Review: S04 Ep03 Brutal Honesty and S04 Ep04 You Asked, Browns Answer

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Episode 3: Brutal Honesty

No, Robyn wasn't about to faint, but I must say her face pretty much sums up the excitement  I felt watching not one but TWO episodes tonight. Thank goodness they were only a half hour each, but still, it wasn't exactly what I would call fun.

 Got to admit that's a helluva picture, though! And no, this isn't the Brutal Honesty the title was talking about... at least I don't think it was.


But before we get to the brutal part, we see Logan taking the 'the Pixies' plus Gabriel to a scrapbooking store so the kids can make homemade presents for their dad's birthday. Once he gets parked, the girls (plus Gabriel) all jump out of the van, running and screaming across the parking lot. You can see the reality of the moment hitting Logan hard -  "What have I gotten  myself into?" he asked himself, while simultaneously trying to find Savanah, corral the rest of the pixies,  and prevent Gabriel from diving feet first into the strip mall's ornamental shrubbery. "DON'T LEAVE THE BUILDING!" he yells.

Welcome to adulthood, Logan!

Anyway, it was cute the way he offered crafting techniques to his younger siblings, and frankly, showed a lot of patience. He's gonna miss those kids when he goes off to college! And I think the younger kids are going to miss him, too.

Next we see Christine driving up to Meri's house. Seems the wives are trying to plan for Kody's birthday party. While stuffing gift bags for the children (hm.... what an interesting tradition) the wives also try to brainstorm what to get Kody for his birthday. While Janelle felt Kody should have a good gift, Meri says what Kody does need is a computer and that he's been wanting one. Leave it to Robyn to ask "...can we afford one?" Without missing a beat Meri says " It depends how much we each have in our budgets to put towards it..."

Robyn does not look convinced.  Hey Robyn, we're talking the Browns here. If ya'll can afford a semi-automated assault rifle for Kody, SURELY ya'll can afford a computer! C'mon!! And it was interesting that for the first time, the audience hears the wives each have a household budget.

But is it really prudent to spend money meant to pay household expenses on a birthday gift for Kody? Why does this sound like an episode of 'I Love Lucy'? When the electricity's shutoff for non-payment, is Kody going to stand up and yell "Sister Wives, you got some 'splainin to do!"

We can only hope.

Christine subtracting...

Aw....Truely is soooo cute! Christine and Truely took a short walk over to Robyn's house. Seems Christine wants to put into numbers just how big Sol is and how petite Truely is. Once at Robyn's house, Christine weighs Truely, then Robyn jumps on the scales first holding Sol, then without Sol. Now to be frank with you, I really don't see these two women coming up with the bright idea to weigh Robyn with and without Sol, then subtract the difference. That HAD to be someone's idea in the film crew. And the fact they couldn't subtract 157 from 173 was alarming. I fully expected someone to take off their shoes and start counting their toes. Finally, Christine was able to figure it out. YIKES!! Pretty scary in the meantime.

Oh dear, they are going to a restaurant so Christine can have a talk with Robyn. You know, I am very very tired of watching Christine being publicly humiliated. It's almost like there's some mean girl, demanding that Christine be made to atone for her sins against Robyn and Kody. So what she was jealous and mean to the woman. You would be too. After all, as Christine remembered, Kody's known Robyn for 30 months, and there were cracks in the facade of Christine's marriage to Kody back then(not to mention financial cracks - in the form of bankruptcy for Christine). And while we're at it, don't forget all the canoodling and kissing and acting all lovey dovey stuff Kody and Robyn were doing while Christine was in labor and shown to all the world ( not to mention Christine's AUB family) in season one, and then the attention Kody has given Robyn since the birth of Sol. Yes, Christine surely got the crap end of the stick. And she KNOWS it.

But Christine still must pay her pound of flesh. I'm not going to go into detail about the restaurant conversation, but suffice to say its a good thing this group doesn't practice blood atonement.

And I don't believe for one second Christine is no longer jealous of Robyn.


One question I have, though - why was Christine driving the Lexus? In fact, it was noticeably parked in the driveway on the side of her house. A new peace offering from Kody, perhaps? Or is the car being passed around on a rotation schedule between the sister wives, just like Kody?

Time will tell...

Anyway, seems Christine and Janelle are 'independently' pursuing their real estate licenses. Good for them! But Janelle had a funny look on her face, like she expected Christine to start counting her toes to figure out that one real estate problem!

When Christine said Kody "...had full intentions to do the real estate until he saw the book and he's like 'I've never been one to study...' " Like, duh...like we don't already know Kody is a lazy slug and hates to work?

So of course Janelle had to take control and make sure her man didn't come off looking like the lazy slug he is  with her own spin why Kody dropped real estate. Janelle  explains   "Well, no I think Kody was interested in real estate, but then when the 'marketing' company [i.e. the LIV International MLM]  came along he felt like it was more his skill set..." And then there's an abrupt cut to Janelle in a couch interview saying "...then we decided to pursue the marketing business with some of the other businesses that we have..." Whatever Janelle. You may stand by your man, but it was obvious in the real estate episode last year Kody had no intention of working hard. And real estate is hard.

Now we come to Kody's birthday scene. There's Kody, sitting on his throne wearing his crown and showing off his svelte waistline.

Kody is now 44 years old, believe it or not!

Now we see Kody getting his computer. He says the reason why his reaction was subdued was because he was thinking "...how did they buy this? How can we afford it...Now I have to go to work because a laptop is all about a job..." Funny how he didn't have the same worries about cost when he got that semi-automatic assault rifle that most likely cost just as much if not more than the computer he got.

And of course, leave it to Robyn to chime in "...I kinda knew that Kody didn't really want a laptop completely for his birthday. I knew it wasn't going to be that fun for him..."

Oh just SHUT UP, Robyn... Jiminy Crickets !!

And thus ends episode three...

Episode 4: You Asked, Browns Answer



Several things are apparent in episode four.

The production crew must have run out of ideas. So how about doing a show where the fans ask the Browns questions and then use scenes from previous episodes for visuals. C'mon people, this is only the 4th episode of the season! This type of show may work with normal folk, but we are talking the Browns here...So where a show like this is usually saved until the end of the season,  the audience get to see it at the beginning. Whatever...

If you thought there were going to be any hard hitting questions being asked, you are going to be disappointed. I have to say, one of the stupidest, yes, STUPIDEST questions was: 'I was wondering if you all believed in using protection. Some religions believe sex is solely for procreation...' Kody's been married for 22 years and has 14 children.  HELLO...What do you think?

How about where's the money coming from to finance your life in Vegas? How do you afford 4 houses and numerous new cars? Why do you need 4 houses, won't 2 do? In other words, what happened to those hard hitting questions I saw asked on the TLC Sister Wives facebook page?

If you thought Robyn was not going to cry, think again. That's right, Robyn cries when she answers a question about divorce, and how she was affected by not only her divorce from her children's father, but the divorce of her parents.

Meri gives a warning to all those wannabe 5th sisterwives: Don't come up to her and say you want to join the family as a 5th wife! It's not a matter of numbers, adding a wife is taken seriously (apparently with a lot more thought than shown on the show), and they aren't looking for a 5th, thank you very much.

Kody and Meri having a bit of a disagreement

There were still a couple of interesting questions. For example:

Will there be another wife down the road. Kody took a stand of no because he realizes he is spread too thin as it is. But on the other hand, he can't say never. Kody feels if he had said no more wives after the original three, Robyn wouldn't be in the family today. It was when Robyn said she would strangle Kody if he brought in another wife that a real haha moment happened - that b**** is CRAZY!

A question about jealousy came up. Kody quickly gave Meri the tablet to answer the question, but the camera lingered for a couple of moments on Christine's sad face when she realized Kody wasn't going to give the tablet to her. Maybe that was a good thing...

Homosexuality. Janelle said she didn't have a problem if one of her children came out. I think Christine does have a problem, even though she tried to talk like she didn't. Christine's got some issues, but we already know that. Suffice to say, she implied in her overly drawn out answer that if her daughter was lesbian, she could not have a female friend in her room. Because if she was straight, she couldn't have a boy in her room.

But what if she was bi-sexual, Christine. Have you given any thoughts about that, or will that cause your head to implode?

Kody looking perturbed

Anyway, Kody finally replied with the best  scripted answer - "...We have determined we will accept our children with whatever their relationships or their lifestyle is..."

Kody admitted that, yes, he did spend more time with Robyn but it's because she didn't have anyone to take care of her after she had the baby. Why? Because the houses are not together. Oh really? Whatever....

Your thoughts?