Married at First Sight Recap: Final Couple Divorces in All-Time Least Successful Season

Married at First Sight just proved what Mile High residents have insisted for years: Denver really is the worst city in which to find love.

Decision Day in episode 23 showed Michael choosing to divorce his wife, Chloe, even though she wanted to remain married to him. This ended the final remaining couple in a record-breakingly tumultuous season — the first (and possibly last) of the reality series to take place in Denver.

For the first time in the show’s seventeen-season run, none of the marriages lasted until the reunion episodes. While a handful of other seasons saw all the couples split after filming, this is the only season to lose every match before the cameras cut. This season also saw the first instance of a contestant being left at the altar, as well as one of the shortest marriages in the show’s history when a couple divorced after thirteen days.

Chloe and Michael’s harmonious relationship looked like it could save Denver from its bad reputation, but the pair fell apart at the last minute. Now, we can only hope that Love is Blind will redeem the Mile High City when its Denver-based season comes out.

Here's what happened on the “Second Time's the Charm?” episode of Married at First Sight, which aired on March 27:

Chloe and Michael
Our last hope for a successful pairing went up in flames on Decision Day. While Chloe chose to continue the marriage, Michael opted for divorce. He said their goals were too different, referring to Chloe's ambitions to open an animal sanctuary and foster children. Chloe suggested that her plans could be adjusted, saying even if their goals aren't the same she "can’t imagine my life without" Michael. But in the end, Michael wasn't ready for the commitment.

This devastated the show's hosts, who fruitlessly tried to talk the couple into staying together, telling Michael he was overanalyzing things and they should fight for the relationship here and now. "When you talked about Chloe, you started to glow!" the show's therapist said, desperately trying to salvage just one couple this season.

The hosts emphasized how Michael insisted he was ready for marriage after his first match left him at the altar at the beginning of the season, agreeing to be matched again for a second shot at matrimony. Michael recognized the disconnect, too, saying, “You strive to be this person but in this defining moment, you’re not that person. At least not yet.”

Chloe and Michael agreed that they think the other person is perfect and their divorce doesn't change how they feel. Chloe said she hopes Michael will remain in her life in some capacity — but not as a boyfriend. “I don’t want to waste any time building a relationship with someone who’s not ready to reciprocate what I need," she said.

Everyone Else
Nineteen days after everyone else's Decision Day, the divorcees got together for their last group hangout, sans Brennan, Clare and Cameron. They all confirmed that they're still broken up and, judging by the hostility in the room, that's not changing anytime soon.

Lauren revealed to the group that she shut down Orion's attempts to forge a friendship out of their failed thirteen-day marriage, and Emily said she has no intention of befriending her ex-husband, either. “You guys cut our process short," Emily said to the men in the group. "You decided the trajectory of everything and we had no shot.”

Orion argued that he "didn’t cut anything short" by divorcing his wife after less than two weeks. And Austin said he "did my best to try to make" him and Becca work. But the women feel they spent the show prioritizing their marriages above all, while the men were too concerned with protecting their reputations. “At the end of the day, it feels like the women came armed and ready to make these marriages work," Becca said. "That level of commitment was not matched by the men.”

Bonus
Before everything went to hell, Chloe and Michael stopped by Denver's Adobo restaurant in March 2023, owner Blaine Baggao tells Westword. The show asked Adobo to cook for the couple to show Chloe some of Michael's Filipino culture, Baggao says.

"Chloe was really kind and curious about Filipino food. Michael and I connected on our Filipino-American ethnicity and what it meant for me to represent my culture through cooking," he says. "They were both very down to earth and I really enjoyed cooking for them."

The pair ordered vegan versions of the lumpia, kare-kare and sinigang, Baggao says — in case you want to experience reality TV dining for yourself.

Westword will continue its Married at First Sight coverage when the first reunion episode airs on April 10. But if you care to watch contestants from former seasons talk about their failed marriages, tune in to the next episode on Wednesday, April 3.