When last we left our fearless Sister Wives fam, the wives were learning how to form new communities in the wake of their multiple divorces from patriarch Kody Brown. Meri Brown seeks to
build a community of supportive girlfriends, Christine Brown is building a new familial community with David Woolley, and Robyn Brown wants to encourage her daughters to find community
through faith.
Everyone’s moving on, it seems, despite the trauma the divorces caused to the entire family. Kody, especially, seems anxious about losing another wife, and in this episode, we see that he seems desperate to keep Robyn happy. This man cannot handle another divorce, that much is true.
In case you’re catching up, here are recaps of every episode this season:
Episode 14 of Sister Wives, entitled “The Truth Will Set You Free,” opens up with Kody and Co. in Flagstaff. Kody’s boasting about going on a date with Robyn.
“I like to connect with this woman.”
Take that, former wives. Robyn is the wife he actually wants to connect with. Enjoy your happy, free, post-Kody lives, you traitors.
They go to Josephine’s Modern American Bistro, which is a place that well-worn Sister Wives fans will know well. Many an awkward conversation has happened at Josephine’s. Robyn plans to tell Kody about their daughters Aurora and Breanna wanting to start going to church. Might get awkward, so Josephine’s is a good spot to choose.
David And Christine Throw Engagement Party
This ain’t Josephine’s territory, this is Gordos time.
Christine, of course, reminds the audience that she and Kody didn’t have an engagement party. Plural marriage was very secretive, so this time, Christine’s not hiding anymore. Janelle, ever the loyal sister wife, comes into town for the party. Christine is grateful that Janelle and her son Hunter are there, since the family is so broken at this point, it’s nice to have some remnants.
In a confessional, Christine’s son, Paedon, again expresses his stress at the pace his mom’s relationship is going.
“She’s been engaged for two seconds. She’s been dating him for 10 seconds, but we’re all very happy for her,” he says with an unconvincing smile.
Christine wears a white dress to the party (“Because I’m the bride!” she says gleefully), and Janelle thinks that it might have been a bad choice, given the tacos. David even jokingly makes a bet that Christine will spill something on her dress. In a confessional, Christine says David “likes to push buttons.”
Later on, Christine, of course, spills consommé on her white dress. Luckily, Janelle is there with her stain-removing pen. But they can’t get the stain out before David sees and boasts that he won the bet, which was $5.
In a confessional, Christine says she used to not believe in love at first sight. She felt love had to grow over time, and she says she did love Kody, but the way she feels about David is “astronomically deeper.” She now believes you can fall in love at first sight.
Christine then goes on to compare David and Kody, again, which is pretty much her sole job on the show now.
Christine and David cut their cake while their families applaud. Christine then says that since she and David have only known each other nine months, wedding planning has been a crash course in getting to know each other.
Meri’s Girls Trip To Vegas
After a commercial break, we’re up in Parowon with Meri. She and Jenn are going to Vegas to visit their other friend, Brandi. Jenn and Meri met while they were both living in Las Vegas, but Jenn doesn’t want to go back since it’s so hot, so Meri made her a cute little road trip gift: frozen eye masks that she calls “chichi chillers.”
Meri and Jenn arrive at Brandi’s house and settle down to catch up. Meri says she hasn’t been crying since her divorce, probably because she did so much crying during the last decade of her marriage. Her friends remind her why she had to leave Kody, like all the false hope he gave her.
Kody Gets Weird About Religion
Back in Flagstaff, Kody and Robyn are on their date. and Robyn brings up their daughters’ desire to go to church. And not just go to church, but look for the right church for them, which Robyn gently explains to Kody. Robyn says they want her to be involved in their search, to which Kody responds, “Me and you both or just you?” Somebody’s getting defensive…
Robyn tells Kody that neither of their daughters are interested in their church.
In a confessional, Kody says he’s been open about religion with his children. He also says that if any of his children wanted to go back to their religion, or marry into a plural family, he would be weary.
And when he’s told that the girls want to find boys to date who share similar values, Kody stiffens up. He says he understands, but in a confessional, he says he has “phobias of religion or churches.”
He’s glad they want to go on this journey, but he feels pressure to keep from “poisoning” their experience.
Meri’s Friends Are Confused By Kody
After a commercial, we’re back in Vegas with Meri and her friends, still discussing the divorce. They are bewildered as Meri tells them Kody thought her leaving was “fast.”
“It’s like, no, you said you didn’t want to be married to me, so why should I stick around for another ten years? Dumb-a**.”
Meri reads them a text she sent to Kody after their split regarding their “official release” where she “released” him from “any responsibility or worry about [her].”
Brandi makes a comment about thanking Kody for his service, to which Meri responds that there hasn’t been much service lately. Meri can see the humor in all this now, which will help her to really heal.
Meri says that Kody was really defensive when she told him about the official release, but she refused to engage with him. In a confessional, Meri thinks that Kody was expecting her to be like Christine and Janelle, “snarky and mean.” In a confessional, Christine agrees that “we could all do a little bit better.”
But Janelle says she wasn’t being rude or vindictive, she was just standing up for herself.
Brandi then compares Meri to a prisoner who fell in love with her captor, like she had “Stockholm syndrome.”
In a confessional, Kody fires back at Brandi, saying, “Brandi doesn’t even know who I am. I went to dinner with her a couple times, helped her and her husband move once. Do they know me? Meri doesn’t need to trash talk me anymore. She’s got her friends doing it for her.” Sounds like Brandi struck a nerve.
Kody Struggles With Daughters’ Religious Journey
Back at Robyn and Kody’s dinner, they continue their religion talk. In confessionals, the wives (separately) discuss the fallout from their church when the family went public by doing the show. Their church leaders weren’t happy, and they were warned that this would be the demise of their family. Turns out, they may have been right.
When the church responded so negatively to the Browns going public, Kody says it made him look at church differently. That, and the fact that apparently was told he’d have to cut his precious locks in order to be a leader at the church. We know Kody wasn’t having that, so he started to be less enthused about his church.
He talks about how a “culty” church can steal your children away from you. He seems to be panicking over the thought of losing his kids, given that he’s already lost so many. Robyn tells him to chill, saying he gets a little “intense” when discussing religion. Kody laughs when he hears this, and his face turns red, which does feel intense.
In confessionals, Breanna and Aurora agree: their dad’s intense. And in a confessional, he confirms that.
“You cannot just be conforming to everybody else. Because then you’re really not developing real faith. Find some Buddhism, find some Jesus.”
Robyn stresses that she wants her daughters to find their own way, not be pressured into something or doing it for the wrong reasons. She worries that Kody won’t be able to contain his real feelings if he ever attends church with his daughters, and Kody says he intends to take a “backseat” in their journey. Then he rambles on about protecting his daughters, calling himself “a knight with a sword,” and saying he “played king with some of [his] other daughters,” and got put aside.
“My close-mindedness caused me a lot of heartache.”
The conversation then shifts to Kody wanting to know if he and Robyn need to do any “clean up” on their relationship, but Robyn brings up the possibility of Kody ever going back to church, because she wants to. He says it’s not a “safe place” for him anymore.
In a confessional, Kody talks about his hair again.
“Most religion says you gotta stick to this doctrine. If you don’t, you’re an apostate. You’re evil. Your God can’t accept you. Tell me that I have to cut my hair. I mean, give me a break. You’re all disciples of Brigham Young, and he had long hair and a long beard. Puh-lease.”
Still, Kody gives his blessing to Robyn and their daughters attending church, as long as they don’t “block [him] out.”
He then says he will go, sooner or later, mainly because he doesn’t want Robyn going alone since there are lots of men who are interested in her. Kody goes on a tangent about how magical it was the first time he saw Robyn, how he gazed at her almost inappropriately, and how he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Robyn says a “bolt of lightning shot through [her] body” when she first saw Kody that fateful day at church.
Never mind that he was likely sitting in that church with his three other wives. In this love story, only Kody and Robyn exist.
“I want to know that God has been my wingman with you and that nobody can take you away.”
Sounds like Kody has some anxiety about the way things went down with his first family, and he’s determined not to repeat his mistakes.
Meri Discusses Realizing Her Marriage Was Broken
After a commercial break, the Meri and the girls are still yapping about Kody. They fill Brandi in on how emo Kody was when he helped Meri move. They’re completely baffled by his behavior, and they’re mad it’s causing Meri to second guess herself.
Meri says that she doesn’t believe that Robyn intended to ice the other wives out when she married into the family. But she saw what they had and she wanted it.
The girls talk about how Covid really put his favoritism into focus and made it hard to ignore. And Meri slowly started realizing how much she contributed to the family without it being reciprocated. It caused her to pull away.
Still, Meri and her friends laugh about how Kody told Meri their break-up was really hard on Robyn.
“I mean, it was kind of hard on me too, Kody,” Meri says.
Then they pile into the car and, much like Kody and his brothers did when they visited Las Vegas a few weeks back, they drive to the cul-de-sac the Brown’s once lived in and stand at the gate, wondering if things would have been different if they never left at all.
The episode ends with Meri and her friends and their kids back at Brandi’s house, eating pizza and ice cream, joking about whose family Meri should join next.
For more reality show coverage, visit our hub page. Episode 15 of Sister Wives airs on Dec. 29 on TLC, and the following day on Max and Discovery+.
