‘Sister Wives’ Season 12 Tell-All Part 1 Recap: Kody Gets Mad & Meri Doesn’t Get Any

“Screw the wetbar! I should have asked for a more powerful shower head!”

We’ve come to the end of yet another season of Sister Wives! We’ve waded through Mykelti and Tony’s wedding planning and street taco demands; countless reminders that Meri was once catfished (did she mention that?) and, of course, the horrific bathtub circus birth of Maddie’s son Axel. As a reward for getting through what is the television-watching-equivalent of having explosive diarrhea, we are being treated this week to a “Tell All” episode starring everyone’s favorite rat-haired husband and his bevy of unhappy wives!

The sister wives and Kody (who is sporting a shaved-up man-ponytail thing that actually makes him look less like a Fraggle) sit down with some journalist from NBC (who must have owed someone at TLC a favor in order to have taken this gig).

The host first asks the Sister Wives what they think of Kody’s new ‘do. Janelle, Robyn and Christine all say that they prefer it to his previous look, which made him look like he was using troll doll hair to give himself hair plugs. Meri says she’s indifferent about it, but that’s not surprising considering she seems to despise pretty much everything about Kody (except for his ability to give her a TV show to appear on).

With the hair talk out of the way, the Sister Wives and Kody get down to business. They start out with Meri rehashing her need to buy a bed and breakfast and turning it into a squat house for her mother. She reminds everyone that no one in the family supported her idea of them shelling out money to buy a useless house in the middle of nowhere. Christine even called the idea “kind of dumb.” Go figure.

“If you’re buying houses for random people, put me down for a 4 bedroom ranch-style!”

Meri says that the idea of letting her mom live in the bed and breakfast rent-free was just an idea and not something that was final. Kody stands by his earlier statements regarding the house, saying that he did not want to put the rest of the family at financial risk in order to fulfill one of Meri’s many hair-brained schemes. (Besides…any extra money is going to Sobbin’ Robyn and her polygamy jewelry business!)

Meri talks about getting her bed and breakfast on her own.

But you know what Meri’s not getting? Any. We find this out when the host starts digging into the topic of sex pretty early in the conversation. (Usually they would make us watch a segment about something “fun” like the Sister Wives’ horrific disco dance or something.) But this lady goes right for the crotch, bringing up the fact that during the season, Kody admitted he doesn’t want to “be intimate” with Meri.

After Meri jokes that she and Kody are a divorced couple living on the same block (to which all the Sister Wives laughed…except for Kody’s new real wife Robyn), the hosts asks Kody straight-out if he has any desire to strip off Meri’s Aztec-print Lularoe leggings and bang it out with her.

Robyn and Kody obviously did not find Meri’s joke funny…

Kody confirms that he doesn’t want to get it on with Meri. This makes for totally awkward (but finally watchable) TV! Meri looks disturbed and a little embarrassed that her husband just admitted he has no desire to have sex with her. When the host asks Meri if she wants to bone Kody, her answer makes us think that she actually does want to jump in the sack with him again…for some reason.

Meri says that she “wants more of a relationship” than they are having right now. Meri’s feelin’ frisky, y’all, and apparently she’s so desperate to dust off her loins that even Kody’s starting to look good!

“You ain’t missin’ much, Meri, trust me!”

When the host asks Kody and Meri what it would take to get them closer to hitting the sheets, Kody says he doesn’t know while Meri talks over him and states that it takes “two parties wanting to work toward it.”

Robyn points out that, if Meri and Kody want to get closer to the boneyard, they both have to put in major work. (It’s weird because she’s essentially talking about her husband humping another woman, but, hey, that’s why we’re all here, right?)

It’s awkward all the way around. We’re lovin’ it!

Then, in “A Sister Wives Tell-All first” they ask Kody to leave the stage so the Sister Wives can trash talk him.  (It’s too bad they wouldn’t let the ladies hit up Meri’s wet bar before doing this segment; I think we’d get some really good TV if they got the Sister Wives a little liquored up!)

“You guys better not touch my special cooking sherry!”

The Sister Wives say Kody is sometimes a “buzzkill” so it’s good to talk without him present. Unfortunately, the Sister Wives don’t use their Kody-less time to bash their husband. Instead, we watch more flashbacks of everyone talking about how Meri needs to be more involved with the family. Meri says she feels like her relationship with Kody has negatively affected her relationships with others in the family.

“I tend to pull away,” Meri says. “It’s hard to see things and be around things.”

Basically—it’s hard for Meri to know that Kody is bedding all the other Sister Wives but her.

“It’s super fun to share your husband…see how much happy we are?”

Christine agrees that when you are fighting with your spouse it is “awful” to see your sister wives having a good relationship with your husband. Meri says that even though Kody treats her like crap, their relationship is still worth saving.

“I just want good relationships all around and if I don’t fight for it, I won’t get it,” Meri says.

Robyn tells us that she’s “grateful they’re still fighting for it” and insists she wants Meri and Kody to get back together.

(Do you ever think Robyn might feel bad about snaking Meri’s place in the family, considering that it was Meri who introduced Robyn to Kody in the first place?)

While Robyn may want Meri and Kody to mend their relationship, Kody has made it clear that he’s about as interested in Meri as we are in watching Robyn talk about her latest jewelry design.

(Re: NOT.AT.ALL.)

“Dear God, why couldn’t that catfish dude been real!?”

Next, they wheel Kody back out and we get to relive the horrorfest that was Maddie’s delivery of Axel. (They do us all a favor and skip all of the scenes of Maddie groaning and vomiting in the tub, thankfully.) They do discuss how the Sister Wives and Meri got into it because Meri wasn’t sitting in one of the folding chairs watching Maddie grunt out the kid.

We get to revisit Christine’s little library chat with Meri, in which she basically tells her sister wife that she’s a great big ol’ ball of misery that no one wants around. Christine says she was trying to give Meri “tough love.” She apologizes for coming off so harshly.

Christine, girl, you have nothing to apologize for! Everything you told Meri was true!

“And stop calling it a library Christine! It’s a closet with a folding table and a book shelf!”

“I want you here, I’m sorry it doesn’t come across that way. Tough love sucks,” Christine says.

After everyone is done bagging on Meri for a while, we move on to the topic of the Utah lawsuit. Any time it’s mentioned, Kody gets all mad and his face gets extra red, which is kind of fun. They replay Janelle’s saucy quote from that episode.

“It seems so crazy that in the 21st century someone can tell me who can or cannot be in my bed,” she says.

(Honestly, after watching Maddie ooze that baby out all over Janelle’s California King, I hope Janelle had the good sense to throw away the sheets and burn that bed frame! Ain’t nobody going to want to be in that bed after the bloodbath that happened there!)

“Sorry about that mattress pad, Mom!”

We are also treated to a look back at Christine’s polygamy rally speech. (Luckily, they didn’t force us to relive the nightmare that was “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”)

Christine says she was kind of surprised and disappointed that some of the kids didn’t want to go to the polygamy rally with them. Kody says he does eventually want to move back to Utah, but Meri and Christine refuse to go back to live there. (Um…isn’t Meri fixing to buy a freaking HOUSE in Utah?)

Next, we rehash the 20-year-old beef between Meri and Janelle. As you know, they have been at each other’s throats the entire time Janelle’s been in the family. Again, they talk about how they have different personalities and communication styles, blah, blah, blah. Yes, we know. Janelle likes to make money while Meri likes to spend it.

“I really think you guys should just settle this! Get a wading pool of Jello and just wrestle it out!”

Next week, on the second part of the Tell All episode, we’ll get to see Mykelti (and her horrible new bangs…seriously, did she lose a bet or something?) talk about how difficult it is being married to Tony. We hate to say we told you so, Mykelti…actually, no we don’t!

To read our previous ‘Sister Wives’ recap, click here!

(Photos: TLC)

23 Comments

  1. Kody – I thought when you became “sealed” (Mormon version of married) to a woman, it was for eternity. You haven’t even made it 30 years and you are ready to dump her off in a park.


  2. While I feel sorry for anyone who’s an outcast, I can’t stand mealy-mouthed Meri. She is beyond pathetic. Even Kody can’t fake the slightest appreciation for her, and let’s admit it, that is downright funny!


  3. Meri was her usual self and I liked all of their attempt at using “damage control 101” class to try and brush off the looming cloud of mess that hangs over that group now. It was funny at times and awkward at times but it seemed to me that the writing is on the wall for this series. Returning to mean ol hateful Utah? MerBnB is just a hilarious misunderstanding? It was all just thinly-veiled fail imho.
    I did enjoy the host more than Tamryn Hall, who never really did it for me. She always felt out of tune with the show and a 15 year old could have done a better job with questions, so new blood is welcome. Hall’s interviews were always a schizophrenic glob of innocuous disbelief and attempted gotcha journalism. Not particularly great but they kinda actually had a lot to talk about this round beyond the usual sick child/empty nest crap they usually hash out, so will have to see how the next Catfishorama goes lol.


  4. That’s Andrea Cannon from Dateline. She’s actually great on that show, second only to Keith Morrison. She interviews obviously guilty people and slyly throws shade. I love her.

    While Kody is an obvious douche, I will say this. They’re one of the only conservative religious families I know of that supports traditionally liberal causes, like LGBT rights. They have enough self-awareness to understand they’d be hypocrites. And I love Jenelle, she seems like she deserves so much better.


    1. Right?! How does one cake that much makeup on and still have so much greasy oil or oily grease? I guess all that frowning pulls it into the doolaps.


      1. I’ve long suspected she sets her foundation with butter-flavored PAM.

        (dying over doolaps!!!!)


  5. I really don’t understand why Meri is even insisting on living there. There’s obv no love left between her and Kody and the other sister wives would be happier if she wasn’t around. You divorced him, just leave.


  6. Such a nice happy family. /s
    You know what would actually help the image the general public has about polygamy? A show about an actual functioning plyg family.

    The Browns met up with a family that seemed to have their lives and shit together. They went to dinner and the beach. That family probably did not have enough drama to film?


    1. The Browns pretended to be a big happy family at first. They still try to make things seem better than they are. Now we know how horrible Meri was to Janelle and all the other drama that they couldn’t hide forever.

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