(S0301) A new season! It's been months as far as we're concerned, but for the show, it's literally just a few moments.
The episode starts with Robyn telling Meri that she's pregnant. She wanted to be sure Meri was okay with it before she told everyone else, because she wasn't sure how Meri would take it. A lot of this episode is devoted to the fact that Meri wasn't able to have more kids, and Robyn had worried that she'd be upset, but in a classic example of how commericals lie, she was fine with it. Her daughter, Moriah, however, took it hard -- another piece of proof that her mom wasn't able to have babies. Most of the rest, however, were happy for her.
It looks like this season is going to have a lot to do with the kids, which has been sort of a lack in the previous two seasons. Up till now, it's been very much about the adults, but almost from the beginning of this episode, there's been a focus on the teens.
They aren't adjusting well. Several of them don't like public school that much, they keep getting bored, and they're starting to act out--like the way normal teens do. Hunter is turning antisocial, which must be just about the worst crime you can commit in a communal culture, and they keep trying to get him engaged and he keeps withdrawing more. Mykelti doesn't think it's good to film their personal religious ceremonies and stops going to church. Maddie is still hating everything.
The parents decide the kids need something to do, somewhere to go where they can meet other kids with good morals, and talk about getting them all to join a local youth group... except that it's at a Prebyterian church and not a Mormon one, and the local Mormons are not the same branch as they are. Janelle and Meri see it more as a social thing, but Kody, Christine and Robyn are concerned about the fact that they left Utah to be allowed to follow their faith, and they don't want to send their kids to another faith at all. So they ask the kids. Maddie and Mykelti seem to be okay with the idea, but Hunter is even less interested than ever and Logan wants to have a choice, not to be limited.
In the end, they decide to trust the kids' choices of friends, but to be involved in those friendships. They have a pool party and meet some of them, and their parents, and start the new dialog about being who they are in this new place. Which has got to be a huge pain in the butt, but they do it with that almost couples-therapy openness that they do everything with.
I always wonder how much of all that we see on the show is real, and how much is edited. I mean, I think that for every show, but TLC has clips that show different angles of things on their website, and it sort of brings it into focus that we're seeing what someone wants us to see about these people. They aren't in control of how they get edited. Do they watch their own show? Do they agree with how they're portrayed?
I'm glad the kids are getting to move to the front a little. We got a lot about how the adults handle their lifestyle, but the adults chose to live this way; the kids were born to it, and will have a different perspective. And nwo that they're in a different place all together, with a different climate, a different society around them, and separated from their jobs, friends, church, community, and everything else, it'll be interesting to see how they react. Kids are reactionary anyway, and teens, even when they don't mean to, generally look for ways to act out, and Vegas, I think, will offer way too many options.
More thougts on Sister Wives, "The Announcement":
Watch clips of Sister Wives on TLC.com!
What did Debbie say? There's no comment here, and now I'm curious!
~:)