‘Teen Mom’ Episode 7 Recap: Crappy Grades & Custody Battles

“School’s hard…ya’ll!”

This week’s episode of Teen Mom was entitled “Without You.” Seriously, who makes up these crappy episode titles? They should let The Ashley pick the titles of the episodes. At least then they’d be exciting. The Ashley would entitle this episode “Without Jobs,” because frankly, that is more applicable.

Anyway, we start off with Maci who is stressing out over being distracted from her school work by Bentley and Kyle. Maci’s finding it difficult to find time to do her homework, in between Bentley peeing on her and Kyle smoochin’ on her. Oh, and MTV filming her, of course.

Catelynn knows all about the hardships of school and such. Although Tyler will be graduating soon, Catelynn won’t be able to graduate high school until March, due to her gettin’ pregnant, etc. (Apparently, it’s December in ‘Teen Mom’ Land.)

Tyler’s mom is planning a graduation party to celebrate Ty’s release from high school, and since Butch is out of the halfway house (!) Tyler calls him up to see if he’d like to attend the festivities. This scene is a real tease for The Ashley. We only get to hear Butch’s voice and don’t even get a glimpse of that salt-n-pepper rattail.

Unfortunately, Butch is unable to come to the party because he has to work. Wait, Butch is working? Isn’t that kind of against everything he stands for? I guess his brown ‘Dirty Uncle’ cargo van ain’t going to fill itself with gas, so he’s got to make the money somehow. I just hope he hasn’t gone back to his old ‘job’ of breaking and entering!

Also, can we please stop and reflect on the fact that Butch is basically the only cast member who is working. Are we living in The Twilight Zone or what?! 

Meanwhile, Farrah is planning a visit to Derek’s grave. She calls up Derek’s dad and stepmom to arrange the trip. Derek’s dad says he can’t wait because it will be such a good time.

Farrah’s doing things in this episode that are very unnatural to her: being nice to her mom, not screaming and belittling the rest of her family and acting like a decent human being. I don’t know how to react to this Farrah.

Anyway, in Amber‘s neck of the woods, there is a lot going on. Amber’s trying to get her house ready so Leah can come and visit. Her and her friends are moving in a bunch of her stuff. (Seriously, is it even possible for there to be an episode of ‘Teen Mom’ were someone isn’t moving? The ‘Teen Mom’ camera guys should really start moonlighting as moving men. They could pick up some extra dough, since I’m sure MTV doesn’t pay them that much, being that they give these girls so much money. There can’t be much left for Tommy the Boom Mic Guy.)

Amber (who is wearing high heels for moving day, as you do) is ready to finish the place off. She hangs up an ginormous picture of Marilyn Monroe on the wall. As they say, your house is never truly a home until you have pictures of a dead movie star all over it.

Amber said she is staying at her old apartment (aka Kimmy’s Trash Pit) until the new house is ready. (Wait, it’s not ready yet? But she hung the Marilyn picture up. What could be left to do?)  She flops down on the mattress on the floor to rest up for her meeting with the Child Protective Services.

She calls Cousin Krystle to explain that she’s worried that Gary will throw her under the bus.

“He has nothing on me!” Amber explains. (I guess she forgot that whole beating-the-beJesus-out-of-my-boyfriend-on-TV thing?)

Amber, who is sporting some creepishly long Lee Press-On Nails, tells Krystle that she’s worried about bad things happening in front of Leah. Um…then don’t do bad things in front of Leah. Or, better yet, don’t do bad things. Problem solved!

Next, Amber calls her mother, Tonya, and says that she would really like a ride to the meeting her to come for moral support. Amber then tells her mom to keep her trap closed and not bash Gary’s mom in front of the CPS. Her mom reluctantly promises to keep it classy.

Back at Maci’s, it’s time to send Bentley off with Ryan’s parents. They take him home to wait for Ryan, who comes home to discuss going to court to get a better custody arrangement. He decides to move forward with going to court.

“Hey Mom, even I’m tired of you playing the martyr…”

Maci’s still having a hard time focusing on school. She tells her friend Erica that she’s tired of “killing herself to keep Bentley and Kyle alive and happy.”

OK…seriously, this must be said: Get off the cross, Maci! You’ve been playing the martyr all season long. Waa! I don’t have time to do my homework! Waa! My life is so hard! Waa! I don’t have time to soak in my extremely large spa tub!  Yeah…college is hard. If it was easy, everyone would do it. Yes, you have a kid but so do a lot of students.

While Maci’s bragging to her friend about having complete custody over Bentley and telling her that she can do whatever she wants with Bentley and Ryan can’t do anything about it, Ryan’s heading to a lawyer’s office to discuss his options. He tells the lawyer that his parents he wants more time with Bentley.

Ryan, who  is sporting his black leather Fonzie jacket that he is also wearing on this week’s US Weekly cover, tells the lawyer all the crappy things that Maci has done and the lawyer is pissed, shaking his head in disgust. Things are about to get interesting….

It’s time for Amber’s big CPS meeting. Trash Pit Kim and Amber’s mom have arrived to take Amber to the courthouse. On the way over, Amber’s mom provides some tips for a successful CPS visit:

  1. Smile a lot.
  2. Don’t say the “F” word.
  3. Remember that you’re a mom.

Seriously, Tonya’s wisdom is way beyond her years. She should really write those tips down and sell them to other unfit mothers being examined by the CPS. The woman is like Yoda, with tanner skin.

Gary arrives, with his mother and Leah in tow. (Wait, why the hell did they bring the kid to the court house? Couldn’t Cousin Krystle watch her or something?) Unfortunately, the courthouse has  a “no MTV camera” rule and we don’t get to see what happens inside. However, Amber tells us that the meeting went well, but Tonya’s unhappy that Leah is still staying with Gary until Amber’s new house is ready.

“She can’t come with me because of my house!” Amber protests.

Um…does the new house have fleas or something? I don’t get what is so bad about it? It looked fine to me. It can’t be worse than Gary’s Trashelor Pad from last week.

Why am I missing ‘Maury’ for this crap?

Amber’s mad because Tonya wasn’t supportive at the meeting and because she doesn’t make an effort to see Leah. They’re screaming at each other the whole drive home, while poor Kim is sitting in the backseat, wide-eyed and wishing she had stayed home and watched “Maury Povich” like she does every other morning of her life. Amber storms out of the car and heads upstairs.

That’s not the last of Tonya though. She comes upstairs for Round 2. Amber screams at her again, and then kicks her out. Tonya heads down the stairs and Amber’s still screaming at her.

Tonya better be careful; we all know what happened the last time Amber was screaming at someone as they went down the stairs. At least Tonya wasn’t wearing an AERO T-shirt and carrying a TV so she should be safe.

“Mom, I’ll do to you what I did to Gary on those stairs!”

Instead of physically kicking her mom down the stairs, Amber chooses to verbally do it; screaming that it’s her mom’s fault that she had such a crap-ass life, what with her alcoholic father and a mother that worked 24/7. (Working…what an interesting concept…)

Tonya leaves in tears and tells Amber to stay out of her life. Amber said she’s been trying to. Um…aren’t you the one that invited your mom to the meeting? Just sayin….

It’s Tyler’s last day of school and he and Cate go to see their teacher, Monty, to get the score of Cate’s last test. Let’s just take a moment here to stop and marvel at Monty, shall we? He’s totally one of those teachers that tells you “I’m not like all those other teachers, I’m a cool teacher!” on the first day of school. He’s sporting a slicked-back ponytail, sits backward in his chair and lets his students call him by his first name. Monty is hip.

Anyway, Cate says she is hoping to get at least a 60% on her test. (Wait– she does know that’s a D-, right?) She’s thrilled to find out that she actually surpassed her goal and got a  65% on the test. She’s high-fiving all over the place over her ‘D’ grade.

I would love to see a parent/teacher conference between Monty and Butch and April. Butch would arrive in his brown ‘dirty uncle’ van with April in tow. A cloud of ciggie smoke would follow April down the hallway, a la Pigpen from the “Peanuts” comic strip. Monty would pull up a backward chair and try to chat with them about the kids, knowing full-well that as soon as they left he would to have to wash the ciggie smoke out of his pony.

Unlike overachiever Catelynn, Maci’s unable to get a D in any of her classes. She’s failing everything (again) and is complaining that she can’t do any work when Bentley’s around.

Maci tells her friend that “school is hard.” She says she wants to just be an MTV star stay-at-home mom. She says all she wants to do is sit at home with Kyle and Bentley. (So basically she wants Amber’s life?)

She keeps whining about having to balance the classes and Bentley, and finally decides to quit her classes. Well, that make sense because she’ll be working all of the time. Oh…wait.

Kyle says he was going to go out and look for jobs but, what the heck, he’ll just stay home with Maci and Bentley. It’s sad when the two-year-old is acting like the most responsible person in the family.

Sophia’s pissed because she agrees that this should have happened off-camera.

Anyway…it’s time for Farrah’s visit to Derek’s grave. Even I’m not mean enough to make fun of Farrah during this scene. However, I do feel like this probably should have been an event that should have been sans the ‘Teen Mom’ cameras.

Moving on…it’s time for Tyler’s graduation party. Cate is bragging about her big 65% she got in history (“like…world history.”)

They head to the pizza place to celebrate and one of their friends (the one with oddly shaped hair) is trying her hardest to get on camera. She keeps poking her head into every shot. Tyler’s mom says she wishes Butch could have come…

That makes two of us!

At the end of the episode, Maci’s sad that she “wasted a semester” by dropping her classes. She says she still has a really high GPA because she dropped the classes instead of failing them.

I see Bentley’s been hanging out with Butch at the reunions….”put your hands where I can see them!”

She said she wants a degree but has to make sacrifices because she’s a parent. Um…no, being a parent means having to work extra hard to get your ass through college so you can start your career and provide for your child. Fiddle-farting around with Kyle all day is why you failed; don’t blame Bentley.

There are people literally begging for more time with Bentley, why didn’t you bring him to Ryan’s so that you could study? You failed school because you were lazy and didn’t go to class. Period.

Next week: Amber’s going on a  date…Farrah’s going to move…and Maci’s going to give her poor mama a heart attack when she tells her that she wants another baby! (WTF?)

(Photos: MTV)

9 Comments

  1. Wow. Maci’s really made me feel let down. I used to like her, but…She’s lazy and I don’t have time for that kind of people. I had my baby at 15, because I was too scared to say “no” to her father ( an older kid of 17) , and I didn’t even know what sex was. When I got it all explained, meaning, when I found out I was going to be a mum…I was adopted myself as a kid, and in my family we just don’t give up on our kin, blood or not. I took advantage of the fact that I spoke three languages fluently at the time and I started privately tutoring primary school children, classmates, and neighbourhood kids before going home from school and doing my own homework. By the time Avalon was born, I had saved up quite a bit, so I could get her basic needs covered for a couple of years. In the end, my parents helped us out and let me keep the money in a long-term savings account for Avalon. But the point is, I did a lot More at 15 than I see Maci doing at 20. I would like to share with you the rest of the story…
    Avalon grew up very healthily and happy, very clever and hard-working in school, and also multilingual, as I made a point of teaching her my three native languages and she was adopted by my british husband when we got married. He only ever spoke to her in English, which was not at the time one of the languages we spoke at home.
    Unfortunately, Avalon was very brutally sexually abused by the husband of a family friend at age 16, a year ago. He’s in jail, but she got pregnant as a result of this attack. She was told by the doctor that she could get an abortion. I did not interfere in her choice, I only contributed that she could also choose to have the babyadopted or even keep it. I am now a grandmother at age 31! My husband and I have three small children and my youngest is only two months older than his little nepphew. Avalon went through some trauma as a result of the attack, but now she is a very happy girl who does not regret having kept
    her baby at all. I must say I’m elated she kept him, although I didn’t express my opinion when she was pregnant so I would not influence her.
    Avalon had the long-term savings account I opened for her through working at age 15. She knew the story. As she is also multilingual, she did the same thing as I had done, teaching languages to the local kids. She did it partly to feel empowered after her horrific attack, partly as a symbolic gesture and partly for her baby as well. She is still doing it, and keeping up her grades in school. She will graduate early. So far, there is enough money in that savings account now to put her son through a very good college. Avalon has chosen to study Linguistics, like I did, in the local prestigious University where I now work as a professor. Most likely she will be my student in her 5th year there! She will continue to live at home so our children can grow up together, but, again, that’s her choice. If she later wants to move out, she will. She is not sexually active but she has injections at her request. All the feedback in our
    community has been quite positive, and both my pregnancy and
    that of Avalon were not a big deal nor were either of us called
    names, etc, like I see happening in some of the Teen Mom
    pregnancies.
    I also notice, by reading the comments of some ( all, really!) of the Teen Moms in Twitter, etc… that, eventhough English is their native language, they don’t bother to use the correct spelling nor the correct grammar. I learned English in my 20s and I
    really don’t see why these girls can make a bit more of an effort
    with these things. I can see them ( except for Maci, who, even so, has let her potential go a bit stale) in Remedial English
    courses!
    As for childcare, we have a live-in nanny now for our young ones. As my husband is a Consul for his country, we live in the Consulate and we are now quite privileged.
    But this is all through HARD WORK. Neither of us comes from rich families, although my husband’s ancestors were once quite influential, centuries ago.
    If I hadn’t bothered becoming an educated woman , and if I hadn’t taken an interest in my languages, we might not have ever met and married. If he hadn’t studied hard, he wouldn’t have gotten a full scholarship at Oxford, and now he would not
    be Consul…
    You have to work for the things you want, is my point here. Everything that goes on in your life, right or wrong, you can work to have a say in the outcome. And you can even turn a bad experience into a life-lesson, like I did and like Avalon is doing. She was my driving force. I didn’t date or go out partying for years because all I wanted to do was take care of my baby and study hard so I could give her the best life possible (which I could was doing even before I met my husband).
    I’m not singing our praises here, mind you. We’re not better than anyone else. This is why it’s important that these Teen Moms, from TV or out there, get their priorities straight and try to excel at something, or at least to do ok…To bother a bit with the book, or with their jobs if they are not studious… and stop making excuses and blaming their babies for their “lack of concentration”. Babies, eventually,
    fall asleep and those two-three extra hours you can stay up
    after 8-9 p.m., are crucial to your education. Even if you are working and not in college, you can use those hours to improve on general culture, on spelling, etc. One can always improve on something, or take up something new to use their minds to their full potential.
    Too bad that Bentley is not enough of a driving force for Maci to
    excel…Sorry about the long rant, but I go into “Uni lecture mode” at the drop of a hat!! ^^ Best of luck to those of you who are pregnant out there! I’m sure you’ll try to do your best…

    Aleks.


  2. I used to LOVE Maci but now she just looks like she’s giving up on the real world and being sucked into the “reality” fantasy world. She’s just acting like she really WANTS to finish school but really she’s thinking more that she has the money now so why should she even worry about school? She thinks her Teen Mom paychecks are going to bring her fame and fortune forevz…but no. I feel sorry for Bentley sometimes, actually I feel sorry for all the kids (except little Carly she’s actually living a regular childs life with no creepy camera men following). Anyway thanks for the “Monty is hip.” part, it had me laughing my butt off!

    woo.


  3. Seriously…. I am a single parent who works full-time and goes to school full-time and I manage to keep my grades up. I also don’t have a huge MTV salary coming in. She needs to grow up. It sucks taking time away from my son to study but I know that finishing my degree and landing an awesome job will help us both financially in the long run.


  4. Maci’s excuse for failing college is laughable. Bentley is at Ryan’s at least 8-10 days out of the month, she’s trying to tell us that she couldn’t write papers or do any of her homework in those 10 days?? That might (key word) be an excuse if she also had a full time job or something but since she doesn’t, what was she honestly doing in those 10 days that Bentley was not with her? Keeping Kyle alive? Seriously…


  5. Oh so maybe now people will understand ryan a bit more by the end of the season. When he said Maci was lazy as f@#k, he was being a douche, he was keepin it real. Remember when Maci wouldn’t let Bentley stay with Ryan for halloween? Yeah moe cool points lost for maci. Maci is pretty selfish n lazy as well but whatev, hopefully when Ryan sets her straight in court, she will get it together but as long as she gets mtv money she is good to go… Okay on to the hilarious parts of this recap. Tommy the boom mic guy. I cried laughing. Haha. So true. BTW, I’m watching Maury now n if I would have to miss this awesomeness to be with roseanne/amber and dan/gary then I would be pissed like Kim as well. It’s a miracle Catelynn got through high school with april as her mom so a 65 is like a 105 in my book with them. Good work The Ashley! See ya on twitter!


    1. Hey grammar is an amazing concept and so is spelling. It helps people to understand what you are saying. Embrace it. Love it. Make it yours.


  6. Maci is lazy and she is using bentley has an excuses bentley should really be her motivation to go to school. Farrah should of not had the grave sense filmed Farrah has a long way to go she has no social skills. Amber is always blaming someone it’s never her fault love catelynn I hope Ryan gets the custody he wants with his son . Maci is so self righteous I can’t wait for the teen dad special so people can finally see Ryan side and stop attacking him. For wanting his son more

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