It was only a matter of time. If you put two women in the opening credits of a reality television program, they will eventually have to appear on it. And in this episode, they do indeed. Demi isn’t back to full confessional status yet, although it’s clearly imminent. But Whitney is.
And here’s where I have to admit something: I love Whitney. Not in a “wow, I can totally picture us being besties!” kind of way. It’s more that there are several flavors of reality stars I find irresistible. My absolute favorite is a newly sober disaster who’s trying to be better but keeps getting in their own way. My second favorite is “unwilling or unable to play by the rules.” This is Whitney. She’s constantly saying the things you’re not supposed to say. She treats group shoots like she’s auditioning for a Tennessee Williams production. Her kayfabe is all over the place. It’s magnetic!
Before we get to Whitney, though, the girls must debrief Jessi on Jordan’s barbecue. Mayci and Mikayla rag on Jordan’s church voice and disingenuous crying. Taylor pushes back and says she could see his points and that he “admitted being controlling and awful, and that’s a man who loves his wife.” I can usually follow even the most unhinged logic on this show, but we’ve got to draw a line somewhere. Jessi reports that Jordan has been slightly better, doing things like “putting the kids to bed.” We’ve got to raise the bar even to ground level. This is so bleak.
Down on the farm, MomTok gathers to pet baby goats and hear a big piece of news from Taylor. She’s not pregnant, but rather heard from her reps that Dancing With the Stars wants to choose one of them for the show while they’re all in Los Angeles next week. Jen is exhilarated and ready to salsa her tuchis off, postpartum logistics be damned. Separately, Miranda gives a courtesy notice to all nemeses of Whitney that Whitney may attend her upcoming birthday party. Her thinking is that it’s important to maintain cordial status with all outcasts, enemies, and/or ghosters since they’ll all be crammed together on this L.A. press tour soon enough. This is why Miranda is the sleeper option for MomTok CEO (COO, if she wants to play it even smarter).
Mayci and Mikayla, meanwhile, continue on their streak of being the producers’ darlings. So far this season, they’re getting to show off both range and depth in their story lines. We’ve got the campy detective stuff. And we’ve also got them bonding over how to move through a history of abuse in current relationships. Mikayla comes over to Mayci’s to talk about how the therapy she’s been doing for her past sexual abuse is helping, but she’s still struggling to not feel shame and anger around sex in her marriage. She plans to try a different therapy modality, which we’ll see in action later.
But first, Whitney wears an absolutely singular outfit. She has taken the dress-code section of the MomTok brand book and fed it to a wild boar. To meet up with two friends, she dons pedal pushers, a Mickey Mouse T-shirt, tiny glasses, and zero glam. It’s all very “about to walk the red carpet at the 2004 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards.” To make things even nuttier, she proceeds to explain that her team informed her that if she started filming again, she could audition for Dancing With the Stars. Thus, she is filming again. I cannot help but respect this level of honesty.
Demi is also backish. There’s a big disclaimer across the screen that what we see from the Hydrojug Influencer Event is “Cast Footage.” Production wasn’t scheduled that day, but no worries! The panopticon lives inside the house. Everyone got out their phones and supposedly shot all of this. My favorite is the conversation between Layla and Demi, which is shot from two separate angles, and neither shooter gets in the other’s frame. This is either very impressive camerawork from Taylor’s sister and mom or a dramatic reenactment.
Either way, Demi almost apologizes to Layla for how she acted at the airplane hangar, but decides to do a quick pivot. She quadruples down on the Jessi-Marciano-boning narrative and calls Layla an ignorant dumbass. Taylor yanks Layla away. Back in the ballroom, Demi crotch-chops at Jessi. This gets Jessi screaming, “You know nothing!” across the room. Taylor does more yanking, and Jen continues on with her modern-day Cassandra thing, mumbling how she said this from the beginning, but no one listened. At least he dinner rolls looked good.
Then it’s time for Miranda’s birthday party. It’s at an arcade, and the only men who are in attendance are Layla’s date, Mason (podcast guy Chase’s brother), Jace, and Conner — yes, THAT Conner. He puts on the same blond wig everyone else wears, and the moms even say good-bye to him when Whitney eventually drags him out. Whitney has a very solid weapon in her arsenal, and she is not deploying it. Let Conner gab with the gals! Or at minimum, let him pick out the couple’s costumes. Because Whitney does not wear the wig. Upon her arrival, almost everyone abruptly exits the vicinity, leaving Jen and Whitney to argue about who ghosted who (I’m torn), who is friends with Demi (Whitney), and who is only there for her own opportunities (Whitney, by her own admission). Separately, Jace learns the difficulty of eating food while having hair, and Mikayla tells him she’s booked an EMDR session.
I’m still on the fence when it comes to the sheer quantity of therapy sessions we see on this show. On the one hand, it’s cool to see so many different modalities in action, and I especially feel that any trad-man digging into feelings representation is probably a good thing. But at the same time, it gives me a deep and festering ick. My brain is screaming “HIPAA VIOLATION!” I’m gnawing at my cuticles, thinking about whether these women also have sessions where they’re not doing a performance for television. Because these issues are no joke, and I hope Mikayla has more support than the few minutes of EMDR and the subsequent sex-therapist referral we see here.
After the session, she sits with Jace on the couch and talks about the potential of doing couples sex therapy. He wants to try it to better understand her issues and help her feel like she’s not the only one who has to work on stuff. It sucks that Mikayla feels her childhood sexual abuse is a burden to shoulder alone, but I’m genuinely rooting for these two.
Back in the world of petty problems, all active MomTok members get Taco Bell takeout and invite Whitney over to plead her case. In a unanimous vote the day prior, Taylor was reinstated as the official CEO and leader of MomTok. She will serve as their brand bulldog, considering everyone else is afraid of conflict, and Taylor’s default demeanor is “LEMME AT ’EM!” Whitney waltzes in donning an “I Feel Like 2007 Britney” T-shirt, and it’s off to the races. Taylor launches right into it with: “Why are you here? What do you want? Dancing With yhe Stars?” Whitney could have saved so much collective cortisol by just saying, “Yep, that’s exactly it! Are there any Crunchwrap Supremes left?”
She does not say that, however. Instead she blabs about how her last reinstatement vote felt insincere and how Demi was the only one there for her. She then cries about being exhausted from trying to rebuild relationships. Mikayla is not distracted by the tears and strong-arms Whitney into taking accountability that she’s just here for DWTS. Whitney changes her tune and basically says, “Yep, I’m excited for one of us to get it, but I’m not coming back to the sisterhood.” Jessi asks how this is going to work — is Whitney going to film alone? Of course not! She calmly states she’s going to start her own MomTok. Everyone erupts into a massive spit take. Baja Blast droplets and damp crumbles of Cinnamon Twists spew across the room.
So Whitney storms out and declares she will be getting Dancing With the Stars. Delusion! Sometimes it really takes you far.
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