Take out the polygamy and the Browns of ‘Sister Wives’ are just another messed up family

Another one bites the dust.

An epigram, if there ever was one, when Janelle Brown made it clear this past week she had separated from her husband, Kody Brown, after 30 years. A stake to a marriage — but also a TV brand — this latest twist in the long-running (it premiered in September 2010) TLC phenom “Sister Wives,” which appeared all the more remarkable because it came about a year after another one of Kody’s wives, Christine Brown, made her own exit after 25 years.

“I never thought that I would ever be in a place where I would be questioning my relationship, but the last few years I began to wonder if we’re compatible anymore,” Janelle explained in a recent episode of the polygamous reality series featuring Kody, his four wives and their 18 children, which has been running since … well … the first Obama administration. She fully confirmed the split in a sneak of the upcoming “Sister Wives: One on One” special.

This, after People reported Thursday that another wife, Meri, has also just confirmed that her marriage is kaput (“He made the decision,” she said about the union that had been a solely platonic one for some time, as viewers know).

Still left standing, wives-wise: Robyn. In the ruins: a show that has inadvertently been the most interesting portrait of the COVID-19 era. Honestly.

A casual watcher over the years, it actually struck me last year that it had transmuted into something else during the pandemic. I mean … if you thought “social distancing” was challenging, try doing it when a patriarch has four different households and 18 children?

Bottom line: whatever fissures may have been forming in the wider “Sister Wives” eco-system all along — during all the births, the weddings, the milestones — the show, increasingly, showed how COVID had exacerbated the cracks, with Kody becoming increasingly hardline, even paranoid, about the virus (putting him at odds with some of his wives and his kids). Presto: tons of psychological fallout as the various strands of the clan negotiated their “bubbles,” conflicting perspectives. A microcosm of America.

“COVID taught me I can do it on my own,” confessed Christine at one point, the wife who first pulled the plug and found her inner Gloria Gaynor (she will survive!). A solemn, serene, truth-bomber who mirrors the complexities of relationships that so many have had to confront since 2020.

This latest season premiere of “Sister Wives” earlier this fall? Even more compelling, in that it consisted of nearly an hour-long conversation between Kody and Christine about their marital collapse. It seemed, in some ways, like a one-act play or a scene out of a 1970s soap opera. Misogyny, marriage, religion, our needs vs. our wants: all in the mix. Plus, the tendency of rewriting our family histories (all with the obvious asterisk hanging above these people in that they have been playing out their lives onscreen forever … and to what extent has the show itself changed them?).

Kody admitted, at long last, that he never was attracted to Christine and that he had felt pressured into the marriage. Christine, meanwhile, told him that she had already moved on and was planning to relocate to Salt Lake City (the rest of the Browns now live in Nevada).

She also said out loud that she thinks he has a favourite wife (Robyn). Kody came back with the charge that Christine comparing relationships is the “poison” she has poured into their plural marriage for years. Kody expressed his interest in 50/50 custody of their 11-year-old, Truly (though what does 50/50 custody mean in a plural marriage?). Kody, weirdly, voiced a fear that Christine will meet someone else who will try to scam their family out of money. It went on. And on.

Kody got angrier and angrier. Christine more and more resigned.

If nothing else, the “Sister Wives” audience has certainly been ignited — notable for a series so long in the tooth. The social media commentary, especially on Sundays when it’s on, is intense. A real-life psychologist, David Colarossi, recaps the emotions in each episode on YouTube. Plus there’s been much media coverage, including one Gawker writer who wrote, “If you’re 17 seasons behind on the long-running TLC documentary series ‘Sister Wives,’ take this blog post as a sign from the God of the Apostolic Brethren that you may start now.”

Calling Christine “the beating heart of the show, as well as the audience proxy,” he wrote, “she’s had enough of Kody’s idiocy, manipulation and neglect … and I can’t wait to see Connie Britton get an Emmy for a Hulu show based on the first five episodes of the 17th season of ‘Sister Wives.’”

Any rift in a family has emotional domino effects. Duh. Now quadruple that in the case of a plural marriage, one that is being filmed, in which viewers feel they have a stake. Folks feel that Meri (who has remained sort of Switzerland, until recently) was being manipulated by Robyn, with some speculating that it was safe for Robyn to have Meri around as she wasn’t competition for Kody. Robyn, however, has indicated that the unravelling of their wider unit has affected her because Kody is always angry and that she did not actually sign up for a monogamous marriage (that, selfishly, she is miffed because Christine leaving has upended her life).

Meri, meanwhile, seemed saltier about Christine leaving and it is — according to Colarossi — because she was projecting. For being “stuck,” even though her marriage is one she chose to stay and suffer in. That she is jealous of Christine for getting the hell out of Dodge. Colarossi noted that it had seemed as if Meri’s “plot in life is to decide to have a horrible relationship with her husband for the rest of her life.”

All of this, of course, does not even take into account how these dynamics are affecting — will affect — all the children. Christine already has stated — in a revealing podcast interview recently on “Reality Life With Kate Casey” — that her kids have no interest in plural marriage themselves.

Where does the show go from here? The jury is out, although at least two of the lapsed ladies, Christine and Janelle (who remain tight), have indicated they want to continue documenting their journeys. Presumably the series will move into some sort of narrative split-screen.

What is clear is how much this messed-up family — even if you take the polygamy out of it — is messed up in the way of so many families. And that the appeal of watching messed-up families onscreen remains intact. When you think about it, this gang is the un-“Succession”; an Old Navy answer to the Roys. Replace the tiaras with the tow trucks and are the Browns any kookier than the clan on “The Crown”?

Three wives down, “Sister Wives” ultimately brings to mind that classic Leo Tolstoy line: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Shinan Govani is a Toronto-based freelance contributing columnist covering culture and society. Follow him on Twitter: @shinangovani

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