General Days

I didn't spot Maddie or any of Robyn's children in the photos from the Guard ceremony. That only tells us they weren't visible in photos. If Maddie was not there, I can understand why. She lives far away. Traveling with young kids is hard, and leaving them in someone else's care is, too. She didn't make it to Gwendlyn's wedding either, because money was an issue. If Solomon and Ariella weren't there, I can understand Robyn and Kody not pulling them out of school for another memorial on top of the funeral. Every kid reacts differently to death. Parents have to consider what's healthiest for those kids. If Robyn's three adult kids weren't there, we don't know why. Employers and colleges don't exactly hand out time off. The last place I worked allowed three bereavement days for immediate family only (my grandmother's death/wake/funeral didn't count). A million years ago, my college was worse. Robyn had a brother who died of suicide. I don't know if those kids were close to him, and how his passing affected them at the time. Also, if there is still unease between them and the OG kids, their absence might have been an attempt at letting the OG come together without adding any tension. I found it sad that it seems possible not everyone made it, but I was truly pleased to see how many of the kids and their partners did make it, despite their busy adult lives. I'm not going to judge people who I didn't see in pictures. Maybe they weren't seated when the pictures were taken. If they didn't go, I don't know why they didn't go. Finally, the Browns supposedly have a few events planned over the next couple of months, including a family reunion in Wyoming. It is understandable if Maddie and/or Robyn's three oldest kids had to pick and choose what they can attend. According to Mykelti (this was mentioned prior to Garrison's passing) Grandma Genielle has some dementia or Alzheimer's now (I forget how Mykelti phrased it and I don't think she's all that precise in discussing medical issues, anyhow). Some people are better suited to helping dementia patients, than others. It doesn't stretch my imagination to think Robyn might be a better choice for Genielle than Kody. Even on his best days, Kody Brown isn't what you'd call a calming presence. I feel like who sat where is becoming a bigger thing than need be. Their seating may have involved no more thought than who wandered in first. These people are the walking wounded, right now. I think they need some grace.

I'm glad you mentioned that. I had forgotten about Garrison's Hawaiian shirt business. That was a sweet tribute. Hunter and Paedon were dressed all in black, but they had matching (I think) colorful ties. It was a sweet tribute to their brother. Amen.

Thank you, Ginger. What a moving tribute from the Nevada National Guard. WARNING: The following link is to a publicly accessible post from the Nevada Guard's verified account. It contains official ceremony images. Because it is public, official, and from a beautiful memorial, I feel okay linking to it in this thread. This is the official Facebook post from the Nevada National Guard. The family's grief is palpable. People may prefer not to visit the link. From photos, I can confirm that all five Brown parents, plus David Woolley, Grandma Genielle Brown, Janelle's sister and her husband, and 11 of the 12 surviving OG kids (and partners) were in attendance, as well as many other mourners. There are photos of Guardsmen, standing with Hunter and Paedon. The brothers are between a floral spray and the flags, behind a large print of the photo of Garrison which Ginger shared in her post. My guess is the boys were included, because they're both military. They are not in uniform. When a soldier presented the flag to Janelle, Hunter was seated right by her side. REQUEST: If people choose to discuss who was there or not, could we please keep that to the Spoilers and Speculation thread? It would seem off-topic here.

Thank you, Rabbit Hutch (and thank you for posting at all, because it got so quiet, after). It makes me crazy (as I've just proven) when entertainment writers approach a show as though it is beneath them. That's doubly true, when they seem to have chosen (or even pitched!) the assignment on a freelance basis. It's one thing to say a show is boring (i.e. not worth viewers' attention), when reviewing a film or a TV show pilot episode. In those cases, a critic's job is to find good new productions and steer the readership away from lesser ones. When writing about a 14-year-old series with 18 seasons, the bulk of a writer's readers will be people who found it worth watching for one reason or another. Koul could have skipped condescending to the audience and about the Browns, not to mention her inaccurate series summary. She wrote a 13 paragraph piece, and only really dug into her premise in the final five. Suomi, I owe you an apology. When I read that piece (and thank you for linking it), Koul set my teeth so on edge, that I scrambled down the internet rabbit hole on a "who is this Guardian hack" tear. When I finished reading some of her work (she is a skilled writer, I just hated her approach here), as well as a little bit more about her, I was only thinking about all the ways she failed her readership. When I had my go at her coverage, I in no way meant to have any kind of a go at you. In retrospect, I can see I failed to make that clear. You linked a piece which touches upon a subject that lays heavy on many of our hearts — namely, should the show go on, and if it does, is it ethical to watch. As I understand it, that is this thread's purpose. Thank you for providing us with content for discussion. I failed to stop and consider how I would feel, if I linked something, and another Primetimer launched into her own 13 paragraph screed. I am certain I would have felt funny, were the shoe on the other foot. I should have prefaced my brain-dump by making a point to tell you that I appreciated the link (I truly do!), mentioning the parts I found pertinent (the last 5 paragraphs!), and assuring you that none of my ire was directed at you (it was not!) for bringing it to our attention. I am sorry failed to all of that. I did not mean to make you feel bad in any way. 💛

I didn't think I would cry again. I was wrong. Thank you for sharing that, Ginger. How beautiful.

I didn't care for that Scaachi Koul piece, even beyond the factual inaccuracies (although she failed there, too). Somewhere between Alberta and New York, Koul forgot the kicker in the tagline of her old Hazlitt column: "From conflicts and confrontations both institutional and personal, to managing your own privilege without being a dick..." There is a way to examine and even critique the genre, as well as this specific show (and fandom), without condescension. If you want an audience to consider whether a show should go on, don't begin by essentially telling that audience that they are dull and tasteless for having watched. The first rule of writing about guilty pleasure TV: drop all pretension because you, dear writer, love some stupid shit, too. It may not be a TV show, but there's something in your pile of pleasing pretties that would make the uninitiated roll their eyes at you. Don't pontificate about McDonald's from a Burger King booth bearing your ass print. Even as I wrote the above, a little voice tried to tell me that the less said about Koul's snobbery the better. I decided to ignore that voice and let the intrusive thought take a victory lap. Carpeting! Suburban tedium! What was the purpose behind Koul's framing? How precious does she imagine her readership to be? Had the Browns always had wealth, social status, sophistication (and less pedestrian floor coverings, apparently), would that have made the show less "boring"? (By the way — "Boring"? What vapid criticism.) Or perhaps it was that the Browns weren't poor enough for her. Maybe she could only justify interest in this show, if the whole prolific platoon pitter-pattered around on earthen floors and practiced pica. Would the Browns' subversive, cult-dictated, misogynist family structure have been more worthy of examination, had it played out in an urban penthouse with marble flooring — or at least upon hardwoods? (Mind you, I'm not pretending the show did not regularly shortchange its rich premise. It surely did. I'm objecting to how Koul teed up her argument with needless affectations that did not serve her thesis.) Koul had valid points to make. Her presentation was so off-putting though, that I have already forgotten what those points may have been. She didn't say anything new. She didn't add anything to this discourse more insightful than any sober fan has released into the aether since Garrison's passing (and really, for far longer). It is strange to me that an admitted consumer of this genre chose this way to dish up the subject of reality viewership ethics. Koul may have managed a literary publication, but it is arguable she finally made her internet bones in a Buzzfeed takedown of Friends — and only a mere quarter of a century after it was relevant. She is not William F. Buckley, Jr., nor is her Guardian pop culture piece Firing Line. All that is to say she is not above writing about Sister Wives. It involves a fandom she should understand, or at least a type of fandom familiar to her. After all, according to her, the only female friends she has made in adulthood are online fans of reality TV. (Yes. No. Really. She has written of herself as one of those "I only have guy friends" girls.) Who, other than Sister Wives viewers (and maybe some of the broader TLC and Bravo audiences), did she suppose might read any Sister Wives piece in the first place? What did she hope to accomplish? All she accomplished on my side of the screen was reminding me how much I still miss TWoP — 10 years out. Koul fell short offering the kind of critique at which most TWoP writers usually excelled, even on their off days. She floundered because of her approach. There was no connection. No soul. She didn't write as one whose love has gone wrong. She wrote like a socialite laughing at the doorman's crush on her. In the best (and even much of the merely adequate) TWoP coverage, writers often took characters, shows, writers, genres, networks, and even fanbases behind the woodshed. But they did it with love. They were most successful at a takedown, when they did so with the empathy of someone with skin in the game — not as if they'd only read about the whole mess from an altitude of 40,000 feet. The brain needs oxygen. Rarefied air lacks it.

It's quite odd right, with two user pictures showing to the left of the posts? Like this?

That's great. Thank you so much!

Hi, @Mod-Tranquilizer. I take it that you are the new moderator for this forum. Welcome! We're a longstanding and pretty decent group. I hope this is a pleasant forum for you to moderate. I would normally ask you something like this in a direct message. I'm asking here instead, because it has been extra quiet. The current hush makes me think other people could be wondering the same things I'm wondering. I figured if I asked you publicly, it might spare you from answering multiple times, and might stop us from using the thread in someway that is contrary to your vision. When you put "General News and Information 2024 only" in your post, what does that mean for us, content-wise? Does it mean we can only post links to actual news articles, or is information from social media acceptable, too? Are we allowed to speculate and discuss, or is this now only a thread for sharing a news item of some sort? I can't speak for Rabbit Hutch. I haven't discussed this with them, but when they started this thread, my take on it was that it was a space to discuss what we think might or should be the fate of the Sister Wives TV series, in the wake of Garrison's passing. I also thought that part of the idea was so that we could leave the Garrison thread as a proper tribute to him, and not overrun it with our opinions about his parents, the producers, the network, the ethics of reality TV shows involving kids, and the the like. Will that kind of conversation be okay with you, or would you prefer different boundaries? Please let us know.

I've seen a few fans and creators react strongly to the use of "dead." I am wondering if some of the objection is just a regional/cultural difference. I wouldn't expect an article to not use those words. That's typically the language media uses, and they'll only move on to euphemisms, after using dead, died, death, or the like. Last week, police officers made statements to the press and gave their names. It wasn't just people grabbing things off scanners. They've released information to the press. They're treating the case like a suicide, which is why we haven't been inundated with news about a homicide investigation. The circumstances are tragic, but they're not suspicious. I don't like when the media just quotes people's socials, either. It's cheap and lazy. Typically, People has an arrangement with the show, but I'm sure the family has no interest in talking yet, so I can understand why, since there was a funeral, they would report on that. At least they didn't sneak into the funeral.

That's so weird. I was looking at a recipe on McCormick. I must have clicked when I thought I clacked. Thanks for the heads up, Gram! Link corrected.

Madison posted a beautiful tribute to Garrison on her Instagram account. Here's the text, in case you're using a text reader and can't access it on Instagram: I can't stop crying. These poor kids.

I think that's a distinct possibility. Gabriel was probably in shock (I mean all of them probably were, but Gabe found Garrison). It is possible Gabriel didn't want to tell Kody on the phone, and if/because he was somewhat in shock, thought he'd be fine to drive over there and tell his father. If I recall correctly the reported stated that Gabe went to get Kody, but came back alone, because another person (family member?) was going to bring Kody to the scene. I feel like the other person might have been Gwendlyn. In fact, if Gabe took it upon himself to tell his father in person, he might have asked Gwendlyn to go with him or meet him there, so he didn't have to do it alone. I agree with the rest of what you said, too. Once Gabe answered questions from the police, there would be little reason to keep him at the scene. They had to question the housemates, etc. Gabe is local and has family/school/work ties to the area. The scene was probably such that it was clear to the police upon arrival that the wound was self-inflicted and Garrison had been deceased for a number of hours -AND- there were housemates present on the scene who could confirm Gabe's time of arrival, etc. The police would have little problem letting Gabriel go to get (and/or notify) Kody, as long as he seemed to have enough composure to drive. 1. I think you're probably right -- that it didn't seem at crisis level to them, and like you, I blame no one. And maybe it didn't come across as a crisis even to the person who sent the text to Janelle. Maybe Garrison was renegging on an agreement to film or something, and the producers contacted Janelle to change his mind. We don't know the full context. My heart is broken for the whole family. We've got to remember, the various media outlets have classified the text as "ominous." The police report itself is probably less melodramatic. It is likely a more plainly factual sequence of events. We know Janelle adores her kids. Thirty years of whatever b.s. there in that group marriage didn't cause her to end her marriage to Kody, but once he seemed to Janelle to be mistreating their kids, she wanted out. We also know the kids love their siblings. They really do love each other. They crave getting together. They're even devastated by the rift between them and Robyn's children. 2. About the report on the text, TMZ, which obtained the report worded it as such: "The police explain that Janelle told them Garrison had texted a group of people that the Brown family works with..." and quotes Garrison's text as reading "I want to hate you for sharing the good times. But I can’t. I miss these days." I have seen fan speculation that Garrison sent the text to Robyn (or even to Kody). I don't think the text went to anyone in the family (which is the cast). I think even if it was Robyn, the report would have cited the recipient of the text as a "family member" (or more likely "stepmother") rather than "someone they work with." To me, the wording suggests Garrison was texting people involved with the production. Those kids are on a first name basis with the producers (I've heard both Gwendlyn and Mykelti speak of them in that manner). It's not unthinkable that they'd have a text exchange. Also, if there was any sort of event scheduled that the production had been preparing to film, which was supposed to include Garrison, there are any number of production-related reasons for them to be in contact with him. To me, Occam's Razor suggests it was someone involved in the show who got the text from Garrison and forwarded it to Janelle.

Sort of. Gabriel, Gwendlyn, and Aurora all only had two years left of high school, when the family moved from Las Vegas to Flagstaff. Gabe was vocally opposed to the move, doubled his course load in Flagstaff, and graduated high school a year early. He was on the wrestling team in Vegas. I don't know if that continued in Flagstaff, or not. I've never heard that he had the option to live with Aspyn. She and Mitch got married shortly before the Browns moved though and were living in Vegas then (as was Logan). On the show, Gabe floated the idea of living with Maddie and her husband Caleb, but Maddie was a new mother and, if I recall correctly, didn't seem open to it at the time. Janelle seemed to shut the idea down pretty quickly, and I don't think Kody would've allowed it, anyhow. Here's a picture of Janelle's whole crew at Christine and David's wedding in October of 2023. Left to right, they are: Hunter and girlfriend Audrey, Garrison (the son who just passed), Caleb (Maddie's husband) holding older daughter Evie, Maddie holding younger daughter Josephine, Janelle with her hand on the shoulder of Maddie's son Axel, Savanah, Michelle (Logan's wife), Logan, and Gabriel.

Right, and really, Gabriel and Gwendlyn were the "twins." Gabe was born four days before Gwendlyn in October of 2001. Aurora was born in April 2002, and she Gabe, and Gwendlyn were in the same year of school, but of course Robyn didn't join the family until 2010. Thanks for clarifying, Laura. TikTok can be such a menace.