Teen Mom 2 Minicap: Judgement Day

This one’s gonna be a little on the rushed side, because for one, the episode was kind of boring and for two, it’s Tamale Day.  Nothing says ‘Christmas In Tucson’ like a white half-Jewish girl making the tamales!  Happy Hanukkah, from your favorite honorary chola, La Shy Girl (as named by Juana Chingaso) aka Sunni Sideup aka Sunni Badger.  We’ll have seven more crazy nights of candles and delicious Mexican food.  First though, join me in a quick summary of my favorite Teen Moms, except for the ones who are my actual friends.  But they don’t count because their kids are in college now.

Oh!  Real quick, let’s be thankful because our Teen Moms have given us a mitzvah!  Not one of them has released a song.  For this, I am exceedingly grateful.

Now on to this downer of a boring episode.  I can’t believe TM2 failed me this hard right before Christmas.  Thanks for nothing, jerks.

Leah

Right off the bat, I could not stop crying with Leah in this episode.  I dunno if it’s that I’m all tender from Christmas joy, or if it’s that Leah just really gets me or both, but this one was a bit of a tear-jerker.  A kind of  boring tear-jerker, but tears flowed nevertheless, and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone.

She’s taken some time off from work and I’m really resisting the urge to say ‘work’, because I really hope the reality show rabbit hole isn’t going to show  up so soon in this crue.  I’m not ready to have to admit that it’s TV, and not a documentary like October Country.  Which, by the way, if you are a fan and part of the Teen Mom Nation, you owe it to yourself to watch that movie.  It’s streaming on NetFlix and it stays with you.  It gives some perspective on actual reality for teen moms, and for the cycle of poverty, loyalty to family, and young motherhood.  It’s far more raw than the Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia, but it’s worth a watch if you’re remotely invested in this show.

Ali’s MRI is scheduled and Leah and Corey are both going.  There are so many adorable scenes with this little family, I can hardly stand it.  Leah nervously chatters all the way to the hospital where the MRI has to be done, and Corey is really super stoic, driving through the snowy early morning – it’s still dark.  Leah notes that time-tested cliche that if they can handle what’s in front of them, because they wouldn’t be in the situation if they couldn’t.  The entire episode, Leah is reflective like this, as I’d expect a lot of people would be.  She says things like, “I’m 18.  I’m a kid myself,” and “You never expect to have twins and get married and have a baby who’s slow to develop but it shows that anything can happen.”  She also says that she and Corey never got to know each other.  They never got to date; they just had to make things work out for the babies.

The actual scenes in the hospital had me crying.  They are so nervous and scared, for Ali and for themselves.  I can’t remind you enough that they are, after-all, children.  It’s easy to be critical and call Leah names or call her a weak person for being so upset, but she doesn’t have the luxury of wisdom yet.  She hasn’t had enough years to know that everything turns out in the end, and to trust that being really upset in the moment of the trial you’re up against only burns up energy you need to get through it safely and with optimism.  Watching Ali be sedated was cruel, so eff you MTV.  Friendship over.

Kail

Kailyn is such a strange girl.  She’s a good mom, she works so hard, and yet she is so darn weird!  She’s all set up with her new place, and all she has to do is move now; oh, and tell her mom that she’s moving out.  Kail only has Plan A, which is get a bunch of Big Dude Friends to help her remove all of her furniture and belongings from her room at Suzy’s house in under two hours so she can be gone goose before Suzy’s boyfriend comes home.  It’s odd that we never see the boyfriend, and I wonder if he has a criminal record or some other reason he doesn’t want to appear on TV.  I’m guessing it’s not because he’s a PI, or a local celebrity or something.

She hasn’t really packed, so it’s mostly a matter and carrying all of her stuff out and stuff it into the back seats of a few cars.  She takes the TV, even though it’s not hers and she thinks Suzy might be uncool about her taking it.  Ugh.  Teenagers!  Everyone is really confused on why Kail hasn’t told Suzy she’s moving, and once she’s unloaded everything, she does give her mom a call.  It’s hilarious.  Suzy is stunned.  Even in what is likely a recreated phone call, you can hear in her voice that she’s all, “Wtf, Kailyn Cassandra Lowry???”  (I made up that middle name.  It’s so pretty!)  She asks Kail about furniture – is there a sofa?  A table?  No.  Not yet.  Silence.  Did you take the TV?  Yes.  You have to bring it back.  Kail tells her friends how it went, and that she has to give the TV back.  Her Big Dude Friend Mark is like, “Well, no problem.  We’ll just take it back.”  I like this guy.  Why isn’t she dating this guy??  Jordan’s cute and all, but this homie is awesome.  I like his vibe, and I want to set him up with a friend of mine, so mark?  Call me!

She catches Jo up, who’s not really enthused about any of it; he’s happy for her if she’s happy.  Later on, she and her friend are hanging out at the new place, eating pizza and unpacking when Suzy texts that she needs the remote returned asap.  This is so not about the remote.

Kail meets Suzy before class the next day, and this is the meat of Kail’s scenes.  For the record, I don’t doubt that Kailyn’s experiences are what have caused her to become so defensive and to expect the very worst from the men in Suzy’s life.  That said, I hope she can get to a point in a few years where she can see what Terry Cloth Mother did do for her, because right now, all she sees is that she had to go to that uncomfortable and cold wire mother to get her food when all she wanted was to get everything from Terry Cloth mother.  It’s too bad that not all mothers can be what babies and kids and teenagers need, and there’s no way that Kail can let go of her disappointments with Suzy.  Over time, maybe but not just now.

They meet up and Suzy asks her why she didn’t bring it up at all, and she tells Kailyn that she’s hurt over it.  Kail explains to Suzy that she felt criticized all the time, and that Suzy’s boyfriend pretty much told her to clean her room or gtfo.  Now, we heard the note and NoteGate 2011 is basically that Kailyn has what are likely some totally legitimate trust issues with the men that Suzy has brought into their lives over the years.  She read a note that said in a not-too-nice way, “Clean your room,” as “You are trash and I want you gone.”  I can totally see how Kail would hear that in a note, but it’s really not what the note says.  I think it’s just necessary for Kail to shut down when she’s up against her mother anymore.  She doesn’t have the space she needs to really deal with all of the emotional stuff she’s going to have to work through, so she turns it off and does her thing, and honestly it’s easy to call her out for being a punk or whatever, but all of her hustling is about becoming a stronger person and a mother that Isaac can rely on all through his whole life.

Chelsea

Good night, Chelsea is a raging slob.  Her mom is out of town, and every time we see a shot of her mom’s house, there is l draped on everything, bags all over, and just STUFF dropped here, there, and everywhere.  I bet Mary will be cheesed off when she sees this episode.  Suzy’s boyfriend would stroke out over this mess.

Chelsea scheduled her surgery, and Randee asks her if she made it for a Friday, when he can help her out, but she scheduled it for Wednesday… and she breaks it to big poppa that Adam will have to be the primary helper-outer since Mary is out-of-town for awhile.  Randee is skeptical at best.  By the way, Chelsea in this scene looks like a little eight year old in her eyes; an eight year old who is trying so hard to believe in Santa Claus, and that the tooth fairy gave her all those silver dollars and two dollar bills.  She’s not only trying to convince Randee that Adam is a good dad, but she’s trying to convince herself too.

Later on at the surgicenter, Aubree is super fussy the whole time.  Adam was planning to take her to get something to eat, but Chelsea wants him there for when she’s in the recovery room and tels him he won’t have time to go eat.  their dynamic is powerfully uncomfortable to watch, and I’d really prefer at this point to go back to seeing them fight fight fight all the time like Itchy and Scratchy.  At least it cut down on the amount of time we had to watch them together.

Once she’s out of surgery, she’s coming out of being sedated, and she’s in a lot of pain.  It’s that point of exhaustion and stress where the littlest thing is too much.  Aubree is still really grumpy and Chelsea just can’t handle it.  She’s whine-bitching at Adam-uh to take care of Aubree, and Adam gets the baby away from the machines, scooping her up and saying, “Come here you little bastard.”  Niiiiiiice.  He’s not totally failing at fatherhood – I’ll give credit where credit is due.  But dude, babies are not buddies.  You can’t tell a roomful of babies, “It’s nap-time, bitches!” and you can’t call them little bastards, either.  Well, you can, but it makes you look like a real dick.

Suffice it to say that since we’ve not heard otherwise, Chelsea and Aubree somehow survived Adam being their primary care-taker for a couple of days, or at least couple of hours until Randee got off of work.

Jenelle

BabyGurl’s feeling reflective.  Her friends are sick of her drama, her boyfriend is a homeless loser, and her mom is Barb.  Well, ya always have yer family, right?  She calls Barb who leads with, “Oh my god, what’s wrong now.”  Heh.  Jenelle describes an incident with Keiffer that isn’t the same one we saw last week.  This time, he tried to take her keys and shoved her around when she wouldn’t hand them over.  He also kicked the crap out of her car and dented it.  So sexy!  Barb tells her that no man has the right to lay a hand on her, and seriously, Jenelle should have been reminded that all domestic violence is a problem.  She can’t attack people, either.  In no way am I defending Keiffer.  He wasn’t listening to her, he was provoking her, and he baited her hard in last weeks episode, but at the end of the day, she is the one who made it physical.

She did rush him first.  I know how she feels – there was one boyfriend I had for a very long time where things were like that.  He would push and push and push until I exploded, and then he’s laugh.  And then he’d cry.  Dang, I hope there is a statute of limitations on drunkenly fighting with your boyfriend in Illinois.  That was a really long time ago, but where I’m going with this is that I totally understand Jenelle getting so angry and frustrated that she did the only thing she thought would get through to him.  Even though it’s 100% the wrong thing to do to anyone.

Jace is so incredibly darling, like, cuter than kittens playing under a rainbow!

Jenelle goes to press charges against Keiffer and she describes the most recent incident, with the keys and the shoving and the dent.  The clerk asks her if he’s her boyfriend now.  He’s her now-to-be ex-boyfriend.  God willing, we all say to our televisions.  The clerk asks her if there is a criminal record.  He has a lot of pending charges.  The clerk asks her if there is a history of domestic violence.  No… wellllll… yes.  She swears on her statements and I am really curious as to how that will all play out given Amber and the assault MTV cameras caught.  Jenelle will probably not get out of this one so easily,l but mostly I just hope she gets out from Keiffer.

She meets up with an old friend who is a total Thora Burch.  Her friend Tori has known her since she was 12, and Jenelle apologizes for being up Keiffer’s ass so much.  Her friend is disappointed that Jenelle didn’t come to her before, and that Jenelle has been distant.  It’s kind of a weird scene.  If these two are supposed to be renewing a friendship or something, they sure don’t look happy about it.  I think at this point, every single person in Jenelle’s life can see how crappy Keiffer is, how he really does bring Jenelle down, and yet they can’t find the magic thing that will end it already.  Jenelle is even kind of saying that she’s pressing charges to give Keiffer a wake-up call.  There’s a part of her that isn’t done with this and that still believes in him, which is likely why she’s seeking new old friends out, so she can maybe hear something different than what all of the other perfectly rational people around her say, which is, “Keiffer is a loser and you are losing yourself in him in ways that are not worth it.”

Would you choose Keiffer over Jace?  No.  Silence.  Because Tori’s not gonna point out that Jenelle has already chosen Keiffer over Jace.  Because of her involvement with Keiffer, Jenelle has court dates and fines, not to mention actions that are broadcast on national television and that will lead her to be judged by assholes like you and I for the rest of her life.  And hey, yeah, she makes her choices, it’s not Keiffer’s fault but it is his fault that he’s such a loser.  It’s totally his fault that he attached himself abusively to a very young  woman who has a number of issues and who doesn’t have the self-esteem to cut him loose because she can’t see ahead that there are guys who would treat her the way anyone should be treated in any relationship.  She didn’t choose Jace at all.

She and Barbara meet for dinner, and they’re both wearing orange.  They’re wave-lengthing!  Barb levels with Jenelle about Keiffer and how being homeless is really not what she wanted for Jenelle.  Barb’s willing to give Jenelle another chance (oh nooooooooo), but they both have to work really hard, Jenelle needs to spend more time with Jace.  I think there’s a ton edited out here, and I hope I can catch more of it in the Re(al)cap because there is no way that Barb and Jenelle are magically going to get along that easily.  But Barb wants to turn it all around.  You can’t say Barb doesn’t love the shit out of Jenelle.  Barb’s just such a difficult person and picks so much at Jenelle; but for her part, Jenelle has got to learn to ignore it and stop acting out when she gets fed up.  All she has to do is quietly tow the line and never expect that she’s done the right thing or that she’ll be praised for her choices until Barb is done belittling her for what she didn’t chose.

Jenelle gets home, and holy dent, Batman!  Keiffer must have attacked her car with steel-toed boots.  I’m not even kidding.  Wow.  When she walks in, Jace runs into her arms, and hope is still alive for this family.

For serious, Happy Hanukkah!  I’ll probably have the re(al)cap early because if you think I’m working for one hot minute after noon on Thursday, you are sorely mistaken.  In the meantime, discuss, have fun, and don’t drink and drive!