S06.E07: Just Trying to Stay Afloat

[purpleflowers]

I don't think it was ever confirmed that Maddie dropped out of college. 

[mamapajama]

Thank you, Black Widow!  I knew I wasn't the only one bothered every time one of the Browns tells us how they "fill"  for "rill" about this whole "dill."  In this episode, Robyn told us several times about a "rilly big dill."  I started craving pickles.

[MamaMax]

I do think Christine likes to "keep sweet", for the most part, with the other wives - to try and sell this "sister wives" crap as some really great relationship. She's always trying to come up with reasons why it's beneficial. This week it was - "See, we back each other up in fights with our husband". Okay, but not really. Everyone hid in the RVs when you were fighting with Kody over comments Ken made. 

 

But anyhow, I do believe she is genuine about loving the kids and seeing them all are one family. What really stands out to me is the plaques she once made for each kid, using their name and listing all their special attributes. I do think she really tries to have individual relationships with them all and sees the other kids as hers as well. I don't think that part is phony at all. 

 

 

This is why it was so interesting to hear that Christine had expressed to Kody that she "hated" plural marriage.  Back in the beginning, wasn't she an activist of sorts for their "marriage rights"?  I think that was before Robyn, when she still had no idea how it felt for Meri and Janelle when she came around.  That was before her fertile days were over, before she was put out to pasture. Shit got real for her, it happened esentially in real time in front of our eyes. (In a fucked up order, but you know what I mean). 

 

I really think that, before this show, Christine (and the others) chalked up their unhappinesses to the boogeyman of the state that wanted to take their kids away. When they all felt like a unit that, together, was persecuted, they had a common ememy. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that.  With this show, and their going public, they found out that 1. they weren't really in all that much danger from "outsiders" and that they 2. aren't any happier now that they are "out."  In fact, they found out that maybe -- just maybe -- they would be HAPPIER without each other? And that is some scary shit right there. That is some paradigm-shifting, life-changing shit right there.

 

And so I say, again, that this is why the whole plural marriage thing is so, so, so cult-ish. The men (the ones smarter than Kody, that is) KNOW it cant survive in the 21st century, First World, Western Hemisphere. As soon as the women see what they are missing, they are going to want what they are missing, they are going to see that it may be possible to GET what they are missing and wanting: respect, personal fulfillment, a genuine emotional connection.

 

I think David Preston Jessop wouldn't want to touch any of them --even his kids -- with a 10 foot pole again, becasue he knows they are all spolied forever for life on the compund.  I wouldnt be surprised if the AUB or whatever the fuck the cult is called, told him he BETTER sign those kids over. They dont need or want those kids, or this kind of attention, around them ever again.

Edited October 7, 2015 by MamaMax

[SometimesBites]

I really think that, before this show, Christine (and the others) chalked up their unhappinesses to the boogeyman of the state that wanted to take their kids away. When they all felt like a unit that, together, was persecuted, they had a common ememy. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that.  With this show, and their going public, they found out that 1. they weren't really in all that much danger from "outsiders" and that they 2. aren't any happier now that they are "out."  In fact, they found out that maybe -- just maybe -- they would be HAPPIER without each other? And that is some scary shit right there. That is some paradigm-shifting, life-changing shit right there.

I completely agree with this. The family legends about the government busting up the family and hijacking the daddy had to fall away, their neighbors have been friendly, they have googly-eyed fans kissing their asses on social media and when they go out in public. So now, when navigating the ugly reality of having her man around only once or twice a week, Christine has none of that fantasy persecution to fall back on as to why her life sucks.

Thanks for that clarification. I don't know why I could have sworn I read that he was mid-30s. 28 isn't nearly as bad. I will have to admit as the mother of a 20 year old I wouldn't be thrilled if she was dating a 28 year old but i would tolerate it much more than if she was dating a 30+ year old. 8 years isn't too much but it's better if they are a bit older since the difference between 20 and 28 is pretty big from a developmental perspective. If she was still in school I would feel better about it too. 

Yeah, I think the age difference would give most of us a little pause. Fortunately, most women mature a little faster than most men, so there's that. :)

[BlackWidow]

Thank you, Black Widow!  I knew I wasn't the only one bothered every time one of the Browns tells us how they "fill"  for "rill" about this whole "dill."  In this episode, Robyn told us several times about a "rilly big dill."  I started craving pickles.

Another one they do is make long A's sound like short E's.  Example of how they would say it: Our garage 'sell' sucked, I felt like we 'felled'. So we went out and ate a 'mell' at the Denny's.  Then there's the awful dropped consonants, which make for that awful plaintive baby-talk sound. So gross. https://www.ksl.com/?sid=8548383

 

          Maybe it's from being so out west, we don't have an accent near SF- well, except for Berkeley, where everything ends in a question? Ugh, that makes me crazy as well. Southern Californians do a variant of the uptalk? thing, where a sentence never seems to end? or get tot he point? but there's a nasally whiny kardashian thing added to it which is downright horrible.

[MaryMitch]

Maybe it's from being so out west, we don't have an accent near SF- well, except for Berkeley, where everything ends in a question? Ugh, that makes me crazy as well. Southern Californians do a variant of the uptalk? thing, where a sentence never seems to end? or get tot he point? but there's a nasally whiny kardashian thing added to it which is downright horrible.

EVERYBODY has an accent.

[RealityCowgirl]

I don't think it was ever confirmed that Maddie dropped out of college.

In one of her Instagram? Twitter? posts, she responded "not this year" to a question about that. That suggests she's taken at least a temporary break.

Found it. Screencaptured it. Just can't post it on my iPad. It's on her Instagram account, six weeks ago, in comments on a photo of the two of them, maybe at a table, smiling at each other.

Although...

As I read it again, it's in response to a question about USU. I suppose there's the possibility that she's not at Utah State this year, but attending one of the colleges in Billings.

Or she has indeed bailed on school "this year."

Who knows with this crew.

Edited October 8, 2015 by RealityCowgirl

[SometimesBites]

EVERYBODY has an accent.

Yes we do. And one of the sad things about mass media in the 20th century and beyond is the heavy dilution of regional accents in the US. Yes, I admit when the Browns say "rill" instead of "reel" I notice and I roll my eyes, but I think it's because almost everything about them now irritates me! Funny how the regional particularities of my dear friends from Minnesota, Texas, Mississippi, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, Boston, and Maine are like music to my ears, but even if Robyn or Meri suddenly sounded as if they grew up in England on an Oxford education I would be rolling my eyes at them. Let's face it: it's the staggering ignorance of the thoughts behind the words that really fries our hash...not the pronunciation.

Edited October 8, 2015 by SometimesBites

[Twopper]

 

Ratings are in: 1.309 M viewers and a .4 rating.

Is this good, bad or indifferent. I am not watching this season. thanks everyone for keeping me up to date.

[ghoulina]

I think David Preston Jessop wouldn't want to touch any of them --even his kids -- with a 10 foot pole again, becasue he knows they are all spolied forever for life on the compund.  I wouldnt be surprised if the AUB or whatever the fuck the cult is called, told him he BETTER sign those kids over. They dont need or want those kids, or this kind of attention, around them ever again.

 

I think this theory makes more sense than any of the other ones I've heard. 

[andromeda331]

And so I say, again, that this is why the whole plural marriage thing is so, so, so cult-ish. The men (the ones smarter than Kody, that is) KNOW it cant survive in the 21st century, First World, Western Hemisphere. As soon as the women see what they are missing, they are going to want what they are missing, they are going to see that it may be possible to GET what they are missing and wanting: respect, personal fulfillment, a genuine emotional connection.

That's why the whole cut off from the rest of the world always worked for them and why they want to

keep it that way. They'll tell women the stories of being taken away by the evil police and government.

That they'll go to jail. Perscuted, etc. Its all to keep the women from leaving.  Their not going to go

anywhere if they think they'll go to jail and what are they going to do out in the real world? They

have no real education, and dozen of kids to take care of with no job skills.

 

Christine's an interesting one because she clearly believed all the stories including the one

she loves to tell about her grandpa. But they came out and no one went to jail. Instead they

went to Vegas. It was harder to notice when they lived together in that house that Kody

wasn't around but now? He doesn't come around, he doesn't care about her or his kids if

he did she wouldn't have tried to make a deal to get him to see his kids more. All

she's got is the realty and its not pretty.  

[3girlsforus]

 

Christine's an interesting one because she clearly believed all the stories including the one

she loves to tell about her grandpa. But they came out and no one went to jail. Instead they

went to Vegas. It was harder to notice when they lived together in that house that Kody

wasn't around but now? He doesn't come around, he doesn't care about her or his kids if

he did she wouldn't have tried to make a deal to get him to see his kids more. All

she's got is the realty and its not pretty.  

 

I think the TLC show has been most difficult for Christine. Without the show I don't think there would have been Robyn, a move to Vegas, or split houses. She really believed full force in all of these stories and in the "glory" of polygamy.  Getting Robyn has shown her that polygamist men don't necessarily love and respect their wives. Moving to Vegas has shown her that all the fear she's been living with her whole life was a big lie. The separate living have shown her that they really aren't a united family. They are just women who sleep with the same guy (or used to). Her entire belief and value system has been destroyed.

[Absolom]

I guess the ratings are indifferent.  They definitely aren't good.  They're drifting toward bad.  At some point soon, it will be a money decision about keeping them on the air of cost to produce vs ratings high enough to generate ad revenue to cover the costs and make a little profit. 

[BlackWidow]

EVERYBODY has an accent.

 

 

 

 agree, though trends in speech patterns like the 'uptalk'? aren't really regional accents. Just like saying "I know right?'  or 'seriously?' isn't an accent.  out here you hear a lot of made-up corporate-speak* mixed with millennial slang which is also quite horrible.

 

   https://www.datalounge.com/thread/10983807-annoying-trendy-mannerisms-and-phrases

 

 

*combing integrative dynamic systems coordinating and unlocking potential blah blah blah motivating creative..innovation leveraging empowered vertical amazing sustainable...blah blah..

[Misslindsey]

 

Maybe the catfish scandal will give the ratings a bump, at least for a week or two. People may want to watch to try to get some information by seeing how the family is behaving.

Can Nev and Max come film a very special Catfish episode? They can wonder why Meri did not see the obvious signs. Max can roll his eyes and snark on Kody. If angry Nev came out it would be worth it. At least "Sam" did not say his profession was a model or a rapper.

 

I am perfectly fine if Maddie and Mykelti (is she still in school?) decided college wasn't for them. I graduated from a Big Ten school, but my brother took some time to figure out what he wanted to do and eventually went to culinary school. As long as they get a job, have a trade/go to a trade school, or if Maddie wants to be a stay at home wife it does not bother me. As long as they are not intending for the show to be their main source of income, but really who knows.

[CofCinci]

Mykelti is still in college. She's a Tri Sig (Try pig), so she's a college as a college girl can be.

[3girlsforus]

 

I am perfectly fine if Maddie and Mykelti (is she still in school?) decided college wasn't for them. I graduated from a Big Ten school, but my brother took some time to figure out what he wanted to do and eventually went to culinary school. As long as they get a job, have a trade/go to a trade school, or if Maddie wants to be a stay at home wife it does not bother me. As long as they are not intending for the show to be their main source of income, but really who knows.

 

I know college isn't for everyone. That's fine. And maybe that is going to be true for Maddie. I am just skeptical that it was a well thought out decision. She's one year into college and decides to quit college and marry an older guy when she's not even 20 yet. 

[Misslindsey]

 

Mykelti is still in college. She's a Tri Sig (Try pig), so she's a college as a college girl can be.

Thanks for the update. I remember it being mentioned that she had an instagram post that showed her at her job in Utah. So there were some questions.

 

 

I know college isn't for everyone. That's fine. And maybe that is going to be true for Maddie. I am just skeptical that it was a well thought out decision. She's one year into college and decides to quit college and marry an older guy when she's not even 20 yet.

I get where you are coming from and think that a bit as well. I guess I am waiting to see how this whole wedding and everything plays out. 

[egilsdottir]

Just watching this episode today. If you did a shot every time you saw one of those asinine inspirational quote signs (Faaaaahhhhmmmillly! Love! Hope!) all of the Browns have in their homes, you'd be on the floor drunk 15 minutes into the show.

Meri could not be anymore checked out. When Kody and Rawww-bin came over to tell her about Preston signing the papers, it looked like she had quickly slammed her laptop shut because they almost walked in on her cyber sexing with her Catfisher.

Love how Kody used the boat-building exercise to lord over his wives and children. I cringed when he screamed at Gabriel to give him some black paint. Ass.

[Snarklepuss]

Not to be a one-upper or anything but I was talking about Meri being checked out last season - It is getting worse with every episode though and she could not have been more checked out than this past week.

 

As far as the ratings go the Catfish scandal can work in both directions - It can pull some people back in or alienate them.  Some people might be disgusted with the news and not sympathetic to Meri.  It remains to be seen if there is any noticeable effect.

 

And as to accents I think the West Coast and the West in general definitely has an accent, and definitely has regional accents like any other area despite what it tends to think about itself.  I'm from NYC/New England and my own accent has changed markedly after 24 years in New England, and can hear the difference in the Western accents myself.  That said, despite the differences, there has been a general shift towards "Valley Speak" all across the country.  Accents all across the U.S. have actually changed in my lifetime to become more like the stereotypical "Valley Girls" of the 1980s and '90s, and I've read several articles in news magazines that confirm this.  To my ear Robyn sounds more like a Valley Girl than anything else - I can easily see all the women on this show and even Kodouche himself in that SNL sketch, "The Californians", LOL.  They don't have the pronounced "upspeak" that the Valley accent does but it's close enough to my ear, LOL.  OK, maybe that's an exaggeration but still, they're closer to being like that than like my area of the country!

Edited October 11, 2015 by Snarklepuss

[Kohola3]

As far as the ratings go the Catfish scandal can work in both directions - It can pull some people back in or alienate them.

 

I agree.  But they may as well re-brand this whole mess because it is no longer a show to sell polygamy.  Not when anyone with an IQ over 50 hasn't been able to figure out how totally inefficient, ineffectual, unloving, smothering, abusive, and misogynistic the concept really is.

 

Of course, the total IQ of the adults is below the mark but I would think the Totally Ludicrous Crap network might be able to figure that out.  I, for one, want no more part of this and only come to the forums to read what the brave souls (who sacrifice their brain cells every week to keep us all updated) have to say.

[BlackWidow]

Not to be a one-upper or anything but I was talking about Meri being checked out last season - It is getting worse with every episode though and she could not have been more checked out than this past week.

 

As far as the ratings go the Catfish scandal can work in both directions - It can pull some people back in or alienate them.  Some people might be disgusted with the news and not sympathetic to Meri.  It remains to be seen if there is any noticeable effect.

 

And as to accents I think the West Coast and the West in general definitely has an accent, and definitely has regional accents like any other area despite what it tends to think about itself.  I'm from NYC/New England and my own accent has changed markedly after 24 years in New England, and can hear the difference in the Western accents myself.  That said, despite the differences, there has been a general shift towards "Valley Speak" all across the country.  Accents all across the U.S. have actually changed in my lifetime to become more like the stereotypical "Valley Girls" of the 1980s and '90s, and I've read several articles in news magazines that confirm this.  To my ear Robyn sounds more like a Valley Girl than anything else - I can easily see all the women on this show and even Kodouche himself in that SNL sketch, "The Californians", LOL.  They don't have the pronounced "upspeak" that the Valley accent does but it's close enough to my ear, LOL.  OK, maybe that's an exaggeration but still, they're closer to being like that than like my area of the country!

 

 Would say it is a location (usually it is So-Cal that sounds more like this, and maybe surfer dudes)  but it is also an age thing, though Robyn isn't really of the millennial group, or even younger- that would sound like this. She seems to have it the worst out of all of them, but maybe they all would benefit from a speech class.

And as someone else commented, it isn't only the accents that grate, it's the content -or lack thereof, the proud and willful affectation of dumbness-horrible .

" Wull, cause Kodee and Day' Un and 'Rora and Sol'Mon , we wure all juss like hangun  around the barbQ....uh-huh nuh-uh

 

and then we have what is called 'vocal fry'

 

[Snarklepuss]

I agree that it's the content or lack thereof that makes Robyn in particular look stupid, but something about the way she speaks and her facial expressions contribute too.  That video was very interesting, I had never heard of the "vocal fry" before but I am definitely familiar with what it refers to, and unlike the people they polled I find it ultra annoying and "totes" pretentious.

[deedee2]

I'm re-watching the "cardboard regatta" ep, and my gosh Meri is SO orange. And she's wearing an orange top, too. Maybe she's taken "orange is the new black" a little too seriously :-/

[Twopper]

Last night I was watching some criminal story on ID and surfed over to TLC during a commercial break to see the part where Christine comes over to hear about Robyn's ex signing some papers.  I really just wanted to jump into the TV and slap them all.  Meri looked like she was just wanted to be anywhere else. 

 

It has been eons since I had a course in family law in law school, but I recall that a voluntary surrender of parental rights can often be harder to achieve than an involuntary one. That isn't true when the non-surrendering parent is married and has someone to "replace" the surrendering parent's role.  I am having trouble seeing that working for Kody and Robyn as long as they remain in this polygamous mess.  Maybe it is because I think polygamy is so awful that I am angry that Meri agreed to this divorce.  If she had left the family, I would be glad for her, but to stay in the family and become just another "spiritual" wife is just stupid to me. And I was nearly threw something at the tv when Christine told Meri the divorce was worth it. How would Christine know?  If I were Meri, I would have socked Christine, and I am not a violent person.

[MarysWetBar]

I am hooked on that ID channel too!

That's all.