Now that Mykelti’s been married off what fresh drama can the Brown family cook up?

Who: All by myself

What: Sister Wives Season 12 Episode 11″ Meeting Mariah’s Girlfriend Part 1″

Where: My couch and then when the battery ran, out my bed

When: Sunday March 25th

Why: Because I’m in too deep

We open with Meri’s (wife #1) daughter Mariah in the kitchen telling an off-camera producer that she’s asked her mother and Janelle (wife #2) to meet with her so she can ask them a question. The suspense is killing me get to the point. Oooh but first, we’re treated to some simmering hostility by Mariah towards her mother Meri. Some background: Meri was catfished by a couple way back in 2016 (she thought she was just talking/flirting to a guy online) and Mariah considered those actions as proof that Meri cheated on the family. Meri and Kody now have a terrible relationship and it’s tense with the other sister wives. After wondering out loud if her mother even bothered to notice her new purple hair Meri asks how school finals are going Mariah. Apparently they’re over and Mariah basically pushes Meri’s face into the fact that she doesn’t know her only child’s life/schedule. Harsh. Janelle is here to break some of this tension–by sitting down next to Mariah while Meri sits on a faraway couch. Classic.

So what’s the topic of this meeting? The Women’s March in D.C. (probably 2017) is coming up and Mariah wants them to go with her. Ugh Mariah this is a terrible yet excellent idea please proceed. The moms are kinda confused about what exactly the march is about (do they not have the news in Las Vegas?) but Janelle is feeling excited about going. Meri sees this a huge step forward in her relationship with her daughter so is interested in that sense, but not necessarily the motivations behind the march.

Oh and to make this bad plan even better, Meri and Janelle have been in therapy working through their issues for a while now, so I love that Mariah is forcing them to do something like this together. Janelle and Meri are less in love with the prospect of all that quality time, which, fair.

Mariah tells them the march is in support of women and LGBT rights, and that they’re not protesting anything–girl that is a lie and you know it. That was no International Women’s Day parade, that was a protest against the administration and the president in particular. I’m in favor of lying to your mothers to get them out there but they’re about to have their socks blown off.

Meri tells Janelle that some of the same friends Mariah is going to the march with are coming to stay in January and they ask if any of these friends could become a potential girlfriend because Mariah is here representing the L in LGBT. She gets all uncomfortable and starts blushing so the answer is yeah duh. Flashback to Mariah coming out to the grown-ups and all the moms are immediately really excited for her except, you guessed it, Meri who needed time to process. Now she’s more onboard the gay-train put this added further stress to their relationship. Anyway since coming out like six months ago Mariah’s dyed her hair purple, invested in a variety of headwear, and is having a potential girlfriend come stay with her. In my nearly four years of being out, I’ve got a grown-in undercut. Well played milady.

In less exciting news, Maddie and her husband Caleb are moving back in with Janelle because she’s pregnant and wants to raise her baby around family instead of in Laramie, WY (yes THAT Laramie where Matthew Shepard was kidnapped, beaten, and murdered for being gay in 1998). Kody and some kids drove to WY to get Maddie and Caleb (and all their stuff) and then turned around to drive them back to Las Vegas and they are exhausted. At this point, Kody seems incapable of figuring out how to get Caleb’s truck to fit in the cul-de-sac nicely so there’s just a bunch of yelling. And even better? Half of their 15(!!!!) cars don’t start so they have to physically push them down the road. I haven’t laughed this hard at reality tv in a while.

Poor Caleb doesn’t seem all that happy to be moving in with his many in-laws in Las Vegas, especially since he’s an outdoors kinda guy. Turns out, a few months ago Caleb had a pulmonary embolism which is a blood clot in the lung that he was hospitalized for and now he needs to be close to a hospital in case it were to happen again. And morbidly, if he were to die he wants Maddie and the baby to be close to her family.

Back to the march: Janelle wants to go so she and Meri have to tell the other adults 1) that they’re going and 2) where they’re going. Ok seems reasonable. They tell the family and Christine is all for it  (guys invite Christine she’s my favorite) while Robyn is unsure about the whole thing. Kody reaction is to be a dick and Meri and Janelle reassure him it’s not a protest because Mariah said it’s not a protest. Does no one there have access to the Internet? That’s an actual question I have because YOU COULD JUST GOOGLE IT AND FIND OUT. In response, Kody drops this piece of news: their friend Joe Darger is organizing a march on the same day in favor of decriminalizing polygamy in Utah and he thinks that’s the more important event and wants all of his wives to be there. Ok hold on let me re-attach my head to my shoulders because it flew off in a rage. 1) why is this march being held on the same day? That just seems like poor planning move it to the following weekend. 2) Kody believes that since gay marriage is now legal gays have the same rights as everybody else (he says that on the show I’m not putting words in his mouth) so it’s time to focus their energy on changing polygamy laws. This is so false: you can be still be fired from your job for being gay in 31 states, denied housing, discriminated against in shops (hello wedding cake bakers), trans people–particularly of color, have a very high murder rate in this country, let’s not forget about North Carolina’s bathroom bill, and on and on forever. Marriage was not the end all be all oh look now everything’s ok. Also, that’s just one subset of who showed up at the women’s march because 3) women as a whole are not treated equally either! They still don’t have an Equal Rights Amendment, their reproductive choices are under continued legislative attack, women still earn less than men for equal work, they are sexually assaulted and attacked in staggering numbers on and off college campuses, and on and on forever.  By the way, I’m not against this polygamy march, I just think Kody should get his facts straight (he thinks there are an equal number of female legislatures in our government. Again, he literally said that) before engaging in this discussion.

Christine jumps in with some much-needed reasoning that while Kody feels oppressed by Utah law that doesn’t mean a national women’s march is not important. Janelle also chimes in that she doesn’t see how these two things are mutually exclusive. Giving credit to Meri here, she says that maybe if women in polygamist communities were more empowered there would not be the abuses they still see today, and since this march is about women supporting each other isn’t that helping the polygamy cause? Meri, I usually dislike most of what comes out of your mouth but that was some good insight.

And then boom:

Yes love it. Meri does say that she’d participate in basically anything Mariah wanted to do because she’s trying to mend that relationship, and I don’t even care that she felt the need to put in that caveat. She’s going try and stop her.

Kody eventually says sure he supports their going, but I don’t really think either was going to listen even if he said no. Kody asks one more time if this will be a political march and Christine is finally like um, yeah have you seen the date and the setting? OF COURSE IT IS. Robyn is worried that this wont be a “positive thing” and I don’t have the mental capacity to unpack that statement.

Alright fine, we’ll go from discussing the women’s march to the gender of Maddie’s baby. They’re having a gender reveal party (even though they should really be called sex reveal parties because sex and gender are different things but I’m just going to be chill) and got cute Pinterest decorations. Caleb wants it to be a boy so badly so fingers crossed for him I guess? Turns out it’s his lucky day because the baby is indeed a boy. Oh no they’ve named the baby Axel. Maddie says she had a dream that a little boy came up to her and said “mom my name is Axel James” and then three days later she found out she was pregnant. In my dreams I’m always losing track of where I put my shoes. Maybe it’s a sign I should ransack Nordstrom.

Next time Janelle, Meri, and Mariah go on the march and I’m soooooooo excited. Obviously the title lied to us and I assume we’ll also be introduced to Mariah’s girlfriend in part 2, and to keep it fun, I’ll probably yell a whole bunch at Kody. Can’t wait!