In defence of Collins, Married at First Sight's weirdest unit.

I've watched enough seasons of reality TV to see straight through an edit. 

And Collins might not be perfect, this man is getting one hell of a bad edit on Married at First Sight.

After Sunday's commitment ceremony aired, MAFS memes flooded my feed roasting Collins' antics.

On X (formerly Twitter), people posted their dismay at Collins' overly dramatic demeanour on the couch. 

"I have never seen such bad acting in my life," one posted.

#MAFSAU #MAFS

Jesus, I thought Jack was hard to watch, but Collins pretending to be shocked and upset about Natalie writing “leave” is next level uncomfortable. Tone it down mate - this isn’t your Home & Away audition. pic.twitter.com/GFJoCqUkVq

— Elspeth Johnston (@SpethJ) February 11, 2024

Mamamia recapper Chelsea McLaughlin referred to Collins' commitment ceremony stint as a "terrible performance... Someone needs to package that all up and send it to the Razzies."

This was the overwhelming consensus — and I get it. Collins is a weird unit. But there's something more to his edit, and it started from the beginning. 

From the second he met bride Natalie, judgement was already being cast when he forgot her name. After referring to her as 'Nikki', a producer had to correct Collins.

As someone who forgets or mixes up basically every name I'm ever told — especially if it's a common or forgettable name (sorry to all the Amandas and Laurens out there) — I don't see the big deal with this.

Then there was a honeymoon scene, where Collins was filming a confessional talking about his feelings for Natalie that got interrupted by a chicken, which was played off as being Collins not taking the experiment seriously.

I repeat.

HIS CONFESSIONAL GOT INTERRUPTED BY A CHICKEN.

That's just very funny. And if it happened to one of the other grooms (say Tristan or Richard), it would have been portrayed as a hilarious moment.

But not for Collins.

No, the vibe around Collins has been one of suspicion.

@mafs Why'd the chicken cross the interview? To buy Collins some time 🤷‍♀️ #MAFS #MarriedAtFirstSight #MAFSAU #funny #fyp ♬ original sound - Married At First Sight

Last year's most misunderstood groom, Jesse Burford, has now come out to defend Collins. After Sunday's episode, Jesse posted, "Justice for Collins. This edit is f**ked up," in an Instagram story.

In a since-deleted comment, Jesse wrote that Collins was "horrified and saddened with his time on the show" as he felt like he was "railroaded, set up and backstabbed by producers and the experts", Jesse alleged.

Jesse referred to the groom as "one of the nicest, kindest, friendliest blokes I’ve met" and added that he "doesn’t deserve", to be seen in a negative light. 

This brings us to Sunday's commitment ceremony. 

Make no mistake, Collins acted super weird. His responses felt unnatural and he made bizarre statements about wanting to "do life" with Natalie. But without knowing Collins' personality outside of the experiment, can we rightly say he's being fake?

This is a judgement of a person we don't know. We don't know how he acts away from the cameras. And we've done this before. Back in season five, Troy Delmege seemed so over-the-top that viewers started to suspect he was a trained actor. 

But as the series unfolded it turned out that... he was just Troy. He was a unique person.

And it must be said: two grooms arguably exhibited worse traits than Collins on Sunday's episode.

WATCH: Chelsea McLaughlin's red and green flags from last week. 

@mamamiaaus Ha ha ha what a day. It's red flags vs. green flags (and every flag in between) from MAFS this week #mafs #mafsaustralia #marriedatfirstsight #marriedatfirstsightaustrailia ♬ original sound - Mamamia

Jack was waving a red flag on the couch the whole time. When he sat down with Tori, he essentially told the experts that he was happy they gave him a submissive bride, as Tori sat there silently.

"There's always going to be the challenge of finding someone for me because I'm quite traditional," Jack said. "I like to lead, I like to provide and be the man. But it's happened naturally, I haven't had to force anything on Tori." 

Grosssssss.

In the same episode, Jayden spoke about how he arranged for an ex-girlfriend to watch while he had sex with her friend as an act of revenge. Viewers had already seen as he confessed this to Eden and immediately told her he "didn't regret" basically using one living, breathing woman as a weapon against another. 

It's a little bizarre that Collins became the episode's biggest talking point from a commitment ceremony that platformed both Jack and Jayden's god-awful behaviour.

And if you ask me, there was actually some truth to what Collins said. A truth that was quickly dismissed by expert John Aiken.

Collins brought up how Natalie's grief had affected their time together. It's worth remembering Natalie's father died five weeks (yes weeks, not months) before her wedding — a wedding she had hoped her dad would attend.

"Nat's grief — the grief that she's feeling — has been a huge part of this experiment. Nat and I can't string two or three days together where she's present in this experiment," Collins told the experts.

Collins on the commitment ceremony couch. Image: Nine. 

Natalie clarified that she felt she had been present in the experiment.

Aiken then said he wanted to put "grief aside" when discussing their relationship. Collins butted in "I'm sorry, but I don't agree with you. You can't just put grief aside — this is a huge factor."

This didn't go down well, as Aiken gave Collins a stern talking-to in response.

On one hand, it's not cool to be disrespectful to the experts. On the other hand, someone who lost their dad a mere month ago would almost certainly not be in the best headspace to start a relationship, let alone film a reality show about it.

This is a huge factor. 

We've seen Natalie become emotional a lot throughout the experiment and while part of that is due to her struggle to connect with Collins, a lot of that could speak to her emotionally fragile state following the loss of her father.

Do I think Collins is an innocent party in all this? Not at all.

Do I think he's particularly romantically interested in Natalie? Ah, no. Or if he is, he has a bizarre way of showing it.

The man has never been in a relationship so he might not know how to navigate rejecting someone and he's overacting to overcompensate.

As someone who has auditioned for a previous season, Collins has likely watched the show before and would know that if he's too upfront with his true feelings, he could not only hurt Nat but will look bad on TV.

"I feel like he's just giving me the answers he thinks I want to hear," Nat shared on the couch on Sunday. 

This isn't great but it's also... human.

All in all, it's hard to know what Collins — a man who was unknown to most of us mere weeks ago — is thinking. But it concerns me that people are so eager to fill in the blanks.

Feature image: Nine.