‘Counting On’ Season 10 Episode 5 Recap: House Hunting in No-Ho & A Horrible Camping Trip

#ThingsYouDoWhenYouDontHaveJobs

Start digging your trusty ankle-length hiking skirts out of storage… it’s time for “The Great Duggar Campout.” No really, that’s what TLC declared this particular episode of Counting On. 

Luckily, we’re here to tell you just how “great” of a campout it was.

(Spoiler alert: not very.) 

Before setting off on the (mediocre at best) campout, we check in with Jeremy and Jinger in Los Angeles as they do some apartment hunting that is extremely modest, especially by Duggar standards. 

Jinger & Jeremy’s Must Have: As Far Away From the Duggar Compound As Humanly Possible.

After some easy jokes about the NoHo neighborhood Jeremy and Jinger are considering (courtesy of our favorite team of shady as hell producers, of course) the apartment tour begins.

“My in-laws don’t associate with No-Ho! They just scream Nike and run away!”

Shortly after,  Jim Bob and Michelle share their own thoughts on settling down in homes too small to be considered “compounds.” Being that Jim Bob is low-key bougie and a total size queen when it comes to square-footage, he prefers to live large.

However, Michelle says she prefers a smaller home, especially since she’s the one who has to keep it clean. 

“Sure Ma…like you’ve picked up a dust rag at all in the last 20 years!”

Next we head over to the Duggar Compound where it’s “Family Fun Night” which for this particular special occasion, involves going on an over-hyped camping trip. Before heading off into the wild, Josiah and Lauren tell producers they have a “very special announcement” to make during the trip.

We all know this can only mean that a Duggar baby will be barreling its big head through Lauren’s no-nos within the next nine months.

The first stop on this camping nonsense involves dropping the Duggar guys off at Devil’s Den State Park for a separate scavenger hunt.

(It’s kind of shocking the Dugs would even set foot at a place that has “Devil” in its name. After all, these are the same knuckleheads who insist on calling deviled eggs “angel eggs.”)

After surely praying the Satan out of the state park, the Dugs set out. Some seem more excited about the random scavenger hunt than others…

We’re all Tyler…

While the guys are out running randomly through a park, the girls are left to set up the campsite (without any male supervision!?) Who is going to do the heavy lifting, fire starting and most importantly, the mansplaining?! 

“Oh no, don’t get up, allow me.”

While Jana runs the show, as per usual, the rest of the Duggar girls/spouses do their best to not get their camping skirts hooked on any nearby bushes. 

Kendra is pregnant and will probably get a ton of use out of that shirt in her lifetime…

Back on the scavenger hunt, the (mostly) J-Named Brigade continue their leisure stroll through the rocks in search for various Devil’s Den landmarks and clues. Eventually, their search leads Josiah to face his fear and climb a tree, despite having fallen out of one as a child and breaking his arm. That Si, he lives right on the edge! 

We’d call him a dare devil, but we’re pretty sure we would have to say 100 of whatever the Fundie equivalent of a Hail Mary is.

Back in California, the house search continues for Jeremy and Jinger, with the second stop being a lot more impressive than the first, size-wise if nothing else. 

“This place even has a hidden wall nook in case we ever get our very own Jana!”

Speaking of impressive, back at the campsite ‘o’ horrors, the Duggar woman are grilling hotdogs and hamburgers, still awaiting the arrival of their menfolk. Kendra is shoveling baby food into her blessing’s mouth while lamenting on how much Joe will enjoy eating meat/licking it off his plate for breakfast. Abbie cracks jokes at John’s terrible sense of direction (despite him being a pilot) and Michelle rocks her fanciest camping apron, absolutely appalled that Jim Bob isn’t there to see her toast up some wieners over an open fire.  

“Oh no! This look was sure to seal the deal for some old-fashioned, God-approved lovin’ in our pop-up tent tonight!”

After finding their next clue, the male scavengers make their way to some water and try to figure out how to cross it. After announcing multiple times that he is going to “show ya how to do it,” Jim Bob lands ass first in the water, to the amusement of no one more than us. 

“The Duggar Slip-n-Slide ain’t got nothing on this!”

The Duggar guys ultimately make their way to the campsite and celebrate by praying and stuffing their faces with the food the womenfolk (aka Jana) has prepared.

With that, Josiah and Lauren announce that another blessing is on the way.

“Hold on to your wieners, you guys won’t believe this!”

Despite having heard this exact announcement 182 times before, the Duggar group rallies and puts on some happy faces to celebrate Josiah and Lauren’s blessing news. Michelle excitedly announces that only the “pregnant mommies” get to enjoy the luxuries of using the RV bathroom facilities so Jim Bob interrupts dinner to have some of the little ones dig holes for the second-class Duggar citizens.

(Jana ain’t going to use a hole. We all know she could build a brand- new bathroom at the campsite in the same amount of time it would take Jim Bob to figure out how to get his marshmallow on a stick.)

“Crap in a hole, non-pregnant peasants!”

Abbie, for one, looks mortified. She is probably regretting going on a camping trip (or joining a family) with people who crap in holes and lick the Farmer John crumbs off their plates.

“What the hell John? I thought your dad was joking until he handed me a shovel and an old Chik-Fil-A napkin!”

When we check back in with the Vuolos, we see they are not crapping in holes. Instead, they are visiting the “Ministry House” — which is basically a replica of their Laredo home placed in California. Both Jeremy and Jinger are obviously impressed with this home, though they pretend to consider all of the options for the sake of a storyline. 

“As long as the backyard isn’t big enough for my family to camp in. I don’t want a backyard full of holes!”

They ultimately pick the Ministry House (shocker) which, for all we know, they could’ve already been living in at this point. This was like watching Evangelical House Hunters or something…

During our last check-in at the campsite, we find that all of the Duggars managed to make it through the night — with and without indoor plumbing. Jana kicks the morning off by whipping up dinner for 45 (no biggie) followed by some miserable-looking team building “fun.”

 The first activity involves a wooden A-frame, ropes and a timer.

This is probably the same set up the Dugs use to make blessings.

Duggars are running amok and everyone is screaming. Honestly, we blanked on what the point of this exercise was, and by the looks of it, so did most of the Duggars.  

Like mother, like daughter…

Next up, the group rigs up a ski challenge game and in typical Duggar fashion, it’s a whole damn mess. 

What in the H-E-double-hockey-sticks is wrong with these people?

On next week’s episode of ‘Counting On’, Joe and Kendra take a trip to Laredo with Jeremy and Jinger, the Duggar kids are perplexed by the concept of tacos and the weekly Duggar blessing announcement is made at a family gathering. 

To read The Ashley‘s other ‘Counting On’ recaps, click here

(Photos: TLC) 

10 Comments

  1. Old school Catholics are really fond of calling kids born outside of the church bastards regardless of martial status. Nothing to be sorry for. My mom was luckily unaffected by the attempted brainwashing and didn’t pass it on to her kids. I’ve heard it many times from different people but my mom was the first person to ever tell me, “The most hateful people sometimes sit in the front pew on Sunday.” So very true and a great description of my grandma and the Duggars.


  2. Fun fact: I had an insane Catholic grandma growing up. So insane that she considered all of the five grandkids my mom gave her “bastards” because our parents were married but at a courthouse, not a church. She also called devilled eggs “angel eggs”. My mom liked ruffling her mom’s feathers and would always clap back the same way when the eggs were called that. “No, Momma, they’re devilled eggs. Satan sent them as a (insert random holiday) gift.”

    Insane people who are WAY undereducated. As I once asked my grandma (and got smacked upside the head for), “You know it’s the COOKING PROCESS used and not that Lucifer actually made the eggs, right?”


    1. All I can think of is,”mama” from the water boy..everything is the “devil.”
      It is very sad that your grandma called her own grandkids “bastards.” Even my unkind, southern baptist great grandma never said that. My mom and 2 of her sisters were unwed teen moms.

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