‘Counting On’ Season 8 Episode 10 Recap: Baby Prep & the Backyard Obstacle Course of Horror

Possibly the most Duggary Duggar photo ever taken. (There’s no doubt they took that sign home to hang over their bed…)

Put on your party hat—it’s time for another episode of Counting On!

As per usual, a few of the Duggar gals are about to launch a baby Fundie from their fruitful crotches. However, before we can get to the water breakin’ fun of epidural-free labor, we will first have to endure yet another prep-for-baby episode.

On this episode, Jinger and Jeremy reveal the gender (or “jender”) of their baby by making their assorted loved ones take part in a purely evil obstacle course. Meanwhile, Joe and Kendra are preparing for the day that a big-headed Duggar baby shoots from Kendra’s teenage loins.

“I’m not that young. I’m 19 and a HALF, geez!”

The episode kicks off in Laredo where Jinger and Jeremy are hard at work setting up a gender reveal party for their families. Jing and Jerm are planning to have an over-the-top obstacle course that their families must complete in order to learn the gender of the Vuolo baby.

Jinger and Jeremy are including things that they know will annoy their families, which I kind of love. (This is Jinger’s revenge on her parents for making her spend her childhood changing diapers! Snack on that, Jim Bob!)

“Hey Jing…know what this reminds me of? You’re mom’s baby chute after having 19 kids…get it?! Haha!”

While setting up some tunnels that the Dugs & Co. will have to force their modestly clothed bodies through,  Jeremy looks through the center of one of the tunnels and asks Jinger if Jim Bob is going to be able to fit inside the hole.

Um…I think it’s fairly well-known that ol’ Papa Duggar has more than enough experience inserting himself into holes…just sayin’!

Jeremy says they need to keep the obstacle course simple so people (i.e. Ben) don’t get confused about what to do. He also says the event should be both fun and embarrassing for all participants, much like watching this show itself.

“What do you think… will this scare your family from visiting us for a while?”

The two of them begin to set up random activities for their family to hop, skip and jump their way through, all while evil-laughing.

I’M LOVIN’ IT!

Jeremy says if he were to show up to a gender reveal party to find this poor-man’s ‘Ninja Warrior’ course, he’d be less than thrilled and Jinger agrees. Still, they’re planning to make their families do it anyway because…it’s revenge time, biotches!

“‘Member how you wouldn’t let me go to college? It’s PAYBACK time, Daddy-o!”

Over at Joe and Kendra’s Cabin ‘o’ Giggles, Kendra is nearing her due date. (Seriously, one good giggle and Kendra’s water may just break all over her cotton skirt.)

Kendra’s parents come over for a visit and we learn that her mom is also “with blessing”—her eighth, to be exact.

Of course she is!

Kendra and her mother aren’t phased by the fact that usually moms and their teen daughters are only pregnant together on trashy MTV reality shows. To celebrate the fact that both of their husbands are still able to shoot viable swimmers, Kendra and her mom look through an old baby book.

“Here’s a few of me and your dad’s headshots, just in case TLC wants to film a Mommy ‘n’ Me Birth Special.”

Kendra’s mom is excited that her new child and first grandchild— or “littles” as she calls them—will only be five months apart. Still, we get the impression that Kendra’s parents are less-than-thrilled that their teen daughter got pregnant literally as soon as she got hitched. You can tell that they were hoping that Kendra would at least make it through her honeymoon without getting knocked up.

Outside the log cabin, Joe and Pastor Caldwell are hard at work installing a car seat for the baby. Pastor Caldwell (who is, by the way, still quite the Holy Hottie) tells Joe he never thought he’d be a grandfather at such a young age.

Back inside, Kendra chats about her birth plan, which involves a hospital rather than a floor mattress and less-than sterile medical equipment pulled out of Jill‘s reusable Walmart bag.

When you picture that sweet, baby-makin’ love your husband gave you…but then realize your pregnant daughter’s in the room…

Kendra’s mom is clearly taking control of the situation, unwilling to allow her daughter to end up giving birth on a well-worn birthing tarp in Michelle’s living room with a TLC camera in her face and no doctor to be found. She is making sure her daughter gets proper medical care without having to labor through 80 agonizing hours first.

Kendra and her mom decide to pack up Kendra’s hospital bag, partly because it’s good to be prepared in this sort of situation and partly because they have nothing else to do with their screentime.

Back at the Vuolo household, the herd of family members has arrived in their fleet of vans and immediately pile themselves inside. There are literally Dugs everywhere.

“And I mean it, Ben, don’t touch anything when we get in that house or you’ll be in big trouble, Mister!”

Soon it’s time to unleash the trove of Duggars into the backyard to reveal the obstacle course. Jeremy decides to split the group into two teams, with each of the granddads serving as a team captain. Before the teams take off, Jeremy says again that he is “thrilled” to not be participating in this nonsense, which is both funny and savage…

He does, however, volunteer to demonstrate the course, so long as he doesn’t have to get his khakis dirty.

Michelle watches in horror as Jerm explains that participants will have to crawl through the colorful tubes to complete the course. She knows that her long denim ensemble isn’t ideal for tube-crawling, so Jerm says that she can make one of her kids do the hard work for her.

We all know Michelle is great at that!

“Jana…you know the drill. Take care of that for Mama!”

When it’s time for the teams to takeoff, Jeremy’s dad, Chuck, is immediately dubbed the hero of the Blue Team and possibly this entire debacle.

Between downing his ice cream at a record-fast pace, narrowly falling into a pile of Duggars after some spins with the dizzy bat and even wiggling his middle-aged self through the tunnel like it’s his job, this guy is clearly in it to win it—whatever the hell “it” may be.

A phrase never uttered in a Duggar couple’s bedroom…

On the Pink Team, Ben is trying his best to quickly eat his ice cream. Of course, Ben’s best is not good enough for Jessa, who literally just picks up a second spoon and starts speed-shoveling the Rocky Road into her husband’s mouth, desperate to win the game.

Poor Ben is basically choking on the dessert in order to please Jessa, which, if you think about it, really describes their marriage in a nutshell.

“Jessa I can’t breathe! And you’re getting ice cream on my super-cool transition lenses!”

Since I know the suspense is killing you, I’ll go ahead and tell you: Team Pink wins the obstacle course. This, of course, means that Team Captain Jim Bob is given the honors of pulling the string  to the light that will reveal the baby’s gender.

Now, most people in this situation would give the honor to Jeremy’s father, given that this is his first grandchild, whereas Jim Bob already has 197 of them. But not Jim Bob, no sir! He grabs up Michelle and hustles up to the light, eager to pull the string (and get his big ol’ mug smack in the center of the camera shot.)

“Clearly…you’ve never met us if you think we’d let anyone steal our spotlight!”

They pull the string and the “BABY” sign lights up in pink, indicating that the Vuolos are having a baby girl. Everyone is shocked, including Jessa, who looks a bit jealous that her sister gets to have a girl and she doesn’t.

The baby party fun isn’t over, though! The next day, we learn that some of Jinger’s local friends are putting on a surprise baby shower for her and, since TLC already paid for the Dugs & Co. to fly to Laredo, they decide to have the shower the day after the gender reveal party.

Jessa and Jana assure us that Jinger has no clue that a party is happening. They say it will be easy to surprise Jinger because, according to them, she is clueless in general and won’t suspect anything. How sweet.

“You didn’t really think I’d let my sister get all the attention without me throwing at least a few jabs at her, did you?”

Back in Arkansas, Joe and Kendra are planning to do a test-run to ensure Kendra doesn’t spew baby goo before they get to the hospital. They are planning to time how long it takes them to get there once Kendra goes into labor.

We are then treated to Kendra and Joe actually laying awkwardly on their bed, pretending to sleep (um?) so that Kendra can “wake Joe up” and let him know that there’s a baby barreling through her birth canal.

“Bet you’re happy we didn’t have this timer running on our wedding night, eh, Big Boy?”

Before they can go to the hospital, though, Joe goes to the cupboard and starts throwing packs of chips, crackers and cookies into his backpack. God forbid Kendra gives birth without Joe having his Ritz crackers!

After Joe loads up his munchies, he and Kendra hit the road. They learn it will take them 30 minutes to make the trip. (That’s assuming that Michelle doesn’t turn herself into a human roadblock to try to stop Kendra from going to the hospital, of course. #HomeBirthsForever)

Back in Laredo, the “impromptu” baby shower for Jing is moving ahead with the help of people who are not Jana for once.

“For the love of God, Ben, please stop bugging me! YES you can have a cookie! Now go!”

While Jeremy has Jinger out shopping with some Duggars, Jinger’s friend Miss Margarita organizes the fiesta, complete with balloons, butterflies and a taco truck. The party is very well done. (Seriously it puts that crapshow baby shower that Sierra threw Jessa in the barn to shame!)

Jinger heads to Margarita’s house to pick up a used crib that some rando supposedly is giving her (as you do). However, once she pulls up in front of the house, she realizes that they’re throwing a shower for her. (Apparently the taco truck, pink balloons and “Congrats Jinger” banner out front were a tip-off.)

Um…maybe they should have decorated just the inside of the house…

The Duggars crowd around the food table, shoveling in as much free grub as they can get their moochin’ mitts on. Seriously the kids are acting like their mom Jana has never baked them cookies before or something.

After some games, gifts, prayers and food, the shower wraps up and Jinger and Jeremy thank everyone for their kindness.

“Hey Margarita, is it OK with you if we stay at your place for a few days? No sense in spending money on a hotel room, right?!”

After the shower, Jinger and Jeremy realize that they still have to clean up all the obstacle course crap in their backyard. Luckily, though they soon realize that Jana’s still in town so she can take care of it. Phew!

“I’ll get the broom…”

Until next time!

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

(Photos: TLC)

8 Comments

  1. Winner or not, Chuck should have been allowed to pull the string. I loved the obstacle course! I thought Jeremy rocked it. I couldn’t believe his dad got through the tunnel. That was so cool! Don’t judge, but I actually watched about the baby’s gender reveal. Kind of loving that side of Jeremy and Jinger.


  2. OMG, this is brilliant. Thank you both, appreciate the work.
    That picture with Michelle doing a hair flip was the cherry on top, they are selfish.

Leave a Reply to Nunya Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.