S11.E00: A New Life

[Boston]

46 minutes ago, BitterApple said:

I was just thinking that. He really is a cutie.

Jessa seemed cranky in that egg dyeing scene. For someone who's such a lazy slob, I don't know why she was freaking out over a potential mess. 

I love Deviled Eggs, but wouldn't eat one made by the Duggars if you paid me. 

Henry is very cute!  Almost as cute as Sam.  I make some killer deviled eggs.  Luv them.

[Zella]

5 minutes ago, truebluesmoky said:

I sometimes wonder if Jana might secretly be the more difficult sister out of Jana and Jessa, but she’s just less overt about it.

I think there's enough evidence to show that Jessa really can be a bitch--the whole anecdote about the music box just astounds me--but it wouldn't surprise me if Jana isn't really as pleasant as she is depicted.

[emmawoodhouse]

2 minutes ago, Zella said:

I think there's enough evidence to show that Jessa really can be a bitch--the whole anecdote about the music box just astounds me--but it wouldn't surprise me if Jana isn't really as pleasant as she is depicted.

I don't think either of them are nice people. Jana just knows how to plaster on the fake smile that doesn't reach her eyes better than Jessa. 

[Zella]

6 minutes ago, emmawoodhouse said:

I don't think either of them are nice people. Jana just knows how to plaster on the fake smile that doesn't reach her eyes better than Jessa. 

I can believe that. I also have never bought the line that Jana is secretly a rebel. I don't think she would be allowed the relative freedoms she has--pitiful as they are--and the authority she seems to exercise in the house if she wasn't trusted implicitly by her parents. 

Edited March 31, 2021 by Zella

[Temperance]

1 hour ago, QuinnInND said:

Kendra was saved at age 4.... Riiiight. God what bullshit. Because 4 year olds are such sinners. Ugh. 

Jill R was saved at 4 or 5. 

[BitterApple]

24 minutes ago, Zella said:

I think there's enough evidence to show that Jessa really can be a bitch--the whole anecdote about the music box just astounds me--but it wouldn't surprise me if Jana isn't really as pleasant as she is depicted.

I agree. Usually when there's a long-standing conflict, there's bad behavior on both sides. 

[cmr2014]

I was thinking that I couldn't imagine why they thought anyone would be interested in their testimony about their sinful ways in middle school (or pre-school in Kendra's case), but their world really is just that insular. That's what they do -- sit in a circle and talk mournfully about their sins. I guess that they think that they find it interesting or inspirational and others will, too.

I don't. i think it's boring and sad, and I don't think I'm the only one . . .

[emmawoodhouse]

What the fresh hell was that episode? All Jeezus, all the time. I was actually embarrassed to keep watching, hoping it would let up. They even broke up the dying of eggs to have Spurgeon recite the Easter story. 

If this show does come back, I hope they dial back the religion. 

[seasons]

5 hours ago, cmr2014 said:

At one point Kendra says "we will have a two year old, a one year old, and a newborn" and then says something like "that's a lot." as if she was completely in the dark as to how this happened and is totally unaware that it doesn't have to be this way.

I Watched the egg coloring scene. Jessa is completely joyless. Not good. 

 

Speaking of Joy, didn't recognize her with that super dark hair.

Edited March 31, 2021 by seasons

[seasons]

5 hours ago, auntieminem said:

As already mentioned the production values were so bad, everything about it. Lighting, make up, it was disjointed. The whole Easter timing was unbelievable. So many MIA for the "special".  More of Anna and she didn't look so good. Meredith is really cute. They have done lots of sucky episodes but this one takes the cake which makes me think maybe it was a "duggar production". I forgot to look at the credits.

 

I noticed too that Anna didn't look so good. Quarantine really got to these people?

[Quof]

10 minutes ago, seasons said:

Quarantine really got to these people

What quarantine?

[GeeGolly]

I've yet to watch the episode on TV, but I'm commenting on the poor quality of filming and lighting seen in the clip and YouTube video.

This was likely filmed in January because Brooklyn was born 2/19. Sister Wives explains before each episode, due to the pandemic, the Brown's are filming themselves and the THs are done remotely. I'm thinking the Duggars did the same thing, but the Duggars being Duggars dragged out their old film equipment, where the Browns used their iPhones. The iPhones do a better job.

Also, we've had a lot of discussions on here about if the Duggars have been hiding their faith all these years. While they're usually more subtle than this, maybe this episode is a fuck you internet moment.

[Churchhoney]

7 hours ago, cmr2014 said:

I was thinking that I couldn't imagine why they thought anyone would be interested in their testimony about their sinful ways in middle school (or pre-school in Kendra's case), but their world really is just that insular. That's what they do -- sit in a circle and talk mournfully about their sins. I guess that they think that they find it interesting or inspirational and others will, too.

I don't. i think it's boring and sad, and I don't think I'm the only one . . .

And "boring and sad" not least because they don't actually know what their real sins are. 

This is especially true for the horrifying Jim Bob and Meeechelle, who seem blissfully unaware that they warped the hell out of every one of their children -- to some degree quite deliberately -- and instead sit around congratulating themselves on their swelling compound of God's Finest Productions. 

 

[Jeeves]

3 hours ago, seasons said:

I noticed too that Anna didn't look so good. Quarantine really got to these people?

 

3 hours ago, Quof said:

What quarantine?

^^This. All of them have posted constantly on social media and none of them seem to have changed their ways much if at all in the past year. They've traveled all over, attended weddings, trooped over to Waco more than once to visit the Magnolia Empire Store (or whatever it's called). They have gone out shopping and posed for group photos during those trips with masks pulled off so we can see their lovely smiles. I think Meech and Josie did some fake-ass bit last year for the TLC cameras about making masks and using paper towels and vinegar for disinfecting (note: vinegar does NOT kill viruses, fools) but it was obviously a made-up-for-TV bit. Joy and her best friend Carlin have traveled to visit each other more than once. The TTH seems to have continued to have weekly "family nights" with people sitting all over their nasty brown sofas. There are photos of the Duggars socializing among other families. I wonder if Abbie didn't just quietly nope out of some of that given her nursing training, but then she grew up in a big Gothard family so is probably as washed in the Kool-Aid as the rest. 

No way that bunch had any kind of legit "bubble" going on. Or sheltered in place. Or denied themselves anything just because of a global pandemic. 

I think the only major difference that COVID made in their lives was the disappearance of any production company crews, no doubt to the particular ire of Jessa and JB and Michelle and Anna. (I think Anna's' as big a famechaser as the others but she just hides it better).

Edited March 31, 2021 by Jeeves
Epidemic, pandemic - let's call the whole thing off. Better yet, TLC: call the whole show off.

[Churchhoney]

9 hours ago, emmawoodhouse said:

What the fresh hell was that episode? All Jeezus, all the time. I was actually embarrassed to keep watching, hoping it would let up. They even broke up the dying of eggs to have Spurgeon recite the Easter story. 

If this show does come back, I hope they dial back the religion. 

Well, I don't know. I tend to look at this phenomenon differently.

Since this is who they are, in my opinion "reality tv" should show this! A lot. This is a very very big chunk of Duggar reality. IT's the only part they believe is actually meaningful, too. This kind of thing is exactly what a SOTDRT "education" aims to produce. 

And it's the reality they always intended to push through the show -- their mission.  Although the intention has been to push it the way advertising always does -- show it prettier and shinier and more fun than the real product, to get people in the door. And that's what the show's done.  But the apparently hundreds of families who joined Gothard's idiot enterprises because the Duggars "inspired" them were coached by ATI'IBLP to become exactly this kind of people, the people from the current episode.  Because that's who the Gothard people are supposed to be. 

So many times these "reality" episodes about the Duggars have had to include invented activities for them so the audience would find them interesting to watch. I guess when the shows were brand new, the audience found fun in the logistics and chaos of all those little kids running around in one big tin place. And -- thanks to thousands of years of grooming by the world's endless supply of patriarchies, in my opinion -- lots of women love watching anyone whatever pick out a wedding dress.

But when there aren't a dozen-plus young kids running around in the same house and there are no daughters' weddings, the producers have had to gin up some fun by inventing "games" and contests for the math-illiterate Duggars to compete in or send them on trips to visit urban Christian rappers or the castle where King James wrote his version of the bible all by himself or to go skydiving with Meeechelle. (...even, I think, to pretend to briefly work in a coffee shop for charity??? and pretend to deliver donations to a food bank....) 

Imagine if, instead of those fake "adventures," "reality" tv had just shown the "real" Duggars all the time.....That would have been a lot more like this show....along with their talking heads, in which they also demonstrate just how boring -- and ignorant -- they can actually be. 

I mean, how different was this episode from their social media, really? Remember Bin's sermons to his kids on the recent Florida trip? And the Seewalds' apparent inability to supply their kids with simple toylike items so they could, you know, actually have fun playing on the beach? 

Their particular version of the Christ-centered life doesn't boast much activity, seems to me, and when it talks, it seems to just repeat again and again the same things -- they're saved saved saved and no kissing before marriage! How many times have they explained what courting is? Most truly religious people I know have a lot more aspects to their faith lives than the Duggs do. It's like the needle on their 78 rpm record is stuck. 

Seems to me that TLC has a long-running reality show starring an extremely dull family who are super-religious in a really boring, limited and depressing way. And this episode seems to have put that front and center instead of doing what a lot of other episodes have done -- extensively fictionalize the "reality" family. 

So I'm kind of a fan of them showing the facts for a change  (Of course, I don't watch it -- so ... I've got nothing to lose!) 

 

 

Edited March 31, 2021 by Churchhoney

[farmgal4]

8 hours ago, truebluesmoky said:

Random observations:

Henry is speaking really well now.

I have thought this since the scavenger hunt episode... even though she’s a daughter-in-law, I think Kendra is JimBob’s favorite daughter now. 

If Anna isn’t pregnant, she has gained a lot of weight. This is perfectly normal after all her pregnancies and the stress of her marriage to that nasty, awful monster, but I worry for her that she will blame herself if he strays again.

I sometimes wonder if Jana might secretly be the more difficult sister out of Jana and Jessa, but she’s just less overt about it.

I wonder if there is a particular reason Josiah and Lauren didn’t participate.

I wonder what’s going on with Lauren and Josiah.  They haven’t posted anything on SM in months.

[libgirl2]

12 minutes ago, farmgal4 said:

I wonder what’s going on with Lauren and Josiah.  They haven’t posted anything on SM in months.

I'm hoping they just want a quiet life. If this is the case maybe Lauren isn't so bad. We will see. 

[Boston]

10 hours ago, Liamsmom617 said:

  Did Michelle get cheek implants or something? Something looks really off with her face. 

   I’m embarrassed to admit that when I saw the episode description a few days ago (“The Duggars meet their 20th grandchild”), I was able to name all 19 that I knew of… I didn’t know that Kendra and Joe had had a third one. But just the fact that I knew I could name all of the other 19 grandkids… Kill me now.

   I hope every episode from here on isn’t gonna be so Christ-y.

I thought the same thing about MECHELLE.. Either she lost alot of weight (which didn't look like except for the face) or.. ???? I don't know.. but i noticed that she had sunken cheekbones.

[Jeeves]

1 hour ago, Churchhoney said:

Since this is who they are, in my opinion "reality tv" should show this! A lot.    .  . . 

Their particular version of the Christ-centered life doesn't boast much activity, seems to me, and when it talks, it seems to just repeat again and again the same things -- they're saved saved saved and no kissing before marriage! How many times have they explained what courting is? Most truly religious people I know have a lot more aspects to their faith lives than the Duggs do. It's like the needle on their 78 rpm record is stuck. 

Seems to me that TLC has a long-running reality show starring an extremely dull family who are super-religious in a really boring, limited and depressing way. And this episode seems to have put that front and center instead of doing what a lot of other episodes have done -- fictionalize the "reality" family. 

Man, we really need a "LOVE" reaction button. This whole post is spot on, IMO. If TLC quits adding fluff and filler and phony "activities" to make the Duggars palatable - I am HERE for it.

Yes, let 'em just keep parroting the same short list of stuff.

Let them tell us all about how Jed! and Katey were biblically betrothed. Not that they have the courage to stand up for their own convictions vs. soft-sell that arranged marriage deal when they talk about it in public - with the TLC editors collaborating so as to put out a product acceptable to their general viewership. 

I hope they soon air more episodes like this one. Let the world see who they are and hear what they say. 

Edited March 31, 2021 by Jeeves

[Jynnan tonnix]

9 hours ago, Boston said:

Henry is very cute!  Almost as cute as Sam.  I make some killer deviled eggs.  Luv them.

I don't really watch the show outside of whatever clips might be posted here once in a while. I'm really curious about this episode, though, given that so many people have been reacting to the production values, and how bad some of the inmates looked. 

A lot of the Duggar Grands are quite cute...it will be interesting to see whether the boys in those families suffer the same rapid deterioration in cuteness as they pass puberty. Though with any luck, they will all have faded off into the sunset by then - hopefully having broken out of the cult.

I make great deviled eggs as well (at least, I think they are great). My secret ingredient is a bit of curry powder...it really brings out the essential eggy-ness. Am I the only one who always thinks "deviled" should have an extra "l"? It always looks as though it should rhyme with reviled. I always want to put extra consonants in words before -ed or -ing endings. I think maybe that's the way they are spelled in England, where I first learned to read and write, and those spelling lessons never quite wore off.

[Boston]

Just now, Jynnan tonnix said:

I don't really watch the show outside of whatever clips might be posted here once in a while. I'm really curious about this episode, though, given that so many people have been reacting to the production values, and how bad some of the inmates looked. 

A lot of the Duggar Grands are quite cute...it will be interesting to see whether the boys in those families suffer the same rapid deterioration in cuteness as they pass puberty. Though with any luck, they will all have faded off into the sunset by then - hopefully having broken out of the cult.

I make great deviled eggs as well (at least, I think they are great). My secret ingredient is a bit of curry powder...it really brings out the essential eggy-ness. Am I the only one who always thinks "deviled" should have an extra "l"? It always looks as though it should rhyme with reviled. I always want to put extra consonants in words before -ed or -ing endings. I think maybe that's the way they are spelled in England, where I first learned to read and write, and those spelling lessons never quite wore off.

Most of my friends,/relatives don't like it but i add some horseradish in the eggs sometimes.  I love hot and spicy.

[Tikichick]

13 hours ago, lascuba said:

I'm watching it on TLC's site now and I can't get past Kendra's make up in the TH. Someone hates her. A LOT.

I commented in the media thread about this yesterday.   You will see the exact same heinous makeup on Michelle, Joy, Jessa and Kendra in the talking heads -- because they would all wear the exact same shades, right?

[Tikichick]

10 hours ago, BitterApple said:

I'm watching on Roku. My thoughts:

Kendra looks exhausted. She's going to put herself in an early grave if she keeps up this breeding pace.

I think it was. The camera work is horrible in addition to the lighting and none of the TLC-produced episodes are so hardcore religious.

Michelle definitely looks like she had some kind of work done. You could bounce quarters off those cheekbones. 

I wonder why none of the other older kids were in the episode? No Si and Lauren, no Jed, Jer, Jackson or James. 

The whole thing felt awkward and weird. 

For all I've seen since Christmas, Si and Lauren may have bolted from the family, divorced, gone into witness protection.

[Tikichick]

1 hour ago, Jeeves said:

 

^^This. All of them have posted constantly on social media and none of them seem to have changed their ways much if at all in the past year. They've traveled all over, attended weddings, trooped over to Waco more than once to visit the Magnolia Empire Store (or whatever it's called). They have gone out shopping and posed for group photos during those trips with masks pulled off so we can see their lovely smiles. I think Meech and Josie did some fake-ass bit last year for the TLC cameras about making masks and using paper towels and vinegar for disinfecting (note: vinegar does NOT kill viruses, fools) but it was obviously a made-up-for-TV bit. Joy and her best friend Carlin have traveled to visit each other more than once. The TTH seems to have continued to have weekly "family nights" with people sitting all over their nasty brown sofas. There are photos of the Duggars socializing among other families. I wonder if Abbie didn't just quietly nope out of some of that given her nursing training, but then she grew up in a big Gothard family so is probably as washed in the Kool-Aid as the rest. 

No way that bunch had any kind of legit "bubble" going on. Or sheltered in place. Or denied themselves anything just because of a global pandemic. 

I think the only major difference that COVID made in their lives was the disappearance of any production company crews, no doubt to the particular ire of Jessa and JB and Michelle and Anna. (I think Anna's' as big a famechaser as the others but she just hides it better).

Don't forget the enormous gathering at the holidays where the common area of the TTH was simply the tree and several dozen very cozy folding chairs filling every square millimeter of floor space.

[louannems]

7 hours ago, emmawoodhouse said:

What the fresh hell was that episode? All Jeezus, all the time. I was actually embarrassed to keep watching, hoping it would let up. They even broke up the dying of eggs to have Spurgeon recite the Easter story. 

If this show does come back, I hope they dial back the religion. 

Our Comcast bill was getting so high that about a year ago, we downgraded our channels for a lower bill.  No more TLC!  So I haven't been able to watch. But I'd like to see all this sit around and talk jesus stuff!

[GeeGolly]

12 minutes ago, louannems said:

Our Comcast bill was getting so high that about a year ago, we downgraded our channels for a lower bill.  No more TLC!  So I haven't been able to watch. But I'd like to see all this sit around and talk jesus stuff!

You can Google Counting On Season 11 Episode 106 A New Life (Mar 30, 2021) and view it on YouTube.

[Tikichick]

1 hour ago, Boston said:

Most of my friends,/relatives don't like it but i add some horseradish in the eggs sometimes.  I love hot and spicy.

I was an adult before I was aware some people made deviled eggs without horseradish.   Talk about blasphemy.

[Tikichick]

2 hours ago, Churchhoney said:

Well, I don't know. I tend to look at this phenomenon differently.

Since this is who they are, in my opinion "reality tv" should show this! A lot. This is a very very big chunk of Duggar reality. IT's the only part they believe is actually meaningful, too. This kind of thing is exactly what a SOTDRT "education" aims to produce. 

And it's the reality they always intended to push through the show -- their mission.  Although the intention has been to push it the way advertising always does -- show it prettier and shinier and more fun than the real product, to get people in the door. And that's what the show's done.  But the apparently hundreds of families who joined Gothard's idiot enterprises because the Duggars "inspired" them were coached by ATI'IBLP to become exactly this kind of people, the people from the current episode.  Because that's who the Gothard people are supposed to be. 

So many times these "reality" episodes about the Duggars have had to include invented activities for them to do so the audience would find them interesting to watch. I guess when the shows were brand new, the audience found fun in the logistics and chaos of all those little kids running around in one big tin place. And -- thanks to thousands of years of grooming by the world's endless supply of patriarchies, in my opinion -- lots of women love watching anyone whatever pick out a wedding dress.

But when there aren't a dozen-plus young kids running around in the same house and there are no daughters' weddings, the producers have had to gin up some fun by inventing "games" and contests for the math-illiterate Duggars to compete in or send them on trips to visit urban Christian rappers or the castle where King James wrote his version of the bible all by himself or to go skydiving with Meeechelle. (...even, I think, to pretend to briefly work in a coffee shop for charity??? and pretend to deliver donations to a food bank....) 

Imagine if, instead of those fake "adventures," "reality" tv had just shown the "real" Duggars all the time.....That would have been a lot more like this show....along with their talking heads, in which they also demonstrate just how boring -- and ignorant -- they can actually be. 

I mean, how different was this episode from their social media, really? Remember Bin's sermons to his kids on the recent Florida trip? And the Seewald's apparent inability to supply their kids with simple toylike items so they could, you know, actually have fun playing on the beach? 

Their particular version of the Christ-centered life doesn't boast much activity, seems to me, and when it talks, it seems to just repeat again and again the same things -- they're saved saved saved and no kissing before marriage! How many times have they explained what courting is? Most truly religious people I know have a lot more aspects to their faith lives than the Duggs do. It's like the needle on their 78 rpm record is stuck. 

Seems to me that TLC has a long-running reality show starring an extremely dull family who are super-religious in a really boring, limited and depressing way. And this episode seems to have put that front and center instead of doing what a lot of other episodes have done -- extensively fictionalize the "reality" family. 

So I'm kind of a fan of them showing the facts for a change  (Of course, I don't watch it -- so ... I've got nothing to lose!) 

 

 

The episode really wasn't very different from showing invented activities for them to do, it was simply alleged accounts of their conversions displayed on the show.  Once again their particular versions of the Christ-centered lives revolves around vague and sanitized accounts of "transgressions" that are suitably benign to demonstrate that none of them could tolerate even the slightest of transgressions within themselves and promptly decided to get right with Jesus.   All the better to maintain that oh so pious public standing.

Ironically the only one who seemed to even come close to what I'm familiar with as  a legitimate understanding of a Christian's need for salvation was Kendra when she referenced coming to the understanding that she couldn't save herself with her own good works, that only Christ's sacrifice would atone.   

[seasons]

Kendra seems to be the sweetest person in the family. I'm sure she has her moments, but she does seem to have a bad bone in her body. And truly a woman of Christ who walks the walk as best she can on her beliefs. Also, her teeth are super nice and white! 

 

I like how Jessa calls Spurgeon  "Spurg". Kind of cute.

[seasons]

The grandkids call Michelle "Lolly"? 

 

Looks to me like she lost weight. Kind of weird though. Too much blush/highlighter.

Jesus is ok with painted faces I guess? 😒

 

 

 

These Duggars don't look well lately to me.

Edited March 31, 2021 by seasons

[iwantcookies]

9 minutes ago, seasons said:

The grandkids call Michelle "Lolly"? 

 

Looks to me like she lost weight. Kind of weird though. These Duggars don't look well lately to me.

They did eat that weird green food for St Patrick day 🤣🤣🤣

Plus their regular diet isn’t healthy 

 

[sheshark]

This was the first time Jessa dyed Easter eggs with her kids?  I can’t recall a time we didn’t do eggs.   It’s a tradition!

Edited March 31, 2021 by sheshark
Autocorrect

[Tikichick]

7 minutes ago, sheshark said:

This was the first time Jessa dyed Easter eggs with her kids?  I can’t recall a time we didn’t do eggs.   It’s a tradition!

I think I may have only dyed egss once with my children.   Not that I didn't grow up with or love the tradition, but because I was the only person in our house who would eat the eggs, so there was a limit on how much of such a perishable food one person can eat.   Not much point in going to all the effort to dye six eggs.

Of course as adults they have come to appreciate deviled eggs, so dying a dozen or 18 eggs wouldn't be an issue.   Color me annoyed.

[Chicklet]

Yea they may be saved but they forgot about  “faith apart from works is dead” ( James 2:26 ). And Medicorpse doesn't do it boys.

[Tikichick]

Wondering if the family pitched the episode to the network as a minimal effort affair during the pandemic that would provide some fresh content to air?   Perhaps the network had okayed it, expecting they were going to be getting much more footage focused on the birth and possibly the staged Easter bonnets and hats shenanigans.  I can see where the network might have been surprised to be given a token amount of what is now very generic birth footage from the family, and even from just Joe and Kendra's little family at this point, and  a skimpy and lackluster showing of the littles making hats.   Would not be surprised to find the family did an end run around the network's expectations about baby and Easter theme fun and instead focus more on the public piety of the sanitized, made for public glory stories of coming to Jesus? 

[Panopticon]

13 hours ago, truebluesmoky said:

 

I have thought this since the scavenger hunt episode... even though she’s a daughter-in-law, I think Kendra is JimBob’s favorite daughter now. 

I haven’t watched, but that makes total sense. She’s the best at keeping sweet and the best at popping out babies without pausing in between pregnancies. His leg humping audience likes her and even his hate watching audience can’t find much to criticize. She’s arguably his most successful addition to the family business so far. 

[DangerousMinds]

8 hours ago, seasons said:

I noticed too that Anna didn't look so good. Quarantine really got to these people?

Oh please, they didn’t really quarantine.

[DangerousMinds]

5 hours ago, Jeeves said:

 

^^This. All of them have posted constantly on social media and none of them seem to have changed their ways much if at all in the past year. They've traveled all over, attended weddings, trooped over to Waco more than once to visit the Magnolia Empire Store (or whatever it's called). They have gone out shopping and posed for group photos during those trips with masks pulled off so we can see their lovely smiles. I think Meech and Josie did some fake-ass bit last year for the TLC cameras about making masks and using paper towels and vinegar for disinfecting (note: vinegar does NOT kill viruses, fools) but it was obviously a made-up-for-TV bit. Joy and her best friend Carlin have traveled to visit each other more than once. The TTH seems to have continued to have weekly "family nights" with people sitting all over their nasty brown sofas. There are photos of the Duggars socializing among other families. I wonder if Abbie didn't just quietly nope out of some of that given her nursing training, but then she grew up in a big Gothard family so is probably as washed in the Kool-Aid as the rest. 

No way that bunch had any kind of legit "bubble" going on. Or sheltered in place. Or denied themselves anything just because of a global pandemic. 

I think the only major difference that COVID made in their lives was the disappearance of any production company crews, no doubt to the particular ire of Jessa and JB and Michelle and Anna. (I think Anna's' as big a famechaser as the others but she just hides it better).

If anything, they probably spread Covid to other people. We know several of the Bates and Joy had it, and continued to travel all over the place. Who knows how sick some of those they infected got? 😡

[DangerousMinds]

4 hours ago, Boston said:

Most of my friends,/relatives don't like it but i add some horseradish in the eggs sometimes.  I love hot and spicy.

Me too! I usually put sriracha on them at home, too.

[DangerousMinds]

2 hours ago, sheshark said:

This was the first time Jessa dyed Easter eggs with her kids?  I can’t recall a time we didn’t do eggs.   It’s a tradition!

Blasphemy! Doesn’t Jessa know that’s a pagan thing to do? Jk, my family did that every year. What fun would Easter be without it? 

[Ohiopirate02]

53 minutes ago, Chicklet said:

Yea they may be saved but they forgot about  “faith apart from works is dead” ( James 2:26 ). And Medicorpse doesn't do it boys.

Bold of you to assume any Duggar or Bates has ever read the Second Book of James.  I remember reading somewhere that back during the Protestant Reformation and the Prods were busy deciding upon which books to include in their bible, one of them (Calvin perhaps) wanted to exclude this book because of this passage.  This verse is too Catholic and refutes their stance of salvation through faith alone.  The book did make the cut, but it sits unread for many.

[Tikichick]

2 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

Bold of you to assume any Duggar or Bates has ever read the Second Book of James.  I remember reading somewhere that back during the Protestant Reformation and the Prods were busy deciding upon which books to include in their bible, one of them (Calvin perhaps) wanted to exclude this book because of this passage.  This verse is too Catholic and refutes their stance of salvation through faith alone.  The book did make the cut, but it sits unread for many.

Interesting.   As Lutherans we strongly affirm both to be true.

[Chicklet]

Well the Duggar family motto is actually "The least we can do".

And wait- the Duggars ignore a book that King James slaved over in the KJV? They wouldn't dare!!

Edited March 31, 2021 by Chicklet

[BitterApple]

The scene I found most interesting was at the beginning when Garrett and Gideon got into a squabble. I thought Kendra handled it beautifully, by being firm with her son and making him apologize, while making sure Gideon was okay. Meanwhile, Joy just stands there and tells her son to "be tough" and Jessa blows it off as "age." I know the Duggars' childhood was Fundie "Lord of the Flies," but the disparity in parenting style was jarring. I also thought it was ridiculous how Jessa expected 5 year-old Spurgeon to babysit three toddlers. I'm hoping an adult was there off-camera.

[Ohiopirate02]

5 minutes ago, Chicklet said:

Well the Duggar family motto is actually "The least we can do".

And wait- the Duggars ignore a book that King James slaved over in the KJV? They wouldn't dare!!

I mean they ignore the first four books of the New Testament on a daily basis, we really cannot expect them to actually read the second letter of James.

[lascuba]

I didn't realize that the Duggars might have filmed/produced this episode themselves--that explains a lot, from the production quality to the makeup to the more asinine than usual content to the preachiness. As it was a birth special as well, they likely decided to take advantage of the higher ratings and go hard with the Jesus sales pitch.

 

13 hours ago, emmawoodhouse said:

I don't think either of them are nice people. Jana just knows how to plaster on the fake smile that doesn't reach her eyes better than Jessa. 

Yep. You don't get to be the one running that household and not be some level of asshole. And however much Jessa might have bothered her as a child, Jana was the older one. The music box story happened when Jessa was like 3 or 4, so it's always been super weird to me that that is held against her so much.

 

8 hours ago, seasons said:

I Watched the egg coloring scene. Jessa is completely joyless. Not good. 

 

I don't know if she was joyless or just not doing the fake perky thing she's been doing on camera for the past few years. I noticed throughout the episode and THs that her face was pretty neutral, which I actually prefer. Most adults don't go around smiling all the time while dyeing eggs or whatever else, no matter how they feel about the activity.

6 hours ago, GeeGolly said:

Also, we've had a lot of discussions on here about if the Duggars have been hiding their faith all these years. While they're usually more subtle than this, maybe this episode is a fuck you internet moment.

I think you might be right, and it's yet another fuck you internet moment where they completely miss the point. Nobody cares about them hiding the idiotic fact that they were saved by Jesus at 4. What people are criticizing is them hiding their religion-sanctioned bigotry. They should film themselves recording their anti-trans robocalls and protesting liquor sales if they're going to pretend to be open about their faith.

[Jeeves]

Okay, I tried to watch the episode this morning and got about 12 minutes in and thought "my remaining years of life are too precious to waste any more on this" and stopped. I did notice that Joy sounds so uneducated. She said "You should have saw Gideon . . . " She really did. Sigh.

[Pingaponga]

24 minutes ago, BitterApple said:

The scene I found most interesting was at the beginning when Garrett and Gideon got into a squabble. I thought Kendra handled it beautifully, by being firm with her son and making him apologize, while making sure Gideon was okay. Meanwhile, Joy just stands there and tells her son to "be tough" and Jessa blows it off as "age." I know the Duggars' childhood was Fundie "Lord of the Flies," but the disparity in parenting style was jarring. I also thought it was ridiculous how Jessa expected 5 year-old Spurgeon to babysit three toddlers. I'm hoping an adult was there off-camera.

Kendra handled that so, so well. I was really impressed. And there really should have been an adult present to supervise all those kids. Two-year-olds can get into a lot of trouble really quickly.

Anna looked pregnant when they were decorating the hats. The lost girls all did a nice job decorating the hats, and I think Josie looked really pretty with her hat on. She may be a very beautiful girl in a couple more years.

It was really weird that there was no mention of Jessa's pregnancy or Justin's wedding at all. I know that the focus of this episode was supposed to be the birth of Kendra & Joe's third child, followed by a lot of stuff about faith and Easter, but if you are going to broadcast this BEFORE Easter, why not at least acknowledge the other stuff that's been announced?

And why broadcast it this week, before Easter, rather than next week, after Easter, when it wouldn't be quite so obvious that they faked the Easter hat decorating/Easter egg dying/Easter brunch celebrating? Seriously, wait a week before broadcasting the episode and it would not have screamed FAKE FAKE FAKE.

[Tikichick]

The couples sitting in the church sharing how they came to be saved pointed out to me once again one of the things that I would most struggle with in that family, amongst many, many others, oh so many others, JB (and M) sitting there and talking to grown adults with children the same way they spoke to these same offspring when they were 6, 10, 14, 16 year olds.   "Okay.  Guys, now let's ..."     Grrrr! 

[Adeejay]

30 minutes ago, lascuba said:

Yep. You don't get to be the one running that household and not be some level of asshole. And however much Jessa might have bothered her as a child, Jana was the older one. The music box story happened when Jessa was like 3 or 4, so it's always been super weird to me that that is held against her so much.

In all fairness, I believe that Jana being the oldest girl had a lot on her plate.  She was probably not only running the household but was also responsible for keeping her siblings in line. That is a lot of pressure.  She most likely didn’t have time for Jessa and her b.s.  Jessa admitted that she wasn’t easy to deal with, so I can definitely understand why they clashed.   

Joe seems to be a reasonable guy.  Surely, he can see that his wife is exhausted.  I hope they hold it a three for a while.