Teen Mom Recap: Intensive Care…

I freaking love this show, and Teen Mom 2 in particular.  But this was possibly the most boring episode I’ve ever seen.  I’m not sorry for saying that, either.  Man up MTV and get this ish together.  Man.  I just spent, like, two hours Googling gross stuff with my friend who’s visiting home at the mid-way point of her Peace Corps post in Kenya.  The tape worms and stuff are no joke.  It’s actually about 9 times more interesting than this week’s episode of Teen Mom 2 on MTV.  Also, I had some coffee that a client brought to me from Columbia, and I’m 87% sure that Columbian coffee is made from cocaine, because I am kind of sweaty and angry right now.

Leah

Leah’s taking a few days off work to spend some time with the girls, which is so weird because in only the last episode, it was SO important for her to get out of the house and get something under her belt besides babies .  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, not a documentary like October Country.  Which, by the way, if you’re a fan and part of the Teen Mom Nation, you owe it to yourself to watch that movie.  It’s streaming on NetFlix.  It gives some perspective on the actual reality of the cycle of teen motherhood, not the MTV pretty version.  The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia show a little bit of that cycle as well, but that one’s more about a lot of things, like drugs and spectacle.   Sidenote: There is a Messer in that movie, but I have no idea if it’s a relative of Leah’s.

Innocent teen shenanigans… now with baby twins!

She and her friend Kayla go to lunch with the twins and talk about how Leah’s feeling about Ali’s upcoming MRI.  M-R-Ahhhye is how Leah pronounces this test, and since she says it a minimum of 17 times per episode and I have to watch these over and over, I thought I’d Scrooge you and get it stuck in your head, too.  M-R-Ahhhye, M-R-Ahhhye, M-R-Ahhhye.  If the test turns up to show a brain disorder, Leah is convinced that there’s nothing that can be done about a brain disorder, that whatever is wrong can’t be fixed.  It’s a massive over-simplification, but fair enough considering she has no idea what’s going on, except that one minute she was a flier for her cheer squad, and the next she’s got a baby who’s not making all kinds of baby milestones on time.

She says that Corey’s all, “Eh.  It’ll be okay,” and she starts to open up a bit about her and Corey’s relationship.  They never had a chance to get to know one another so it’s hard to be married and still figuring each other out, not to mention to be doing so with twins, not to mention one of whom may have some kind of serious disorder but there’s nothing known for sure just yet.  She doesn’t regret the babies at all, but it’s all so much for someone who is 18, and just a kid herself.  Then she knocks over a glass and they collapse into a fit of giggles abotu how embarrassing it is, and how young they really are.  ”I’m just a kid myself!”

The morning of Ali’s MRI, eveyone is up before dawn and the show gives us a darling scene of Corey and Leah getting the twins ready to go.  It’s a little family moment and it’s just so touching, how they are trying to make this work and it shows.  Their home is more adult that any of the other Teen Mom homes.  Their home is one where they have had to put aside a ton of insecurities and petty stuff that most of us hang up on when we first live with someone with the intention of never splitting up.  They have to be more grown up than any other Teen Mom family, simply because they have a child who may or may not be ultimately healthy.  They get everyone ready, including Leah’s big Barbie Dream Hair, and head out into an early, snowy West Virginia morning.

If it was dark and snowy when they left this morning, can you imagine what time Leah must have gotten up to get her Barbie Beautiful Hair so perfect???  THAT is dedication to good hair days.  Dang.

They leave Aleeah with Pawpaw, and while they’re rolling to the hospital, Leah is nervously babbling while Corey focuses on driving.  They agree that Ali senses when something is going on, and that she’s acting a little down.  Leah gets going, too, on the old standard that they were put in the situation for a reason, and that if they couldn’t handle it, they wouldn’t be in it.  I dunno if I believe in anything like that, because it opens more questions than it answers, like… Is it because of God?  Why would God do that?  Are there a set number of babies with health problems and we got one because we can handle it?  Are we implicated, so we created this problem ergo if we created it, we can handle it?  See, I totally understand that when things are inexplicable and there is nothing that you could have done differently to prevent what’s happening, I totally understand how you get comfort in Leah’s explanation.  But mostly, it’s just… I dunno.  It seems like things are random, and that regardless of who is in what situation, things mostly work out in the end, one way or another.

She’s feeling queasy, getting really nervous for Ali, and she’s so grateful he took the day off to go with them.  Awww, he drops his girls off at the door while he goes to park.  He’s a gentleman!  They check in  and meet their nurse, Becky.  There’s a lot of exposition about how Ali is slow, and about how she acts more mellow when she senses that she’s about to be involved in something sort of uncool.  She’s such a baby!  Dr. Persily arrives to put Ali under sedation, and after this scene, MTV and I will never be the same.

Corey is a man that needs a hug, ladies.

They have Ali laid out on the table, in her cute little jammies, and while they administer the sedation, they have Leah over her singing and trying to make Ali not be afraid.  It’s heart-breaking.  Leah, no matter how much crap she pulls in her relationship, is a hell of an 18 year old.  She doesn’t crack in the least while she’s keeping that baby in touch and feeling safe.  Corey loses it watching the whole thing, and really, let’s honest… who doesn’t?  Once she has to walk away and let the staff take Ali to the MRI, she totally loses it, too.  MTV sends us out with a shot of the doctor getting Ali’s breathing tube in place.  Ugh.  That tiny sweet baby!  So cute!  I just hope on hope that she’s okay in the end, and that MTV will never make me watch a little baby getting intubated again.  You owe my tender heart an apology, MTV.

Leah and Corey go out in the hall to cry it out, and then to collect themselves a bit.  She was so strong until she had to walk away, she says.  And yeah, in that moment, there isn’t a choice for a mother.  There is no choice but to call up that primal instinct to take care of your baby, to make sure that your baby feels as much protection and comfort you can show in that moment.  But all that adrenaline has to go somewhere, and for Leah, it bursts out in tears and emotional exhaustion for a few minutes in a hospital hallway.  Corey hugs her, and tell her how she’s nervous, and scared and it’s double because she’s Ali’s mom.  He really, finally connects on how deeply she is internalizing all of the emotions surrounding the circumstances they’re in.  He finally tries to relieve some of the pressure, and calms her down that they’ll get through it.  Finally.  It’s really touching.

Kail

Kail signs her lease and gets her utilities put into her name, but she still hasn’t told Suzy that she’s moving out.  She meets Jordan for some ice cream, and tells him all about Valley Youth House.  Now, I’d be shocked if this is really the first time he’s hearing about it.  Wouldn’t most girls text their boyfriends the second they find the program, while they’re on the way to meet with the program, when they get accepted into the program, and of course when they find the apartment they want.  I’d text all the boys, friends or more, because homegirl’s gonna need some dudes to help with moving.  Also notable, Isaac has curly hair and is a toddler in this scene.  She is tired of Suzy smoking and drinking, and this is the right decision for her.  I wonder what happens when the MTV checks roll in.  Does she get to buy the apartment out, like take over the payments, or is there some kind of fund-raising commitment she has to fulfill later for them?  I wonder.  Eh.  None of that really matters, since on the show, we’ll never see the MTV money being an issue.  What is an issue, is that she plans to move out in the approximately two hours she has between class, and when Suzy’s boyfriend gets home from work.

Isaac’s a toddler here early in the episode….

… and at the very end of the episode, he’s a squishy baby again.

So chop, chop friendly friends!  Kail hasn’t packed anything, no boxes or anything.  Her friends are like, “Duuuuude… wtf?”  She says she’s never done this before, and um, I beg to differ.  I’m willing to bet that she’s moved plenty of times, both with Suzy and as we’ve seen – from Suzy’s house into Jo’s, then down to Jo’s basement, then dramatically back to Suzy’s… hon?  You’ve moved before.  She’s taking all the furniture in her bedroom, as well as the TV.  Dun Dun DUNNNNNNNN.  She thinks Suzy will only be ticked about the TV, and as they all get moving on moving Kail, she acknowledges that she’s starting to feel a little bad that she’s basically running away, not telling her mom about her exciting program and forward motion.  Too late, babe, the plan’s in motion and that TV is somewhere in Mark’s late-model Malibu that his mom gave him when she bought a new Camry.

Kail’s buddies Mark and Mark.  I totally wish they had a professional moving business called Mark ‘N Mark’s Park ‘N Move, or something.

They get all of her stuff unloaded into her new place and she splits to the bedroom to call Suzy.  Suzy’s speechless, and really hurt that Kailyn didn’t tell her about  any of this.  She’s probably taken so by surprise that she doesn’t really know what to think or ask at this point, so she asks what Kail took, and what furniture she has.  The program has some furniture that will be delivered the next day, but for now Kail has the bed and two dressers from her room.  ”Did you take the TV?” “Yes.” “You gotta bring it back.” Kail breaks it to her friends that Suzy was pretty pissed, and that she wants the TV back.  Kailyn’s super awesome friend, Mark says pretty much, “Hey, ain’t no thing.  We’ll just take it back, boom.”

“Hi Kail, are you home yet?”  ”Hi Mom, yeah, I am… at my new apartment, where I live now.” “Oh, well, you need to bring the TV back immediately.”

She goes to get Isaac from Jo, and tells him about her new place.  He’s kind of unenthusiastic, and that’s what I mean about this being a really boring episode.  Even this scene, the first we’ve seen between them in awhile, has nothing really to it and is in there for no reason.  Newsflash Viewers: KAIL GOT AN APARTMENT OF HER OWN.  She tells Jo that it’s small, and she turned the laundry room into a room for Isaac and like, isn’t he going to see soon?  He’s Isaac’s dad, and I’d guess that he goes to get the baby sometimes from Kailyn.  She collects Isaac, who is once again a squishy, mostly bald infant and meets her friend Megan back at the ranch, who’s spending the night so they can eat some pizza and keep unpacking.

Megan wonders if Kail is nervous to stay by herself, failing to note that if she, Megan is spending the night, then Kail is…. not alone.  And this girl has a Camaro???  What am I doing wrong in life?  I have a Nissan with no hubcaps.  It’s bull crap!  Suzy texts that Kail forgot to send home the remote, and that she needs it back asap.  Kail seems to think this is annoying, but this is so not about the remote and I’d guess that on some level Kailyn knows it, and so does Suzy.  This is about saying “Fuck That” to her mother at the very first safe opportunity she got.  Suzy has likely not been a really great mother, and as Kail says, she’s always put the men in her life ahead of Kailyn and she was always hustling to make things work as easily as possible.  I wouldn’t be surprised about some substance abuse, and maybe some unsafe situations for Kail when she was younger.  So Kail, being a smart and not particularly self-destructive girl, with no small amount of hustle of her own, bided her time and figured out a plan.  And when that plan worked out, she got to say, “Fuck you,” without ever having to say “Fuck you” to her mother.

She drops Isaac off with Jo’s brother Junior, and goes to meet Suzy before class the next day.  Shit finally gets real.  Suzy’s all, “Why, Kail?”  ”I didn’t know how to tell you.”  Kail brings up the note yet again.  Now we all heard the note.  It was passive aggressive, in that it was a note, but it said, “Clean your room.”  What Kail read though, was “GTFO you piece of trash.”  I don’t doubt for a second that Kail has all the reasons in the world to be distrustful and resentful of her mother’s boyfriends.  I’m sure that all of this comes from a genuine place in Kail’s experiences, and I’m sure that someday Kail will deal with all of it.  Right now though, she is just hellbent on getting out of Suzy’s world and outside the reach of any responsibility she might have toward Suzy.  She doesn’t want to have any need for Suzy, she doesn’t want Suzy too have any remotely upper-hand.  She said she felt criticized and watched, and Suzy doesn’t deny it but points out (poorly) that Kail had it made, and that who cares about a note – let it roll off already.  It’s the kind of thing popular girls say to less popular girls.  ”Oh deal already.  Who cares??”  Kail tells her mom that the note told her to get the hell out, and Suzy’s like, “Nooooo, it told you to clean your room.”  Suzy backs off and has to get back to work.  She says that maybe it’s for the best that Kail is on her own.  She asks if Jordan is moving in, too and Kail tells her that he’s not.  Suzy ends the conversation by saying, “I have to get back to work;” Kail ends it again by saying, “I have to get to class.”  I have a feeling that it’s going to be one match after another for awhile, of Kail going toe-to-toe on Suzy with pretty much everything that comes up.

This remote, it means… so much to me, Kail.

Chelsea

It’s always inexplicably painful to write about Chelsea.  Chelsea doesn’t fit in with this cast at all.  The rest of these girls all have some real zeitgeist.  They have meat, and motivation, and they have genuinely interesting stories that will continue to be interesting.  Their lives evolve.  Chelsea’s life?  It never changes.  She never goes anywhere, she never does anything, and it’s literally the third week in a row where I have to try to make her story interesting and… it’s just not.  Chelsea’s scenes are always her mooning around about Adam, in 7 layers of fleece with her Cousin It hair looking like a not-at-all hot mess.  Plus, even more annoying is that her natural tone is a horrible whining affectation that I can’t even remotely figure out why she thinks is cute or effective.  She’s the worst.

She needs surgery.  Yawn.  Her mom’s out of town, and instead of scheduling the surgery on a day that her dad can help her out, she’s got it set up so that Adam has to do the heavy lifting, no pun intended.   She’s hanging out with Randy and he’s grilling her about it, with a super skeptical shine in his eyes.  She says that Adam will help, and he’s like, “Help?  He’s got to do everything.  Is he even a good dad?”  Chelsea says that he is sometimes, and she says it like she’s trying to convince herself more than anyone.  She’s looking her dad in the eyes, but man… she looks terrified that he’s about to be right again.  She was feeling good about everything but now she’s all nervous, thanks to Randy’s line of questioning.

Yeah, Adam is a good dad.  It’s FINE.  Everything is FINE.  I think.  Maybe.  Why are you looking at me like that?

She and Adam are back at her mom’s house, which I noticed is all crowded up with crap.  If I was her mother, I wouldn’t give a rip about the knee.  Kid, you’re walking so you need to pick up the four leopard print bras hanging on the dining room chair, you need to throw out the bags and half-drank teas, and you need to fold up the hot pink blankets.  Pronto. They chill out with Aubree on a couch and talk about how she’s nervous about him watching Aubree while she’s dealing with her knee surgery.  As fate would have it, he sort of knocks her head while he’s tossing her around, and she starts wailing.  Aubree pretty much doesn’t stop crying from here on out, by the way.  She’s really crying, and not calming down, and reaching out for Chelsea.  Adam kind of doesn’t hand her over right away, and before she even has a chance to catch her breath and quit crying, he’s teasing Chelsea that “See, she’s still crying even though you have her now.”  Ugh.  They suck so bad.  Through all of this, they’re flirting and bubble-voicing to each other… flirting and teasing with someone you trust is one thing.  Flirting and teasing with someone you don’t trust is weak, because it’s a pointless expenditure of energy.  This scene ergo this paragraph is a worthless expenditure of my own energy.  Chelsea wants to be proven wrong about being nervous for Adam taking the wheel here.  Whatever.

Father of the year, right here.

The next day at the surgicenter, she gets into her hospital gown, and is getting prepped for surgery.  She asks Adam what he’s planning to do, and this is where it’s clear how much Chelsea is implicated in their shitty relationship.  He wants to take Aubree and get some food.  Chelsea wants him to stay in the hospital, because he won’t have time to go out and back during her one hour procedure, and she wants him in the recovery room.  Chelsea’s probably thinking that he’s going to shag a waitress while he’s trying to get a little lunch and entertain his kid for an hour, so it’s WAY better for him to stick around the hospital waiting for her to come out from sedation and trying to keep a fussy baby entertained.  Aubree is so grumpy that the nurse tells Adam there’s chocolate milk and a sippy cup at the nurses’ station he can give to her.  Aubree is grumpy before Chelsea’s one hour surgery and two hour recovery even starts, and yet Chelsea insists Adam has to stay and wait for her to be ready to go home.  Gurl, please.

Chelsea insisted Adam and their fussy, crabby baby stay at the hospital for three hours while she has surgery and wakes up to go home.  Then whined about them being tired and grumpy.  She’s the worst!

Later in the recovery room, Chelsea comes back and she’s crying.  She’s in a lot of pain, and also she’s probably working the anesthesia out of her system as well.  The surgery was to remove a big ball of scar tissue out from under her kneecap.  Gross.  Almost as gross as when Chelsea and Adam flirt with each other, but… not quite that gross.  Aubree is not a happy camper and Adam notes that she needs a nap.  She’s kind of walking around and pulling on stuff, and Chelsea tells Adam to pick her up and not let her keep pulling on the cords and junk on the bed.  She’s still crying and shaky, and Adam’s all, “Come here you little bastard.”  Niiiiice.  Adam’s clearly not the worst parent on the planet.  He managed to keep the baby from totally melting down while Princess Chelsea was knocked out, but you can’t talk to your baby the way you talk to your buddies.  He may be all, “Give me another beer, you little bastard,” to one of his bros, but you can’t say to a roomfull of babies, “It’s naptime, you little bastards,” and not sound like a real dick.  Right then, her dad calls.

The one time Aubree wasn’t crying in this episode.  Hmmm… she never cried this much in episodes when Adam’s not around… just sayin’…

She’s really short with him and she sounds like she’s trying to fight off the urge to really crack.  She’s exhausted.  She was under sedation and under a knife, like fifteen minutes ago.  She wishes her dad was there, but too bad on that one darlin’.  You made your choice.  Randy tells her he’ll come by later, and the nurse tells her that she can leave any time when she feels ready, pain-wise.

They get home and Chelsea admits that she doesn’t like the way Adam takes care of Aubree, but he’s not entirely wrong so she needs to accept that he’s capable of caring for her.  Um, yeah, and accept that he speaks to her really inappropriately, and makes jokes that you just can’t make without consequences to your child at some point?  That’s totally acceptable.  I love it when a dude uses such excellent judgement and shows such a high level of maturity as Adam does.  It’s different than my own judgement and maturity, but I still accept it.  Not.

Adam gets Aubree bathed and put down for bed, and Chelsea confesses that when Aubree was fussy all day, she wanted to just go pick her up for Adam, but she couldn’t.  She had to trust him.  Adam teases her that someday Aubree will be hanging out with him, handing him tools and likely calling him a bastard under her own breath, but meaning it.  Chelsea counters with Barbies and unicorns or some crap that’s not four wheelers.  At least he’s trying.  They exchange ‘I love yous,’ and I seriously am experiencing an inordinate amount of relief that it’s the end of Chelsea scenes in this episode.  No lie.  Her scenes are painful to watch.  She literally does not change, and she is really just not smart.  When she’s not moving around and trying to interact with the world, there’s just nothing going on.  And there’s nothing new from her, nothing we haven’t heard for the past year and a half.  Ugh.  I gotta quit bitching about Chelsea.  It’s totally harshing my mellow.

Chelsea and Adam are so gross.  Eww.

Jenelle

Speaking of mellow, God bless MTV for sparing us any of that loser burner jerk-face, Keiffer this week.  Jenelle’s sitting at home in her living room, aka the driver’s seat of her Honda, and reflecting.  Her friends are all sick of her drama, and she really doesn’t have anywhere to turn so she calls her mom.  Barb’s all, “Oh my God, what now Jenelle?”  She doesn’t show much emotion when she tells Barb that there was another incident with Keiffer that got physical.  Apparently, Keiffer tried to take her keys, pushed her, and when she wouldn’t give in, he kicked her car and dented it.  Later on, we see the side of her door, and he dented the crap out of it.  Dang.

Home Sweet Honda

Barb tells her that she should press charges, because no man has the right to lay a hand on her.  Barb’s right, but Jenelle has no right to lay her hands on anyone, either.  Domestic violence, fighting, all of it isn’t healthy behavior.  It’s not healthy from any of them, and I really wish at this point that Jenelle’s segments were sponsored by Prozac, instead of by Hollister or American Eagle.  This entire family needs some serious therapy, and possibly meds.  Jenelle tells Barb that she’s done, and the collective eye roll from the Teen Mom Nation causes a small earthquake somewhere in Argentina.  Barb reminds Jenelle how tired she is of the cycle, and yep.  Another storyline that’s really more of a boringline.  Nothing new here.  Barb’s gonna think about it, things have to change, Jenelle’s going to change, blah blah blah.  They agree to meet for dinner and talk about everything, how it might look if Jenelle comes back to Barb’s.

I can’t explain this non-sequetor, but I just got the biggest craving for fried chicken.  I think it’s all the Mexican food I’ve been eating lately.  My food baby is turning into a food toddler, and I guess maybe I just gave up on trying not to pack on the holiday pounds?  Jenelle et al have driven me to not caring.  It finally happened.  I’m so invested and have such expectations from this show that when I’m let down, I just want to stuff my emotions.  Luckily it’s below freezing in Tucson tonight, and I’m not even considering leaving my couch to do things I need to do, let alone to go get a chicken, bread it, fry it, and eat it.  Not when there are tamales to be ate, that I’m almost but not quite sick of yet.

Jace is ridiculously cute.  He’s such a little moppet, and I love how well he and Barb seem to get along.  He just seems like a really sweet kid, even though we don’t get to see as much of him as we see of Isaac and the girls on the show.  Jenelle does decide to press charges on what she calls her ‘now to be ex-boyfriend.’  Huh?  As of now, he’s to be her ex-boyfriend, which would assume to imply that since it’s only as of now, he doesn’t know he’s the ex yet which means that when she said it, she hadn’t dumped his sorry ass yet.  Honestly, she shouldn’t even slow down when she kicks this one too the curb, but she’s going to stop the car, get out, open his door, take his hands, pull him gently out of the car and into her arms, and then drive away slowly watching him in the rearview mirror.  I’m thinking that she’s pissed off at him, but that she’s filing charges to teach him a lesson, rather than because she feels like things got out of control and now she wants to take some control to move on up and out of this relationship.

She goes to the courthouse to file charges, and she very formally describes the most recent incident of him taking the keys and wrestling her, then pushing her and denting her car when she got her keys back.  The clerk gives her domestic violence paperwork, and Jenelle is hesitant to call the encounters domestic violence.  I have to wonder if in the back of her head, she knows that she hit him, too.  I’m not in any way defending Keiffer; I’m just saying that if there’s a zero tolerance law and this is all on camera, as at least one of the incidences is, she could have some charged filed as well.  I’m sure Amber could call her and give her a heads up – oh no, wait, she can’t.  Amber is in jail for, among other things, assault.

Holy Crap, y’all.  It is domestic violence.  This never occurred to me before now.

Later on, Jenelle meets up with a friend named Tori who is a dead-ringer for Thora Burch.  They’ve been friends since they were twelve, and Jenelle leads by apologizing for being up Keiffer’s ass all the time.  Her friend isn’t exactly forthcoming with the, “Hey, now it’s cool.  We’ve all been That Girl, I’m glad it’s over, and our friendship’s back on!”  She’s glad Jenelle finally sought her out, but she’s not quite looking like she’s going to let go of Jenelle’s disappearing act into Keiffer’s ass anytime soon.  Man.  This must be so bad in real life.  It takes awhile for your friends to give up on you when you’re young and in a really crappy relationship.  Drama is for young people.  We were amazing at drama, and loved it and didn’t even see it as anything but all the stuff that’s most important in life.  If young people like this are over the drama, there are only a few reasons why.  One is potential legal implications, another is theft, a third is substance abuse that goes beyond fun partying, and finally when young adults give up on drama is when they are so tired of watching the same things happen day in and day out, and when their friends are just exhaustingly draining.  I imagine that Keiffer is draining, and I imagine that it’s way uncomfortable to watch Jenelle allow herself to be drained, then turn and start draining her friends.

Tori asks her, ‘Would you choose Keiffer over Jace?”  Jenelle pretty much “hell-to-the-no, I wouldn’t choose Keiffer over Jace,” but neither of them really acknowledge that she already did choose Keiffer over Jace.  Because of choosing Keiffer, she got booted out of the house where Jace lives, and she now has fines and courtdates that will cost her time with Jace, and money she may have used to parent Jace, or to play with Jace.  Because of choosing Keiffer, she has an untold amount of dumbassery that has been broadcast on national TV over the course of a couple of years now.  She has a reputation that will precede her for the rest of her life, even if she turns out to be a suburban home-maker in ten years, with three more babies and a realtor husband.  She made some choices all right, and none of them were about choosing Jace.  But Jenelle’s not going to see that now, and you know, she may not ever see it.  The jury’s out on this one.  I think that Jenelle is the most complex of the Teen Moms, and one of the brightest, but she’s also very naive in some ways.  She is very young and rebellious but there isn’t enough of a net underneath of her.  I could see this going either way for her.  She may tip into Amber Portwood territory, although I hope with all my heart she doesn’t or, yeah.  She could finish school and maybe have a career working with young girls, or maybe being the business admin genius that partners with Farrah in the Italian-Asian fusion restaurant in San Jose.  It’s gonna be huge, you know.

Barb and Jenelle meet over at Mr. P’s for dinner, and I sort of love it that they both show up in orange, like they’re wavelengthing in the Universe on some level.  They probably are.  It reminds me of those stories of people who are adopted, and later meet their birth parents and find all these little tiny things, like habits and gestures that they share, but couldn’t have learned from their parents.  I remember one story, I think it may have been on This American Life, where a woman met her birth mother, and they discovered that they both had this really complicated way of folding money, and carried it the same way.  I lost a parent really young, and all my whole life people tell me how much I’m like him, but of course I don’t necessarily remember everything, so it’s always interesting to me, these stories of nature v nurture.

Yay Jace!  You’re the Gratuitous Baby Shot of the Week!  You’re darling!!

Jenelle and Barb get to talking, and Jenelle tells her mom she’s been sleeping in her car.  That’s got to pierce Barbara’s heart.  I think Barb is just difficult.  I think she communicates in a loud, uncomfortable tone, and I think she really believes in Jenelle but she doesn’t know how to like, express that.  She’s always telling Jenelle how to do things, that Jenelle is wrong, and that Jenelle could be so much better.  This may all be true but when all that volume and criticism is coming at you, you lose the ability to filter or to hear the love that motivates it.  Barb agrees to let Jenelle come back home, but she has to spend more time with Jace and they have to commit to turning things around in their interactions with one another.

Later still, she walks into Barb’s, and Jace runs up into her arms.

And that’s it.  Happy Christmas, all.  I sure hope next week’s episode has more to it.  This one was, unless I’m totally missing something here, a dud.  Last week was way better, and here’s that recap.  In case you can’t tell, I just learned how to put links in recaps, so from now on it’s gonna be me resisting the urge to link to everything awesome I can think of.  In the meantime, enjoy your families, and the presents you give and get, and be thankful and shit.  But you should do that year-round anyway.  I’ll stop talking now.