‘Sister Wives’ Recap: Kody and Janelle ‘Cross a Line’ in ‘Shocking’ Fight as She Kicks Him Out

Spoiler alert! If you have seen this week’s episode of Sister Wives, proceed with caution. 

Kody Brown has seemingly passed the point of no return with his second wife, Janelle Brown. On this week’s episode of Sister Wives, the passionate patriarch has a “testosterone Tuesday” with his brothers, where he discusses the impact of his divorce with ex Christine Brown on the rest of his marriages. 

Saying that his current wives feel like he’s a “woman hater,” Kody admits that his wife Robyn Brown has told him that the divorce is affecting her marriage to him. 

“I’ve witnessed Kody’s process through this divorce and he’s all over the place,” Robyn says in the confessional interview. “One minute he’s angry and then he’s very upset and sad, and then another minute he’s in this peaceful place where he’s like, ‘Maybe this was meant to be,’ and then he goes back to angry again… all of the sudden you’re on the Kody Coaster. It’s scary.”

Kody jokes about the benefits of polygamy, saying that when he doesn’t want to be around one wife, he can move onto the next one. Meri Brown is disgusted by the comment, saying in her confessional interview, “That kind of comment just makes me want to vomit… figure out how you can work together and be together instead of using somebody else as an escape. Are you kidding me?”

But it seems that Kody isn’t exactly interested in making things better. He heads over to Janelle’s house to have a discussion about the family’s divided holiday plans that quickly turns toxic. Though Kody insists that he no longer requires an apology from his and Janelle’s sons, she tells him that he could call them at any time to settle things. 

“That phone goes both ways, and I’ve been available to talk to them,” Kody tells his wife. 

But Janelle isn’t buying it. 

“You know, it still surprises me that Kody feels like it’s my responsibility to facilitate this relationship between he and my children. He’s a parent as much as I am,” she says of the father of her six children. 

Kody and Janelle each accuse the other of “gaslighting” as they seem to recall a different string of events, with Kody tying the family’s struggles to everyone’s unwillingness to follow his COVID rules. Janelle, once again, notes that she followed the CDC’s guidelines, saying that her husband didn’t lay out any clear answers for her on a list of rules that she and her kids had to follow. 

“You wanted me to kick the boys out. You act like this is not your fault,” Janelle says. 

“Do you want this to work out?” Kody asks her. 

“I don’t know. Do you? Because when you say, ‘Choose your loyalties. Choose between me and your children,'” she says, “I wasn’t going to turn my boys out in the middle of a pandemic.” 

Kody notes that his sons “blamed” his wife, Robyn Brown, for the COVID rules, and Janelle replies, “When you were gone for four or five months, Kody, they started to get angry.”

Kody takes offense to that statement, calling it “an exaggeration and a lie.” When Janelle accuses him of “manipulating” the situation, Kody decides to break the fourth wall and point to the cameras, saying, “Tell me how I’m manipulating. No, no, tell the world. Tell the whole world, and then go hang out with your buddy, Christine. Tell the world how I’ve lied, how I’ve manipulated, how I’ve done you wrong.”

Calling Christine Janelle’s “co-parent,” Kody accuses his wife of “cheating” him out of time with his family. The pair ends things with Kody storming out of the house and several expletives thrown out before Janelle tells the TLC cameras to “shut it off.”

A stunned Janelle later says of the fight, “It was shocking. I was really upset when he left because it feels like there’s a finality to it and now I’m worried about what happens to me… it feels like Kody and I are no longer going to be a couple.”

She later reveals that she called Kody and told him to get his things, saying, “In my mind, he is out of the house.”

Janelle goes on to say that her faith and religious beliefs keep her from fully walking away, but adds, “I don’t really want to see him. I know that he does feel the responsibility, he feels like he can’t leave a wife because it’s bad on him if he leaves a wife high and dry… and so his pattern seems to be that he just sort of ignores that person. It feels like he wants you to say it’s over because he doesn’t want the responsibility of being the husband who says, ‘I don’t want to be married to you anymore.'”

Janelle then gets concerned about her financial situation, noting that she put all of her money into the idea that the family would build on the Coyote Pass property, which they have not done. 

“I am a smart woman and I have done a very dumb thing. I have trusted in this family structure,” she laments. 

Kody later meets up with Robyn and Meri to discuss the holidays and admits that he and Janelle got into a fight, saying, “We threw rocks at glass houses.” 

“I’d rather just be around people who want to be around me,” the father of 18 says of the holidays. “I can’t speak to Janelle now. We’ve crossed the line.”

Meri then voices the thought all viewers are likely having, saying, “Maybe it would be easier for me to just hole up in my house and not be around. It’s tense and awkward and weird.”

Though the Brown family seems to be falling apart, it seems the drama has certainly entertained viewers. Sister Wives’ season 18 premiere earlier this month was the TLC reality show’s highest-rated season premiere in a decade and was also the no. 1 cable program for the week for women ages 25 to 54. 

New episodes of Sister Wives air Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC. 

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