Teen Mom 2 Recap: Lean on Me and Breaking Point

Like any classic rock station worth it’s call numbers, it’s Two’fer Tuesday on Teen Mom tonight. MTV gave us a double shot, not of our favorite classic rock artists but of our least-favorite teen moms, and there weren’t even any contests or wacky hosts so it was really lame. Play something good, like some Prince or some Elvis.  They don’t even try anymore though.  Even the episode titles make no sense.  ’Lean on Me’ before ‘Breaking Point?’  Wouldn’t you break and then lean on your peeps?  Call me crazy, but usually once you’ve got a good lean, you’re probably not gonna break.

Leah
So much for working all week! Even though she’s down to one day per week, Leah’s not worried about running out of eye-liner anytime soon. They were making it before, they’ll still be okay and besides, Ali’s medical care is really taking up a lot of time. They got a little break over the holidays, but now Christmas is over, the snow’s coming down, and it’s back to life which will now include physical therapy for Ali and finally, they’re getting in to see the geneticist to have Ali tested for genetic conditions and abnormalities. Christmas may be over, but there’s one more awesome gift that Leah has, and it’s a surprise…

Kitty!!!  

She gets home from not working and pulls out from under her jacket… a kitten! Meow!  Corey is not thrilled. He’s wearing his same chartreuse sweatshirt he’s always wearing these days. And come on, dude. I get it that you’re country and junk, and we pretty much only ever see your dad rocking that sweet hoodie/overalls look, but a sweatshirt the color of Wrigley’s Extra spearmint gum is distraction, it just is. Or maybe it’s distracting because there’s nothing interesting that happens here unless we are in a doctor’s office with Ali. I’m getting really cheesed off about this with Teen Mom 2.  These girls should be so much more interesting story-wise than the OG Teen Moms, and MTV had this golden opportunity to put it all together, since they didn’t have the big break between Season 1 and Seaon 2 like the OGs.  But MTV seems to put less than nothing into this version, and it bugs me.  A lot.  Married, twins, Jenelle, for crying out loud!  There are probably a ton of interesting things that could have been shown, but the editing is so bad, and the footage that was used is so old that it’s just a complete disaster.  It’s like the worst soap on the planet, or how about it’s The Hills x ABC Afterschool Special x late-night show on cable access hosted by a transgendered grandma named Dr. Dru.    We see Corey’s truck more in this episode than we see them dealing with a kitten Corey doesn’t really want. What gives? Baby animals and baby children are less interesting than watching a truck pull into snowy driveways.  I mean, call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure I’m on solid ground there.

This truck gets more camera time than Janet, and that it a travesty.

Like, why are you hammering this truck at us, unless it’s a sponsorship thing, which suck because I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what kind of truck that is and I was even looking. I’m guessing Dodge since it’s orange, like Dukes of Hazzard orange, and I believe The General Lee was a Dodge Charger. I wonder if Corey ever tries to get into that truck by rolling over the hood and sliding into through the window? Because I would. My friend just bought an orange Challenger, and would that she would let me: A) Drive it and/or B) Get into it by rolling over the hood and sliding through the window (also never gonna happen). Neither A nor B will ever, ever happen, sadly.  Something else that won’t happen is the truck getting knocked up, so why it’s on this show so much is weird.  It will never be a teen mom.

Lots of snow, lots of orange truck, we get it. Where’d the kitty go? Who cares, we have to get over to Leah’s mom’s place for PT this morning. Leah lives too far out in the country for the PT to come to her, so she heads into town with the girls and meets the physical therapist for Ali’s first evaluation. They spend a lot of time playing with Ali while she’s being evaluated, and Baby’s still not putting any weight on her feet. She’s happy to stay put most of the time, and let Aleeah do all the exploring for her. Smart baby. The PT wants to do little splints for Ali to see if she can get a little more stable so that she can start standing and walking. Leah asks if she thinks that Ali will ever walk. There’s a long, kind of horrible pause, but the PT ends up saying she doesn’t see any reason why not – Ali’s got nothing structurally wrong. Isn’t it crazy how chubby little blobs of baby turn into muscles and ligaments and stuff? Christ. I sound like Jenelle, with the dumbass deep thoughts, “Did you guys know how needy babies are? They need you like, all the time.”

Admit it.  Those twins are big-time cute.

Moving on! Later, after the girls are in bed, Leah describes everything for Corey from PT earlier. They are on this trip, well, Leah is on this trip about how you never think that this will happen to you. You may never think you’re going to get pregnant, but okay, yeah that happens and plenty of families deal with that happening. But you never think you’ll have a baby who is slower to develop and medically it’s unclear why she’s slower. They’re totally behind Ali, and they keep reassuring themselves that no matter what, they will do everything to keep her progressing, even if she’s going to be the little baby in the glasses and the splints, and at this point, who knows what else. I think it’s less that they have to reassure themselves on the inside, and more that they feel like they have to say it out loud thought, because I think that they worry they’re doubting Ali every time they talk about the possibility of there being something serious. Let’s face it too, not a majority of people know how they’re feeling, and I totally appreciate that MTV gives us these little moments with them. On their couch. Talking about waiting for test results, or about what ifs, or about how they’re scared and want answers, or about how the next appointment is the one where they really wish there would just be a miracle and the doctor’s like, “Ali has ____ and this is what we do and it’s really simple and here’s the timeline, oh also, we can tell you exactly how much it will cost you for the next 25 years” I have no problem with that, but the problem is that it’s kind of ALL WE’VE WATCHED FOR WEEKS. Get that kitten on this screen right effing now, MTV. Please, give us something different besides sitting on a couch worrying, or driving in the snow also worrying! Ugh. I’m worried! I’m worried because I hate the game, not the playas. The game is MTV ruining the possibilities with this cast.

Finally, the magic day arrives when it’s time for Ali to go to the geneticist. We’ve been hearing about this doctor and how Ali needs to see her for pretty much every episode in recent memory, back to the original ‘emmm arrre eyahh’ in Season 1. Thank goodness we’re finally here! I’m so excited! Leah is too, because she’s heard that this doctor is so awesome that she can take one look at Ali and know exactly what’s going on. Awesome, or a specialist who is good at her job. Tell me the last time you went to say, an orthopedic specialist with leg pain, and you tell the doctor when it started and how it feels… and like magic y’all, like a freaky magic trick, the doctor tells you that you have a torn hamstring or whatever. Leah’s really in awe and it’s cute but we don’t even get to go in to the appointment like we do with the other docs for Ali. The geneticist must think she’s too good for MTV.   How rude!  Doesn’t she know we’ve been waiting for this moment for a year? Doesn’t she know that we are invested here, that we need to know every single detail down to what month of Good Housekeeping is in the exam room?

We don’t get to see the appointment though, so we end up back in the truck, the eternal truck, and I’m assuming that they used the doors to get into it, so it’s still boring.  We’re going to watch them break it down in the truck. “I’m confused, I’m not sure what she said but we have to wait about a month for some blood work to be done.” That would be cool, but then we have to watch the exact same thing again at Leah’s mom’s house.

They roll over to Grandma’s place and break it all back down. You never think this will happen to you. We are confused, can you help us understand what she said. Et cetera, et cetera. The geneticist did have an idea of a syndrome Ali may have, called Campomelic Dysplasia. It turns out that this is such a rare condition, that Leah’s mom who I thought was a nurse but who seems to work for a dentist, doesn’t know anything about it. I know! Weird! So of course, the family goes to the scariest doctor in the world, Dr. Online. Naturally, so did I and Dr. Online came through with some really sad pictures. Sad for me; gut-wrenching for Corey and Leah, I’m sure. Still though, we have to wait some more because it’ll take a month for the blood work, and once again they run down yet again how it is that you never expect to have a baby that has developmental delays. Also, you never expect to see someone as young as Leah is dressed in a sweater that looks like it might be vintage from the Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters show. Seriously. I think it has shoulder pads and rhinestones, and sequins, but not in a Real Housewives way, no this is pure 1980s-country-music-star-on-a-day-off way.

Barbara Mandrell called, and she wants her sweater back.

Fugly sweater or not, there are ultimately more positives than negatives, as Leah’s mom points out and even though Leah is really kind of starting to get her freak-out on, she reigns it back in when Corey starts getting upset. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, that he is just enough more mature and dudely to know that there isn’t any point to freaking out because they can’t do anything until they know something. As much as it sucks to have to wait, there isn’t a choice right now but to wait and to have some faith that little Miss Ali has just some developmental delays due to something simple, rather than her having a debilitating genetic condition. She has it or she doesn’t, and they’ll figure it out when they know.
The geneticist was more worried than they expected, since Ali is as smart as Aleeah and she does keep making progress even though it’s slow going. All the waiting is making Leah lose hope a little though. It’s got to be hard to go through all of this. Yes, I am sick of saying that but what else is there to say when this is all the crappy editing gives us? Argh. And now I read she’s pregnant (though she is denying that it’s twins) and she wants to be the next Kate Gosselin? What happened? Television.

It’s this whole other thing for people who are as young as these girls. They weren’t even alive when the first Real World aired, with Julie and Eric, and Heather B. They would not remember the first Survivor, with Richard Hatch the snake and Kelly Wiglesworth, the rat, and how Sue Hawk taught us all that the snake should eat the rat. These things that were new and novel for those of us who grew up on sitcoms like Family Ties and Facts of Life. These kids watched reality tv like we wanted Friends or Sex and the City to be reality when we were their ages. So it’s different, and I don’t understand it yet, but I want to and I will. There’s something about wanting to be on TV that maybe is inborn in us at this point, since evolution is what it is and pervasive things that transcend a given society tend to become part of the actual people over time. And amigas, it has been a long time that actual people have been in love with being in front of a camera. Girls sailing off to Hollywood, guys wrestling in backyard videos all hoping to be discovered… teenagers with twins and an MTV show wanting their lives to be about being famous… it’s pretty much the same, right? Like, it’s just for a different age so get used to it. It’s completely possible that we’ll see Leah on TV for a long time and if that’s the case, I really hope she ups the volume of her hair and makes rhinestone shoulder pad sweaters her signature, sort of as a nod to the Mandrells and the olden days of reality TV, when it was variety shows, and the news. Maybe she could take all the kids and make it a variety show with nutty Cher outfits and stuff. Dare to dream, right kitty cats?  Teen Mom 2: The Musical.  It could happen.  Cop Rock, anyone?

Dream-time for babies!  When do people stop being cute when they’re asleep?  Because no adult is an adorable sleeper.  Drool, snoring, probably farts too are just not cute.

Instead of dreaming, we’re going to roll over to Corey’s parents’ house so we can have the exact same conversations about being worried, being tired of waiting, and thinking that this kind of thing will never happen to you. We’ve only seen this conversation two and a half times tonight, so I’m glad we’re going to go through it all again! “We couldn’t make it without loving each other.” Well, we all know how making it turns out for these two, don’t we. Leah does feel bad for freaking out, which we pretty much already knew, too.

They head back over to Leah’s mom’s house, so they can sit on a different couch and have the same conversation for the fourth time in the double episode. We get it. Worried. Waiting. Faith. Expectation. Meow. I bet the kitten is doing something super cute right now, and also I wish the cats living on my roof would crash through the skylight and scratch my eyes out in a freak accident so that I could stop watching this snooze fest.  I lament again the wasted opportunity that MTV had here.

Worried. Waiting. Faith. Expectation. Standing. Meo…. Whaaaaat???? Standing? Leah’s mom has Ali doing a new exciting trick called standing! Yay Baby!!! She’s standing at the coffee table, supporting herself with her arms and keeping her weight back in her heels, but she is standing and she seems to know it, too. She’s got a little pile of Cheetos in front of her. Leah’s mom says, “You know how I got you to start walking? Cheese puffs. You loved them so much.” So why not try it with Baby Ali? And lo’, Ali became a second generation cheese puff-motivated learner. Awwww…. It would be so incredibly adorbs if not for the fact that it stopped being cute when Leah started spray-tanning herself to the point where she matches a cheese puff. Then again, maybe Ali can just follow mama’s orange nose around like it’s a Cheeto On a Stick. Someone’s got the iPhone video rolling, which for some reason touches my heart just right – they are real people and this is their real life. Even though they’ve kinda lived on camera for over two years at this point in real-time, they still take home videos of these ‘firsts.’

I hope that in 17 years, Ali is heading to college rather than being the same color as those Cheetos and raising two babies.

If she wants to brand herself, maybe she could start by getting a spokesperson gig from Cheetos, since she’s already roughly the same color as a Cheeto.

The next day, Leah’s giving the girls some snacks and she gets a call from the geneticist’s office with the good news that Ali’s tests were all negative for any major diagnoses. She’s genetically normal, and that’s got to be such an incredibly massive weight lifted off of Leah’s shoulders. There may be a condition that they haven’t seen before, but for now they don’t need to see Ali back for another year and as long as she’s progressing, even if it’s slow, she’s good for the time being, as far as genetic issues might be concerned. Leah is glowing she’s so happy and relieved at this news. She snuggles the baby and cries when she tells her that she should never have doubted Ali. I would totally be crying too right now, but this is late in episode two of the night and my tears got used up on being bored up until this point. Corey comes home, still wearing the same glow-in-the-dark sweatshirt, and they’re beaming about how they always believed in Ali, and knew she would be okay. So kitten…. the same conversation in different settings four times…. Ali doesn’t have a diagnosed genetic disorder. Good job MTV. Thanks for the seriously crappy double episode.

Chelsea
The people who own the house that Randy is currently renting for Chelsea have decided to sell, so Chelsea has to find another apartment for Randy to rent. For her. Randy’s asking her if she wants to move. Chelsea admits there are a lot of bad memories of bad times with Adam, and how she was so brainwashed she let herself get in a friendship-changing fight with her bestie, Megan so she had to end things permanently and be an adult about it with Adam. Oh wait. No she didn’t. she took a turn down Aubree’s First Steps Road and got lost in the infernally stupid idea that she and Adam are somehow working toward a healthy family life. Randy asks her if he’s moving in, and she tells him no. He’ll stay over though. Also, she’s dying her hair blonde. Woo.

Ladies, if you weren’t hot for Randy before this episode, note that he’s worn both a Sturgis shirt and a Harley Davidson shirt. Randy rides, girls. So hott!

Chelsea, on the other hand is so lazy that she isn’t even going to look at places until Randy can go with her, even though she already knows the budget. She kept saying that she wants to help, by paying utilities or contributing to the rent, but…. With what? $15 per week from her part-time tanning salon attendant job? And if the MTV duckets are rolling in for her to contribute, I would think that Randy would be doing the smart thing, which is helping her beef up a sizable down-payment on a place that she’ll earn and maybe someday soon at least not be asking him for both rent AND grocery money. I can’t understand how people have the money to maintain at least two households, I really don’t. Even as a dentist, after his own big house, the other kids, and saving how in the heck does he afford a fully separate household for Chelsea? It’s like affairs. I can’t understand affairs and cheating because who has the time for that? It seems double-stupid. Stupid for cheating in the first place, and stupid for having to deal with two people all the time. Double-stupid, of course, is almost as stupid as Chelsea’s storyline.

So this is it for a double episode. Chelsea has to move, and Chelsea’s dying her hair blond. BFD. She plays with Aubree while she’s getting ready to go to the salon, and guess who’s watching Aubree while Chelsea’s getting her hair done? Daddy Megan! Megan walks in looking about 7 months pregnant, and she had her baby last July I think. But this is supposed to be right after Christmas, so that must have big one big American baby if this was filmed in early 2011. Chelsea’s brunette here.

Would you let that girl touch your hair?

In the chair, she’s getting foiled, but she’s already blonde. The stylist is asking her about Adam, because the stylist is apparently a masochist, and with that hair is anyone surprised that this is a woman who is into some crazy stuff? I love big hair, but that’s sort of like the cheap Halloween wig that you put away last year and pulled out this year, and now it’s all misshapen and frizzy. That’s what Chelsea’s stylist’s hair looks like, so this whole ‘I’m going to be a blond again’ thing is getting really interes… no. It’s not interesting in the very least. I would literally have to watch Rachel Zoe toddle around being fakely heart-felt and emasculating her weird husband and I reeeeealllly can’t stand that show. By the way, Adam’s not into blond. Chelsea should know better than. He likes brunette, so now she deserves to be treated like a jerk for a few days. When the big reveal happens, she’s a platinum mullet of open-mouth gum-chewing oh em gee’ing and generally looking like a tan hipster which is an oxymoron. I think she’s going for hipster here, but she’s oompa-loompa tan, and hipsters wouldn’t be caught dead in head-to-toe leopard print fleece.

Yes, she chose to do that to her hair?

She gets home and is hanging with Megan, and this is amazing! When you walk out of the salon and you’ve got your big hair just blown-out, sure, it’s going to fall a bit and over a couple of weeks, the color will settle and blend. Remarkably, Chelsea’s ‘do settled to soft, un-mulleted waves and her color went from white blonde with some red streaks underneath, to being an over-all honey wheat color. It must be science, because I don’t get it, but I wish Barbicide could make my hair do that. Imagine the possibilities if you could have on-demand hair color and shapes! The future is here, or else MTV does an abominable and embarrassing job editing this show.

Allegedly, this is probably about two hours after the previous picture.

Yet again, we learn that Adam’s not moving in, and we also learn that Megan is having a baby! Chelsea tries to pull rank and share with Megan that she feels bad for her, because she knows how hard it is to be a young, single mother. Megan sits quietly in the passenger seat during a little trip down memory lane of tears and doctor appointments and emotional turmoil. I applaud her for not telling Chelsea to suck it and for letting Chelsea act like she’s in the same situation. She’s in a similar situation, maybe, but we don’t really know that. With Chelsea, everything comes back to her shitty relationship with Adam so she assumes that everyone has a shitty relationship with a shitty guy and we really don’t know. Chelsea has it easier than any teen mom in the game. Her family pays for everything and makes her life as easy as possible, her baby is healthy, and she literally does nothing to earn this. She lives like she is a 12 year old, not a 19 year old. She probably doesn’t get to weigh in on how hard it is to be a teen mom, because she’s getting the lite version of The Teen Mom Experience, to say the least.

This part of the two’fer ends with Adam coming over and teasing her about the blond. She’s got the moving news for him, and asks if he’ll stay over. She’s so insecure; not that it’s his fault, but their cycle is awful. He treats her badly and she lets him come back, but then she’s so insecure about him being true to her that she gets suffocating and annoying so why would he want to stay in that? Would you? Me either. But they keep doing it, and when she tells him about Megan’s news, they agree that it’s hard to stay together and Adam implies that they were happy but the pregnancy and baby made it a lot harder. That’s…. hilarious. Adam was probably happy because his parents probably weren’t breathing down his neck about responsibility and bringing Aubree to their place; also, he had way more time to get his freak on with all 2 of the willing ladies in Vermillion. What do you want to bet that Adam’s cheating is more banging cougars in mall bathrooms then it is courting and seducing a girl on his own? Also noted, Adam’s finger tattoos. I would say that the urge to write stuff on your knuckles ends with high school, but it’s just not true. I have had ‘CRUE’ and ‘LIVE WIRE’ written on my knuckles just this week alone, and I am not even kidding. I now even have fake tattoo letters for what I like to call my ‘Crue Spirit Fingers.’ My Motley Crue love rolls strong.

Yet another ‘do.  RIVETING.

The next day, or whatever, maybe the next year for all I can tell, Chelsea’s back to house-hunting. More accurately, Chelsea’s back to talking to her dad about house-hunting over dinner, and she’s saying how she’s grown up. How Randy managed to not choke on a crouton when she said that is beyond me. For all the Randelicious fans in the Teen Mom Nation, he’s wearing a Harley shirt here, so feel free to swoon now. I did. Randy sort of hints at bugging her about school but she whines her way out of it with “Daa-y-id, I knooooooo,” so he gives her the $700s budget and probably thanks his lucky stars that he can escape on the bike anytime he wants to. Wear a helmet Randy! You’ll still look cool!
The next day, she’s Internet searching for places that are in the $700s and don’t have a lot of stairs. She finds her dream place, and it’s $825. A quick call reveals that if she signs a 12 month lease, she can get it for $790. Man. She can’t even look at other places? This one place at the tippy top of the budget is the only one we see her look at, and she acts like it’s THE place. It feels like she didn’t look at anything else, which makes sense because she is lazier, and I can’t believe this, than Amber Portwood. Amber at least has the excuse of being a raging addict to what I assume is something that rhymes with description hugs. Chelsea’s never got the nods, and she should get her ass in that VW Bug and go look at all of the options instead of just saying, “Thanks Daddy,” and moving on. COME ON RANDY!

That lady was married to Randy.

They meet up at the dream condo rental, and tour the place. Chelsea is giddy about it and wants it sooooo bad. Leah may have big Barbie Dream Hair, but Chelsea thinks she is a doll. She really seems to operate with very little sense of reality, and mostly focused on having cute things, and a cute life, and whether or not she looks cute. Ironically, she would be adorable if she actually made any effort and was truly one of those foible-thick lovable characters. But she’s just not. There’s no meat on the bone here. It’s just air. She keeps giving lip service to wanting to help, and Randy keeps giving lip service to “Adam cannot move in.” By the time we get to the paperwork, he’s totally ignoring her yammering on about how he’s frustrating her with all of his rules. What the shit just happened? Backslide, Randy. I do not approve.
She gets home and tells her mom that she got the place, and she calls Adam to line up help with moving on Saturday. He’s tired, he’s working, whatever, bring your friends and be there. She hangs up and she knows already that he’s not going to do this for her. She says to her mom that he’s always there for fun, but he’s never there when she needs him. And then, the penultimate dumbass/sad/pathetic comment from Chelsea: “But, it’s been three years like this, so I guess I’m used to it.” How her mother didn’t react to that at all is painful. The whole thing is painful. Can we make a deal that I can quit recapping Chelsea? She’s back to hair-day blond here, fyi.

Nothing like your dad paying your rent to put forth that ‘I’m so mature’ image.

She and Randy get her stuff moved over to the new place, and she’s back to the softer blond and the pretty waves. She and Randy are getting ready to start moving things into the new place and Randy asks where’s Adam. Speak of the devil, and the devil shall appear. He’s outside, being a little bitch because Randy’s there and he hates (that Randy is onto him and knows he’s a punk) Randy. Randy takes off, because he doesn’t want to be anywhere near Adam, probably because it would be too hard to not accidentally on purpose drop something really heavy on Adam and hope for the worst.

I can’t believe Randy didn’t take the opportunity to run over Adam, like you know Tony Soprano would. 

Adam comes in and refuses to take off his shoes, because he’s a swingin’ dick like that. Ugh. Why hasn’t he fallen into a lake while ice fishing yet? Why? She asks him if he’s going to help, but he mostly just acts like a five year old, like he’s SO tired he can’t even stand up. She tells him to be in a good mood, and the tension escalates so she wide-eyes at him that he shouldn’t have agreed to help and his retort: ‘You forced me.’ For crying out loud, grow UP. Even my worst, my ultimate, my dangerous, my super bad, gross in hindsight, dirtbag homeless boyfriend was more mature than this fucker. She’s moving. You’re her boyfriend. No wait, who cares about status. She asked and you said you might. Either say you can’t, or suck it up and help but instead, he not only doesn’t help but makes it her fault that he doesn’t help. I’m so over this. I won’t say ‘I’m done!” because it’s so over-used, like ‘just sayin’, and ‘you know?’. But still. Chelsea’s segments just suck the life out of the show, they really do.

Holy crap, we’re half-way there.

Kailyn
It’s Isaac’s first birthday! It’s also the fact that Jo has him for the weekend. Kailyn wants to have him on Saturday so she can have a party for him, so she asks Jo for a favor. Jo isn’t super into it, but when have we ever seen Jo smile, let alone be into something. He agrees to let Kail have the baby for a few hours on Sabado.

Kailyn and her friend go shopping for party supplies, and we spend a whole lot of time in the store, with cameras going tight on shots of big ‘1’ candles. It’s pretty riveting, and I hope the kid operating the camera goes on to do something with his or her life, but something tells me that if s/he can’t even get Kail’s entire cone head hair-do into the shot, things are not looking good for that hero. She’s proud of herself for all that’s happened in the last year, and you have to admit that it’s been a big one for her. From checking out her bio-dad in Texas for one of the few times ever, to now with her own place and a civil relationship with her baby-daddy.

Conehead’s have birthdays, too you guys.  Smile.

She gets up and gets herself ready for party day! It apparently takes a lot of hairspray to keep her cone head in place. I wonder if there’s a Bump-it under there, or is she’s smuggling anything. I guess hair could get searched at the airport. You’d be amazed how often you do not get searched when travelling with 15 other girls who also have bags carrying roller skates through security. It’s faster with my whole team than when I take a backpack full of books and head to Kure Beach every summer. It’s really close to Oak Island, but it’s too much fun body surfing and getting ultra tan to mess with creeping Jenelle or Barb. I think the only time I come inside is when it’s dark, and one time I went to get a pedicure because my aunt and my bestie wanted to do something different. Whatever.

We then spend an inordinate amount of time watching Kail and her two cousins get ready for the party. Her cousins are in from out of town; one looks to be old enough to have a baby but the other one looks like a ‘tween and so her baby makes her look like she’s a survivor from a fundamentalist cult or something. The talk about Jordan, and being excited to meet him, Kail mentions that Jo is never there when she picks up and drops off Isaac. Get used to that, by the way, because it’s something you hear her say about thirteen times in the two-fer. Why isn’t this a Bob Seger two’fer instead of a Teen Mom one? The younger but wiser cousin, wiser I guess because she’s escaped a life of sister wives and her arranged marriage to an 83 year old prophet, tells Kail that it would be disappointing to see her get really serious with Jordan right away. She’s just now getting independent, and getting her feet on really solid ground, so to hook into someone else just seems like going backwards a bit. This message, I’m sure, isn’t lost on Kail since we’ve already seen her questioning jumping in with Jordan already.

Kail’s cousin once jumped into something, thinking it was just a lot of good Bible studying and Lord-praising but then ended up with six sister wives and a 73 year old husband before she escaped, so she’s learned some things, and has some pretty good advice about not jumping into things.

She leaves them in charge of cupcakes, and leaves to pick up Isaac. Her place is close to the Riveras, so that’s pretty cool. When she gets home, here we go, “Jo wasn’t even there.” Isaac is a sleepy baby so he’s still napping as people arrive for the party. Once he wakes up, they open presents, doing the birthday thang. Jordan got Isaac little shoes that match his own; Jordan does seem to really care about Isaac and enjoy him. That’s pretty cool to see. He’s very comfortable with everything, in spite of his squeamishness to talk about the female reproductive system. But, let’s be honest here. I’d say it’s about 50/50 on dudes who cannot handle anything beyond ‘Oh wait, is this shark week?”’ to those who just aren’t bothered by special lady stuff or talking about birth control and stuff. There are worse things than a 20 year old guy not being used to talking about uterus business. Any good aspect of Adam is worse than the worst aspect of Jordan.
Isaac gets his first piece of cake, and it’s so cute that all my disdain with the pacing and the editing and the mess that is this series goes out the window, because… babies!!!!!!! Babies eating cake!!!!!! It’s a very sweet scene, and it shows that a lot of people care about Kail and about Isaac. That kid is a lucky boy, he really is.

!!Ad!!or!!a!!ble!!!

Later on, she takes him back to Jo and runs into dun dun dunnnnnnnn… Janet. Janet the Lion. Janet’s patrolling her pride and this interloper came in, but Janet’s not a jerk lion. She’s just a lion. You know she’s a lion, so from there, you gotta quit being surprised when she roars at you and it means something important. Kail and Janet are still circling each other really carefully, and Kail looks like she would have preferred to not run into Janet right then. Janet says that she got the letter, and she thanks Kailyn for it but they really just don’t see each others’ points of view here. Kail still believes that Janet only saw things from Jo’s perspective and Janet still believes that Kail didn’t like what the Riveras offered to her in terms of family and sanctuary. Neither of them is wrong, is the problem, but neither of these two women is going to budge right now, either. Jo may not have known it, but there are some real similarities between his baby-mama and his mama-mama, starting with stubborn.

Yikes!  Respect The Janet! 

Shortly after the party, she totals her car. She had Isaac with her, but luckily nobody was hurt. She’s pretty stuck at home, and she’s looking really skinny here but I think it’s just that she’s wearing a really flattering outfit, and Kail doesn’t always dress for her figure. Her friend brings her a McFlurry and she tells us how her car is junked. She had to pay $140 for the tow, and it’s $40 per day to sit on the lot, so she’s got to figure something out. She’s still also got school and work, so when life happens like this it can totally be overwhelming when you’re unfamiliar with the fact that just when you get all your stuff balanced out just right, and things are millhouse, is right when you wreck your car or your furnace dies or a bunch of cats move onto your roof. Cats make the freakiest sounds. I’m kind of cool with this new development. Pound for pound, cats are the most vicious creatures and the best killers, so they’ll kill stuff I’d rather not ever see in or around my house. But. Loud. Like, sometimes I’m taken by surprise and for a second I think my place is really, seriously haunted and I’m about to get my ass kicked by a dead teenager wearing a rubber bodysuit like on American Horror Story.

Once her pal leaves, she starts dealing with the car, calling salvage lots to see what she can get for junking it. $350 is the best she finds, but the yard isn’t sure they can get it for a few more days. When she lets them know her situation, and the tears start welling up, they are able to squeeze her in sooner. Sometimes, a girl just needs a break and I’m glad she got one here. It stinks to feel stranded and hamstrung, and she was just getting to the point where she was getting used to being on her own, getting used to the fact that it’s great to be independent but it can be the teensiest bit lonely, unless you have a dog and an excellent FWB arrangement.

Sad Face

Speaking of FWB, which is about the chemistry level that those two have, he’s helping her get around. He gets her to the salvage yard, and then takes her over to a used car lot that’s owned by a friend’s dad. This guy looks like the nicest used car lot guy in town. I genuinely hope that he gets a ton of business out of this. He seems to be really good people. He’s got a couple of cars in the $1k-$2k range, cars that will be safe but that aren’t ‘your dream car,’ as he puts it. He keeps showing her a four-door car, but she is a kid after all, and there’s a little Sunfire coup that is pretty cute and in her price range. They make the deal go down, and she rolls off the lot with the baby in the backseat. Come winter, when she’s got groceries and Isaac and a backpack of books for school, she may regret that coup so no complaining, Missy! Then again, unlike Chelsea, Kail isn’t bothered by having to take a few extra steps to make her life what she wants it to be.

I genuinely hope this guy sells lots of cars, thanks to MTV.  He seemed super nice.

Later on, Isaac’s back with Jo I presume, so Kail goes to dinner with Jordan and her friend Meagan. Talk turns to how broke she is now that she totaled the car and had to get a new one. She says she’s thinking about filing for child support. She’s conflicted here. I think that she and Jo really truly wanted it to be mi famiglia and to be able to have an arrangement that works with the least amount of legally binding regulation possible. For the most part, it kind of works but the fact is that there is a business side of life. There’s a business side of life even within a family. Every family has to figure out how the finances work, and this co-parenting family really isn’t any different. Right now, it’s not working. Kail’s perception is that Jo has more money, and less physical custody of Isaac so child support might be fair here. I don’t think she wants to need help, frankly, but the fact is that she has primary custody and child support is a big deal. Jo offers to go to the store with her and split supplies for the baby, but it’s not the same at all. Both Jordan and Meagan think that it’s part of the deal – have a kid, aren’t together, someone may be paying to help keep the child feed and diapered. Kail also thinks that Jo wouldn’t hesitate to file for child support if the shoes were on the other feet. Oddly, I can see that.

The next day or so, she stops in at the local child support office and does the deed. The weirdest thing here is the pacing. We saw allll this party hoopla, and allll this discussion about child support and then when it was time for the money shot, all we get is what looks like a classroom after hours and Kail calling Jo to leave a message that says in her special bossy-pants voice, “I just filed for child support, you’ll get a letter soon. Sorry. Bye.” Click.

Jo calls her back and he’s upset, understandably. She probably felt like if she didn’t just do it, she would be talked out of it, or she didn’t want to deal with the confrontation and that’s all valid, but it still really stinks they way she handled this one. She could have called him before and decided to not engage when he gets mad, since she knows in advance he’s going to get mad. It’s upsetting, not just because of the money. It’s upsetting because it’s a reminder that you couldn’t make it work and now you’re raising a child very differently than you were raised, which is to say your child doesn’t have two parents in the same house raising him. It’s a reminder that you’re going to have to grow up even a little more, and for Jo, maybe it’s one of the first times he’s going to learn that you think you’ve come so far and then you look up and, oh man… I still have to get all the way over there? Yes son, you do. You have to understand that child support is to support Isaac, not Kail and that the money she has is not covering the amount of baby wipes and baby food Isaac needs, so let’s all take a deep breath and figure out how to move this circus to the next town.

Jenelle
Guess who’s back to not being in school? Jenelle! Besides blowing off getting herself registered for the spring semester, which I’m pretty sure is going to bounce her out of a lot of financial aid, Jenelle’s mainly thinking about her upcoming court date for possession of marijuana and breaking and entering. I mean, why spend time on school when you might have to go to jail shortly, or you at least might have to moon around about your loser boyfriend going (back to) jail shortly? Keiffer texts Jenelle that his cousin spring him out, and Jenelle talks to Barbara for a bit about how she’s going to go see him.

I, too, was very surprised that Keiffer used that apostrophe in ‘let’s’ correctly.  

She tells Barb that she’s missed him, and that they need to talk and Barb’s just so over telling her that it’s a bad idea. I don’t think Barb often gets tired of hearing herself talk, but on this one, she may just be sick of the words “Keiffer, bad, and no.” Jenelle wants to be trashy. She thinks she and her mother are making progress because Barb didn’t flip out with her when she was honest about going to see Keiffer. I think she and her mother are making progress because for the moment, Barbara’s given up on Jenelle. So yeah, Jenelle can now have what she wants, which is to do whatever she wants and have nobody to answer to, and nobody telling her about the better choices she should be making by now.

She meets up with Keiffer at the same place where they hung out earlier in the series, and I’d swear that they’re wearing the same outfits, but then again, I’m totally biased at this point and I’m pretty much going to call foul on every single possible continuity bust. I used to never see that stuff, but it is so gratuitous and sloppy on Teen Mom 2. There’s zero excuse for this, and it kind of goes to show how MTV feels about this franchise of the show. These girls aren’t making the same money as the original girls, and they are by far not getting the same show the original girls got. There is so little editorial humor, and so little regard for us, the audience, that I’m starting to resent the show on a grand scale. Not Teen Mom. Just Teen Mom 2.

Same outfits as the last episode where they were here, a few weeks ago.  Then again, these two don’t seem to be into keeping up appearances.  Or living in places where there are closets.  A glove box is not a drawer, fyi, and there aren’t any closets in jail.  Trust me on that one.

They spend some time talking utter nonsense about how he didn’t beat her or anything, he just shoved her violently into a car and assaulted a different car. They are trying to figure out what it is about them that causes so much volatility. They decide to blame their families, but a much more honest answer is likely: Cocaine, pot, ecstasy, and dumbassery. She feels like she only has Keiffer, and Jace. Again, if the Reality Stick smacked her knuckles every time she said something like, “I have/choose/mother Jace” then her fingers would be stinging but good right now. On and on we go with the over-romanticizing what was probably four or five days in a county jail. It’s like your best friend is taken away (because you sent him away); it’s like I love you SO MUCH I didn’t know what to do (so I shoved you into a car and busted you up another time but that was off-camera). I’m worried because I have prior charges (then stop being a delinquent).

Jenelle has to go meet with her public defender, and he seems nice enough but he’s squaring her up for this. You’ve got serious charges, missy, and you’re not in school so this can really go not well. He tells her that she doesn’t have any priors, so that’s good, but she can’t mess around at all from now on. What will likely happen is that she’ll get community service and supervised probation. This includes random drug testing, at the will of a probation officer who can come by at any old time the mood strikes. And if she drops dirty, she’s going downtown. Her eyes are dead and she doesn’t have a whole lot of questions, until he gets to the part where he says she has to stay clean. “How long?” Oh Lord.

So, you’re saying I can’t take bong rips for a year?

The day of court, she’s getting ready to leave and telling Barb about everything the attorney told her, about the amount of time she could have but the likelihood of community service. Barb admonishes her that she can’t smoke at all, and it’s about now in the episode that I am so intensely bored, I’m starting to picture Barb, as played by the inimitable Pam Brown. Wouldn’t that be awesome??????? “Keiffer is gonna be DONE,” would have the same effect, but man so much more force. Also, barb giving her the run-down on how to act in court: “Fix your jacket, don’t make eye contact with Keiffer, don’t lie, you can’t LIE, man, Keiffer has to tuck in his shirt, don’t sit together,” Wow. She gets so paranoid and serious.

Don’t lie, man.

Jenelle picks up Keiffer, and he’s nervous, but he’s got a lot more to be nervous about. Jenelle handles him like a boss, telling him which door to go to and to avoid her inside. It’s actually funny, like she thinks there is some big romantic tone here, like they’re Billy Joe and Bobby Sue or something. Luckily, there’s no reason to get all sneaky just yet. Court’s cancelled. I don’t get it, either. How do these kids always get their court dates cancelled? Regardless, the mood shifts dramatically, and they’re elated that they’re off the hook for a couple of months.

During that time off, Jenelle also has to get a new car, because hers breaks down. I guess living in a car really wears it out fast, huh? Barb’s been letting Keiffer come around, so clearly she needs to get her meds adjusted, and Jenelle’s been staying out of trouble. The two lovebirds are playing with the baby and putting him down, as if they’re responsible loving parents. It’s stomach-churning and I don’t buy it for a second. You know Barb is in the garage spying. Once Jace is down for a nap, they’re chilling on the couch and Jenelle’s texting with someone who turns out to be her ex-boyfriend, with whom she started hanging out while Keiffer was in jail. The layers of trashiness just don’t stop here. It’s so bad. It’s Amber Portwood bad, only Amber is a completely different kind of asshole, and an oddly more likable one, probably because she is genuinely sick in the head and a hardcore addict whereas these two are just punks with bad attitudes who need a shower.

Don’t mind me.  I’m just texting with my ex who I hung out with while I was busy missing you so much while you were in jail for a week.  

Keiffer’s understandably not down with Jenelle’s giggling over texts sent by her ex, and shows Keiffer one asking her when they’re gonna hang out next. She gets uppity about it, like it’s totally innocent and no big that she’s doing this. She’s a real bitch about it, actually. She uses that barb mocking-voice about like, how he said it was okay if she has guy friends, which may very well be true, but which does not extend to guy friends who you used to bang and who you sought out while your fella was in the pokey. He storms out and doesn’t respond to her for days to follow.

She’s starting to freak out about it, so a friend of hers rolls over and this girl is probably named Crystal… Crystal Meth. She has that tweaker shake and the eyes with no pupils, but she does hilariously snot out, “How’s Miss Barbara?” Only it’s the kind of snottiness that’s really funny, because the person being snotty is clearly either mentally ill a little bit, or on drugs. Jenelle tries to sell it like she didn’t do anything with the ex, and can’t imagine why Keiffer would be so upset, so her friend rattles off the usual bullshit advice that anyone not listening can give, like you don’t trust each other or advisement to let the past be the past. Why isn’t this double shot nightmare over and in the past is pretty much all I care about by now.
Jenelle’s all stressed out and wants to burn down, because she can’t find Keiffer. He’s not responding to what I’m sure at this point are hourly calls with texts on the tens. What up with radio and me today. I think it’s because I’m going to Tool next week with the coolest radio host ever of all time. I don’t even know that much about Tool, but I’ve been told it doesn’t matter because the show is hella awesome with lights and smoke and weird time signatures, so I’m down to get down and be a token girl in the bag of dicks I imagine is a Tool concert. And I mean nothing dirty by that at all. It’s just, I’m expecting, that it’s probably a lot of dudes, but it’s cool because I’m a long-time Bro ‘Ho. Wait. This is just getting worse, huh?

This girl did not ‘just say no’.  

No doober for Jenelle, so she’s taken to her bed and all she needs is this phone, and this box of Kleenex. She’s busy with the call schedule trying to irritate Keiffer into answering the phone. That tactic used to work, but now there’s Facebook and you can pretty much see by some passive aggressive and thinly veiled status update that the person you’re trying to stalk down absolutely will not be answering the phone. I guess she could drive by his place, but maybe it was windy and the dunes shifted, so she’s not sure under which table he’s living at the moment. Barb has to run an errand and asks her to watch Jace, but she is mid-breakdown and can’t be bothered to do much more than cry, and yell back at her mother that she wants to be left alone. Barbara tried, she really did, but she finally gets the baby out of the scary mess that’s Jenelle and goes off to pay the sewer bill. It must be like living with Kelly Taylor from that time on 90210 when she was doing a lot of drugs, only Kelly probably smelled better and maybe was a little more polite since you knew it was temporary. Valerie’s the one that was really hardcore. But kudos for choosing your kid there, Jenelle. One of the few times Barb asks you to watch him, which is what you get so mad about wanting, and then you’re too busy having a temper tantrum about how your asshole boyfriend left after you were an asshole and provoked him to. Man. My head is pounding right now.

She finally gets hold of Keiffer and he comes over to do the deed of dumping her. Once he’s told her it’s over, and denied any other girls or any case that could be made that he’s trying to strong her along, he calls his friend to ask for a ride. I notice that the phone’s plugged in, and it’s another moment where I’m just like, laughing because I’m so desperate for something I can grasp onto here. “So, I’m here to break up with you, but do you mind if I plug my phone in while we do this?” She’s been crying all day, and that’s not a good look for anyone, but I don’t think looks has anything to do with it at this point. I think they’re both nuts and they held each other in a nutty place for awhile, and now Keiffer needs to jump bail but it’s going to be a really bad idea to stay involved with someone whose life is on camera.

Be thankful that your most desperate moments as a very young adult weren’t captured and broadcast on TV… and be thankful you were smart enough to not choose to be on TV as a very young adult, or more likely, be thankful your parents were like, ‘No way are you going to be on a show on MTV, missy.  N-O.”

His friend pulls up, and before Keiffer’s even all the way in car, he’s all, “I would go if I were you go backwards, but just go.” Sure enough, Jenelle runs out to assault the car and freak out about “I fuckin’ love you.” I fuckin’ don’t fuckin’ care, and neither does Keiffer. He’s in a world of trouble and can’t keep having that trouble recorded by an MTV camera because he’s not done being a homeless druggy, dig it? He finally takes a minute to get out of the car and answer her question, “Is it really over?”
“Yes.”

So there you go – a two’fer of Teen Mom 2. Good times! Next week, I’ll be rockin’ instead of watchin’ and even if I could watch enough to recap, I’m leaving to Vegas the next day, so it’s a whirl-wind week, but it won’t be able to include Teen Mom 2 ‘cappin’. Oh darn. Get to the good stuff, Show, because patience is waning, and I’m not the only one! See you in two weeks – be safe, and have fun! xoxo

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