in the finale next week. It’s not going great.

The show opens with Ryan and Cassie. Ryan looks like a kid on Christmas Eve while he waits to see her and can barely contain his excitement. “I am so excited… so pumped… I can’t wait!” he says.

We wait for him to chill out for a while and, when they are reunited, Cassie is devs that Ryan hasn’t had the same mindfuck experience that she has. He has had a whole bunch of romantic experiences while Cassie was biting her nails imagining Ryan getting it on with Michelle. After an initial period of awkwardness, she admits that her imagination has been running away with her.

“I think I just… need a big hug,” she says.

Their scenes end with some shots of them smiling vacantly holding hands on the couch.

Meanwhile, Jason and Michelle try to mend the broken pieces of their seven-year relationship with an awkward reunion. Jason gives her a pretty terrible bracelet and throws around some catchphrases that he learned in therapy.

“I’ve been repeating ‘us’, ‘we’, ‘team’, ‘together’,” he says. Michelle laughs. “That’s great,” she says, in a way that makes it seem like it’s not great at all. Jason admits that he has had “very mixed reactions about the experiment”.

In their therapy session, Jason admits that he has realised he never actually shuts up and listens. In fact, he didn’t even know the most basic information about Michelle like what she wants to do as a career. “Yes, you do,” says Michelle. We cringe over and over, as he tries to come up with an answer. “Was that the cosmetic thing?”

Oh, Jason.

“I want to be a midwife,” Michelle says, immediately shutting him down. (Not even close, mate). She reminds him that they’d talked about it already and says there is “no way” they are going to have sex again anytime soon. All are in agreement that Jason needs to listen more, and stop telling Michelle what to do. “Then I won’t feel like you’re my dad,” Michelle says. Ouch.

In Melbourne, Tim is on his way home and he’s hoping he can get the “tattoo business” over with quickly with his real partner Jackie — but that’s only half of his problem. He still hasn’t told her about that time he got his dick out in the spa with his experimental partner Tallena. Or that time he jumped into bed with her briefly, again sans pants. When he arrives home to Jackie, he calls out: “aren’t you going to greet me?”

It doesn’t take long for Jackie to speak her mind. “I’ve cried every day for two weeks while you’ve had a fucking party,” she says. She’s angry that while she’s been moping around with only Brad for company, Tim has been getting matching terrible tattoos with Tallena. Tim didn’t realise that it would hurt Jackie, and tells her “I’ll get it lasered off then”.

Jackie gets over this pretty quickly despite telling everyone that they were “done” in the last episode. She starts making out with him in what looks like a walk-in wardrobe.

Later, Tim has found the time to broach the subject of his massage with Tallena. “Was someone holding a gun to your head and saying massage this other girl?” Jackie asks. Then, all seems to be forgiven when he offers her a massage instead. It doesn’t look particularly good but I guess it’s all about baby steps at this point.

Jackie seems to alternate between hating Tim and deciding that they are going to have a baby together. She meets with a friend and tells her “the passion is just back” in their relationship. Apparently they’d already tried for a baby “400 times in the last two days” since they were reunited. That’s a solid effort. But I guess they work out.

In their therapy session, Jackie is annoyed again at Tim changing the way he acts on camera in comparison to in their private life. “Around me, you’ve been bawling your eyes out,” she says before telling the therapists that he has been asking her for a baby. An argument ensues, in which Tim insists that he “got teary” which apparently is not the same as crying.

Tim’s attitude in the therapy session is worrying Jackie so she gives him some good advice: “Fucking get your shit together, c**t”. You would think all that babymaking would have calmed her down a bit.

Meanwhile, on her way home, Tallena is sad that she’s not in a better place with Brad. Last week he sent her an abusive letter in a moment of anger after finding out that she’d gotten into the spa with Tim. Tallena is “hurt and angry” and “insulted” that Brad has implied she’d be attracted to her experimental partner. Back at home, Brad seems to have missed his bird “Squish Squish” just as much as he missed Tallena.

Brad is clutching his “wedding notes” book almost as tightly as he is clutching onto the hopes of a happy ending with Tallena. He “knows” that she is ready for the wedding. “I missed you and I’m sorry,” he tells her. Good start, but Tallena can’t let go of the letter. “Just when I believed that you were changing, I got that letter,” she says.

She comes clean about the massage with Tim (one of the activities on the show they undertook to try to learn to be more affectionate). She also tells Brad that Tim got his dick out in the spa. “How fucking dare he?” Brad says while shaking his head. He is upset, but doesn’t have a tantrum this time. Meanwhile, Squishy is plotting escape, trying to steal Brad’s car keys on the sofa.

Brad is still full of remorse about his letter. “I regret every moment of it,” he says. Tallena doesn’t stay the night with Brad as she needs to think things through and get some “clarity”. The next day, Brad desperately tries to organise an extravagant belated birthday dinner for Tallena and insists that he will have the cheque waiting to pay for the rest of the wedding. Tallena calls him in the morning to say that she needs another day to think, and once again Brad massively overreacts, not responding when Tallena tells him she loves him.

“As far as I’m concerned, the wedding is off; if she wanted me, she would have been here,” Brad declares while storming around the room. He jumps in his car and zooms away up the street. Brad is clearly making great progress.

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