Fouts

I have to say I enjoyed watching Kim squirm when her daughters didn't automatically support her relationship with Ken. I agree with a lot of you that Kim likely started up with Ken long before she claims. Kim never offered a legit reason for splitting with Barry beyond the selfish and juvenile, "I just need to make myself happy!" People don't normally break up long-term marriages for something like that. Usually the real cause is an affair, and that truth eventually comes out. I'm also wondering if Kim suggested Ken to Isaac's for his flight instructor. That would offer Kim a convenient means to explain their meeting (messing with Isaac's head be damned!) And it would explain her financial support of Isaac's plane purchase, too. That whole meeting of Kim and Ken on the tarmac was surely staged by Kim for Isaac and the cameras.

Ethan should have discussed further his thoughts and reasons with Olivia for wanting to drive back with Micah and come to some resolution together about it instead of just planning the Micah-drive behind her back. And then, much worse, he lied about it to Olivia... sigh. I would have been equally pissed had I been Olivia. That was unforgivable, and another blow dart to their relationship. A marriage without trust rarely lasts.

I blame Ethan and Olivia's problems on these factors: 1. Barry and (primarily) Kim created a toxic environment for their children growing up and doubled-down when they realized they couldn't control their new daughter-in-law to their satisfaction. They saw her as a threat to their freakish absolute power over their remaining kids at home. 2. Ethan sided with his wife, as he should, but his family shunned him for it. Moriah and Micah were so undone out by their parents' divorce and dysfunction that they ran back into the burning building of the Plath parents in a misguided attempt for safety. The devil you know and all that. Barry took the opportunity to further pit his children against Olivia (see "brainwashing" comment). 3. Ethan now misses his family (see shunning) but doesn't own the verbal tools to express it and work through his depression. Instead he lashes out at Olivia in a cruel and reckless manner (see donut spinning episode.) Such contempt and hostility towards a spouse generally kills a marriage. 4. Olivia, finally free from the Plath family up in Minnesota, grows and changes as young adults often do. (Olivia would have thrived in and loved the normal college experience.) She and Ethan no longer share the same values of faith and homeschooling, surely among other things. Neither of them are to blame in this aspect; it's just reality. Or upon further reflection, I can blame Kim and Barry for preventing their children from experiencing normal maturation and experiences in the real world during their teenage years. Olivia and Ethan were both somewhat emotionally stunted upon marriage and still had a lot of growing up to do as a result. My order of blame goes: Kim, Barry, Ethan, Moriah, Micah and Olivia.

I always find that pagan date argument interesting. The fact is that Christian religions picked these dates for their celebrations in order to help nullify the pagan parties happening then. They superseded them and made them forgotten and irrelevant. Much like how European Catholics of old built their churches atop the very foundations of mosques sites they'd conquered. I wish I could explain this to Barry.

Regarding all the unusual Mormon names, I've heard another reason for the creative spelling and such. The Mormon community has somewhat of an inbred quality to it with a lot of families sharing the same last names. The weird first name spellings help distinguish folks from one another.

Interesting that Kim never actually denied credit-card-gate outright and gave no details why. Hearing Ethan verify Olivia's version was enough for me. I think the Plath kids are extremely hurt by their family's implosion. Instead of dealing with the pain of the divorce, it's much easier to make Olivia the scapegoat of everything. Of course, Kim is thrilled by this. Barry could barely contain his joy at Kim showing up at the house at Micah and Moriah's request, not knowing of Kim's contempt at having to be in the same room as him. I'd thought better of Barry lately but no more after his brainwashing comment. Done. Ethan should take note of how he and Olivia got along so beautifully for two months far away from their family. And yet now he's willingly returning to the belly of the beast for two months to work on his cars? While Olivia urged him not to go, she never threatened him whatsoever about leaving. Olivia is so much better off being away from these people. It's clear to me that she's gotten some good therapy instructing her how to deal with toxic people like Kim. Moriah couldn't stop spewing about Olivia and her supposed evil deeds, her somehow-now-haggardish face lighting up as she spoke. But once Olivia is no longer around for Moriah and Micah to blame for everything, they will eventually be faced with the hard truths of who truly is the evil in this picture, and that is Kim. It's coming. ezzy4, I wrote my response before reading yours. Fascinating to me that we shared so many of the same thoughts.

Notabug, I think you have great insight into what's up with the "We are not a divided family" announcement and Kim's probable freakout at her public portrayal and reception. I do, however, have a different take on what went down with Olivia on the cemetery visit day. Olivia had been planning to attend and then got the last-minute information dump that Kim would be there, too. The siblings put pressure on her to attend anyway and she caved--the high-stakes emotional element of the baby grave visit made it nearly impossible for her to decline. She had essentially no time to process a quickly-moving situation and did the best she could at the time. (And, of course, add to the mix some possible producer shenanigans.) After Olivia arrived at the cemetery, the reality of coming face to face with her abuser was just too much. I saw a panic attack as a result, not pouting. And then Ethan--who should be protecting her as his spouse--and the siblings chose to punish her for it. They did everything they could to shift blame of the family dysfunction onto her. Their toxicity and hostility towards Olivia seems to have unified them at the moment, but that core is based on rot and Kim's narcissism. It will not end well.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall seeing Olivia ever tell anyone that they shouldn't visit Kim or Barry. Instead we've seen countless instances where Olivia calmly explains that she cannot see them, but that the others should do as they see fit. The closest we got to Olivia involving the siblings was when Moriah asked Olivia to play keyboard for "the only first concert she'll ever have!" and Olivia responded that she could play only if the parents weren't in attendance. (Which of course Kim later completely disrespected. Nobody tells Kim what she can or can't do!) The siblings' latest attempts to shame and guilt Olivia into dropping her boundaries is not much different from people telling a battered wife that she just needs to suck it up and return to her abusive spouse. The siblings care only about their own personal discomfort and want nothing more than to pretend to themselves that their mom isn't a toxic and dangerous figure; nobody wants to acknowledge such evil in a close family member like that. The siblings don't care whatsoever about the mental health of Olivia--someone who has been nothing but kind and supportive of them. Olivia speaks clearly about boundaries and how dysfunctional families labor to maintain their dysfunctional systems. This suggests she receives excellent therapy from someone well-school in narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). If anyone ever wants to go down a fascinating rabbit hole, do a little research on the subject. Teachers of NPD could pull clips of Kim as demonstration. One fascinating aspect of NPD is how closely narcissists follow the same pattern of behaviors, almost like they're operating from a playbook. It's eerie, really. I suspect in the future viewers will become more sympathetic to victims of someone with NPD just as we've grown as a culture in our understanding of those suffering from PTSD or for someone having an alcoholic family member. The victim isn't the problem in any of these situations.

Kim absolutely should apologize, but she will never give anything more to that than lip-service like "I'm sorry you feel that way." People with narcissistic personality disorder find it almost impossible to truly apologize. Their egos would never allow it, plus they never could actually admit to themselves they were wrong.

Barry doesn't realize it quite yet, but pretty soon the guy's going to be living his best life, a life removed from the daily toxicity that is Kim. Quiverfull patriarchal families like the Plaths spout father-control, but commonly the real power lies with the mother. The mom, often with a somewhat unstable past full of regretted behaviors, convinces the dad of the need to raise their kids in these ultra-sheltered environments. Instead of working on fixing their own traumas, they perpetuate their own issues with their children by over-controlling their every move. But as the kids reach adulthood, the uglier consequences emerge. The kids recognize how ill-prepared they are for the real world, they become angry, and the entire scheme starts to unravel and implode. The mom can't accept any responsibility for the their child-raising choices so they blame the dad, who really had just been lead around by the neck, just as we heard Ethan once say. Barry is far from perfect--we just have to recall his push to Olivia's car down the driveway that time despite Ethan's plea he not do so. But overall I think the guy has a kind soul and a loving heart. And while he's no looker, he actually could be sufficiently desirable in other ways to attract nice single women of his age and demographic. Barry expressed concern at how hard it will be to see Kim connect with another man, certain she'd be quickly snatched up when she hits the market. In the end, I suspect Barry may actually be the one getting more attention from the opposite sex than Kim. And I can't imagine Kim enjoying watching that. She may the one suffering with the green-eye when this is all said and done.

Kim shows classic signs of narcissistic personality disorder, something that is nearly impossible to overcome. Those close to her will forever experience her lying, manipulation and controlling behavior. The greatest fear of a narcissist is a person who has them figured out. In this case, it's Olivia. Therapists that understand narcissism will almost always advise the victims to simply stay away as much as possible from their abuser. That is exactly what Olivia has been attempting to do. But she'd been essentially deceived into attending the graveside visit with the last-minute news of Kim's presence. I think her reaction was real and trauma-based. I think the family is currently traumatized by the parents' divorce. You'll notice that the kids rarely want to discuss it and ask few questions for something that makes little sense to them or to us as the audience. Instead of dealing with that, the family is punishing Olivia as a convenient distraction and scapegoat. I was particularly disgusted by Micah's sneering demand that Olivia basically just suck up all her trauma and white-wash Kim's emotional abuse to everyone so they could all pretend nothing was wrong. Even more horrible was Ethan's nasty digs at his wife to his siblings and his total disregard for Olivia's mental health and well-being. What kind of husband does that? I was sickened that the siblings essentially forced Olivia into some apologies for her very reasonable need to protect herself from Kim. Then when she did show up at events to try to appease them, they were nothing but critical of her doing the best she could under the circumstances. Olivia was damned if she did and damned if she didn't. In the meantime, Kim was loving how the heat had been largely removed from her and Olivia had been forced into saying hello back to her in front of the entire family. If I were Olivia's friend, I would tell her to get away from these people as soon as possible. They are either sociopathic (Kim) or currently so damaged that they are unsafe to be around. I can't imagine how alone she must feel. I've also seen when the scapegoat of a narcissist leaves the picture, the dynamic changes such that the narcissist gets more fully exposed. This is usually what it takes to have everyone else's eyes opened to the evil that is the narcissist. And if these other people have any awareness about themselves at all, they are horrified and embarrassed looking back at how they supported the narcissist in their endeavors.

Ever discover a sliver on your arm or leg where the surrounding skin is all red and inflamed in the body's attempt to push the sliver out? Meri's catfish situation reminds me of that. Until Meri comes clean about what "Sam" truly meant to her romantically, the sliver will never dislodge and no healing can occur. I laughed at Meri's suggestion that the family was "stuffing" their feelings about the catfish. They've moved on, Honey. Nobody cares but you. That tribe's got a multitude of semi-functional other arms and legs that don't have untreated infected slivers poking out of them. In the meantime Meri deflects, and does so horribly, alternating between: A. Pay attention to me about getting catfished! I'm the true victim! B. Don't you dare ask me any more questions about my catfish! (And yes, why-oh-why has Meri apparently never really discussed these details with Cody? Unbelievable!) I love how Mariah has Meri's number, completely. Wasn't there some short scene (a preview, maybe?) with Mariah commenting how Meri was pushing still another catfish meet-and-greet upon Mariah-- not for Mariah's own benefit, but to try to whitewash Meri's own culpability. And yes, Christine is clearly Cody's flavor of the month. (That sounds a lot more disgusting now that I see it in print.)

Six thoughts: 1. Meri sure came off horrible tonight. It's almost as if the producers either had it with her personally, or they were setting up for her eventual departure. Meri's not going to be pleased with how she was portrayed. Girl appears not just selfish, but demented. 2. Did you catch the side-eye looks of contempt by Robin at Cody sitting next to her in Meri's living room? That bloom's long left the rose. 3. Meri loves to spring family meetings with secret and mysterious agendas on everyone but gets pissy when anyone else wants to host a meeting at all. 4. An earlier poster commented how they felt bad for Meri that the rest of the "adults" would meet without her. (I put "adults" in quotes not only because many of their children are of age, but Kody and his wives can be so infantile.) At first I had the same small moment of compassion for Meri about getting left out of the discussion. Then I re-wound the episode and saw where Meri instructs them all to "meet amongst yourselves" to talk over the B & B/financial issue. 5. Loved Janelle reluctantly explaining that they would all stay married together in the next life, according to their religion. They rarely like to spell such things out for us. Poor Janelle--getting stuck with Meri for eternity. I probably wouldn't have it in me to worry about my diet either if I knew what hell of eternity awaited me. 6. The wives seem to have made some off-camera pact to show a ton of support to Meri, no matter what. Are they worried Meri's one stroke of orange bronzer away from sanity, or are they scared she'll run away to her B & B alone and jeopardize their brand?

I had to laugh at Michelle's comment about her green/yellow assignment being the worst ever. After Dimitri gave those colors to Michelle, she asked if he hated her. Michelle comes from my state, Oregon, home of the overly-Nike-promoted University of Oregon Ducks with their ubiquitous green/yellow school colors. Nike owner and Oregon alum, Phil Knight, gives obscene amounts of money to the Ducks each year so he gets to be a de-facto coach--and fashion director for the Ducks. When the Duck's football team sat at the top not long ago, Nike made a big deal of the unveiling of their uniforms each week; we're talking entirely new and original pieces every game. It grew weirder and weirder over time. Eventually Nike got too carried away one week with a Lewis and Clark theme using colors of an entirely different Pac-12 team. (Perhaps even Nike was putting a finger up to the horrible green/yellow combination?) Very confusing to watch that game on TV. After that--and a precipitous drop in Duck football success--the football fashion nonsense thankfully ended for the most part. Last week's Michelle explained that her international ancestry is "Portland--Pacific Northwest." Perhaps she is like me, an alum of the Duck's rivals, Oregon State. Our orange/black colors isn't as exciting or controversial, but it does inspire excellent wear come Halloween.

I, too, loved Fernanda's letter, but grew suspicious of it as producer-driven when I saw Larissa use the same word "perspective" in her nail salon apology time with Debbie. Makes me go hmmm. I still find Coltee disturbing, but agree that after all the hysteria amongst these couples, there's something oddly reassuring about his monotone voice. The most enthusiasm we've ever heard from him was in his response to Debbie's idea of homemade pizza. Good for Eric's daughters for not caving into his manipulations. Their hair may need some help, but their mom seems to have instilled some good sense into those girls. I hope they don't attend his wedding. Somebody should respond to Eric that when--not if--his "last chance at love" leaves him in the dust, he'll be more alone than ever with his daughters alienated from him, perhaps permanently if he continues with his treatment of them. I'm curious about something regarding Jay. Why did he fret so much in front of the camera about getting married so young if he knew it was all part of a grander scheme to stay in the country and screw around-- with his poor bride on the financial hook for him? I find this story particularly upsetting, but maybe it's just too close to home. (Our daughter found evidence of cheating husband on his phone, and he broke her phone in response. When he was supposedly back to faithfulness, he used MY computer--without my knowledge--where he saved his password on his Facebook page. Later I happened upon it and saw all the women he'd been trolling on his messaging there. When we pointed this out, he threatened to call the police on me for invasion of privacy. So happy they're divorced now.)

Last night they hinted that perhaps Shelly's dangerous knowledge of David relates to something only Shelly would know as his wife. I could be wrong, but I took that as something connected to David's sexuality. My gaydar's never been that great, but even David does ping for me a little. We know that the CO$ holds a strong stance against homosexuality. We never seem to hear anything about other women in David's life, but we have heard and seen plenty about how close David is with Tom Cruise--who some people have their own theories about. Who knows?

Telling a close family member you're hurting may or may not be the same thing as "poisoning" them.

Serious question--did I miss a past episode where Debbie verbally "poisoned" Cousin Coltie about Larissa? Mea Culpa if that's the case, because... I am having difficulty with some of the talk about Debbie, because I do see a lot of it as supposition, i.e. "she must have been violent before to inspire Larissa to threaten to call the police so easily." Keep in mind, in the same scene, we witnessed Larissa's irrationality of Debbie's (non) slamming of the door. The door didn't get unhinged, but Larissa certainly did. And as far as Debbie having a smirk on her face during the rage-fest between Larissa and Cousin Coltie, I thought she acted as the only adult in the room, engaging and distracting the young children. Regarding their financial issues, Larissa apparently has never heard of the concept of budgets. She reminds me of Veruca Salt from Willie Wonka who just would just stomp her feet and demand, "I don't care, I want it NOW!" Coltie is at fault for putting Debbie in the position of credit card gatekeeper with Larissa. Instead of Larissa blaming Coltie and his budget, she takes her frustrations out at Debbie. Larissa can't risk blaming her green-card giver, so she pivots to Debbie with everything, to the extent where she has to manufacture faults. And by the way, I am getting uncomfortable with the remarks about Debbie's appearance which are simply age-related. But I do agree she actually would probably be happier in a retirement community of some sorts. Bottom line, I mainly hold Coltie at fault here. Boy's in no position to take on a wife. He was plenty happy living with his mama, his living room slot machine and his sparkling cat wardrobe. Sadly he just had some certain needs (shudder) that were going unmet, and in trying to fix that, he's screwing up other lives.

Excellent point, Jadzia, about the birth-daddies guilt-dumping the birth-mommies. If the bio dads actually had their acts together, they almost certainly could have claimed parental rights in a court of law at the time of birth, should they so desired. But of course they didn't, so no such attempts were ever made. A pox on anyone who criticizes these women and their sacrifices, which I consider the ultimate act of selflessness, truly. On the other hand, I do applaud the show for bringing in more of the baby-daddy storylines. Too often the male DNA contribution is just a big mystery, or an after-thought, barely mentioned. I'm enjoying these longer episodes where they are able to dig deeper into these questions, as well as the twists and turns of solving the puzzle itself. Normally I'm not such an emotional person, but both of last night's reunions turned me into a watery mess.

Veronica also stole her roommate's cute shirt on her "Semesters and Sea" Road Rules season. I'll never forget the look on Veronica's face when spotted her roommate wearing the stolen shirt, which roomie had found stuffed deep in Veronica's closet. Veronica had previously denied knowing anything about the missing shirt, and suddenly, she was oh-so-busted, and knew it. Veronica begged roomie off-camera to go along with a made-up story about the shirt, but no-go. Veronica used to be a hot little number, and probably got away with a lot of crap like her habitual lying, thieving and sense of entitlement. Those days are gone. Veronica's beauty is greatly diminished, but her poor character lives on.

I'm not sure if this observation goes here or someplace else, but the episode at the end did sort of attach itself to the tell-all... Can we talk about Elizabeth and Andreiiii's encounters with Father Elizabeth? First of all, Elizabeth, why would you ever think it wise to provide your angry father with ammunition ** against your Andreiiii, especially anything financially-related? Whenever someone says, "I hate to tell you so, but..." and then TELLS YOU SO, using THOSE VERY WORDS, they're a complete jerk. Obviously Father Elizabeth couldn't wait to say it--it's what he's been living for. And oddly enough, that didn't even make sense. Elizabeth and Andreiii have used most of Andeiii's savings during this transition time until he can legally work. So what? It was part of their plan, and for Pete's sake, they're following the law and acting responsibly! They've got a very practical plan in place for Andreiii to make a decent living in the near future. Instead we get Father Elizabeth saying, "Pretty soon you'll be asking me for rent money..." He only wishes that were the case. Once again Andreiii proved himself quite poised and control. I absolutely love that Andreiiii declined Father Elizabeth's offer to pay his trucking school tuition. Father E looked so pissed by that. Clearly Andreiii had it correct that Father E wanted nothing more than to have something financial to hold over Andreiiii. Andreiiii may be the wisest man involved with this entire show, not to mention the one with the most self-control. How ironic to keep hearing Father Elizabeth bleat on and on about financial responsibility when he himself has been arrested for failure to pay child support. His mug shot gives me life. **Learn from Chantel what happens when you gift material to the clan.

Funny that Anfisa says "Jorge's and my relationship..." While Chantel says "Pedro and I's relationship..." I guess you learn better grammar growing up in Moscow than in Clan Family Chantel.

Gary with his teeth? Wrong. Calcium doesn't just get sucked out of the teeth like that from malnutrition and cause your teeth to fall out. Either he had some decay already quietly brewing and severely compromising his teeth, or he bit on something hard like nuts or fruit pits and cracked the teeth. (Dental hygienist and dentist speaking here.)

I, too, was distracted by Sister Poor David's lower teeth. (I'm a dental hygienist so this comes with the territory.) But I almost felt bad about noticing because she's like the conduit of all our rational observations and common sense as observers. How refreshing she--speaking the truth and not caving into his manipulation, but instead realizing doing so would simply further enable the pathetic fellow. Clearly Sister Poor David doesn't have enough funds for her dental care, much less subsiding Poor David and his stupid ways. I imagine (hope) that TLC paid for her house rental in Louisville to visit him. How hurt I would be to not see my brother in four years, then have one of his first utterances be a hit-up for cash. As far as the teeth, I hope she gets the treatment she needs. We need more people out there like her with good healthy mouths, speaking the truth with the very best of motivations.

Azan's family does seem lovely. I actually dread them seeing Nicole's dress. They will be horrified. The only good part will be Nicole having to see their reaction about it. Anfisa has made such a huge change how she's portrayed on the show. I remember when she first arrived, she wanted to be a reality star "like the Kardashians." I wonder if she thought her obsession over stuff like designer purses and jewelry and her overall bratty behavior (changing Jorge's phone passwords, etc.) made her seem cute and entertaining to the viewer. When she got called out on it at a Tell-All, she looked utterly crestfallen. Like she had no idea how disgusted people were by her. Since then she's stopped with all of that, gone. I can't really tell if Anfisa has any actual feelings for Jorge or not, yet. Certainly she's bright--her English is near perfect--and good on her continuing her education. I've done a nearly 180 on my perception of her. Jorge gets zero of my sympathy after that counseling session last night. The lack of awareness on his part is scary. I felt bad for Ross last night when Pao sat next to him in the cab whining about how leaving Columbia (and indirectly, marrying him) was a terrible mistake. He's way too good for her. I've dealt with the exact same RH blood issues as Pao. No big deal, as the doctor said. The girl definitely did look disappointed that she'd lost her hook at sympathy, drama and excuse not to have a baby and ruin her already-too-old-for-modeling body. She's delusional. Girl is not gonna take aging and sagging breasts well AT ALL. Her looks are all she has.