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.