‘Counting On’ Season 5 Episode 2 Recap: Renovating the Kitchen & Rocking the RV of Love

“We’re sorry you were subjected to watching this episode…”

If you thought the previous episodes of Counting On were as boring as, say, watching paint dry…you haven’t seen anything yet because, on this episode, we LITERALLY GET TO WATCH PAINT DRY.

This is a whole lotta Fundie fun y’all!

This episode kicks off in Laredo, Texas, as Jinger and Jeremy get ready to move into their new house.

Unlike her siblings, Jing didn’t move into a Jim Bob-supplied mold-filled house after she got married. She and Jeremy have purchased their very own home.

Since moving is a big task, Jinger has called in her siblings to help her move their crap, paint stuff, and basically rebuild their kitchen. #FreeLabor

Jessa has been enlisted to “supervise” the work that her siblings will be doing, while Jana is coming along to do all the hard labor. Some of the boys are also tagging along because, well, it beats listening to their listening to Joe talk about wedding flower colors back at the Duggar Compound.

“So, are we doing like usual– you do all the work and I take all the credit?”

Jeremy and Jinger are seven months into their marriage and have not announced a pregnancy. This is, of course, sadly a Duggar offspring record for longest marital union without a blessing. Naturally, though, because this show is all about closed lip kisses and hitting the sheets in order to repopulate the free world, the producers are grilling Jerm and Jing hard (no pun intended) about whether or not the house will need a nursery.

At this point, Jinger looks like she wants to grab her tater tot casserole tray and beat the next person who asks them that question. Jeremy tells them (yet again) there are no blessings on deck at the moment, but assures them the house has plenty of room for when the time comes.

“Ask me ONE MORE TIME when I’m going to have a baby and see what happens…”

Until Jinger is impregnated, Jeremy says that his collection of books are his “babies.” He’s very excited that he will soon have a whole room for his books (since Jessa stuffed them into a closet last time she was over).

Of course, it would make sense that Jessa puts little value into books, given that her own husband Ben hasn’t cracked a book since he finished his last Dr. Seuss book. (Once Ben found out that they did, indeed, eat the green eggs and ham at the end, reading kind of lost its excitement.)

When your family embarrasses you and you’re trying to go incognito…

Before the Duggar siblings arrive, though, Jeremy and Jinger have to embarrass themselves by busting out their pitiful Spanish as they attempt to speak to the painters who are working on their house. They are “donde-essssta la bibloteca”-ing it up all over the damn place, and the painter looks like he’s doing his best not to laugh at these white people.

“You el-speako muy HiSpandex, no?”

Later, Jeremy and Jinger (shockingly) admit they’ve put their espanol lessons on hold for the time being. (Hey, give them some credit. At least they speak English, which is more than we can say for Ben and an assortment of the Duggar boys who mostly just grunt and giggle to communicate.)

Not moving into a home anytime soon are Joy and Austin who are back from banging it out in the Swiss Alps. They are going to be residing in an RV while their love shack (shack being the operative word) is being renovated.

They tell us that their RV of Love doesn’t have a working shower, so there’s that. (They don’t mention how the hell they’re actually hosing themselves off during the day. I mean, a rag and a bucket can only get you so far.)

Austin is not digging the “RV Life,” given that Joy is literally in his face every time he turns around because their digs are so small and, well…she’s just horny, I guess.

Joy is upset to learn that her husband doesn’t like to sleep with her unwashed mitts all over him during the night. Go figure.

“Love me, dammit!”

Austin says he’s ready to settle into an actual house because he feels like a great big ol’ failure slumming it like they’re on some really boring Fundie-version of Road Rules. They slop down some eggs and discuss how they will probably be living in the RV for at least four months!

While it’s admirable that the couple didn’t just show up on the steps of the Duggar Compound and demand housing, it’s kind of strange that they are in this situation. Why didn’t the have the Duggar clan come down and help them fix it up?

Hell, Jana could redo the entire kitchen, regrout the shower, shingle the roof and cook them dinner, all with a baby on her hip, in less than 24 hours! Instead, they’re choosing to slum it in a sweaty trailer, with nothing but Bible verses to make them feel clean again.

“I’ll tell ya what…. there’s nothing quite like the sweet, sweet smell of unwashed bodies in the morning.”

Back in Laredo, the “worker bees” have arrived to help Jinger pack up while Jeremy heads off to church meetings. The paint is drying (literally) on the walls of the house, so the Duggars are waiting and trying to work around it.

Jessa is ready to roll up her modest-length sleeves and transform Villa de Vuolo to her Jeremy and Jinger’s liking, but not before throwing some shade about Jinger’s dark kitchen cabinets. She decides that they need to paint the cabinets, even though Jinger seems unsure and John-David is telling her it’s a terrible idea. Jessa barks about how ugly the dark cabinets are.

“Ben, I’m not gonna tell you again: Take that soup pot off your damn head. That goes in the cabinet!”

In the middle of all of the chaos and unsolicited input from Duggar siblings, Jinger decides she’s incapable of making a decision on her own so she waits for Jeremy to come back to make the final call. He ultimately goes along with Jessa, being that she’s the “trendy” Duggar and clearly has a passion for cabinetry.

Over at the Caldwell house, Kendra and Joe and head out with Kendra’s family to play a rousing game of disc golf. Kendra and Joe stay a safe distance away from each other as they chuck Frisbees around. Joe is very excited that they are playing on the exact spot the old Duggar house used to be, and also the location of the slab of concrete he asked Kendra to start courting.

As Pastor Caldwell explains the rules to the crew, Joe becomes increasingly more uncomfortable each times the word “hole” is said. Not to be outdone, Kendra manages to say “oh daddy” more times than we care to hear, so we actually feel for Joe in his moment of discomfort. Where’s an accountability partner (or a large book for frontal covering) when you need one?!

“Way to get it in the hole, Joe! Let’s hope I’m saying the same thing on our wedding night!”

Somehow, we must tear our eyes away from the riveting disc golf game in order to go check back in with Jinger and Jeremy. We learn that Jana led the troops in installing a kitchen backsplash overnight, proving once again that she is too smart, innovative and cool to be a Duggar.

Once again, Jessa mentions how excited Jeremy is to have an office for his books. She even likens it to the happiness a girl feels “setting up the nursery.” Lord knows womenfolk don’t have any need for reading materials and such!

Of course, when the house projects are completed, everyone credits Jessa with being the leader. Once again, Jana is left covered in grout and unappreciated. (Girl—leave this mess and ask TLC to give you your own home improvement show!)

“Ever wanna take a drill to most of your siblings’ heads? Just me? OK…”

The house looks amazing, and as the siblings are preparing to go back to the Duggar Compound, a producer gets one more mention of Jinger and Jeremy having a baby in. The producer asks the siblings if they think the Vuolos will need a nursery any time soon, and they all say yes. Ben even offers that they’ll need one in “10 months.”

Later, we head over to Camp Fort School of Rock (or whatever the hell it’s called), which is the family summer camp that Austin’s family runs. They teach adults and kids to do things like shoot arrows and throw hatchets at trees. (Well, correction: the men teach people how to do outdoor activities. The womenfolk are, of course, in the kitchen cooking food and comparing pregnancy-induced hemorrhoids and whatnot.)

This is a joke, right…RIGHT?

Joy is busy in the kitchen trying to cook spaghetti. She considers throwing the big vat of noodles against the dirty wall to see if they’re done, but one of the other women comes over and looks at Joy like she’s insane when Joy tells her the plan. The lady shows Joy that you can literally just look at a noodle to see if it’s done, and Joy acts like she’s just been shown the secret to everlasting life.

Joy manages to get her spaghetti cooked well enough that the campers will be able to gnaw through it.

“The smell of campers and spaghetti is really getting me in the mood.”

The whole crew lines up, soup kitchen style, and plops the unappetizing cuisine onto the campers’ plates. (May the Lord have mercy on these people in about 15 minutes when that slop runs through them and has them sprinting to the holy outhouse!)

And, because it wouldn’t be a season of ‘Counting On’ without at least one wedding in the works, we check in with Joe and Kendra as they get the plans rolling for their big day…which we’ve already seen and will be forced to watch again soon.

Ms. Cindy makes her return to serve up some more hanging bouquets of hay, oversized flower letters and giant greenery crosses. Joe and Kendra don’t have a lot of opinions on their décor; however Kendra does reveal that she likes sparkles, happy colors and “happy stuff.” (For some reason, I feel like if you asked youngest Duggar Josie what she likes, she would give this exact same answer.)

“Git yer buckets out, kids, we’re goin’ weed pickin’ again!”

We also learn that Joe and Kendra are sending out a modest 500 invitations and are planning to accommodate 950 attendees at their simple, happy-color-covered affair. Hopefully they can round up enough pickles to feed everyone, but if not we’re sure there’s some hay left over from Joy’s wedding somewhere that the guests can chew on.

On next week’s episode of Counting On, Jeremy has his beloved bookshelves installed, the girls help Joe pick out his wedding day duds and Joy and Austin enjoy a meal in their fixer upper — sans hardhats like the daredevils they are.

To read our previous recap of ‘Counting On,’ click here!

(Photos: TLC)

18 Comments

  1. Okay seriously we’re given a constant influx of Duggar related news but we can’t get our TM recaps? I see multiple people in every comment section asking for them so i know it isn’t just me waiting for them. This was the only site to do a full recap and in a way that was fun to read. What happened?


    1. @RealityTVTrash– Nothing happened. Teen Mom recaps take 3x as long to do and with all the breaking Teen Mom news lately, there just hasn’t been time for me to do them. I will try to get back to them this week, provided no teen moms get arrested, no teen mom dads go on homophobic rampages or whatnot… -The Ashley


      1. Thank you! We know you put a ton of work into the recaps and I, for one, appreciate all of your effort. That being said, I hope everyone involved with the TM franchise stays inside and binge watches Netflix or something this week because I need my TM recaps – the Counting On recaps are like giving aspirin to crack addicts to hold us over! 🙂


  2. Wow. Who in the hell watches this and finds it entertaining. The only thing interesting is your witty remarks. These poor boring people.


  3. Shut up, Jessa. Women can enjoy books too. But what can you know, you maybe read two books in your entire lifetime. It just shows you how home school has failed them all. (Well, except Jana, are we sure she is not adopted? Because she is way too smart for being born to this clan)


    1. The more they speak, the most you realize how uneducated they are.. It makes me wonder what is part of the state tests that they need to complete. That being said, although this will never happen, it would be good for some of them to go to college to have some formal training. With all the birthing going on in the house, having a doctor, nurse or legitimate fully trained midwife would be beneficial! These are certainly people the Duggars use, so why not become one!

      I’m not sure what they do to benefit society..


        1. I’m not American, so I’m not fully sure what the system is, but here (Canada), even when you homeschool, you have to do some government tests to indicate that you understand the required learning items.

          I would hope there is some sort of test, otherwise what is there to guide you knowing anything?


          1. I believe either 2016 or 2017 was the first year that Arkansas did not ask for a standardized test from homeschoolers for the year (They did get it before that – each year). Each state decides what they ask of homeschooling students in their state. However, homeschoolers take the ACT and/or the SAT standardized test before entering university – the same as any public-schooled child.

            Sincerely,
            Homeschool Mom “Walk” 😉


    1. So many counting on recaps. I don’t quite understand how this show keeps getting renewed. There is nothing happening on it, to the point where they show people’s weddings multiple times. And they’re all the same! The weddings are all the same, and we have to watch them all twice (sometime more than twice if they add in some wedding flashbacks). The recap, which presumably pulls the most interesting scenes to tell us about, was about paint drying (literally), someone cooking spaghetti and learning how to tell when it’s done, the sleeping habits of the couple in the RV, the constant grilling of Jinger and Jeremy about whether or not they’re pregnant and when they might be, and the planning of a wedding that has already aired. Counting on is so very boring. It was interesting to read about for the first season or two back when it was “many kids and counting” just bc of the extreme fundie-ness of it all, but now, there’s nothing left to show that hasn’t been shown 1000 times before. They’re still not allowed to touch while courting, they’re still getting their first kids at the altar, they’re still wearing denim skirts, they’re still getting married as teenagers surrounded by hay bales, they’re still popping out an untold number of children on the regular. They say literally the same thing word for word any time any of them get engaged, married, or have a baby. The Ashley is not being given a lot to work with, and is forced to recap basically the same episode over and over again with only the names of who is courting, engaged, marrying, or pushing a baby out changing from episode to episode.


      1. To be fair, Teen Mom is all about trashy girls who get pregnant by the dumbest kid in their small town. The pimple head never has a job, yet always seems to own a pickup truck with enormous wheels. You can hate the Duggars all you want, but at least the baby daddy is married to the mama and supports their family financially and emotionally.


        1. Kayla – BAM! Right? Evidently, the people of America want their trash on TV, and children out-of-wedlock. God-fearing, homeschooling, sweet people living Christian, everyday lives? GASP! How BORING…

          Not. I would take the ‘boring’ Christian life over everyone else’s hedonistic lifestyle ANY day.

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