IvySpice

Maybe I'm not typical, but I love the success episodes! This was a hell of a story of healing. I would have liked to see more of Dr. Paradise, since he's always so insightful, and there were obviously many layers of history to unpeel with this crew. It's also a testament to the power of teamwork. It is NOT easy to get weight off when you're a woman Laura's age, and we have to figure she put her body through a lot during her drug addictions. Get everyone on board with the healthy meals and frequent walks, make it fun, maybe even make it competitive. They made the lifestyle into a bonding exercise. I know there's always plenty that we don't see, but this sure looked like as good a recovery as you could possibly hope for in a family that's been through this much.

The hot chocolate packet we saw in the last episode sure looked like original recipe, NOT sugar-free. My issue with Caleb and Tammy has nothing to do with their physical disabilities and everything to do with everything else (all at once). If they were quadriplegics and we knew they would never get out of their chairs or breathe on their own, they could still be married. If, God forbid, that happened to me and my husband, I wouldn't consider our marriage over because we can no longer touch. But damn, they don't know each other and they're addicts in an early stage of recovery and Tammy is easily manipulated, famous, and has an income...this is all bad, bad news. In other news, how in the world did Amy and Michael produce those gorgeous babies? They get cuter every day!!

I wanted to smack Tammy when she was talking about her family showing her respect. I have to remind myself: this is a person with a personality disorder. She doesn't get it, and she probably can't get it. All her family can do is disconnect when she pulls this BS. To their credit, it seems like that's what they did. Obviously. He knows a gravy train when he sees one. He didn't even have to put any effort into the wooing process. Tell her she's cute, propose, and that's all it took. One episode in, and strangers who don't breathe through their necks are discussing him online! He wins! But what kind of bariatric rehab was serving them cornbread?! That's not even on MY diet!

I'll be darned -- I like Debbie AND Oussama. They're both out of their minds to think a marriage makes sense, but they seem sweet and largely harmless, other than to themselves. I even like Oussama's art. That said, a modern Moroccan city is one thing -- a tiny Berber farming village in Morocco is quite something else. Berbers are basically an indigenous minority group in Morocco. They wouldn't even necessarily speak Arabic as a first language. And unless Oussama's dad has a day job and just has the farm to honor tradition, they are POOR. Three cows and 13 chickens is a subsistence farm, not a commercial farm.

Losing it =/= keeping it off. Maybe somebody somewhere has cured their cancer with willpower, but that wouldn't change what a horse's ass Mark is, or how much I hope that Dr. Now puts his resources elsewhere. Enabler mom deserves what she gets, too.

She sure is, which makes me nervous. A straight guy is a straight guy, trans or no. Moms with gorgeous teenage girls in the house need to be extra skeptical.

Clearly, but it's an adolescent way of thinking to prioritize that proof above saving his own life. This was about as rational a choice as someone insisting on expelling a colon tumor on his own without surgical intervention. People don't lose 500 pounds and keep it off, ever.

Every time Mark said "I want to do it my way," I was longing for someone to say "How's that working for ya?"

I was certain Tammy would never get surgery. I have to give her some credit for that. Amy is not taking her health seriously, it's true. She ought to be under 200 by now. At the same time, if it turns out that the long-term result of surgery is that she stays at 275 instead of 406, that is still a much healthier weight that is likely to translate into additional years of life.

The uncle might have been the best-looking WLS patient we've ever seen. He wasn't just thin; he appeared fit, and he didn't have strange-looking hollow cheeks, extra skin, etc. I would never look at him and think "Extreme weight loss." I wonder if he's had cosmetic procedures or just worked out hard and was lucky to have elastic skin.

Yeah, at least at a fancy hospital, my husband and I found the food perfectly edible. It wasn't restaurant quality, but it was fine, even when he was on a "soft diet" (steamed fish, pureed veggies). Who knows if LaTonya's hospital was better or worse?

I was disappointed that the camera crew didn't get a shot of the alleged dog food meal. I really wanted to see if it looked that bad. When she said, "I don't eat meat like that!" I was waiting for Dr. Now to say that her food preferences got her into this mess, so maybe she isn't a very good judge of what she ought to be eating.

Well, I've officially lost all respect for Madisen. Sure, it would be nice for Nick to express sympathy about the miscarriage. But he knew if he said anything, he'd say what he was really thinking. All he could think was, Madisen, have you lost your damn mind? He has to take part of the blame for Madisen being this stupid, though. The thought of hooking up with Christian is stomach-churning. The passive eyes peering out from that yeti face...

What a huge waste of an hour. I've seen every episode of this show. This is the only one that I thought was garbage. I don't give a shit how rich Amber Rose supposedly is. If you could buy a rehab center, how about buying Latina an apartment and a couple of years in college and seeing how that goes? There can't be an intervention if there's no family. This wasn't a family. It was some people who once knew each other. It's a miracle that the four girls are even alive and apparently not crack whores (yet). Tina had zero interest in getting better. I really wanted to see that rich boyfriend who was funding her -- he couldn't get a younger addict to enslave?

OF COURSE Hazelee is attached to Noah. He's the only responsible adult in her life. There's no way he's staying with Rachel for the next 15 years, so we can already see the heartbreak and damage Rachel is going to inflict on her through pretending these casual relationships are family. Does Rachel really believe she's got a solid family going now? I guffawed when she said how well she was doing without her biological dad in her life. Really, honey? Because 10 minutes ago, you were blaming the giant mess that is your life on your mom. Madisen is totally depressed, but it's hard to muster sympathy when someone in a hole decides to keep digging. Why in the world I would care about Kayla J...

We have to thank the other moms at the tell-all for giving us the term "the Goblin," which is henceforth his official Nom de Snark.

Kylen and Xavier should qualify for WIC and Medicaid, but those aren't welfare (aka cash benefits). It's going to be so painful to watch Kylen defending her abuser at the tell-all. I know that's just how this disease works, but it's sickening anyway.

Right now, he's here legally, and on a sure path to green card and citizenship in just a couple of years. You're proposing that he break the law and screw that up? Risk getting deported and permanently banned just to make a few bucks doing unauthorized work? Unless he's literally sleeping on the street, he'd have to be incredibly stupid to do this. I could maybe, kinda, sorta see joking with Shaeeda by _pulling up_ to the smaller house and maybe going inside. Ha ha, the look on your face, no, this isn't the real house, etc. A two-minute joke like that would not make me think Bilal was a prick. But a 24-hour "practical joke"? And judging her for being unhappy about it? Screw the whole Family Bilal for thinking that's OK.

That's right. Jason may do the world a favor and DUI himself out of the picture (hopefully via prison and not via a fiery crash, but...as long as he is stopped from harming others, I'll take whatever means I could get).

We've only seen her when she was nine months pregnant or immediately postpartum. Maybe she never lifted a finger even when she was able-bodied, but I don't feel like we have any information about that. I heard the same. Sadly, I don't wonder. If she's staying with Jason, he comes first. He has a nice compliant slave, and he is not interested in any other kind of relationship.

Well. He went ALL the way there.

Yes, that's what I'm saying, because that's the law in New Hampshire. These "Romeo and Juliet" laws are a common exception to statutory rape laws. The laws in those states are designed to prevent exploitation of teens by older people with more power, rather than to block teenage romance. But even if Jason were 50 years older than Kylen, at 16, she had the right in NH to consent to sex with any adult of any age.

Getting pregnant (accidentally or on purpose) would be the least of my worries with some of these guys. Having unprotected sex with strangers from areas of the world with high HIV prevalence is insane.

She's not underaged in New Hampshire. The age of consent in NH is 16, and even if they started having sex when Kylen was under 16, that would still be legal because Jason is only a year older than Kylen.

He doesn't. Kylen is choosing to defer to him. I want to shake some sense into Kylen, too, but I've had enough experience with people in abusive relationships to know that reasoning with them achieves nothing. That's true even when they love and trust you, never mind if you're just the sound guy. They live on another planet. It doesn't compute.