For over a decade, we’ve watched the stars of Sister Wives – Kody, Meri, Janelle, Christine, and Robyn Brown – as they’ve navigated life in a plural family. Over its now 18 seasons, the show has been many things: dramatic, shocking, intriguing, puzzling, boring, funny, entertaining – the list goes on. But it’s never been manufactured.
To a certain degree, all reality shows are manufactured. The cast and crew have to work around filming schedules and be granted permission for certain settings. For the Sister Wives cast in particular, many of the Brown children are now over 18, and they can choose whether to participate in filming apart from their parents. As the show has continued, the Browns and the crew have had to work around certain barriers that come with the evolution of a show centered around a real family. But the show has never had quite the barrier it has now.
The Lives of the Browns are Changing
Last season, we watched the dissolution of Christine and Kody’s marriage. The season ended with Christine moving from Arizona back to Utah to be closer to her children. While she did say she’d be returning to Arizona frequently, Christine’s extreme physical separation from the rest of the cast poses a major issue in maintaining the show’s integrity.
In the last couple of seasons, the tension between Kody and his wives, as well as between the sister wives, has been glaring. But no matter how many scenes were planned, the show still felt natural because the conversations were happening between a family unit that had to communicate on some level, and we knew there was real conflict.
When Christine left, she made it clear that she only wants to remain friends with Janelle and has no desire to have a relationship with Meri or Robyn, and in the Season 18 premiere, she stated in a confessional how happy she is to no longer be married to Kody. Those dynamics, coupled with her living hundreds of miles away, make a natural production seem improbable.
What’s to Become of Sister Wives?
Christine did return to Arizona for the Season 18 premiere. She visited Janelle, and while she was in town, she met Kody for lunch. Neither of those interactions felt forced (aside from Kody quite vocally wanting to be anywhere other than at lunch with his ex-wife), but how many visits with Janelle and lunches with Kody can Christine sit through? How does she fit into the show after her departure?
The trailer for the rest of Season 18 looks promising, but it also looks very Christine-less. It teases the ends of the marriages between Kody and Meri and Kody and Janelle, both of which we know have essentially dissolved thanks to Season 17’s post-season sit-downs with each of the cast members and Sukanya Krishnan. The lives of the members of this plural family are continually and drastically changing. Will Season 18 be the end of Sister Wives as we know it? The more information we gather, the more likely that possibility seems. Only time and a few more episodes will tell.
Sister Wives is streaming now on Max and Discovery+.