Season 18 of the reality series Sister Wives made its premiere on Sunday, August 20, on the TLC network. And while there’s been plenty of drama straight out of the gate of a new season, this latest premiere appears to have taken another leap forward when it comes to tension and dysfunction.
The show, which documents the life of a polygamist family and their 18 children, picks up in fall of 2022, just before family patriarch Kody Brown splits with three of his four wives (Meri, Janelle and Christine) in a 14 month period.
‘The state of the family is strained. I mean, it almost feels like a civil war,’ Kody, 54, says in a confessional at the beginning of the episode.
‘Christine moved me out of her house a year ago and she said we were divorced,’ he explains, as reported by Us Weekly. ‘Meri and I have infrequent interactions. We talk about what’s going on [with the family]. I haven’t functioned in a marriage-like relationship in about seven or eight years, it’s been a long time. Things are pretty strained. It’s like I can’t figure this out because I’m so upset.’
Christine Brown announced on social media that she and Kody split after more than 25 years together in November 2021.
The 51-year-old, who shares children Paedon, Aspyn, Mykelti, Gwendlyn, Ysabel and Truely with the TLC patriarch, made it clear she wants to keep her relationship with Kody friendly.
But Kody does’t appear to want to keep things amicable. He maintains ‘Christine chose to leave’ and that Janelle was ‘choosing [Christine] as somebody she wants to be close to rather than Meri or Robyn — or even me.’
‘I feel so betrayed after all that I have done for this marriage and to have her sort of s**t talk me to the kids, I kind of feel like in my heart, I just never wanna see her again,’ he says in the premiere, before confessing, ‘I wanna spend some time hating her.’
As for Janelle, she addressed her own issues with Kody, which includes having the belief that getting her RV home put ‘even more strain’ on their relationship.
‘I thought we’d have this grand adventure. I didn’t anticipate it would be so hard,’ she admitted in a confessional. ‘When it wasn’t all easy and it wasn’t comfortable and it was hard, I think Kody really got disillusioned very fast. And it was really easy to blame me for this.’
Robyn, 44, and Meri, 52, got together to talk about all the family tension. During the conversation Robyn questioned whether there was ever a strong family unit, considered how things have imploded since the COVID-19 pandemic.
During her confessional, Robyn admitted to ‘struggling with depression’, in the wake of all the drama.
Meri agreed that some of the family problems had been amplified’ by COVID-19, and added that the issues were always just beneath the surface.
‘When Robyn came into the family, we were not a perfect family, but we were a really good family,’ Meri said during a confessional.
‘I think people are looking back and trying to pick it apart. And if she saw that we were perfect, then we’re all really good actors or she has blinders on. I don’t know,’ Meri added. ‘And I’m not saying that to be rude. We were not perfect, but we were good.’
The first 20 years of our family was pretty dysfunctional,’ Kody admitted. ‘And I think because we wanted to be functional, we had a very different attitude about it. We were trying so hard that we believed that we were functional — but we weren’t.’
As the episode began to wind down, Christine meets up with Kody for lunch to talk about what to do with their kids during the holidays, according to People.
While their conversation remained calm at first, things deteriorated quickly when the topic turned to COVID-19 safety, and Kody’s own brush with the illness, which Christine laughed about.
‘Oh, I’m not laughing. I’m not laughing here. I haven’t been laughing with her leaving. I’ve never been laughing about this thing,’ Kody said in a confessional. ‘She asked me to stop staying at her place, I wasn’t laughing then. She moved my stuff into the garage, I wasn’t laughing then. She left with [our daughter] Truely and she left early, I wasn’t laughing then. I’ve never been laughing about this.’
Initially, the Browns stated they participated in the show to make the public aware of polygamist families and to combat societal prejudices.
The family began the series living in Lehi, Utah, moved to Las Vegas in 2011, and then to Flagstaff, Arizona in mid-2018.
Season 18 of Sister Wives airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.