RECAP: ‘Sister Wives’ Kody Brown ‘Not Talking’ To Adult Sons and Praises Robyn For Being Model Wife!

RECAP: ‘Sister Wives’ Kody Brown ‘Not Talking’ To Adult Sons and Praises Robyn For Being Model Wife!

This week, in the second of three one-on-one sessions with the Brown Family, the host, Sukanya Krishnan, asks the Sister Wives adults the tough questions. Will Kody Brown, Meri Brown, Janelle Brown, Christine Brown, or Robyn Brown be able to explain the events that contributed to their divisions and breakdowns?

Kody Brown and each wife meet individually with the host to discuss Season 16 (filmed in the summer of 2020 through January of 2021). The footage in interspersed as each adult is interviewed, and even though they watch clips of what each is saying in real time, the interviews are solo. 

Sister Wives: Christine Blasts Kody’s Covid Rules

The questions start with Christine Brown about how did Covid change The Browns. Sukanya asks about the Covid rules, and the discussion turns which rules? “The nanny rules?” Christine says Ysabel Brown was angry that the nanny could come and go, but Ysabel was not allowed. Robyn agrees that “the rules” should have been distributed to the family much sooner. This family loses so much time by not communicating and then letting resentments build. Robyn says that Kody was in a place where he already thought Janelle and Christine wouldn’t do it, so he didn’t need to have the conversation. 

Sister Wives: Kody Slams The Wives For Not Following The Rules

Kody Brown was “getting kickback” asking anyone to follow even the simple rules according to Robyn. Christine says she traveled so that her kids could be surrounded by love, rather than just a few hours here-and-there with their father. Kody again maintains that he had “two households that just wouldn’t keep the rules.” Kody seems unable to reconcile the other moms having adult children outside the home and working adult children inside the home is a different situation when he says that Robyn was able to keep her adult children following the rules. Kody says, “Her kids complied, and our nanny complied.”

Sister Wives: Kody Not Talking To Sons

The discussion turns to Janelle Brown saying she felt like she had to choose between Kody and her children. Kody admits that he’s not currently talking to Gabriel Brown and Garrison Brown over this situation. Kody says that the issue for him is respect. Kody admits that he and his sons need therapy to fix the stalemate. Kody says that he discovered from social media that his sons were lying to him, so he couldn’t trust what they said. Janelle says that she keeps pushing Kody to do something about it, but he’s resistant. Again… not communicating, letting resentment build. 

Kody goes on to say that he bought so much land in Arizona because he wants his adult children to come back, but perhaps he hasn’t seen what they have observed him saying about them on television. Why would the adult children prioritize coming to live in Arizona? Even before the move there and before Covid, most of the adult children had already decided not to follow their unsettled, wandering parents move-by-move. Kody says about his children, “They want my company, but I struggle with the lack of respect they have for my leadership.”

Sister Wives: Kody’s DONE With Janelle and Christine

Sukanya asks about the meeting the family had about Thanksgiving. Kody says he wasn’t surprised how it went given how other conversations had gone all along. Meri doesn’t understand why Janelle and Christine couldn’t “comply” so that the family [part of the family with Kody] could get together for Thanksgiving. Sukanya seems shocked that Kody wouldn’t chase after Janelle to try to talk to her. Kody doesn’t do that. Ever. Nor will he ever. Kody’s always saying that Meri plays the victim, but he’s doing a pretty good job of that in this situation saying that there’s no loyalty with Janelle and Christine. Kody thinks he’s been betrayed. He says that there is a “refusal to communicate, understand, or to partner.”

Christine discusses how she doesn’t feel like she and Janelle are a “clique” against Kody, but it’s easy to be with Janelle. And she raised Janelle’s kids, so they have a bond and mutual appreciation for each other. Janelle says a year after she married Kody, Christine married Kody, and Christine was “a buffer.” And from all we have seen and read, Janelle needed a buffer from Meri. After asking Christine’s perspective on Kody and Janelle’s marriage, and Christine reveals that she thinks Janelle is going to stay. 

Kody is asked if he’s still in love with Janelle and he couldn’t seem to give a straight answer. After a tumultuous year of arguments over Covid rules, loyalty, and what to do with adult children, everyone is interested in this answer. We hope it’s not another ten-year-drought situation! Kody says that he’s not in sync with Janelle right now. “We don’t partner really well, but we actually are just able to have a marriage, if you will, that’s lower in attachment.” He does go on to say it’s a committed relationship. When asked if he’s in love, he says he loves Janelle. Then Kody dodges when asked directly again and says, “Janelle wouldn’t tell you she was in that place with me either, if she was being honest.” Before Sukanya could finish her question to Janelle about physical intimacy and emotional intimacy, Janelle cuts her off and says, “We’re fine.”

Sister Wives: Christine The Basement Wife

Then the conversation with Christine turns to “basement wife.” Christine says that she was quiet and compliant about feeling like a basement wife at the time, making a decision every day to just put others first, but the price she paid was losing herself. Then when Christine asked for help, Kody accused her of “changing all the agreements.” When Janelle denies there is a hierarchy in the wives of the family, Sukanya asks Janelle, “How could Christine feel so alone if there is not hierarchy?” Janelle thinks that Christine is placing her perspective today over her experience then. Robyn says that Janelle and Meri seemed to just roll with the disfunction, but Christine eventually said that she wasn’t going to do it. And then Robyn thinks Kody was heartbroken over how marriages unraveled and history was rewritten by Christine. Kody says that, in the beginning of the family forming, demanding the women who joined the family to operate as one family “was like a fresh hell.” This isn’t anything new. Meri was notoriously abusive toward and jealous of Janelle. He credits Christine with lightening his burden at that time. Then Christine wanted to change her “role” in the family when Robyn joined, and when that didn’t happen, Christine became more and more dissatisfied. 

Sister Wives: Robyn’s Kids Feel Rejected

Robyn Brown says that her littlest child doesn’t remember the names of her siblings. And her older kids don’t know how to process their assumed rejection. Robyn feels like she’s an easy target because, mostly, she gets along with Kody. Robyn is angry that some of the older kids blame her for the rules. Robyn seems to just want peace, and she’s upset at all the brokenness. Christine admits blending families is challenging and there was damage. Janelle admits she wants to be friends with Robyn, but she was so burned [by Meri] in the past that she’s hesitant to invest in it. 

Sister Wives: Robyn Gets Angry

Robyn is upset when Sukanya suggests she’s the only one with a fully functioning relationship with Kody. It makes her angry. Robyn doesn’t know why Kody and his other wives aren’t talking and figuring things out. Robyn says that she can’t fix it for them, but because it’s her family, it’s heartbreaking. Sukanya asks if, having been through divorce, can Robyn relate to Christine? It seems that Robyn can’t relate and says that even in her first marriage, she was still trying to make it work until the end. Robyn wished Christine didn’t give up. Robyn says that Christine states she and Kody are divorced, but Robyn says, “technically, in my head they’re not,” because church officials didn’t grant a divorce. Christine says she hasn’t been a member of that church for a long time, so it doesn’t matter about the “religious sealing.” Kody says that God will sort it out. 

Next time, Kody is continuing to question plural marriage as he has for a while now. We see the boxes in the garage and the fallout and brokenheartedness from Christine choosing to not be in a loveless marriage. It seems like stalemate is still the modus operandi and new family culture of the family. Filming is supposedly taking place for Season 17. What do you think will happen as Christine moves on? Will Meri or Janelle do the same?

With part three next week, what unanswered questions do you still have about The Browns from 2020 and 2021? 

Did Mariah Brown and Audrey Kriss get married?  Has Kody even met Tony Padron and Mykelti Brown’s baby, Avalon Padron?  How is the political division in the family after Mariah Brown publicly went after Paedon Brown?

When do Christine’s children see their father? What happens to the shared properties at Coyote Pass? Does anyone wonder what Caleb Brush thinks about Kody now after idolizing him for so long?

Sister Wives Part two of the 3-part special event airs Sunday, February 6, at 10 p.m. ET.

 

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