“There’s so much love in their home. It’s hard to cast negative judgments on them.” – Danielle
The wives have decided that they’re done being heavy, so Meri takes them all to the personal trainer that she’s been going to since the move to Las Vegas. Janelle is the heaviest and the least fit, but the trainer is super-supportive of her and tailors the workouts for each of them. That’s a mark of a good trainer. Christine is almost as not-fit and complains a lot, but she seems to get along with this guy really well. Meri has been seeing him for a while and so she knows what she’s supposed to be doing. Robyn can’t really work out much because she’s getting pretty pregnant by this point, but she’s working on loosening up her muscles and tendons, and hopes to get back in shape quickly once the baby is born.
Meanwhile, a lady named Danielle, who’s an Episcopal Preacher and a theology professor from Boston comes to talk to them about their faith and how they live it. They go out to dinner (in which the three working out make smart food choices and Robyn is sickened by every smell), and she dives right in to the hard questions. We don’t get to see much of the discussion, but this is one of the perks of the series: finding out exactly what they are. In the beginning of the show, they wouldn’t say what their sect is at all. Then it came out that they were Mormon. Then they mentioned that they were Fundamentalist Morman. Now, it seems that they’re some subsect of that, maybe a modernized form, that has some ‘significant differences’ from what the usual FLDS believes. They make the point that they’re nothing like the kind of FLDS that lives on compounds and arranges their marriages, but they don’t say much else that we can see.
And then at the end, the boys come home. Apparently, though it wasn’t mentioned, five of the older boys stayed in Wyoming at Kody’s family ranch to work for the summer, and they were getting home just in time for Moriah’s birthday. So the whole family was there, and they’d invited Danielle and her husband, and there was yet another of those patented Brown Family parties. By the end, they’d decided to go to Boston to speak to some of Danielle’s theology classes.
It’s interesting watching the family unwind. There’s a huge amount of secrecy surrounding the Mormon church, and as they get more and more used to being in the public, they’re getting more and more comfortable with answering questions directly. Maybe their family business will wind up being public speaking? I bet they could make some sort of media empire off it.
I wonder if the popularity of this show will make other religious minorities with interesting lives ‘go public’? There’s already that show about American Muslims starting soon. It’d be nice to see some Buddhists getting to be and do something other than being monks on other shows. And what about all the fringe and remnant religions? They could have a show about Pagans, Voodoo practitioners, Native Americans, people who still practice foreign religions and have American kids… the possibilities are endless, and, really, getting people aware of all these other varieties of spirituality can only be good in the long run.
More thoughts on “Sister Wives’ Diet Woes”:
* They say that money is tight, but they can afford personal trainers?
* Poor Robyn, getting sick at the smell of food! No wonder she’s so skinny.
* Dieting sucks. I wonder if being on TV is a better motivator than just being at home?
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.