Review: Sister Wives Season Finale: S08Ep07 Divorce

This was not an easy episode to watch.

Even though I knew the outcome, and a little bit of the reasoning why, I was still shell-shocked by the end of the episode.

If I, a relatively seasoned snarker older than black pepper can be moved, can you imagine what Meri must have been thinking and feeling?

No wonder she tweeted about having dizzy spells.

This divorce may have been ratings gold, but it had to rank at the bottom of all time worse ideas for a story arc in a reality show on polygamy.

This is not the face of a woman who willingly gave up her legal marriage for another woman's children who are less than 5 years away from being legal adults.




What could have prompted such a drastic action to a problem many monogamist families face each day...the adoption of a spouse's children from a previous marriage?

There had to be alternatives. This is the 21st century, in the most powerful nation in the world. Are you telling me this was the ONLY solution to their problem? For Meri willingly to give up her only leverage in a family consisting of three other wives, vying for the attention of a narcissistic joke masquerading as a father to 13 children he sired with 3 different women but barely has time to spend with them (I've excluded King Sol)? A solution we find out may not even work if the ex-husband refuses to give up his parental rights? Or if the request is thrown out of court?

What the heck is going on here?

Well, let's take a look back a season ago. After the letdown of the commitment ceremony, TLC was hard pressed to improve the ratings of Sister Wives, a show whose ratings had gone straight into the toilet...

I imagine Kody and Krew were called into an executive's office to discuss the future of the show. I even imagine he was given three different choices.

Choice One: Kody starts courting a "fifth" wife. Maybe even marry her. Or better yet, court her, and get left at the altar when the bride suddenly gets "cold feet."

Choice Two: Wife #4  finally gets pregnant. The Original Three Wives could be shown going through their own emotional turmoil knowing that Robyn and Kody are still doing the wild thang together, resulting in yet another mouth to feed.

Choice Three: Meri "approaches" Kody and in the ultimate display of marital sacrifice and love (straight out of the Big Love playbook) she gives up her legal status by divorcing Kody, allowing him to marry the lithesome Robyn "for the sake of her children."

Now, we know Choice One would be vetoed by Robyn. She is too determined to be the final wife of Kody. She is also batshit crazy, and Kody knows it, and doesn't want to wake up one morning minus a body part or two.

Choice Two was most likely the winner, but, alas, mother nature was not kind to the now middle aged Robyn. When she didn't get pregnant on cue last year, TLC was put into a bad position. That season's finale showed her running for a phone call. A classic cliff-hanger.

The cloying smirk on her face at the end of the episode did not endear her to audiences.



The last segment of last season's Tell All was supposed to be about Kody and Robyn and their baby plans, but Christine royally screwed that up by suddenly walking off the set. By the time the Tell All filming resumed, Robyn had already informed Tamron Hall there was to be no mention of her plans for another baby with Kody. The displeasure on Robyn's face was extremely noticeable as the credits rolled.

Robyn was not amused.

That left only Choice Three, and TLC ran with it no doubt with Kody's blessings. I believe Kody persuaded Meri to file for divorce to save the show. The audience would be told it was to change Robyn's kids names to Brown so they would finally be accepted and Meri would get the Martyr edit. But, after the Sister Wives ratings plummeted   into no man's land the first half of this  season, even more drastic steps had to be undertaken, quickly.

Most likely, a decision was made to "leak" the divorce to the public on social media. On 1/21/15, seventeen days after the lack-luster mid-season premiere, a solitary question popped up on Bonnie Fuller's gossip site. Ten days later, on 1/31/15 all hell broke loose when someone brought to the attention of their fellow members on a Facebook group that Meri and Kody had divorced in September and a reporter just happened to be present in the group and was able to put it out on the internet.

With the divorce now made public, viewers tuned in record numbers and the ratings for the last two shows of the season soared to new heights. TLC proudly announced Sister Wives would return for another season. Well, of course the show will return. That was the point of Choice Three - get people to start watching again.

So, even though this "situation" was a retread from Big Love, it still worked as planned.

Photo HBO

Now, the problem I have with Choice Three is simple. 

Nikki Grant's character on Big Love was  one the audience "Loved to Hate."

Robyn, on the other hand, is a reality show "personality" that the majority of  the audience simply does not like. She even acknowledged on Twitter recently that she has a lot of "haters", which she can't understand.

Apparently, Robyn watches Sister Wives while wearing heavy duty blinders. And it certainly doesn't help her cause when,  if the Tweet offends her (i.e., is not complimentary to her), she will "block" it from her sight. If anything, her ignorance of the world we monogamists live in is laughable. She needs to wake up and smell the coffee (or postum) percolating.

So how, exactly, did Meri's sister wives and soon to be ex-husband react to her decision? Here's my take how it all went down...





Meri conveniently told Robyn and Kody  together first.

Kody kept the same befuddled look he's become famous for, I call it the "Duh???" sneer...






Robyn, on the other hand, must have taken some acting lessons. Notice how she deftly manages a wide range of emotion on her face...no doubt prompted by a producer's cue here and there....

Robyn: (thinking) What? Does this mean what I think it means?

Producer: (off camera) Robyn can you start crying please? We want some tears....

Robyn: (making little grunt sounds as she tries to squeeze out a tear) Oooh....

Robyn: (looks over at Kody: Are the tears in my eyes yet?)

Kody: (gives her his duh look and signals: Try harder Robyn, your eyes are still dry!)

Robyn: (turns back to Meri thinking this is as good as it gets with the tears, sorry!)

 Robyn: (thinking, boy my lips are dry, wish I brought my chapstick)

Robyn: (oh hell, I'll just lick them)

 Robyn: (Wait for it, wait for it....yes! Here comes the tear!)


Producer: Robyn, run and hug Meri now...Kody just sit there and look useless.

Producer: EXCELLENT! The audience will love this!!!









Christine and Janelle were next to be told the news.

Christine: (thinking) Say whut??

Christine: (thinking) Does this mean, finally, Kody will legally marry me next?

Christine: (thinking) Oh yes, pretty please? We can all honeymoon at Disneyland!

Christine: (thinking) WHAT???

NO NO NO THIS CAN'T BE!

I'M THE MERI! ROBYN'S THE RHODA!

Producer: Hey Christine, can you run over and hug Meri?




Christine: (whispering to Meri) What have you done? If anything happens to Kody, that sow will leave us out in the cold! This is terrible!!!!

I'll never see Disneyland again!

While Christine was busy emoting, Janelle had this strange look on her face.

In fact, this look remained on her face throughout Meri's announcement.

Janelle: (thinking) You've got to be friggin' kidding me...

Robyn: (thinking) Janelle ain't buyin' it...Damn! Better try to cry now...

Janelle: (thinking) Great way to let that fox into the henhouse Meri. What a friggin' mess...

Janelle: (thinking) Oh Lord, what has Meri done to us???

Janelle: (thinking to herself) You may have won this battle, Robyn, but you HAVE NOT WON THE WAR!!!

And with that, Janelle quickly exited the scene.


She did not pass go. She did not collect $200, and she certainly didn't say a word to Meri or Robyn.

She simply walked out...

A day later, Janelle met with Kody to express her feelings. Kody put on his best "Duh" look while she expressed her concern that this divorce and marriage will "change the dynamic" of their family.

Janelle was particularly impressive when she told Kody (despite his frequent interruptions)  how she was " ...  worried that somehow this will mean that you somehow start favoring Robyn ..."

Of course Kody tried to deflect her concern by asking Janelle if she was worried that he and Robyn would "...ride off  [together] into the sunset..." Yep, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that possibility looming on the horizon. And his weak assurance to her that nothing will change did not help to assuage her ill-feelings about this divorce's effects on the Original Three.

Good for Janelle to finally be the tiny voice of reason in this mostly irrational situation. Because in Robyn's talking head, she did vocalize what most likely was lurking in the back of the Original Three sisterwives' minds - "...I've seen plural families where [a] husband dies and a first wife or the legal wife has responsible for his estate. And I've seen some women abuse that."  YIKES!!!

This coming from the mind of a woman who thinks blocking people on Twitter is a sport. Who preached to her bonus children about Purity and how she gave it up because "...He begged for it." This is the woman who loved to throw it into the Original Three faces (as well as the faces of her bonus children ) that "A baby is a physical manifestation that there is an intimate relationship between a husband and wife."

Look at her hair! She has morphed herself into being a blonde, just like the Original Three!

She has used the last five years to set herself up to be the perfect plural wife, looking down her nose at monogamist women as if they were "boils on the butt of humanity", when in fact, this was her first time at the polygamist rodeo.




Be afraid, Meri, Christine and Janelle. Be very afraid.*

When Meri, and Kody (with  Robyn tagging along as a "witness") convened at the attorney's office to sign the divorce papers, after almost 25 years of being legally married to Meri how did Kody show his appreciation to an obviously distraught Meri?

He kissed her on the head and said "Thanks."








The audience is not stupid. They can see what's going on: The façade the Brown's have haphazardly built to hide behind is slowly but surely being chipped away.

So even though there was probably a hundred different solutions that could have been played before divorce, the Kody Krew opted for the one that they thought would show the world just how unfair laws and courts are towards polygamists.

Unfortunately for Kody, this divorce just proved exactly WHY those laws are in place. To protect the innocent, in this case three teenage children, from being wrenched away from a parent without due process of law, in order to improve the ratings on a ridiculous reality show.

And as the credits rolled, Robyn reminded the audience that there are still two more obstacles to overcome: Her ex-husband giving up his parental rights, and a court judge approving Kody's request to adopt Robyn's children.

To be continued next season...



* (I wish to thank Steel Magnolias, Mommy Dearest and The Fly for the quote inspirations and TLC for the pics)

Double Review: S08Ep05 Anthropologists Move In and Ep06 First A Verdict, Then a Lawyer

But first, an essay...

For some reason, this season of Sister Wives seemed a little off. And then less than a month ago, the stunning news was leaked that not only did Kody and Meri get a divorce, Kody then legally married Robyn, his fourth wife a short three months later.





So when the producers and TLC try to cutsey up episodes with the umpteenth road trip to no where in particular, or meeting the newest polygamist to come out of his sister wife's closet, jaded viewers like myself roll our eyes wondering "When is this all going to end?"

Kody not owning up to anything...

 The Happy Kody Brown Family façade is melting like that infamous makeup job on Kody from a few seasons back.

What the hell are these people thinking? Have the Producer's lost touch on what the majority of the audience wants to see? Even the ficticious "Big Love" was better than this reality crap being served on a cracker, and face it, when it became apparent that "Big Love" had irrevocably lost it's way, HBO quickly severed its ties and brought in a new show...called "Broadwalk Empire" to fill that time spot.

I don't think it's all the Producer's fault, after all, they also produce the mostly harmless 19 Kids and Counting reality show featuring The Duggars.

But unlike the Duggars, as Sister Wives progressed season after season, it has regressed into a primordial ooze of fake histrionics featuring at it's center, an overbearing, narcissistic, man-child incapable of feeling any empathy for any of his wives. Or, as Kody explained to the latest plyg on the block Nathan Collier, that his wives have to be responsible for their own emotional state. He can't "...own the whole thing."

Well of course Kody can't "own the whole thing." Of course he can't claim responsibility for his wive's emotional state, even though his actions (or rather inaction through ignoring  his wives and children) are the main CAUSE of discord in his wives emotional state.

That's like a serial killer telling the judge and jury, "It's not my fault I killed those people. The victims should have stayed away from me, or run faster.  I can't own the whole thing."

And the kicker is, the show is called Sister Wives. So why are we listening to Kody's phony baloney speech about HIM? We want to hear from his SISTER WIVES!

So who's to blame for this mess called Sister Wives? I'm laying the blame down at Kody Brown's sandaled dirty feet. I would put the blame on his shoulders but I don't want to hurt King Sol who seems to be permanently affixed up there.

Sister Wives should have been about Sister Wives, and not about Kody Brown. And now instead of Kody owning up to why HE chose to legally restructure his family, we have a brand new storyline of Meri saying she's been thinking about D.I.V.O.R.C.E since five years ago. I bet during that low point of Meri's marriage to Kody that she mentioned in her chapter of Becoming Sister Wives.

You know, when Kody started "courting" Robyn.



We can only hope that whatever scripted story comes out in the next season, at least some semblance of true reality will peek through the inevitable Sturm und Drang the audience will have to endure.



Double Review: S08Ep05 Anthropologists Move In and Ep06 First A Verdict, Then a Lawyer

Or..."What are we, Monkeys?"

Ah, from the mouths of babes...






Thus spoke Robyn's son Dayton after Kody  announced two anthropology students would be living with them for four days in order to observe their family.

Now to be fair, at no time did Kody, or Dr. Jankowiak mention that this was to be a formal "study" of polygamy. In fact, Dr. Jankowiak made it fairly clear this would be a " wonderful opportunity for students who have never experienced this lifestyle to actually see it..."

And it's a whole lot easier to drive a couple of miles to the cul-de-sac, rather than driving all the way to Centennial Park or Colorado City/Hildale. Plus, the accomodations would be better, and they will be on television, too!

What grad student would turn down an opportunity like this?

Later at a meeting with Kody and his Kody-pendents©, the grad students laid down some guidelines, such as "Don't treat us like a guest." What was interesting was how Christine found her voice again and didn't call the grads sharks. In fact, she welcomed them with open polygamist arms. "Everyone that comes into our home we treat like a guest" she explained.

Of course, Robyn the eventual Usurper got hooked up on the fact Richard (the male grad student) was an atheist, while Janelle was worried about the awkwardness of having someone in her space for four days with no downtime.



Are you still an effective team, Christine?

And later in the couch interview, I think Christine has watched the movie Oblivion one too many times when she mentioned she was worried the grads would not confirm that the four parental units were effective.

I almost expected a drone to come flying onto the set, ominously beeping and scanning the Brown Krew with lasers.




On the first day, Kody warmly greeted Antoinette and Richard in his "compound" otherwise known as the cul-de-sac. He then took them on a guided tour of each of his McMansions. Once situated in their rooms and shared bathroom at Meri's house, the Duo began their task of observing the Browns in action.

While Antoinette helped the women folk in the kitchen, Richard joined the men folk for some rough horseplay which ended with Richard's glasses getting broken.

Later, Richard helped Kody move hay bales ominously close to the barbeque grill for some reason. That's a sore point for me, as it was apparent this was a "set up" scene, punctuated with a grill inferno that had to be manmade. I'm surprised a neighbor didn't call the fire department. That fire was huge!

The food offering prank was another sore point. It seemed to me the Browns were making fun of their visit with the Richard Family in Missouri, who would have to wait until father Nathaneal took his first  bite of food before being allowed to eat.

Isn't it funny how whenever the Browns have someone staying with them over a weekend, Kody always has a Church of Dad service?

The grad students were no exception, and they noticed some of the older Brown kids were missing from the service. Kody tried to explain their absence in the couch interview but the excuses (rock climbing with friends, homework, etc) just shows how little influence Kody has as the Priesthood holder of his family.  And in the couch interview with those missing kids we found out that Logan doesn't think of himself as religious, that Mykelti and Hunter think it's great that Maddie has made the choice to become LDS, and that Aspyn will probably go LDS, too. Good job with the Church of Dad, Kody!

The intervention with Maddie had to be the worse. Maddie  decided to join mainstream LDS, and had been "told" not to associate herself with her Church of Dad Sunday services. Being confronted (actually ganged up) on film by her mother and father plus three bonus moms was uncalled for and seemed vicious. Frankly, the discussion should have been between father, mother and daughter. The other three interlopers should have been paying attention to their own families. For instance, Christine, exactly WHY wasn't Aspyn at the Church of Dad service? And Meri, couldn't Mariah have called in and listened to her Dad's service on speakerphone?

But I have to disagree with Antoinette on her observation that this "intervention" in some way was the parental Browns allowing Maddie to find her own path. Especially when those parental units thought that Maddie's decision was not her own, that she was influenced by outside forces like peer pressure or, heaven forbid, a guy.

Shame on the Browns for doing this on film to Maddie.

And then the farce of the "family" going to the movies. Again, it was obvious this was not a regular outing, that Kody had no idea who his children were, or their ages ( turn around and LOOK at them, fool!). He was just lost.

The cherry on the sundae of this fiasco was the fight between Gabriel and his bigger brother Garrison in the parking lot.

Yep, the last time these two got into it in a parking lot, Gabriel bloodied Garrison's nose. Three years later, we find out nothing has changed.



Seems to me Kody and Janelle still have not improved their parenting skills. And yes, Janelle, you should be embarrassed and devastated that you have two boys who prefer to physically fight each other over something so mundane as calling shotgun on the front seat.


So that's how Episode 5 ended.

Episode 6 began with Kody's Kangaroo Kourt Trial of Garrison vs. Gabriel.

I'll cut to the chase. Paedon "testified" that Gabriel threw the first blow. Gabriel lied. Janelle and Kody were shocked. Gabriel looked like he was going to cry. Garrison looked like he didn't give a damn.

I'm not surprised because this is what happens when you have two dolts who think misbehavior is due to hormones (just like what happens when kissing). Maybe, just maybe the real reason behind the misbehavior was due to these two boys seeing their father spend more time with his new spiritual wife five years ago when they lived in Lehi, then having their lives torn apart when their father decided to uproot the entire family for Las Vegas. With Kody further ignoring them when King Sol was born.

And to have this played out on a reality show was just sickening. Boo on Janelle and Kody!

Next up, Antoinette and Richard went to visit Christine and her mother Annie. Now for those of you who don't know this, let's take a look at Annie's roots, so to speak.

Her father is Floren LeBaron, a member of the LeBaron polygamist group centered in Mexico. Her uncles were Joel LeBaron, a polygamist prophet who was murdered by his brother Ervil LeBaron, and Verlan LeBaron, husband to authors Irene Spencer (wife #2 and author of Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife) and Susan Ray Schmidt (who married Verlan when she was 15, author of Favorite Wife: Escape from Polygamy).

Annie married Rex C Allred, the son of Rulon C Allred who was the first leader of the Apostolic United Brethren (AUB) the church the Brown Family are members. Her uncle Ervil had Rulon C Allred assassinated (blood atoned) in 1977. That's right. Her paternal uncle murdered her father-in-law.

And none of this was mentioned.

What was brought up, very fleetingly, was the fact that when Annie spoke about divorcing Christine's father (she was his first wife) she told Antoinette and Richard that she left the religion but NOT polygamy. Was this followed up by the anthropological dynamic duo? No, not really. And that was too bad because the editing of this segment was confusing as to what exactly happened when Annie left her marriage.

Now, I didn't see this episode until long after the news about Kody and Meri getting divorced became public. But now I wonder if, maybe, this short little discussion about divorce ( Meri and Kody's divorce had to have occurred when the episodes were filmed) was a little sneak preview of things to come. You can almost hear a producer whispering "let's throw out the "D" word to show  the audience that divorce is normal in their religion".

Guess what. It didn't work. And divorce may happen in the AUB but I'd hardly say it was common or that a husband would give the excuse he was legally restructuring his family after he legally married his 4th wife.

When Antoinette and Richard eventually made it over to Meri's house, the conversation drifted to the problems Meri had with her sisterwives, particularly Janelle. Meri did not look happy and her conversation illustrated, at least for me, why there are 4 houses. She told them she was cordial with Janelle, but I got the feeling if Janelle was on fire, Meri would not make the effort to piss on her to put the fire out.

Some other interesting observations were the discussion of Kody's obvious preference of King Sol over the rest of his children. Confronted by Antoinette, Robyn tried to concoct a story that Kody tailored his interactions with his other children based on that child's comfort level.




Then she contradicted herself by further explaining the reason Kody was with King Sol so much was because Kody was cuddling the toddler after his dental surgery.

Whatever, Robyn. I guess the fact that almost 99% of the pictures generated show Kody with Sol firmly planted on top of his shoulders doesn't mean a thing.



And surely Robyn has seen the audience wondering if King Sol could even walk. Well, if she hadn't blocked them first, that is.

Of course, was anyone really surprised when Mariah announced that she no longer wanted to be a medical doctor and was now pursuing a Physician's Assistant degree?






Or that Kody shoved Christine's face in the fact that they did not have a long courtship by flippantly saying how having a long courtship enables the couple to really know if they are compatible with each other and that he wanted all his children to have long courtships.

The irony of this was in the first season of Sister Wives, Kody mentioned that he had a very long courtship with Robyn because she lived so far away. No wonder Christine blew a gasket. It was the same misstep Kody committed with the chili cheese nachos incident with Christine. And Robyn should have kept her big nose out  of the conversation. Period.


The debriefing of Antoinette and Richard with Professor Jankowiak was unnecessary. If anything, it looked like just another scripted moment to show the Sister Wives  fans hey they are just normal people after all. That there was no favoritism, that Kody spent the same amount of time with each wife and child, blah blah blah...

This was definitely a scripted moment that should have been shown the cutting room floor. And for the record, I'm not off my rocker nor do I  have an agenda to pursue because I don't agree with you, thank you very much, Richard.

Which, on the topic of having an agenda to pursue, can definitely be said of the final scene of this episode.

 
Meri walks into an attorney's office, sits down and  while the camera lingers on her left hand, minus a wedding ring, she says "I want to see about a legal divorce from Kody."

As the screen fades to black, the words appear "to be continued..."



In real time, TLC takes the unprecedented step of almost immediately announcing Sister Wives will be back for another season. Of course it will. There's only one episode left, after padding the season with two very unnecessary Behind the Scenes episodes featuring first Robyn, then Meri. That final episode on March 1, where Meri has promised the "true" story will come out, will  just be a teaser for the next season.



You know I wouldn't be surprised that, on the season finale, after 55 minutes of rehashing the past season, they cut away showing Meri running to her McMansion to answer the phone.