General Days

It's a family name. I think we're talking about this in at least three threads, (this one, the Meri thread, and the Spoiler thread), so the conversation is in bits and pieces. See here: You can find all the post-season "special" episodes here: https://go.tlc.com/show/sister-wives-tlc Part of the problem is that TLC has totally effed up the episode numbering. They reused Season/episode numbers for all the post-season shows. For example, they numbered Talk Back #1 as Season 18 Episode 101, which is wrong, but also, I think it has confused the streaming services that do carry Sister Wives (and some cable providers, and some DVRs). Are you sure the post-season special episodes are on Discovery+? I went to my Amazon account on my computer (I subscribe to Discovery+ through Amazon), and I only see the regular season 18 episode there (i.e. through S18.E18, "One on One: Part 4." The same thing happened when I went to Amazon Prime on my TV, selected my Discovery+ subscription, and looked at Sister Wives season 18. Similarly, the post-season specials are not on Max, as far as I can tell. I agree with you. In Christine's defense, I think Christine is being how she is, because she senses Janelle isn't as emotionally free from Kody as she says she is. Like that b.s. Janelle tried to feed us about not knowing how she'd get a spiritual divorce/release. The real issue is that Janelle would need to state what her grounds are. She seems to be acting like she has no grounds. If I were Christine, that would make me doubt Janelle, too. After a clip of Janelle talking about it like a release wasn't possible, they showed Meri saying she could tell her how.

What a cute doggie!

Yes! I'm pretty sure that was the San Francisco trip. Robyn took her three plus-size sister wives to a store that didn't carry plus sizes, in order for them to pick out dresses for the commitment ceremony. I kept waiting for Janelle or Christine to deck her. Robyn's eventual friend/employee, Kendra, is featured in that SF episode (which is the trip they were on when Truely got sick). Reportedly Kendra is the one who swore up and down that "Sam" was real, that she had met "Sam," and that Meri was having a physical affair with "Sam." Then later, Kendra supposedly tried to play it off like she was trying to catfish the catfish, to get info on her (her being J.O.). I really wish one of the recent talk-back or look-back episodes had included a review of Robyn's Season 18 comments (in one of the One-on-Ones???) about how a person was feeding her false information about Meri during the catfish scandal. TLC and/or the production probably avoid delving into it, because they don't want to have to deal with Kendra, if someone says something incorrect (or unprovable) about her, but I feel like that whole subset of the mess should have gotten more attention. The idea that Robyn's bestie vouched for the catfish's fake persona, is infinitely more intriguing than the fact that lonely, neglected Meri fell for some faker's b.s. and caught feelings for an imaginary millionaire.

Janelle would have just thought Gabe was at Christine's.

The "She [Meri] beat the love out of me," thing pisses me off. He was a 22-year-old man, who married a 19-year-old girl. She beat the love out of him? Why? Did she expect you to act like a GD married man?

In re: "Just a knife in the kidneys, over all these years. The sacrifices that I made to love you. WAAAAY-STEAD." Tonight, Kody said: So, is that the girl that Kody and Meri took a shine to, that they had to wait until she was 18 to court? Is that the girl that called off the wedding, a week prior to the wedding? ALSO THOUGH, Do you all remember Christine talking about how some woman used to call up Kody? She wasn't interested in talking to the wives, just Kody, and so Christine shut it all down? Do we think it's all the same girl?

Wrong thread

Yes! Histrionics. That's exactly how it feels to me. To be "fair," I'm sure she's upset. Whether or not they wear the garments, or follow every AUB rule to the letter, I do think Robyn more or less holds an AUB-flavored Mormon view of the world and the afterlife. To put it plainly, I think she fears Hell, because she gave her cookie to that Jessop boy with the big blue eyes (like Aurora's) before they were married. Kody was the priesthood holder who was willing to redeem her diesel-fuel smelling ass. So, Robyn wants Meri, Janelle, and Christine to hang on, so that she can be the favored wife for all eternity with Goldilocks, King of the Kidney Planet, and she can be his eternal queen.

I guess cinnamon buns are the town's claim to fame, right? All of a sudden, I have the urge to call you 6-pack Abs, so this is my apology in advance.

Hey, the Live Chat closed a little early (because the episode began and ended at funky times). This is where we're discussing the most recent episode.

I have a pretty nasty panic disorder. I know panic attacks are real. They're the bane of my existence, and my success in treating them has been mixed. I can go do the hardest thing (family illness in a hospital, which is my personal bugaboo) and get through it, and then have one smack me in the face in the grocery store I've been shopping in for 30 years. I do not see panic in Robyn. I understand panic attacks manifest in different people in different ways. Heck, they manifest in me in different ways, but that's not what I see there. I see a drama queen who is not a good actress, doing her best to summon tears.

These Rice Krispie treats ain't gonna eat themselves.

I'm a little behind. I'm on the part of Kody's beer and skittles rant where he's going off because the wives indicated they'd have a better relationship when he was dead. Then he said, "For you to like that other woman [i.e. Robyn] enough to be her friend, when I'm dead?! For you to care about her children, when I'm dead?!" Um. Meri exists. That's all. She has tried to be Robyn's friend since day one. She has sacrificed for the sake of Robyn and her Jessop children since day 1. She has doted on Robyn and Kody's joint bio children since they were born. The fact that poor Meri exists negates every fricking angry ass charge he made in this segment. She gave up her legal marital rights for that woman and her kids. She quarantined alone for the first two years of the pandemic, in hopes that she might be able to see the kids outside, only to be shelved. Kody needs to go play in traffic.

I do legitimately think Kody is a narcissist. Meri and Christine (and to a lesser extent Janelle) were no longer scratching Kody's It's-All-About-Me itch. To make matters worse, their kids had the audacity to grow up, have minds, religions, relationships, and opinions of their owns, and those opinions included the fact that they didn't like him mistreating their mothers or bad-mouthing those mothers on national TV.

Ever notice how fucking Kody gets to be pitied for being in a dark place, but if Meri or Christine is in a dark place, they're evil sister wives who always hated each other, weren't loyal, and didn't pay Kody respect?

Kody is such a giant douche, that Massengill should file suit.

I think she wanted it documented to get a (religious) release from their spiritual marriage.

I'm trying to figure out which recent episode featured this exchange (I think it was one of the look back/talk back sort of specials). They show Janelle saying something along the lines of that she is separated from Kody, but she doesn't know how to go any further than that. (It might be in whatever episode Janelle expresses frustration about how Christine talks about the Janelle/Kody relationship, but I can't find that, either.) Then they show Meri (who must have seen a clip of what Janelle said) saying something like, "I can tell her how." ___ I suspect Meri was so bent on getting Kody tell her, on camera, that he did not consider them married any more, so that she could get a spiritual release from their church, and marry again in the AUB, if she so chooses. Meri said something in the Talk Back Part 2 about needing it documented (i.e. how their marriage ended), but that's not the episode where Janelle indicated that she didn't know what to do beyond declaring them separated. People on Reddit have speculated that Meri wanted "it documented" for reasons pertaining to the division of the property. I disagree, because since none of the spiritual marriages (except for Robyn's) were legal marriages when they bought Coyote Pass, the law doesn't care about them (as far as dividing the property goes). The law cares about the terms of the LLC that were then in effect, how much money people put into the family pot, and if people took money out of the family pot in ways that weren't allowable by whatever sort of agreement they had.

Answered (and added some speculation) in the Talk Back Part 2 thread.

@Twopper, I brought this over from the Robyn thread, because they reviewed that "My sacred covenant to you" scene in the Talk Back Part 2, and I wanted to mention some of the "talk back" about it, that we got from Janelle, Jenn, and Meri. To answer your question, we can't really know, but from how Kody phrased it to Robyn, it sounds like Kody had to promise that to Robyn, before she would even agree to marry him, so it would have happened sometime during their courtship/engagement. I found it interesting that, in Talk Back Part 2, Janelle said she didn't think Kody was telling "the whole thing." After Janelle finished her thoughts, they cut right to Jenn (who was with Meri) who also felt like something was missing. Jenn said, "I feel like something else had to have happened. Like — was [Kody] already complaining to [Robyn], pre-marriage, about his relationship with like you, or Janelle, or Christine? And that was like -- and Robyn's like, 'Well, if this happens with us', like --." When she said that, Meri's face registered palpable shock and recognition. Jenn continued (speculating as though she were Robyn) "'Promise me you won't just'--" Meri interrupted. "Oh my gosh. Are you serious? I never --" In a quiet voice, Jenn said, "Maybe I'm overthinking?" In my opinion, Jenn was not overthinking, and for whatever reason, Meri needed to hear Jenn say that, to get another piece of whatever puzzle she's trying to assemble out of the ashes of her marriage to Kody. Here's a tidbit we know from either the early years of the show, or perhaps the book: Although Meri supposedly spotted Robyn first and encouraged Kody to pursue her, after Kody and Robyn started courting, Meri had enough trouble adjusting to it, that they went to therapy (at least Kody, Meri, and Robyn — I'm not sure about the other wives), even before Kody and Robyn married. Part of me wonders if Meri didn't object to the possibility of a marriage after all, and if Kody didn't bully her into therapy to make her change her mind, but that's just speculation. In the Version of the Show that Lives Only in My Head Here's what I think could have happened. 1. Meri had whatever trouble adjusting to the Kody/Robyn relationship, and they got some therapy to get past it. 2. Kody melted down the wedding ring Meri gave him, to prove (to himself? to Robyn? to Meri? to all the wives?) that Meri no longer had any claim on him. 3. Kody told Robyn what he did, and that he didn't even love Meri or didn't love Meri any more (and maybe he threw in bits about having never been in love with Christine, and how he and Janelle were more like guy friends), thinking it would prove to Robyn how true his love for her was. 4. Robyn (who was coming out of a failed marriage herself) was not as impressed by Kody's fickle heart as he thought she would be, so she said something like, "How can I marry you, when you fell out of love with/never loved [Meri, Christine, Janelle -- take your pick]? I don't want to be stuck in a loveless marriage. I just left one." 5. Kody swore up and down he would always love her, but if the impossible happened, and he didn't, he wouldn't keep stringing her along.

The Brown parents have always indicated, on the show, that they had religious sealings at their "church," and that the ceremonies were secret and sacred. They've said on camera that they wouldn't talk more about their weddings. In other words, they've made no secret of it being secret. The parents are not mainstream LDS (i.e. they are not part of the mainstream church known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), and they are not part of the FLDS (the Rulon Jeffs/Warren Jeffs group, whose full name is The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or FLDS for short). The Brown parents are (or at least were) members of the AUB (Apostolic United Brethren, aka the Allred Group). I don't know if the AUB has missionaries now. They didn't used to. None of the sects that are outside of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is all that big. I'm not sure they'd even have the ability to establish a mandatory missions program. Regardless, none of the OG13 Brown kids are part of the AUB, or any other fundamentalist Mormon sect, as far as we know. I think perhaps the one benefit the kids realized from being on the show is that they broke free of Mormon fundamentalism. Certainly none of Meri, Janelle, and Christine's kids are Mormon fundamentalists. I'm not sure about Robyn's kids (although Mykelti and Gwen have seemed to indicate that none of the kids will be involved in polygamy, and the way this was said, it seemed to include Robyn's older kids). As I understand it (from Gwendlyn and Mykelti's content) the adult kids are a mix of evangelical Christian, mainstream LDS, and agnostic/atheist, with a little bit of paganism. I was only talking about the Brown parents' weddings (Kody's weddings to Meri, Janelle, Christine, and Robyn). The adult children's weddings, featured on Sister Wives, were not AUB weddings, or any kind of Mormon wedding. They were just "normal American" weddings. No one was being deceitful about that. You took my previous post as saying much more than it did. I don't know how else to say that they couldn't have shown the parents' spiritual weddings (sealing ceremonies) on TV. They take place in an Endowment House and are secret ceremonies which are only open to adult, baptized, members in good standing. They cannot even talk about the ceremony on TV. The sect won't let them. I don't think the goal was ever to demystify polygamy though. I think the goal was to make it look less threatening -- to put another face on it other than the one the Warren Jeffs' FLDS put out, of child brides in prairie dresses. They wanted it decriminalized and/or legalized. They didn't care if the rest of America understood it. They cared that they be allowed to practice their brand of the faith, which doesn't include the marriage of minors.

I took a very similar class, and also attended services, but I cannot for the life of me remember what the talk was that day. (Mormons don't have professional clergy — all baptized men and priesthood holders.) I believe the sealing of families, like you describe above, only happens when the parents weren't sealed at marriage (so if a couple didn't have a temple wedding for whatever reason, or if they converted to Mormonism after marriage). One of the reasons, I believe, that Robyn and Kody so wanted Kody to adopt Dayton, Aurora, and Breanna, is so that they could be sealed to him and Robyn. If I recall correctly, Robyn and Preston did not have their union sealed by the AUB. They might have made themselves ineligible, because Robyn was pregnant. I also think that's one of the reasons why Meri, Christine, and Janelle were so passionate about Kody legally adopting the kids. The adoption would have met the AUB's standards for including the kids in Kody and Robyn's eternal bond (or would have provided the AUB a rationale to seal the whole family after the fact).

Don't go by the Browns wedding day photos. I don't think that Kody would be photographed in the hat. And he would have been in all white for all of the sealing ceremonies. LDS and AUB sealings are more or less secret. That's why basically all the Browns have ever said about their wedding ceremonies is that they are different and sacred to them (as if the rest of us don't hold our own ceremonies sacred -- don't get me started). That video (of an LDS sealing) is the product of hidden camera footage. The wedding photos we have of all the Brown weddings are not from the sealing. They're from their receptions. No, the brown dress didn't cover her collarbones, but that was just her dress for the big family photo, which was taken on the day of the wedding reception. Neither Kody nor Roby would have been allowed to wear brown (or other non-white colors, other than the green apron) during their sealing. She either wore the white gown (if the AUB allows that) WITH an insert to make the neckline conform to AUB standards, or she wore a temple gown. They — and all of the people who attended the sealing — would have worn their temple garments (the infamous Mormon underwear) under whatever they wore for the sealing, too. I believe the AUB uses an older style garment than mainstream LDS people now wear. I'm unconvinced that Robyn and Kody really had their sealing ceremony on the day the production taped the wedding reception episode. Part of me wonders if they were sealed before she moved to Lehi, or at least as soon after as they could be.

Sarah's name is documented here, on the Lizzie's Heritage Inn blog: https://www.lizziesheritageinn.com/post/happy-valentines-day-2020 I figure there's a 50/50 chance here. Either Meri changed her name, or Jenn is trying to tease her into it. Ginger brought over a screenshot of the ornament that spawned this question, here: It's a postcard to Santa type ornament, and you'll notice beyond the "Davenport" name, "Meri's" request is for Santa to bring her "pink & white sparkly countertops with rounded edges," and a "new BFF." In one of their season 18 scenes together, I think the same one where Meri told Jenn and Blair that she didn't like circles in design, because they're not an efficient use of space, Blair and Jenn were trying to talk Meri into getting white countertops for the carriage house remodel. Jenn then (jokingly) pushed for pink and white sparkly countertops. So the "Davenport" could be a real name spoiler for Meri, or it could just be Jenn being silly.

I'm glad to see, in these new clips, that Jenn is finally allowed to assume the posture of the best friend. After all, she is the best friend of the woman whom Kody Brown has treated as his bidet for 30+ years. It's the first time her inclusion in the show has felt truly satisfying. Don't get me wrong. Even before now, I was glad to see that Meri's life beyond the family wasn't as lonely as her life within it. At first, their silly BFF shenanigans were at least a break from the stale Christine/Janelle convos, and Robyn/Meri convos, but had you lifted the Meri/Jenn stuff from any given episode, I wouldn't have missed it. If you took out Jenn directly addressing the camera ("The act is easy") and flat-out calling Robyn selfish (instead of going soft on Robyn for the sake of Meri's sense of loyalty) the episode would be poorer for it. Go, Jenn!