Counting On Season Two- Part 3

[evolutionbaby]

I find it so super bizarre that these people are always pretending they don't know how to do things, and this seems to be the running theme of the whole show. I did not watch much of 19KAC, maybe a couple episodes, but has it always been like this? I seem to recall in the few 19KAC episodes that I did watch the family prided themselves on being organized, musically inclined, and always working on some kind of "project". Now these grown kids are always like, "I've never done blank before...this should be interesting." Can't cook, can't bbq, can't play guitar, can't take a flying lesson seriously. Oh my goodness, trying things is haaaaard!" Meanwhile, things usually turn out okay. They build a massive tree house guest cottage, cook gourmet bbq, get the home renos done, baby proof the house just fine, etc. It's not only not believable and not entertaining, but I don't see what the purpose of pretending like this? The first time I ever bbq'd my meal certainly didn't look like that!

[evolutionbaby]

Also, other thoughts on this season.

- Anna a M kids are not really in this season AT ALL. We saw Anna for maybe less than a minute in a TH in the first episode commenting on "making progress" with rebuilding her sorry excuse for a marriage. My guess is that they decided to have Josh completely out of the episodes, including his family and kids, as a last ditch effort to appease the viewer and advertisers and hopefully restore/improve ratings.

- As posted here before, Jessa is totally into Jeremy and passed him along to Jinger as she had already sealed her deal. Her "it's great that we're all best friends" comment totally gave that away. Jessa from the get-go has never seemed that into Bin...the courtship video that they keep playing is super awkward, and I think she went along with it, one, because she was too afraid to say no, and two, she continued on to marriage because there was no way in hell she was going to be "that girl that ended a courtship". I think she likes the idea of being married and being an "adult" but that is a passionless marriage if I ever saw one.

- Jeremy is really not that bright is he? Like maybe one notch up on the dimmer switch from Bin, but that's not saying much. Either that or he is just acting foolish for the cameras/attention. I wonder if he behaved the same way during his college/soccer days. Would be interesting to hear from someone who used to know him back then and see if he's a lot different now. I suspect so.

[Fundie Bunny]

1 hour ago, evolutionbaby said:

As posted here before, Jessa is totally into Jeremy and passed him along to Jinger as she had already sealed her deal. Her "it's great that we're all best friends" comment totally gave that away. Jessa from the get-go has never seemed that into Bin...the courtship video that they keep playing is super awkward, and I think she went along with it, one, because she was too afraid to say no, and two, she continued on to marriage because there was no way in hell she was going to be "that girl that ended a courtship". I think she likes the idea of being married and being an "adult" but that is a passionless marriage if I ever saw one.

Let's not make things up. They totally were lusting over each other so hard. 

[JillyO]

16 hours ago, amandaaries said:

Jeremy's "crisis pregnancy" area had me raging at the screen.  Thanks for confirming my suspicions about your shitty conservative church, J.

For those of you who haven't read up on the maternal mortality crisis in Texas (thanks in large part to Texan policitians thinking that "crisis pregnancy centers" are equivalent to Planned Parenthood clinics and rabidly defunding PP centers), please enjoy this Guardian article about the dangers of being pregnant in that state: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/20/texas-maternal-mortality-rate-health-clinics-funding

!!!!!!

Texas now has a maternal mortality rate of 36 per 100,000 births. That's about the same as countries such as Russia, Sri Lanka, and China.

All developed countries apart from the United States have far, far lower maternal mortality rates (and the trend is very similar for infant mortality rates, for obvious reasons!):

Greece has 3, Iceland has 5, Germany has 7, the UK 12. Heck, countries such as Armenia, Oman and Fiji have lower mortality rates than Texas does. The US as a whole, by the way, has a maternal mortality rate of 21. That's similar to Iran, Turkey and Hungary.

But sure, keep defunding Planned Parenthood. Who cares about women and children, amirite?

[montyollie]

4 hours ago, evolutionbaby said:

 Jessa from the get-go has never seemed that into Bin...the courtship video that they keep playing is super awkward, and I think she went along with it, one, because she was too afraid to say no, and two, she continued on to marriage because there was no way in hell she was going to be "that girl that ended a courtship". I think she likes the idea of being married and being an "adult" but that is a passionless marriage if I ever saw one.

I have thought that they never seemed that into each other as well.  And yeah, now the clips of the two THs reminds me of the contempt Jon & Kate (+8) had for one another.  They despised each other and it was hard to watch. 

But I see Ben and Jessa sometimes on YouTube on his freaky preacher channel and she is TOTALLY into his religious wingnuttery.  She, too, is a religious wingnut, unlike the rest.  I think of her as being more into the fire-and-brimstone god and being more about being righteous while everyone else sizzles in hell.  I get the feeling that some of the others are not as caught up in that portion of the religion like she and Bin are (Jill and Derrick seem to want to help the poor, for example).   So in that way, they are very compatible.  I was raised fundie... I was a lot like her, maybe that's why I see it. 

[Funwithfundies]

1 hour ago, montyollie said:

I have thought that they never seemed that into each other as well.  And yeah, now the clips of the two THs reminds me of the contempt Jon & Kate (+8) had for one another.  They despised each other and it was hard to watch. 

But I see Ben and Jessa sometimes on YouTube on his freaky preacher channel and she is TOTALLY into his religious wingnuttery.  She, too, is a religious wingnut, unlike the rest.  I think of her as being more into the fire-and-brimstone god and being more about being righteous while everyone else sizzles in hell.  I get the feeling that some of the others are not as caught up in that portion of the religion like she and Bin are (Jill and Derrick seem to want to help the poor, for example).   So in that way, they are very compatible.  I was raised fundie... I was a lot like her, maybe that's why I see it. 

I don't really see any evidence of Jill and Derrick wanting to 'help the poor'.  Convert them, yes. Truly help them...not so much.

[backyard sylph]

I'm just now watching the latest episode. It strikes me that the very casual I love yous between Jeremy and Jinger must have been super upsetting to ol' Jimbob. There's no stepping back from that in their world, and it's clearly "all in" at this point, whenever this particular show was recorded.

I dislike inventing stories about them, but if I were to guess, I'd say Michelle is probably thrilled and relieved to draw a line through another daughter on the list. You can say all you want to about embracing your overstuffed quiver, but it's got to be stressful underneath wondering how things will go for them all, no matter how checked out you are emotionally and intellectually.

I think I quite like Flame. He seems like a genuine person.

[BackseatMom]

That Guardian article about maternal mortality in Texas made me feel sick. Can we completely stop using the words pro-life already, and just call it what it is? Pro-white middle and upper middle class birth? Because sure as shit they don't seem to care about anything else (except preventing abortion or contraception access for everyone). Monsters.

[HarleyQuinn]

15 hours ago, SassyPants said:

I think both of my kids ditched those retainers well before age 21. Does anyone really wear those things forever??

YES. I plan on wearing mine forever. When I got my braces off at age 14, I wore my retainer for about 6-8 months because that's what my orthodontist said. I took it out, and my teeth started moving, it was awful. I ended up going back to a different orthodontist years later and getting a bonded retainer on the back of my teeth to help re-straighten what happened before, then I was given a new invisalign type retainer to wear (before I just had the old metal one) Best believe I'm wearing this thing until the day I die. lol

10 hours ago, AnnaRuk09 said:

So this tabloid is saying that there's potentially a new scandal and the Duggar kids want out. I normally realize that this kind of stupid news is made up and don't pay attention to it but what's interesting is that this was on the front page. Anyone know the accuracy of the tabloid Life and Style?

http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2016/09/duggar-kids-quitting-reality-tv/

Life & Style is owned by the same people who own In Touch, so maybe they're on to something?

Regarding the previous discussions about rings, as someone that works in a jewelry store, all of our rings come in a standard size 7 for women. The only way they wouldn't is if they're coming from our pre-owned section, so I tend to think the ring scene was shot beforehand or they had it sized the same day (we can do that if we're slow enough) and went back for it. They could've just edited it to make it look like one trip. 

[crawfishgirl]

After finally watching the episode and reading the comments, I have a couple of thoughts about the show.  

1)  There has been discussion on JimBoob feeling threatened/intimidated by Jeremy.  Do you remember when he was trying to get Jana in a courtship with Tim Tebow?  If he's threatened by a former minor soccer player, can you imagine the intimidation he would feel around a famous Heisman trophy winner??  Especially with Tebow still being active in the public eye (as compared to a small town preacher) - he is an ESPN broadcaster, and is now trying his hand at baseball.

2)   I also wonder if JimBoob is just going through the motions of being a possessive father.  The Duggars and Gothardites seem to cling closely to gender stereotypes, and probably think that all fathers are possessive of their daughters, distrusting of all males, and never want to let them go.  It may be because many of these scenes are staged and he's not a good actor, but sometimes I think that he's just going through the motions, such as asking Jeremy how he's going to support Jinger, trying to get in-between them physically, harassing the boyfriend, etc.  Maybe he feels that is how he is supposed to act, so he does so.  Not to say that he doesn't care about Jinger, but possibly he's just fulfilling the role that Gothardism expects him to play.  Many fathers are possessive, but he's so blatant about it while being filmed that it doesn't seem like he's doing it naturally.

[AnnaRuk09]

1 hour ago, crawfishgirl said:

After finally watching the episode and reading the comments, I have a couple of thoughts about the show.  

1)  There has been discussion on JimBoob feeling threatened/intimidated by Jeremy.  Do you remember when he was trying to get Jana in a courtship with Tim Tebow?

I don't think that was a real thing. It all started with people joking about it then they saw his mom at the duggars house and bam, massive amount of rumors and speculation erupted. I also read somewhere that ROL started it all, just like every other rumor about the family. 

[Mela99]

Anybody have any screenshots from the episodes? I'm curious about his apartment since it's been mentioned a few times

[littlemommy]

3 hours ago, HarleyQuinn said:

YES. I plan on wearing mine forever. When I got my braces off at age 14, I wore my retainer for about 6-8 months because that's what my orthodontist said. I took it out, and my teeth started moving, it was awful. I ended up going back to a different orthodontist years later and getting a bonded retainer on the back of my teeth to help re-straighten what happened before, then I was given a new invisalign type retainer to wear (before I just had the old metal one) Best believe I'm wearing this thing until the day I die. lol

Life & Style is owned by the same people who own In Touch, so maybe they're on to something?

Regarding the previous discussions about rings, as someone that works in a jewelry store, all of our rings come in a standard size 7 for women. The only way they wouldn't is if they're coming from our pre-owned section, so I tend to think the ring scene was shot beforehand or they had it sized the same day (we can do that if we're slow enough) and went back for it. They could've just edited it to make it look like one trip. 

Amen on wearing the retainer forever. I had gapped teeth and a poor family when I was a kid. Since I was so self conscious about my smile I bought myself braces with my first real job after college. I paid a lot of money to fix these teeth, and I'll be darned if they don't stay perfect. I wear my retainer every other night, and when one got lost I toddled down to an orthodontic office and had a new one made.

[HarleyQuinn]

Am I the only one that is surprised they'll live in an apartment? For some reason I felt like the Duggars had something against renting the same building with worldly people?

[IReallyAmHopewell]

Just when you think it can't get more boring...the next episode arrives and surpasses the last one in sleep-inducing properties.

1. J'girl--just taken BABE to the prayer closet and give him the evil apple already.

2. I can't stand being called BABE and this makes that status permanent.

3. How much is TLC paying Jeremy to marry her? It's almost like Lolita in terms of man's maturity and girl's immaturity.

4. SIN-tral America is sure closer than I thought if Texas is the farthest anyone has moved.

5. Bin....oh Bin....Bin Bin Bin Bin. People of Color don't watch this show. Give up on Flame already. Flame? Go have a life. Getting white folks in Arkansas to buy one or two downloaded songs is not going to make you rich, Just forget it. You look even dumber here than Bin.

6. Please tell me--someone tell me--is Jeremy already doing that serious, censorious listening pose that J-B does? It's required, but I'm not sure if that has to start with courtship or engagement or marriage.  I LOATHE it. Just as I loathe the drugged-out puppy face Michelle gives J-B when he talks.

[December]

1 hour ago, HarleyQuinn said:

Am I the only one that is surprised they'll live in an apartment? For some reason I felt like the Duggars had something against renting the same building with worldly people?

No, I find it surprising, too. Are they definitely living in this apartment? (I didn't watch the episode.) Maybe they'll move into a new place together upon marriage? Then again, given how quickly their meeting-to-marriage timelines are, maybe that's not feasible. 

If they did have a rule about renting (I think there was something early on, involving commercial properties?), I'm pretty sure their rules are flexible when it comes to keeping the show on the air... 

6 hours ago, BackseatMom said:

That Guardian article about maternal mortality in Texas made me feel sick. Can we completely stop using the words pro-life already, and just call it what it is? Pro-white middle and upper middle class birth?

Pro-birth definitely seems like an appropriate term for how many people approach the issue of abortion. We call people pro-choice because they're for choice, seems logical to apply the same naming scheme for the other side of the argument. 

[justmy2cents]

11 minutes ago, December said:

No, I find it surprising, too. Are they definitely living in this apartment? (I didn't watch the episode.) Maybe they'll move into a new place together upon marriage? Then again, given how quickly their meeting-to-marriage timelines are, maybe that's not feasible. 

If they did have a rule about renting (I think there was something early on, involving commercial properties?), I'm pretty sure their rules are flexible when it comes to keeping the show on the air... 

I think it was mentioned that Jeremy recently moved into the 2 bedroom upgrading from his previous place.   During the Laredo visit one of them said it's a good starter place so it seems they intend to live there, at least in the beginning. Wouldn't be the first time they contradicted themselves.

[CharlieInCharge]

On September 21, 2016 at 8:56 AM, Bad Wolf said:

Has anyone noticed that there's the same wall hanging in every TH, regardless of where it takes place? Snip

I did notice this and I wondered if they just did the THs for the season or a large chunk of it in a go. It looks like the same room to me and I thought they may have done stuff in big chunks on his visit, but now I think they did everyone's THs in a go.

I may have crossed a personal line and gone through all the recent episodes. I am willing to state definitively that all the Jeremy and JinJer THs were filmed at the same time. Jeremy has the same shirt on in all of them from the last 5 episodes and everyone else looks the same as well. Might have done them all right before Jeremy proposes in NYC.

[ADoyle90815]

3 hours ago, littlemommy said:

Amen on wearing the retainer forever. I had gapped teeth and a poor family when I was a kid. Since I was so self conscious about my smile I bought myself braces with my first real job after college. I paid a lot of money to fix these teeth, and I'll be darned if they don't stay perfect. I wear my retainer every other night, and when one got lost I toddled down to an orthodontic office and had a new one made.

I've also got a permanent retainer as well, and for the top, I had the typical retainer you wore at night for the few years it was needed. One of the reasons I had braces in the first place was to close a gap between my 2 front teeth, so at some point, I also have a small permanent retainer to keep that gap closed.

[tankgirl]

On 9/21/2016 at 0:51 AM, alba said:

Jinger's ring size is 5.5 and Jeremy just happened to find the perfect ring in her size? Yeah, right. I'm a 4.5 and we had to wait a good week for my engagement ring (we were all modern and went to pick it out together ) because the smallest size the shop had wouldn't have even fit my thumb.

I'm pretty sure it's standard for rings to come in large sizes (tungsten excepted, as it can't be re-sized) because it's easier to make them smaller than bigger.

Actually my husband worked in a jewelry shop and most often the rings came in in 5.5 as it is one of the most common sizes. They had a mix of other sizes as well, but they had a lot of 5.5 sized rings. I wear a 5 so it was always a pain too, as I had to debate too frequently if it was worth doing the sizing or not for a half size down.

 

[starless]

15 hours ago, evolutionbaby said:

I find it so super bizarre that these people are always pretending they don't know how to do things, and this seems to be the running theme of the whole show. I did not watch much of 19KAC, maybe a couple episodes, but has it always been like this? I seem to recall in the few 19KAC episodes that I did watch the family prided themselves on being organized, musically inclined, and always working on some kind of "project". Now these grown kids are always like, "I've never done blank before...this should be interesting." Can't cook, can't bbq, can't play guitar, can't take a flying lesson seriously. Oh my goodness, trying things is haaaaard!" Meanwhile, things usually turn out okay. They build a massive tree house guest cottage, cook gourmet bbq, get the home renos done, baby proof the house just fine, etc. It's not only not believable and not entertaining, but I don't see what the purpose of pretending like this? The first time I ever bbq'd my meal certainly didn't look like that!

My only guess is that they want Counting On to be more separate from Jim Bob and Michelle (though, why they've been on the show so much lately is beyond me), so they're focusing on the kids coming into their own. Or at least, the illusion of the kids coming into their own.

But yeah. Not entertaining at all. 

[SilverBeach]

3 hours ago, IReallyAmHopewell said:

 

5. Bin....oh Bin....Bin Bin Bin Bin. People of Color don't watch this show. Give up on Flame already. Flame? Go have a life. Getting white folks in Arkansas to buy one or two downloaded songs is not going to make you rich, Just forget it. You look even dumber here than Bin.

Uh, yes people of color do watch the show. I watched way back, can't stomach it now, but I read and snark at the recaps (praise Buzzard). I'm sure some of us still actively watch. Duggars were my gateway fundy family.

[feministxtian]

I got braces as an "old lady"...I have a permanent retainer across my bottom 6 front teeth. I also have a top and bottom retainer. The top one is clear...the bottom one has the wires. I haven't worn them in a while because I can't find them....think I need to go look for them. I know my top teeth are shifting some. 

[CorruptionInc.]

On 9/22/2016 at 7:54 AM, SassyPants said:

I think both of my kids ditched those retainers well before age 21. Does anyone really wear those things forever??

Once my braces come off, I have to wear a retainer for good as well. My teeth are shifty little buggers.

I'm also above average age for braces, however, that means I also paid for them, meaning I'm not going to let my teeth move back again; meaning the retainer stays!

[evolutionbaby]

15 hours ago, Fundie Bunny said:

Let's not make things up. They totally were lusting over each other so hard. 

Not trying to make things up, just giving my opinion. I think Bin is/was definitely interested in Jessa and was willing to do anything to win her. But I can't say I have ever seen the reciprocation from Jessa. Her body language toward him has always seemed off, whereas with Jill & Derick, it's obvious that there is a mutual attraction there. I won't comment on Jinger...enough has already been said about that topic here!