not pictured: the sibling that molested both of these ladies
[contextly_sidebar id="QRnfmcL2JAJSkkwaabZC0R9XCC0rPohM"]Hey kids! The Duggars are back! Like a bad penny, or a persistent rash, you will never be free of this terrifying family, even after Josh Duggar proved to be a creepy child molester and wannabe cheater and also actual cheater. TLC has solved this by giving Jill and Jessa their own show, where presumably Josh Duggar will not drop in to molest anyone, but who can say, really?! So, let's get to it and recap this hot new Duggar mess, "Jill and Jessa: Counting On."
[contextly_sidebar id="mbpUaiTwsVMsfw8CNJXhRV0Thsb5TLxg"]Oh god. It's been awhile since we did this, so we have to go look up which Duggar is which. Oh right, Jill married the scruffy guy, Derick, and they moved to Central America to bother brown people about Jesus. Jessa married Ben, who ... god, we can't remember anything about Ben, actually. Dammit.
Let's open with some bucolic shots of the small town that Ben and Jessa went to live in and their ridiculous nameplate thingy that they've already had installed on the house.
These people are like old people trapped in young people bodies.
Ben and Jessa made a baby! Just like God intended! They named it ... Spurgeon? What the fuck? Did God intend that? It's a good thing that kid will be homeschooled because otherwise he would be Spurgeon the Sturgeon his whole life. Apparently this name was slapped on the poor kid because Charles Spurgeon is a fave preacher of Ben and Jessa. Normal people would have named him Charles, you idiots. Also, does this mean that all the Jessa-Ben offspring have to have S names? Probably!
We get to see a just-born Spurgeon. He's squashy, like all newborns. He was 10 pounds at birth, so that kid is a BEAST.
Drama: Jessa lost blood after the delivery and had to go to the hospital! She did not die, in case you were wondering. If she had, we'd probably have to recap that too.
There's an interview with boring Ben where he explains that things change when you have a kid. Who knew??? Also, having a child is joyful. Man, they are going with the most anodyne stuff for this show, probably hoping we'll forget that their brother is a gross child molester. Haha we will never forget.
[contextly_sidebar id="Ix167Vn8wooHZVh7hvPWTrH6Yv8uDDt4"]Photo shoot! With Jinger! Which one is Jinger? Oh, she's the next one to get married, it looks like maybe. Lucky Jinger. Joy-Anna is also here (we do not remember which one Joy-Anna is at all to be perfectly honest) to remark around how enormously tubby Spurgeon is.
That is an actual factual Christmas picture of this baby. What the hell is going on there?? Why is he in a snowsuit or something? Is he laying on a bed of gauze with lights in it? Why???
We endure Jinger taking one million pictures of the Jessa/Ben/Spurgeon trio. Inside! Outside! Holding him! Laying down!
Jessa and Ben are hosting some sort of feast thing, but they do not know how to cook, apparently? They are going to look up videos online about how to cook potatoes. Jesus Christ. We know these girls are all essentially children who never left the bosom of their weird parents, but how do you miss out on how to cook a goddamn potato?
YOU GUYS JOSH DUGGAR IS TOTALLY MAYBE GOING TO BE ON HERE. Because it is totally fucking normal to have a show where two of the molestees -- Jill and Jessa -- are the stars, and then we just loop in the molester. Cool job, show.
[contextly_sidebar id="LZJsy76G1KmG3zPWaMWnIBCZIXCUN3BR"]Cut to Anna, Josh's wife, getting ready to go visit Josh in whatever facility they stuck Josh away in. Anna frames the molestation as "wrong choices that Josh made as a teenager that were leaked to the media" and Josh's Ashley Madison funtimes as "a huge media storm." Honey, you and your stupid family have thrust yourself into the media for years, you can't whine when people pay attention to your husband's misdeeds.
[contextly_sidebar id="5hFVQcM1mkyZoA34d0wcLgLgUjPZFwGm"]Anna's going to take one of their squashy babies to visit Josh at his "Christian Recovery" place where he's been hidden away for three months. We are sure it offers totally sound and effective therapy, right?
Let's interview Jana about how great Anna is to face the pain and be strong and I Am Woman and I Will Survive or whatever. Let's interview Anna and watch her pretend to try to look broken up about her husband.
Totally convincing, right?
Jill and Derick are in Central America! They felt a calling! They are all speaking terrible Spanish! Derick is a preacher now, so he can annoy people more directly. Hooray Derick.
We get a tour of their Central American home, including, inexplicably, what their bathroom looks like.
Jill and Derick also have a squashy baby. Its name is Israel, but they call him Izzy. Well, it's better than Spurgeon, right? But now Jill and Derick are locked into only "I" baby names from now on, right? They're going to run out of names pretty quick. Maybe they're not planning on a quiverfull. Scandal!
A gaggle of Duggar girls are going shopping for the the fall feast that they're going to host, and one of them seems totally mystified about how much food they have to buy. Did you not know you were in a family with eleventy billion siblings?? They are worried about oven space, which, again, ELEVENTY BILLION SIBLINGS. People worry about oven space when they feed, say, a family of eight. You are going to feed a village.
Jessa does not know how to cook! But she is learning! We see her paw at the raw turkey ineffectively and throw it in a cooking bag. One of the littler Duggars glops a pile of cream of mushroom soup on some green beans to make a casserole. We really can't believe that this is a thing we watch on television in the year of our Lord 2016. Also we watch one of the squashy babies cry and squirm, and we learn it needs a diaper change. Please don't show us that. Let's face it. We're just enduring this family funtime cooking jamboree because we know at the tail end of this week's show there is going to be some sorrowful Josh action.
It takes like 5 minutes of showtime just to show the various family members arriving. Jim Bob and Michelle are here! It's about time!
Everyone has to talk about what they are thankful for. They are thankful for their squashy babies, and food, and each other. Yawn. WHERE IS JOSH DAMMIT TELL US ABOUT JOSH.
Oh COME ON. We don't get to see the Josh visit. We just have Anna yammering on to the rest of the Duggars about how it was hard and sad to see Josh but she is hopeful and everyone has some glycerin tears and sniffles to show how sad they are. We expected much more. Show, you are a cocktease.
Next time! What kind of dude does Jana dig? Central America is scary and violent! These things are boring things. Man, there better be some more crying about Josh if we're gonna have to recap this whole season.
We endure Jinger taking one million pictures of the Jessa/Ben/Spurgeon trio. Inside! Outside! Holding him! Laying down!
I wonder where they got an idea like that.
From now on, I will only be photographed lying in a cloud of gauze and Christmas lights. Also, is there a reason neither Duggar husband can find a shirt that fits? Wasn't Jesus like a tailor or something?