kassa

My sister works with people in recovery and it's waaay too soon for him to be out there like that. Even if he were further along in recovery he's too young to appreciate the extent to which he's opening up his life to millions of strangers/future employers, etc. Bad, bad idea. (This does not mean he can't be an active mentor on a local level among his peers. I'm sure he has a great deal to contribute; being the face of a national campaign should not be asked of him, and if it's his idea should have been discouraged.)

I just had a flash of imagining her walking into a Deadliest Catch wheelhouse and what that reaction would be. I know everything is pitched for drama, but it honestly should not take an MBA for the bosun to say early on "I need her as an extra hand for docking and leaving the dock, putting the toys in and out, and I'll alert you in case of an urgent deck issue -- other than that, she should remain with you." I agree that as a guest I would not want to partake of the "activities" ... but I wouldn't want to do the crew things as crew, either. Every time they prepare to go out for the night all I can think is I'd be saying "Can I just stay in and read and go to bed? Is that an option?" Especially since they're ranting about how exhausted they are.

That was not sincerity - that was hostility as politeness. Everything he said was modest and accommodating; the subtext was "I see exactly who you are, and don't think that I don't, so here is a very public solution to the problem you apparently have with me and if you have anything else to say, why don't you say so now, or just accept the money and grovel like we both know you're going to do because the camera is on us." And I don't blame him - it's the best way to handle people making trouble behind your back. You confront them very publicly on the issue they've raised with everybody when you weren't around, do so with exceeding calm, and watch them fold because they didn't bargain for actually having to face you over it or they would have done so in the first place. Note - I think that he definitely knew his wife's business was not above board and do not condone criminal behavior. I just like the way he handled these people for having lots to say on national television, but who wouldn't pick up a phone and clear the air directly for the misunderstanding. (And it's a tossup for me as to whether there really was a misunderstanding or whether they threw the party as an entry fee to get on the show with no expectation of repayment, and then backtracked because they needed to distance themselves from the relationship and so used it for ANOTHER storyline)

Guaranteed there are women begging him to marry them. At least in the early seasons.

Are they permitted to just peace out on calling her up for the planet just for lack of compatibility, though? Even in a patriarchal religion that seems like a vow that you wouldn't have unlimited wiggle room on or else the sealing wouldn't be so powerful. What's weird is that Kody has been pretty open the last year or so (of televised interviews, so maybe 2 calendar years) that he does not really believe in polygamy any more, which makes Meri and Robyn's repetition of "in our faith" a stark contrast to Christine and Janelle shrugging and saying "what are you going to do? If it doesn't work it doesn't work."

It was kind of Hera's thing that Zeus would cheat on her, then she would destroy the women he cheated with and their kids. Not a girl's girl. I know they are forced by being on the show together to endure each other's company, but it takes a lot of nerve for Lisa to act exasperated that Meredith can't let that rant go as if she accidentally dented her car.. I don't justify revenge, but I'd take that ire to the grave.

You can do a lot of damage with a gentle "Help me understand how THIS is okay, but THAT is not okay." "What confuses me is that you just said _______, when that time at the ____ when you spoke to _____, you said _______" And then sit back and let them explain. Gentle, friendly, but unrelenting is a great quality in an interviewer. I think this lady is better than a lot of them have been, so maybe she'll press more in the remaining episodes.

Before everything went completely to hell, I remember admiring first season Kim Zolciak because as much as the other women taunted her about living in a townhouse, she made the snide remark that she actually owned it. She wasn't spending Big Poppa money on handbags - she was putting it into actual assets. At the time. I like my housewives low key about their money until they have to play that card - was anything better than Kandi responding to some brag (?by Nene?) with the fact that she could buy and sell everybody in the room? The phonies forget who they're dealing with and sometimes need to be reminded. Jen always came across as phony, as did Mary. Aside from the over the top wardrobes, the other SLC housewives appear to live in relatively normal homes that I can believe are theirs. Maybe mortgaged to the hilt, but they're not pretend castles.

In a weird way, Robyn's comment about Christine needing to have sex with somebody else to be divorced makes a kind of sense to me. If the marriage commitment/sacrament as they see it involves the wife's eternal salvation being linked to the man for eternity, even the most patriarchal church is likely going to take that sort of thing pretty seriously. The one thing tilted in the woman's favor in this equation might be that the guy can't arbitrarily back out of the agreement to call her through the veil. He needs cause, a cause upheld by the church. So whatever their temporal disagreements, barring a formal divorce, he may be on the hook for calling her through. If she commits adultery, however, that frees him instantly. In a modern world, that creates a scenario where the wife can leave the faith and not participate in whatever the formal church divorce proceeding would involve, and then only excommunication or "adultery" on her end would terminate the agreement. And these people were already kicked out of their home church as I recall, so all that's left is the moving on to another guy option.

I thought it was the reverse order. She gave him the treats BEFORE their ill-fated car ride during which he rejected her advances. Which means the interviewer raised her hopes for a few seconds before revealing when the supposed fleeting window of reconciliation happened. And when she heard it was that day because of the rice krispie treats, she knew the whole thing was a lie because he so blatantly snubbed her on camera hours later. I felt bad for her there, because she's been holding out for any kind of dimmest ember of possibility, she's told one actually DID exist, only to realize it was just a self serving lie on Kody's part. The "I told the other wives I was thinking of reconciling" thing was an obvious lie, but I do think his heart was temporarily touched by the gift. First of all... a ton of his favorite snack, given to him outside of other company so he can keep it in his truck and eat it all himself. Also, I think it triggered older memories and seemed to have been given without strings attached - something that would genuinely please him. He's probably sentimental. Later, on the car ride, he was reminded of everything else he doesn't care for and it faded. The later invention that he was about to take Meri back into the inner circle was just to make Christine look bad. I know Christine comes off as phony to people. I think she's just naturally enthusiastic and earnest, and the early show propping up of polygamy was also her trying to convince herself that staying was a good thing. Now that she actually has some genuine independence and freedom I'd expect that enthusiasm to come through again in celebration. May she enjoy it. I haven't read their book, but have seen enough comments from people who have to have come away with the idea that Kody was extremely brutally frank in that book that he was never attracted to Christine and the sight of her eating Nachos repulsed him (or something like that). If I knew about it years ago, she had to have. So his initial disinterest in her was well established at least since that book came out. I'm enjoying Janelle's matter of fact acceptance, and her candid wry dismissal of Kody and Robin's spin. In the past she would be accepting of other people's positions in a conflict, but imply that everything would work out fine and it was just a rough patch that would all be worked out, no big deal. Now *shrug* "Nothing these people do or say makes sense to me. I just want my fair share." I'd say Robyn suffers from dry eye, but I have it and the irony is your eyes water all the time! A yawn will send me reaching for a tissue, let alone defending myself on national television.

Plus Meri probably served the occasional vegetable.

Also, for all the years Christine was in the basement with a zillion kids, Meri was working part time/in school. Do we imagine she helped out much? Or was she sitting up there in her quiet apartment and sending Leon down to play with their siblings?

The good thing about mountains is that you can see them from more than just one parcel of land. I think it will be hilarious if the wives who leave end up slimmer and glowing than the wives who stay. Because looking at those early series shots of the family, Christine and Janelle are definitely on the upswing. (And Pilates does help a lot mentally as well as physically)

I know she doesn't want people poking, but he does have TLC money coming in, so she could demand diversion of a certain % of that as part of her contract negotiations. Though it wouldn't surprise me if they don't have an attorney looking at their contracts.

9.5 million in restitution? I'm going to go out on a limb and say she doesn't have that.

Once housewives luncheons/dinners became famous for food fights and broken glassware (not to mention all the screaming), doors were closed to them. No amount of promotional consideration is worth being known as a reality tv show set. Unless you're Vanderpump and that's what you're selling. My sister was widowed at 35 and there is an entire grief industry that can keep you stuck - she went to some grief groups and was horrified by people just sitting and wallowing in their pain, some for years on end. Mothers making every holiday about decorating Daddy's grave, etc. She skedaddled out of there lest she become one of them. I agree though that the main problem is alcoholism, triggered/exacerbated by genuine grief for the lost love one or the lost lifestyle, and enough money that needing to keep a job isn't a guardrail against worst excesses. I don't know any of the influencers but don't mind checking them out. I didn't know any of the original housewives (Bethenny vaguely), and they made an impression quickly by blatant social climbing (Alex and her husband), pretension (LuAnn), delusions of grandeur (Ramona). Marketing yourself in a very limited and totally curated space is a skill - I have a feeling some of them don't realize they're about to blow up everything they've built by showing who they really are, having convinced themselves that they can sustain the illusion in three dimensions while interacting with others. I can be there for that.

I know the names of the pieces and which way each of them can move. I haven't played since probably 1980. But to the best of my recollection, the Queen is the most powerful piece, and the King pretty much the most impotent, even though everything revolves around keeping him safe. Kind of like polygamy (or, to be fair, a lot of other crappy marriages). I'm trying to picture what a "resolution" without an apology looks like. Probably a cease and desist any negative talk about Robin and suck up to her in person, but I won't make you say the words "I'm sorry." I also think that while they may think Robyn's arrival fucked everything up, it's their father they're mad at, and his need to twist every "you keep choosing Robyn over everybody else" comment into an attack on her instead of on HIM. She wouldn't be the favorite if he didn't treat her as the favorite. Even if she were the favorite and he treated her as such in stealth mode, but made a genuine effort to uphold relationships with the kids if not their mothers, it might still have worked (for the kids). (See Christine's comment that if he had been a present father she would still be in the marriage.) But what you can't do is have a favorite, treat her as the favorite, disproportionately allocate communal resources to her, elevate her children above your own, be miserly with your time with every other kid, and then be offended and claim there's a witch hunt for your (favorite) wife when they beg for more of your time and point to all of the above as evidence that you're not around for *them*.

I'm not as firmly in the Robyn is diabolical camp as others, but she certainly was directing the show in that get together, including staring daggers at Kody trying to redirect him when he went off script. I suspect he was supposed to be the one stressing how they had to communicate and instead he went off on his diatribe and her repeating it over and over was to try to feed him his lines so that HE could be the one calling for resolution. Renting the large house sounds like a great way to spend the holidays. I feel bad for Meri if Leon has other plans and she ends up a third wheel with Robyn and Kody. But I suspect they'll just ask her to stop by for turkey sandwiches the next day or something instead. I thought Kody genuinely lost it last time with the kidney rant. I think he was trying and failing to repeat it this week - didn't strike me as remotely genuine. It was like a toddler (or a Real Housewife) trying to work themselves into a full blown cry but you see their eyes are completely dry and they're trying really, really hard. Robyn was trying to reel him in to steer the conversation the way they'd agreed it should go (Janelle, you in or out, you disloyal wife, you!) and instead he did exactly what I suspected he did with Gabe a couple of episodes ago -- used his brush with covid to catastrophize the situation and justify his behavior of the past few years. Unfortunately, his "you disrespect me at every turn" narrative kind of gets ruined by his blatant hostility and tantrums directed at women who are regarding him calmly and contradicting him with direct quotes from earlier conversations. They actually might have made serious money if they gave one of the kids free rein to make snarky shirts precisely like that. Especially if they were decent quality t shirts, and the sayings just cryptic enough to be an inside joke to the audience.

The age thing totally pissed me off, despite the fact that I love Jane Curtin. I even googled everybody's age and learned that Estelle Parsons is 95, God love her. I'm glad they brought her in for one last scene (if in fact the recent episode was her farewell to the show. I hope it wasn't and we will get more, preferably without Wacky Jackie.) Two things come to mind when I think of Bev - "Craftmatic Adjustable Bev" and her telling her husband's mistress "What a shame we don't have some sort of flavored coffee to celebrate this moment in our life." I have no idea WHAT they're going for with regard to Darlene's new house. It looks like the set of a Hallmark movie - are we supposed to believe she decorated it? Or that Becky did? Maybe Ben? They could have gone with the angle that HE liked a nice home and didn't want it to turn into the Conner house. Every time I see the opening credits I feel bad that they're not using the actress who plays DJ's daughter. Or DJ, for that matter.

Yeah, I'd be off to the ladies room as soon as strippers arrived. Otherwise I'd have to sit there and try to be polite so as not to hurt the feelings of men who were literally hired to behave in ways I'd flee from in any other situation. Not their fault - they're going to assume since they were hired the audience is willing. Especially when there's so much screeching going on. I forget which reality show it was, but somebody hired drag queens to entertain at a very shy person's birthday or engagement. The guest of honor was totally mortified that her friends had sprung this on her knowing she hated public attention, and I was impressed that they switched gears on the spot and just sat and talked with her rather than do their prepared bits -- even though they were on camera and it probably represented a major break for them. Probably a skill strippers and other entertainers learn on the job (focusing on the willing and stepping back from the unwilling)... but I'll spare them the effort and scoot before it becomes uncomfortable. I do think Whitney saw the vibe going south and stepped up... and that she didn't mind doing so, either. Jen is terrified of what lies ahead, and that accounts for the scattershot attacks. She'd flip out previously, but not necessarily so incoherently. I think she's one of those bullies who is tremendously insecure, and lashes out to keep control over other people. That's been her coping mechanism for years. Unfortunately, she knows that this behavior in prison is going to get her a beating and she literally has no other defense mechanisms. The fact that these other women will have many more trips like this, many more designer shoes, etc and she literally never will is killing her and making her reexamine her actions, except if she were capable of that she wouldn't have done them in the first place, so instead she's going berserk.

His actual words were that he was thinking about "checking in!"

Then he made a really really bad decision in adopting her, because I don't care what state you live in - that would end badly.

It actually would have been amusing if instead of staining the couch in the first place, Becky and Ben were proactive and covered it with the Conner afghan - a desecration of a different type. Then she'd be telling them to uncover it, and they'd be saying they weren't going to be the ones staining her precious white sofa, etc and therefore they had no choice but to protect it. I know it's a sitcom, but I hate when they play violence for laughs. Don't get me wrong - I loved Louise picking up that bat and chasing the kid out. But the realist in me was picturing how in a real world aftermath, after the adrenaline wore off, they'd be peering out the windows, wondering if the freak was going to come back and burn the house down around them. Chances are not, but do you really know? Something I liked about the original recipe was that they didn't drive over cliffs like that without there being repercussions. Something would be kind of resolved, but then Dan and Roseanne would wistfully acknowledge what it really meant, make a worst case scenario wisecrack, then scene.

Yup - Took my uncle to the ER and was told that if I entered the building to be with him I would be the ONLY person permitted to see him for the entirety of his stay, whether it was 3 hours or 3 weeks. Daunting decision to make when you're in a panic. I like the theory that Janelle has been plotting her escape. She looked genuinely hurt that Kody wasn't playing along with the "we're best friends if nothing else" story she was telling, but I think for years they DID have a good friendship. Christine was needy, Meri was intense - he could go to Janelle's, fire up the xbox, eat pizza and snickers and relax.

OMG - I instantly got this image of her leaning forward towards Kody and saying "Come ooooooooooooon!" This x1000. I understand that as part of their faith they keep stockpiles of food, and probably weren't eating much anyway, but maybe you'd get sick of soup and want some homemade macaroni and cheese, or somebody to pick up prescriptions (the unsick daughter may have done this, but she should have been quarantining too). How about some nice icy cold milkshakes as a treat for sore throat - still liquid, lots of calories, treat for the kids, etc. Christine appears to have set the price at $10 for her share, so no doubt he will lobby Janelle for that (conveniently forgetting his equity in the Christine's other house) Once again, there was an RV pictured at Robyn's house. WHAT DOES THE RV DO? Is that where the nanny lives? I'm serious - they've never addressed it and this is the second episode where it's been prominently featured without comment. Did Janelle request to use it on CP and when she was denied went out and bought her own? I don't think Gabe's issue was his birthday being forgotten - that was just the salt in the wound of Kody calling him up to gloat about (almost) his entire household having covid, and how awful it was, and how Robyn and the tenders were suffering, and it was what he had been trying to prevent all this time while Gabe and Garrison were laughing it off, and maybe Gabe had it, but nothing like THEY have it, and DOES HE GET IT NOW HOW RIGHT KODY HAD BEEN ALL ALONG?! The fact that he did it on Gabe's birthday just made it worse. As others have said, Christine has said she's vaccinated - I'm sure it was a condition of Ysabel's surgery that they both have proof. Kody appears to be stupidly embracing the concept that having had covid he's now free to drop his "protoculls" when in fact you really, really, really do not want to get it multiple times.