laurakaye

I have to do a mini-recap of this episode. I can't help myself. Christine is 50! Party! Oh, what fun!! 50's theme! Food truck, all the people, even Eeyore Janelle dressed up! Hugs! Twins, OMG, Janelle cried, two cakes you guys, one has booze! One doesn't! HAHA! Wow, Janelle had the boozy one and Christine had both, yay!! Fun! (record scratch --- sad trombone plays a "WAH-Wah-wah" sound) Robyn, donning a jewel-toned polyester blouse with a mismatched Pepto-pink cardigan over it, frowns with her eyebrows and says, sadly, we weren't invited. To the party. (shrug) So.....yeah. It's sad. Robyn's eyebrows begin to dry-cry. 'Cause she's sad. Sadly. Meri! Parowan! Carriage house! OMG it's the famous Blair Michael - he is going to design the carriage house in a steampunk fashion but wait! We have to wait for JustJen because Meri can't do anything without JustJen! Giggle giggle Blair wants white counters but Meri hates that idea and also hates circles, hahaha! OMG, these three - they are having a blast together! What frivolity! WAH-Wah-Wah............ Robyn's frown touches the base of her chin as she sadly informs us that all she wants is to have the relationship with Meri like she has with JustJen. But alas, 'tis not to be. Robyn does not know why. Sadly. So sad. It's very sad. (shrug) Meri mentions the CATFISH (did we all bring our beverages? If so, DRINK!!) Calls the catfisher - and I quote - "a big fat liar." Oooooh! Burn!! Segue to the portion of the episode subtitled "A Room of One's Own" because Janelle, Christine and Meri all discuss how absolutely lovely it is to have their own space away from Kody. Christine can't stand how freaking great it is, Janelle doesn't even want Kody to bring his man-cooties over to her shiny new apartment and Meri tells us that no one in the family knows about her fantastic secret fun carriage house project. Also, no one cares. Kody stops over at Janelle's and pronounces her new place "cool, awesome, cool, awesome, awesome and cool." Once again he forgets that he has a daughter named Sarah Sally Savanah, mentioning that there's no need for him to ever come over to an apartment where he is clearly not welcome....oh, except that he and Janelle share a kid who lives there. Oopsy. TREES! Trees! We have a tree flashback, this is not a drill! Flash forward to Meri being sad that she has to remove trees from the B&B. But chopping down those trees wasn't as bad as she thought it would be...heavy metaphor for her pretend relationship with Kody. In her final thoughts, she says "SCREW HIM." DRINK! /salut

*ahem* could someone with better skills than myself please import the picture of Christine on the cruise wearing a black bra/miniskirt combo covered by a sheer black dress? It's giving me life - modesty schmodesty! Thank you in advance!

My guess is that on an MLM cruise like this, you need to be seen hobnobbing with your fellow shillers the majority of the time, making sure you take lots of selfies to post on social media so everyone knows what a fantastically amazeballs time you're having, Thanks To Plexus!!! Alone time is probably frowned upon - that might indicate that you're not 100% about Plexus 100% of the time.

Regarding the saddest birthday party ever, did I hear Kody mention something to Robyn about how the chicken was burning on the grill? For the love, how is it even possible that this man can't put a piece of meat on a grill without delivering it either charred or raw? Rhetorical question - I know why. Because if he's good at it, he'll be asked to do it more often. And he already has soooo many demands on his pwecious time as it is. I'd be willing to wager Robyn's monthly eyebrow pencil budget that when he's grilling for his rill family, he can produce something edible. Anyone else - enjoy your blackened chicken tartare. And I can speculate as to why the party sucked - both Robyn and Kody vaguely knew to expect Truely for her birthday, but maybe not Ysabel. But that's not the reason. I think Robyn and Kody both knew the date of the party but both of them pretended to forget...so it went somethin' like this: Robyn: Kodeeeeee? Why are Ysabel and Truely walking up our driveway? Kody: Oh, CRAP! I think tonight's the night we were going to have Truely's party! You forget to remind me! You know how busy I am, I can't possibly be counted on to remember stupid crap like this! Robyn: Oh no, Kodeeeee.....I'm pretty sure the party was next week, that's what you told me the other day when I was scrunching your hair. Kody: Well, &^%%&& - get the doorbell. Where do you keep the Rubbermaid tub of Dollar Tree birthday decorations? Robyn: But Kodeeee, I only have enough chicken to feed us! What are we gonna doooooo, I wasn't expecting Truely, let alone Lizzy Bizzy Izzy! Kody: This is CRAP! I'm not emotionally prepared to face either of them. It's not safe! Don't dry-cry, sweetheart - this is 100% Christine's fault. Day'un, get off Aurora's fainting couch and blow up some balloons while I go throw this frozen chicken on the grill. %$*& Christine. And that, dear readers, is why the decorations sucked and there wasn't enough food for those assembled. TL;DR - Kody sucks, but I was feeling creative.

Did Nurie choose that crazy bug-eyed picture of Mahmo to throw just a wee amount of shade? P.S. the only acceptable answer is YES, at least that's what I want to believe.

I just saw posts from Janelle and Christine Brown from Sister Wives, enjoying their Plexus cruise. This might be a dumb question, but does JillRod know of these Z-list reality celebrities and if so, would she try to approach them for a selfie in order to up her own game? We know she adores reminding us that Nurie is married to Anna Duggar's brother (although the shine from that particular name-drop is now tarnished), so I wondered if Jill would throw elbows in order to glom on to another TLC-related reality talent, or would she just stand by, silently judging them like she does everyone else? I was really hoping for Jill and these Sister Wives' orbits to finally collide!

I could actually find myself sympathizing with Dorit when she said that what she needed was not these grand gestures, but instead needs help with the kids, the house, whatever. But these two have been grand-gesturing each other for so long, I don't think PK has the capacity to change his ways at this point. That said, most of their grand gestures make me cringe pretty hard but this one topped them all...especially when PK dramatically introduced the group, whispering "Berlin." I wonder if Dorit was like, who?? Also, Dorit - not sure what the point was of the lavish charcuterie picnic spread in the middle of a park when it's highly likely that she and Erika split one cracker and called it a day.

Conveniently "sick?" Since I don't believe anything this woman posts, I'd wager she realized what heathenistic shenanigans might happen aboard the cruise ship and decided to find a way to bow out. Either that or she knew Dave's eyes would pop out of his head at the sight of women dressed to swim in actual swimwear as opposed to the maxi skirts and long sleeved blouses that Jill prefers.

Hated Bowie's face when Jag announced that he would not be using the veto...she stared at the nominees with wide eyes and a smirk like she was thinking one or both of the women would go off or something, but both Cirie and Felicia just stared down Jag in silent disappointment. Bowie is having way too much fun playing for second or third place. What a dumb season.

Anyone who shills Plexus should have to pass a test where they have to both pronounce and spell every single ingredient in those drinks. Jill's brain would explode trying to spell "xylooligosaccharides." For that matter it might do her in to spell "green coffee extract" too so....🙄

Yes, it does seem odd that with all those older siblings, she never got around to learning how to ride a bike. It could definitely be that Christine discouraged it, but at the same time, most kids want to learn when they see their friends/siblings doing it. For some reason, she never learned how. I think Truely is special and I mean that in the nicest way. She was the baby most ignored by her dad, born to a sad and overwhelmed mom, quickly replaced by King Sol. If Truely's temperament is that of someone who can't handle the ruckus of a huge and noisy family but she wasn't given any space (I'm just projecting based on her love of books), then who knows how that messed with her self-esteem. If no one was listening to her when she did speak up, she probably learned to just not speak up. While I hate that she's been forced to live on my tv screen for the entirely of her life so far, I am fascinated by her confessionals from the past couple of seasons where she sounds far older and wiser than her actual age. And I love her pre-teen awkwardness because I certainly went through that too - my glasses/braces/unruly permed hair era was something to behold, lol. But this is also the child who replied "no thank you, daddy" when Kody tried to get her to kiss him when she was a toddler, so I'm thinking that Truely might just be the smartest Brown of them all.

I still have to read some of the comments but I'm sure we all noticed how Ysabel seemed to be disassociating at Truely's sad birthday party...at one point when Ariablelbleowrq was launching herself into Truely, Ysabel was looking down at her with a completely blank look on her face. Meanwhile Day'un was basically asleep on the couch and Breanna looked angry and irritated. What a fun place to have a party! Good job, Dark Queen and Father of the Year! Happy birthday, Tracy Teresa Truely!

This is exactly what I hope actually happened...Mitch took Truely aside and said "look, when the cameramen, boom operators, producers and directors leave, we'll sneak out to practice and we'll be going on a bike ride around the block before dinnertime." I think she was doomed to fail just by having herself filmed - what 12-year old wants a huge group of people watch her when she's trying to learn something that clearly scares her, not to mention gives her flashbacks of her unhinged father yelling at her? Being 12 is hard enough as it is. Too bad Christine decided that filming her kid was more important than her kid's self-esteem, because I 100% assume that it was Christine's idea to film it in the first place as another way to stick it to Kody.

I think she was trying for her "proud bonus mom, sunrise/sunset, our baby is growing up so fast, all the fillings" facial expression but it turned out more like "I'm rilly rilly constipated and can't find my bottle of laxatives amongst the 77 other pill bottles on the kitchen counter" instead. It was awful watching it the first time, and even more so in the flashback. Nothing like having your creepy absent father get in your face and demand that you get on that **** bike because she was making HIM look bad. He's demented. Also, Truely? When I was 5 years old I got thrown from a pony and have not gotten on another horse since then (giving a humorous meaning to "get back on the horse" in my family), so I applaud you for trying again when the first attempt was such a disaster, and not only that, it was filmed for all to see under the guise of "entertainment." Your dad sucked then and he sucks now, so you just ride that bike when you feel like it. Applause to Mitch for saying out loud, "Truely needs less voices right now." Because Christine going all breathless with the praise - "you're doing soooo good right now, sweetheart, look what you've done, it's soooo good, we are sooooo proud of you for tryingk," etc., wasn't helping Truely one bit. Geez. I need a fade-out scene at the very end of this entire show, showing us Kody picking Robyn up from her first shift manning the french fryer at McDonald's, dejectedly getting into the car with her eyebrow stencils melted down her cheeks and her hair full of fry grease splatter. That we know of.

I think she knows exactly what she's doing - she posts and then sits back and waits for anyone to dare suggest that what she's doing is provocative so she can cry about the heathens who are persecuting her for just trying to make a living and take care of her family!!

Isn't that the name of the ghoul in the original Ghostbusters movie? No, that was Gozer. If Jessa is in the Christmas spirit already, maybe she'll go with Frasier, Balsam, Scotch or Douglas.

Charmin Extra Soft and Fluffy for herself, and Dollar Tree sandpaper brand for her kids. Hahahahaha.....oh wait, this might actually happen... 😳

Meant to add to my above thesis on Things I Don't Really Know About.... Paedon too was born smack in the middle of a group of sisters, and he probably watched Kody hanging out with his half-brothers far more than he ever bothered to stop at Paedon's house (as evidenced by Christine allowing her garage to be turned into Testosterone Central in exchange for Kody promising to remember that she and her kids exist). Paedon mentioned on a podcast that growing up he spent a lot of time at Janelle's - and her boys weren't always well-behaved either. Negative attention is still attention, so who knows...like Gwen, he was probably desperate to garner some of his dad's time any way he could just like the rest of the kids Kody sired and emotionally abandoned. I think every single one of these kids have suffered at the hands of Kody Brown, in the form of lack of attention, uprooting them constantly, abandoning them over Robyn and her kids, being asked to become a pseudo parent to their younger siblings, etc. I'm actually sometimes shocked that more of them don't have a Paedon/Gwen type relationship (that we know of), given how they were pitted against each other to get some scraps of affection from their stupid father. TL;DR - Kody sucks and his kids paid the price. /RANT

I recall when the family was going to march the picket line in Utah and there was debate about who was going and who was staying home - Christine had what I thought then was a throwaway line in that episode, something about if Paedon was staying home, then Gwen would need to stay with Robyn. I didn't think anything of it at the time but now it makes perfect sense. It also highlights that whatever was going on between Gwen and Paedon back then was bad enough that Christine knew she couldn't leave them home together without her. Paedon was a huge kid and is an imposing adult. Gwen has told us that she is on the spectrum. If she was Paedon's target for years and nothing was done about it, it paints Gwen's upbringing in a heartbreaking way because she was surrounded by siblings who didn't/couldn't/wouldn't help her (just me theorizing, of course). Could be that her sisters were just happy that Paedon wasn't picking on them. Christine was likely overwhelmed and too damn busy tap-dancing for Kody to get him over to her house once in awhile to know exactly what was going on, or she just hoped that the kids would work out their issues on their own. Kody was clearly out of the picture, and Gwen maybe sensed at a young age that he would not come to her rescue either. If any of this is even close, then she was stuck in the middle of a huge family with no one to turn to for help. Hell, even Mykelti bailed to cling onto Robyn as a way out. I get the feeling that Christine, for all her pluses and minuses, ran a chaotic household - she was expected to be the mother to all the kids, feed them, take care of them, and do it with a smile on her face in order to get Kody to love her. I can sympathize with Christine - she herself was likely completely overwhelmed but knew that complaining would only alienate her asshat husband even more. But that leaves poor Gwen, and probably other kids, to fend for themselves. So if Gwen wants to never speak to her brother ever again as a result, then good for her. Seems like she's earned that the hard way.

I listened to a tiny bit of the Rod's latest church takeover, this time with Sam and Gabriel "preaching." In those precious 15 seconds, I reached my limit of "ummmm's" for the rest of the year. Not everyone is meant to preach, Jill. Sammers couldn't even spit out a complete sentence while reading directly from the Bible but then, look who taught him to read.

Honestly, if these people wanted to get together for Christmas in neutral territory, just rent out the back room of a restaurant or a community room, or something. We know they can't go to Kody's because that's his sacred bow-chicka-wow space with Robyn but they can't go to, say, Garrison's because that puts Kody at a disadvantage - Garrison could ask Kody to GTFO of his house and Kody knows it. So spare me the tears made of air, Robyn. You're not getting together because YOU don't want to get together, and we all know it - heck, even MERI knows it at this point so your goose has been cooked, lady. Also, I heard a snippet from the last episode on a podcast, where Robyn was supposedly telling Kody to go pick up his other kids for school...she said, "that's going to be a problem" in this sing-songy voice that I didn't catch at first. I'm no expert, but the way she spoke those words made it clear that she NEVER actually said those words, she was just doing what she always does - rewrites history in a pathetic attempt to make herself not look like the family-wrecker she is.

With the unfortunate death of their baby, I wonder if Kim doubled-down on how she was going to raise the rest of her kids as a way to cope and Barry, numb from grief himself, went along with it because he thought he was doing the right thing for his wife. When they got their show and the older kids started leaving and living life, Kim decided that what she was doing was too much work, Barry had exited stage left to work in order to support their large family, and Kim took that as "Barry doesn't care, this is hard, so I'm out." The problem is, she left behind several emotionally stunted adult children and a posse of younger kids that still really needed her but hey, a gal's gotta live life too, right? Barry could have gone the way of Kody Brown and peaced out himself, but it's nice to see that those kids have at least one parent they can reasonably count on while Kim overlines her lipstick, dances alone in her apartment and goes on dates with Pilot Guy to get wet calamari.

I find those emoji-faces creepy - reminds me of the terrifying plastic non -breathable Halloween masks of my youth. And they are also dumb. If they wanted to really keep their girls safe, leave them off social media altogether, period. I can't believe I'm saying this but I'd rather see Jeremy stuffing his face with cheeseburgers or modeling the latest in fountain pen accessories than using his daughter's identities to fan the flames of his perceived status.

Robyn does this all the time - pretends that something upsets her so deeply that she has to clench her butt cheeks in order to squeeze out non-existent tears over situations that she herself have set up to fail. Let's have a family reunion! Oh, but that wouldn't be "safe." Let's have Christmas at the Manse! Hmm, that would be "trouble." Kody, you rilly should go over to Janelle's house to drive her kids to school, but I am sooooooo tired...you'll stay here? Fantastic. I just wanted to sit on a rockin' chair on a porch with my sister wives but no, I haven't spoken to any of them since mid-2020, why do you ask? Meri! We have to stay together! For the famb'ly! Also, Meri - you can come over but you can't come in the house because Kody is home, but here's his coat that smells like his BO and hair products, pretend he's huggin' you, hahaha! The best part is, she seems to still believe that everyone is falling for her act, but we're finally getting interviews where the OG 3 and the adult kids see through her pretend tears. It doesn't work anymore and I am here for it.

That closeup of Kody only makes me wonder what he's doing to his hair to get those bouncy ringlets. Do we all remember his insane Sammy Hager/Geico Caveman rat's nest of unconditioned hair from a few seasons ago - during the One Big House presentation on Christmas Eve? Robyn is clearly shopping for much better products for him now that he's at her house 24/7 and she has to look at him all the time.