Tomer Drops a Bombshell About Laky, and the Stalemate Looks Unresolvable
Vicky Halmi and Omer Bar, Married at First Sight, Season 8 / Flow Photographers
Laky and Tomer. Laky feels like Tomer is too much in her pocket, just as he is growing weary of being in the pocket, and starts calculating escape routes. Imagine getting exactly what you asked for. She senses something is off, and copes with the tension in the air through frantic questions about the dress code at the nursery. Just to tease him a little, a trick she learned from the mischievous Reels guy. Tomer is also struck by a playful mood, and according to him he is not revealing all the surprises that lie ahead. I was already looking forward to the amazing musical harmony waiting for us among the potted plants, because what could possibly be surprising about a visit to a nursery? The answer is, indeed, nothing. Absolutely nothing. There was some moving controversy over the color of Tomer’s sunglasses, and from there, really, just plants. According to him, they need one large standing pot, and that is probably about as much sexual tension as we will see between them in the near future. With Laky, something does open up, she is apparently attracted to 0 existential motivation. A hand reaches for the nape of the neck, caresses, smiles, but from his side, nothing. They go home. He hauls a huge decorative piece into the living room, and that makes him feel like a “provider,” but Laky does not get to enjoy this bursting animality. He does have feelings, a “warm feeling,” he says, but maybe that is just his drive burning out.
The previews promised us that everything was about to turn upside down for Laky, and honestly, that is not surprising. In earlier episodes we already saw Tomer approaching the limit of his tolerance. Add to that the avoidant personality that appeared pretty early on, and with all due respect, I know how to recognize avoidant people, thanks to long training scrolling TikTok. In short, it was only a matter of time before he felt expected to do too much, shut down, and pull away. Not that Tomer is exactly a perpetual flame in day-to-day life, let’s say. For him, the difference between “feeling” and “not feeling” seems like little more than moving a switch a tiny bit, one notch up or down. Or maybe that is just a law of nature in dating in 2026. Statistically, he will brush you off right after taking you to pick out plants for the house. In a marvelous symbolic match, his rejection comes with an allergic attack. He does not know exactly to which plant, in my opinion botany calls it “emotional commitment.”
In the end, Laky spills it out, they have barely been on dates for two weeks and it feels as trivial as a year. It should be said, a year of a truly unsuccessful couple. It could have been a shocking moment if not for the two-year buildup of stammering, silences and awkwardness. Tell me, is there even editing on this show, or did the editors also go watch HaAkh? Suddenly I missed reports about missiles from Iran. On camera, in any case, Laky says more: there is no physical contact between them. Something is stuck. What is the root of the problem? To solve the issue and perform an X-ray scan, she calls in her gay friend, under the guise of a nice double date on a rooftop. In case Tomer had not felt judged enough by now, the couple tells him how much they hated all of Laky’s exes. Don’t worry, we like you here. For now.
Enough pleasantries, time for bathroom confessions: “What’s the deal? But are you trying? No? Then try harder.” Listen, I am obsessed with this friend. Really, could not you have brought a more respectful representation for Pride Week? It seems that a few other couples could also benefit from the presence of a friend with zero tolerance for bullshit. Tomer apparently feels they are trying to pull a fast one on him, so he simply drops the bomb, like that, in front of the cameras: I am not sexually attracted enough. Maybe this meeting would have been a good time to talk about orientation. Not that we support outing, but in a he-and-she relationship, what is going on there? She appeals to him, she is beautiful to him, she moves him, but not sexually. Tell me, is that not gay as death? Even Laky’s friend has no answers.
Vicky and Omer, in previous episodes, survived a terrible upheaval in which she discovered she is not good at everything. Barely a new day has begun and she is already managing to fight with him again, this time over the intercom code at the entrance to Canary specialist. She started pressing the code and he interrupted her halfway, thereby stealing from her even the victory in the realm of pressing numbers. This is a day marked by potted plants, and Kalanit brings them a gift like that, just to make sure the stale couple cliché is already on the table. But there are a few more things on the table this time. Oh dear, they are back to talking about the intercom. According to Kalanit, Omer has a tendency to immediately protect and say “everything is fine,” but that is a bit of a problem for Vicky, who wants to complain. Well, she is right. Omer suffers from cut-shirt syndrome, he is simply used to talking too much with boys. You hear it in his compliments, like “nice girl,” and in his inability to dodge traps even when they are visible from a kilometer away, with a giant sign that says “trap.” He steps on his own trap once they are already at home, where we thought we would not hear the word “intercom” anymore. Maybe I gave him points for emotional intelligence too early, because now he is laughing smugly at her hysterical reaction to the incident. Nice to meet you, Omer.
Despite all her craziness, Vicky is actually hitting the point: only she says what bothers her. She says a little too much, sure, but Omer says nothing at all. And that is also a huge problem. He always delivers his criticism with laughter, with joking around, a kind of way of saying without saying anything, which is only irritating, because what works with his old friends does not work with a woman he has just started dating. His apartment, he quickly discovers, will not work here either. Tell me, why do men live in bland apartments? Do you have no soul? This time Vicky expresses her protest through the dog, who tears apart Omer’s Pikachu doll from his ex, thereby sending a multilayered message of dissatisfaction. So Vicky’s apartment is the chosen one. Omer agrees without trouble; he is thrilled to indulge her whims with the urgency of a golden retriever, even after discovering he climbed three floors in the wrong building for nothing. All residents of Entrance B, I am calling you to order, when new people come to visit, stand outside the building, for fuck’s sake. Honestly. To think he went up, down, and up Olympus just to hear complaints about his sweat, and to discover he had arrived again at a Tel Aviv hole, only in Herzliya.
After a light sterilization, there is a friends meeting ahead of them. Omer’s brother comes for a visit, with his wife. Vicky is at her best, because they are dealing with what she likes most, herself, but in the background, for some reason, suspense music starts playing. Is that Yael through the door, ready to ask why they have not slept together yet? No, it is Omer’s brother, who said, or maybe did not say, that Vicky came to get famous. Tell me, are they messing with our heads? Rewinding the scene shows us Vicky saying she has indeed been on every reality show possible, and the others nod and smile. Actually, that does sound like someone who just wants to be famous. Good thing you shone a spotlight on that.
And what happened next, according to her, is that Omer added that she is hot and therefore does not need a matchmaking show. In her view, “that is the whole issue.” In the previous episode, by the way, music was the whole issue for her. I have a feeling every day of Vicky’s week has its own whole issue. “Physical appearance is an obstacle,” she sobs to Dr. Kalanit. Sorry, Vicky, we have been through enough as a people. We no longer have enough empathy to listen to people crying because they are too beautiful. And anyway, no one thinks you are just beautiful, everyone can see the problematic personality underneath. As a cherry on top of this beautiful whipped cream, it turns out Omer accidentally locked her out of the house. That is the final nail in the coffin Vicky had already ordered for him in advance. Let’s be honest, there is no annoyance like being locked out of your house. True, it was not intentional. It was a screw-up. But God, what a rotten screw-up. Dr. Kalanit is sure this is the time for the voice of reason, but he is absolutely not invited into this room. Kalanit, call it useless, call it slow, call it man-child, it is unbearable. I almost completely side with Vicky, until two new details are revealed to us: first, that Vicky posted a shaming selfie of Omer over the key incident. Please say that was only for Close Friends. And the second, no less serious, she gave him the only key to the apartment. It is not that he forgot the key stuck inside or something, no, she simply placed 200K of trust on him that no one asked for. Tell me, for God’s sake, who gives someone else a key without making a copy? Vicky does not give up, now she is also dragging his neglect of the plants into the mix. This relationship already looks catastrophic, but maybe, like a plant, it simply needs time and watering. Damn, Kalanit, it worked for you.
Noa and Ariel bring us another hot date in this episode: Noa and Ariel at IKEA. The place where couples go to die. Do not worry, Noa is already whispering into his soul, “let go.” A little Ashkenazi-style twerking, and the mind control is complete. They make themselves believe they are having fun and keeping it light. Noa is making her best efforts to convince us too that everything is really, really fine. Unfortunately, Ariel, her partner, is a little too authentic. American as he may be, it is hard to keep up the act when every shared ride means being scolded for being too quiet, or too loud, or too breathy, all in fifty shades of passive-aggressive. I am not really sure whether it is the grief or just her, but Noa’s moods are terrifying. I have no other word for it. The mania comes after the event, which of course was not filmed, because why would it be. The family liked him, she says, so now she does too. And there she launches into her usual monologue, reserved for the most severe city lovers, about how much she can trust him, there are no words for it. After telling him pretty much to his face that a phone ringing makes her think about suicide, she urges him to just call her. Ariel wants to answer honestly but cannot find the words. “I struggle to feel comfortable to...” existed? Is that the word? Not that Ariel’s level of comfort really matters, Noa has received another social approval stamp for Ariel’s legitimacy, and now she can parade him in front of friends, model perfect couplehood, and whisper lines into his ear in case he forgets. Like the gold leaf in her food, this relationship is also decorated with lots of glitter that obscures the content. At least there is some. Noa Mozes, that we will not take away from you, plot, you know how to deliver.
