“Kody always wants the quickest solution to a problem.” – Janelle
Kody and Janelle decide to take a one-on-one camping trip to reunite after the trauma of adding fourth wife Robyn to the family, and to let off the steam that the extra people have added to the already stressful life they lead. There’s much talk of how Jannelle is not terribly demonstrative, but Kody is, and how long it took her to let him show his affection and even to return said affection in public.
Meanwhile, Robyn is trying really hard to prove that adding her to the family was a good idea, that she can be a valuable addition and not a burden. She’s been looking for a job, but hasn’t been able to find one, so the family finances now have to cover her and her three kids as well as everyone else, and it’s bothering her. She wants to contribute, so she’s been helping Christine with the babysitting, and the kids have really taken a liking to her.
This is something I’d wondered about before: completely aside from all the legal and moral issues, aside from social commentary and religious opinion, how do you just do this? How do you pay for so many kids and such a big household?
Kody works in advertising, which brings in quite a lot of income from what I gather, and Janelle has a job outside the home, too. Mari works part time and pays for her own bills and upkeep, but she’s also going to school. Christine and Robyn don’t work, but take care of the kids and the house, and they buy almost everything in bulk. It looks like Christine could go on that new Extreme Coupon show– hundreds of dollars worth of food for much less than ticket price because of smart shopping.
What was interesting, is that the title of this episode was entirely literal. This is the season made after they effectively went public with who and what they are, and they’ve come through legal problems and a lot of media attention, and this episode is entirely practical. It’s one of the things I like about this show: it’s relentlessly practical. It could be a political mouthpiece, it could be a soapbox, and sometimes they get into that a little, but it always seems to be because someone behind the camera asked them about it, and they’re really clear about how they don’t want to force their opinions on anyone. And so the show is just about how hard it is to be such a big family.
I do wonder, though, whether they’ll find themselves required to out-do themselves each season. There was a wedding and a baby last season, so will there be more weddings and more babies this year? Will they go to polygamist gatherings the way the Duggers started going to Quiverfull gatherings? Will there be a vacation special where the whole family goes to Cabo or something?
I can’t wait to see!
More thoughts on Sister Wives, “The Price of Polygamy”:
* I think this is the first episode I’ve seen where Robyn wasn’t a sobbing mess– she almost cried, but she held together really well.
* I can’t believe how very blond most of these kids are. When they’re all in a room together it starts to look a little… Aryan… Or, at the very least, a little Children of the Corn.
* The new baby is so bald!
* I love that the wives have almost total control of the money. They’re the ones that have to buy the food and pay for the kids, so it makes sense, really, and it goes a long way to break up the absolute patriarchy that sometimes comes across when Kody’s discussing things for himself.
* It’s nice to see that there’s still a little uproar as they work a new branch into the family– they aren’t just sucking it up and pretending there isn’t a problem. I wonder if they’ll move Robyn in with the rest? If they’ll rearrange things, or if they’ll have to build an addition on the house? And I wonder if having her closer will make things better or worse?
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.