Oh, hey there, fellow trash TV lovers. Are you ready for an action-packed episode full of meaningful conversations and quality television that helps make the world a better place?
Well…too bad. You’re watching Teen Mom: The Next Chapter. Best I can do is a crappy mom who’s super-glued to her Lazy Boy and a “surprise— you’re still married but pregnant with some other guy’s babies” Maury Povich moment.
Let’s get things started, shall we?
We kick things off in Florida, where Mackenzie is still basking in her good news that her IVF treatments worked and she is now pregnant with Khess‘ baby. Mack tells Khess that she’s terrified of having to heave another watermelon-sized baby from her whisker bisket. After all, her three Oopsie Babies that she had with Josh were all over 10 lbs. She’s also scared about the possibility of having two giant (non)-Oopsie Babies that she’ll have to squat out.
With all the dangers that possibly expelling TWO stallion-sized spawn can entail, Mackenzie starts to panic about getting full custody of her existing kids. She is worried because she doesn’t know who will raise her kids if something should happen to her during the pregnancy or birth.
Since Ol’ Joshy is too busy spittin’ and sexin’ bar flies to be a parent to his kids, Mack doesn’t want the kids going to live with him if she dies. Instead, she wants the kids to be raised by Khess should anything happen to her. As it stands, the kids would go straight to living with Josh who— remember— doesn’t even bother to speak to 2/3 of his children and most likely couldn’t pick the younger two out of a lineup.
Down ‘er in the holler, we go check in with Leah and them girlseseseses. The youngest youngin, Addie, is in her room when Leah just “randomly” pops in, clearly looking for a storyline. (Hey, if they don’t get their mugs on-camera, ain’t nobody getting any gas station Lunchables or brand-name sugar packets to snack on this week!)
She demands Addie show her hand, which has developed a strange growth. Like Leah’s desire for screentime, Addie’s cyst has been steadily growing.
Leah is concerned so she schedules for the cyst to be surgically removed. But before that, Leah decides to spruce up her place by doing some painting. She’s slathering on some white paint as her sister Victoria bursts through the door…wearing a “QUEEN” beanie (as you do).
Victoria refuses to help paint, given that she’s of such royal lineage and all. (Apparently having three baby daddies and a few divorces by the time you’re 30 qualifies you as nobility down in the holler?)
She will, however, yap about Addie’s cyst with Leah.
Leah tells her sis that the growth on Addie’s wrist is not cancer, thankfully. (It’s still being determined if it is filled with Sweet ‘n’ Low granules, though.)
Leah is concerned that the doctorseses will probably give Addie some pain pills post-surgery, and Leah— who “has struggled in an addiction” in case you haven’t heard— is worried that Addie will get addicted once she gets a taste of those sweet pillseseseses. She says she’s willing to give the youngin the pillseses but only if she really needs them.
Leah is also concerned about seeing Addie’s dad Jeremy for the first time since he came to her restaurant job and drunkenly threatened her and whatnot. Leah had to get a restraining order on Jeremy, and she’s worried that he’ll bring his girlfriend/wife with him when he goes to Addie’s surgery.
“She’s my focus!” Leah insists. “I don’t give a s**t about him.”
Over in California, Cheyenne is also dealing with her kid’s health issues. Ryder has been taken to the hospital and, due to her genetic disorder, her illness causes even more challenges. Since there’s nothing funny about this situation, The Ashley is going to move this recap right along…
Meanwhile in Florida, Briana goes ax-throwing with her pal “Shirley.” For some reason, “Shirley” has her hair all done up like some sort of off-brand Bratz Doll…and is randomly wearing a Hawaiian lei as an accessory (as you do.) Briana appears to be having a hard time having a serious conversation with her friend while she’s sporting this, um…lewk.
Bri reveals that she still wants to get her tubes tied. In fact, she actually wants to get her baby makin’ pipes totally removed, a procedure that is not reversible.
“You can’t, like, glue them back on,” Briana insists.
Bri says she wants the procedure so she knows she won’t have any more kids and, more importantly, no more baby daddies.
“It just never ends with these baby daddies!” she says.
Speaking of baby daddies, Briana is trying her best to track down Stella’s dad Luis. (We can assume that Bri has checked all the local truck stops and/or Denny’s restaurants to see if Ol’ Lu is DJing there/ having sex with girls in bathrooms?)
Briana needs Luis’ consent to take Stella with them on a vacation to Japan, since she put his name on Stella’s birth certificate. (Interestingly, Nova’s dad Devoin isn’t on her birth certificate.) Bri says she regrets putting Luis on Stella’s birth certificate because now it’s just causing her a big pain in her Dr. Miami-inflated butt!
Luis hasn’t been seen or heard from in a long time. That means Bri will have to track her baby daddy down like Bigfoot to get him to sign a letter OK’ing Stella to travel to Japan. It’s extremely frustrating for Briana to have to get Luis’ permission, considering he hasn’t bothered with his daughter in literally years.
Finally, we head to Las Vegas where Ashley is aggressively cutting flowers, likely in an attempt to distract her from the anger she’s still feeling towards her mom, Tea, following their recent blowup. As she continues throwing together a floral bouquet that is, quite honestly, messier than her marriage to Bar, Ashley receives a text from Tea asking her to meet up so they can talk about what happened.
Surprisingly, Ashley agrees to meet up.
Ashley tells viewers that, while she appreciates her mom accompanying her to court, if Tea can’t also be there to “lift her up” when she needs it, Tea’s “physical presence” isn’t really doing much and it certainly isn’t providing any support. Despite this, Ashley says she’s still willing to have a face-to-face with her mom in order to “hear her out.”
We then see Ashley and Tea meet up for the showdown coffee, where Ashley greets her mom by asking if she’d “like to say how you feel,” while barely looking up from her phone. Without skipping a beat– or requesting that Ashley look in her general direction– Tea proceeds to call out Ashley for showing a lack of “emotional intelligence” during their last conversation.
Tea insists that she’s always there to support Ashley, to which Ashley interjects to tell her mom that, as a family, they “all try to support each other.”
She also tells her mom that it’s important to support people in the way they need to be supported, not in the way you think they need to be supported. While Tea starts to thank Ashley– presumably for watching her younger sister Autumn Rosie while Tea was away working on a cruise ship recently– Ashley tells her mom she doesn’t need a “thank you,” she just needs her to not irritate her like she did the day of her court hearing.
Tea tells Ashley that she had only been back on dry land for a few days when she went to “support” her in court, to which Ashley reminds her mom that while she was away, she was the one doing the supporting.
After sensing that their conversation isn’t going anywhere but south, Ashley warns her mom that she may need to walk away; however, she and Tea proceed to go back and forth about what she did to help out while Tea was away, despite Tea claiming she wasn’t aware of how much Ashley had stepped up in her absence, as she assumed Autumn Rosie’s dad handled the bulk of the parenting.
Tea goes on to accuse Ashley of “blindsiding” her with the news of what went on while she was away, as well as “belittling” her. The mother-daughter duo continue arguing and talking over each other before deciding (at the same time) that their conversation is over.
Later on, Ashley tells viewers that she believes her mom “has a serious problem taking accountability,” adding that if Tea wants a “thank you” for providing a shoulder to lean on, she won’t be getting it from her.
Just when we think Ashley and Tea have said their piece, we cut back to the parking lot of the coffee shop, where Ashley calls Tea a victim and then tells viewers that her mom can “kiss the blackest part of my a**…and I bleach my a**hole, so she’s gonna have to dig deep.”
Now that just provided a mental picture The Ashley did not need today.
Back in The WV, it’s the morning of Addie’s surgery. She’s understandably nervous once she finds out the surgery involves needles.
Addie’s dad Jeremy is waiting at the surgery center when they arrive. He’s got his old lady in tow, but Leah says she’s unbothered and only cares about her kid having the cysteseses cut off her wristseseses and doesn’t give a hoot who Jerm is playing footsie with in the waiting room.
Soon, Addie is out of surgery. The cameramen make sure to zoom right in on this poor kid’s face as she’s being wheeled out of the hospital. Leah loads her into the car (luckily not “Jade style” and there’s no crusty air mattress or Christy in sight!) Leah gets Addie tucked into bed (as the camera crew rolls the camera in her bedroom…nope, not creepy at all).
The next morning, Addie is in pain but Leah is hesitant to give her any pain pills, due to her own “addictions” issues.
Leah tells her there are a lot of side effects that come with taking pillseseseses, including “the addiction.”
Jesus God Leah. Just because the kid takes a pain pill to help her after a surgery doesn’t mean she’s going to be calling people and rattling on about the “dye in the baby’s head” like you were.
Leah says if Addie is in “excruciating pain,” she’ll go get the pillseses.
Back in California, Ryder has been released from the hospital and is back at home after battling a nasty stomach bug. Chey and her mom Margaret go out for lunch to discuss what happened/talk crap on Ryder’s dad Cory for not being around enough. Chey— who is doing all she can to show off her assets, (i.e. her big diamond ring and her even bigger boob job)— tells her mom she is annoyed that Cory didn’t stick around for Ryder at the hospital.
Chey says she’s tired of Cory leaving all of Ryder’s health stuff to her. She wonders if she should talk to Cory about it…or just bitch on-camera about it to her mom. She says that Cory probably doesn’t even know she’s upset with him.
“Don’t have a baby with a stranger!” Cheyenne says. “This is what you get!”
Um…you got an MTV TV show so…..
The next day, Cory strolls on into Chey’s house with Taylor (blond Taylor, not Beer Taylor). Cheyenne tells the cameras that she wants “more” from Cory…but doesn’t actually tell him when he’s over there. Cory walks away thinking he’s Dad of the Year, while Cheyenne is upset with herself for not speaking up.
Back in Florida, Briana has managed to track down Ol’ Lu. He’s coming over to sign the paper to let Stella travel, but Briana is unsure how things will go so she calls in reinforcement a la Roxy. Roxanne speeds over and the girls arrive home from school. Briana tells Stella that they’ve tracked down Daddy Dearest and, not surprisingly, Stella doesn’t want to have anything to do with him.
Later, Briana takes Stella into a private room (but keeps the mic on, natch, so we can hear everything). Stella is worried that Luis will feel bad if she doesn’t want to see him and Briana is like, “Child, please!”
When they emerge, Briana discovers that oafy Luis can’t follow directions (surprise, surrrprise) and has made his way to their house. Since Stella was clear that she didn’t want to see him, Roxanne and Bri step outside to meet with Luis while Stella stays inside. They inform Luis that Stella’s not down with his plan to play Once-a-Year-Dad and won’t be coming out to give him a hug/let him take a photo to post on his Faebook on Father’s Day.
Bri goes inside but Roxy decides to get into Luis’ car to have a little “chat” with him.
God speed, Lu. I hope you wore your cup today.
Roxanne is surprisingly calm during the conversation in Luis’ car. (She’s still wearing her mic so we’ll be able to hear what’s going on/Luis’ cries for help.)
Roxy tells Luis that seeing him brings up so many emotions for Stella, and that “everybody has made mistakes” but Stella hasn’t. She then tells Luis that it’s not too late for him to be in Stella’s life, should he decide to change from being the massive f**k up that he currently is. Roxanne even encourages Luis to text his daughter. From what we can tell, the conversation stays calm and no flower pots or shoes are thrown at Luis’ big ol’ head.
Roxanne tells Briana that she needs to do more to help Stella deal with Luis being a deadbeat.
Um…wait, what? How is Luis being a pile-of-doo-doo-of-a-dad Briana’s fault, other than the fact that she banged one out in a club bathroom with him seven years ago?
This whole thing with Luis further cements Bri’s decision to get her tubes tied. She says this will ensure she won’t create any more kids who have crappy dads.
Over in Florida, Mack calls a lawyer to talk about fetching custody of them kids from Josh. She tells the lawyer that her divorce from Josh is final but was settled outside of court.
The next morning she meets with the lawyer. Mack is rattling on and on (and on) about her marriage to Josh, and how they got knocked up as teens and kept popping out Oopsie Babies.
Then, Mack reveals that her “divorce” was basically just her going on Google, printing out a document and having Josh sign it. (We can assume that Josh’s “signature” is just him spittin’ chewin’ tobaccy at the general direction of the document.)
The lawyer’s like, “Girl.”
Mack says Josh promised to take the kids on school breaks and to make sure they get to Oklahoma if Mack didn’t make him pay child support (UM!?!?) but so far he’s done none of that. She tells the lawyer that she wants Khess to take custody of the kids, should anything happen to her. She does not want them to go to Josh.
The lawyer tells Mackenzie that Josh would have to agree to allow Khess to adopt the kids and Mack isn’t sure if Josh would go for that, despite him not giving a raccoon’s ass about the youngins for years.
Just then, the lawyer decides to lower the boom on Mack. The cameras get all up in Mack’s face as the lawyer announces that “Mackenzie, you are…NOT divorced.”
Mackenzie is stunned to hear that her Mr. Google Legal Document wasn’t good enough to release her from the grips of holy matrimony with Rodeo Boy.
The lawyer explains that, even though they both signed the divorce docs and parenting plan, a judge never officially signed off on it, so she’s still legally wed to Josh. Mack is distraught, given that she just inserted The Sperm of Khess into her still-married hooter.
The lawyer tells Mack that this is commonplace when people don’t use a proper divorce method. (Um…ya think?!)
Mackenzie still insists that some judge somewhere signed off on her divorce, but can’t find the paper that proves it.
As Mack is driving home, she wonders how she’ll tell Khess that she’s got a belly full of his baby but is still legally hitched to some rodeo clown.
DON’T YA HATE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS?!
Khess is shocked to hear the news.
Khess wants to know all the details of Mack’s straight-from-Google divorce, but she’s got another approach.
“I will not accept this as an answer,” Mackenzie says of her still-married status.
Mack insists that she used a very reputable random company/lawyer/thing online, but for “some reason” her divorce isn’t found in the legal system.
Khess’ eyes keep getting bigger and bigger as Mack then tells him that she has a paper “proving” she’s no longer hitched to Josh… but didn’t bring it… And she can’t find it… And she’s not able to pull it up online. But, you know, it’s there…and stuff.
Mackenzie is just now starting to question if her Google divorce is even legit. She realizes she needs to get a “law-yer.”
“So wait, I’m engaged to a married woman?” a shocked Khess asks.
“If I die, these kids are doomed,” is Mack’s random response to that question.
Mackenzie is unnerved about the kids being sent to Josh should she kick the bucket. But now she also has to figure out how to ditch the deadbeat she’s still legally married to.
