Season 19 of Sister Wives has been a whirlwind – a hard-to-find mid-season trailer exemplifies why – and when it began, fans were thrilled to see that Christine had fallen in love with a nice widower named David Woolley.
A big part of Season 19 has been how Kody’s “OG three” wives – Meri, Janelle, and Christine – have seemed to thrive after leaving their marriage to Kody one by one.
To her credit, Christine was the first of the three to leave, and even Kody recently admitted that it was “brave” of her to do so — at the beginning of the reality TV show, the Brown family were, for all intents and purposes, pretty straight-laced aside from their polygamy (which was religious in nature, at least initially).
As such, leaving a marriage was a big step, and arguably, Christine is the most timid of the “OG three.”
For the first few episodes, fans were incredibly happy to see the long-suffering Christine’s youthful exuberance as she found her footing away from Kody.
In late October, Christine talked about her transition to a monogamous marriage, and was excited to have her husband all to herself:
“I was a bit worried the day before we moved in together. I’d never lived with a guy full-time before. But we moved right into life with each other.
“I didn’t know that we could both accomplish and do everything that we want to do, but just better than we’ve ever done before. It’s just mind-blowing how having someone there to support you just makes you a better person. It’s phenomenal to me.”
At the start of the season, Christine quickly entered the “honeymoon phase” with then brand-new beau and now-husband David.
But the “quickly” aspect soon gave fans pause, which developed into irritation, and now, annoyance.
As we previously reported (and at around the same time Christine made those remarks), viewers started second-guessing whether her relationship with David was healthy, and several found her behavior off-putting.
From what fans were saying, the shift in how they viewed Christine and David’s relationship began around Episode 6 or Episode 7, and we explained:
“Even as fans cheered Christine on, though, some observed things with David were moving rather quickly … and then Episode 6 rolled around, revealing that the pair visited potential wedding venues less than two months after they first met.
“In that episode, Christine also made a point of polling her mostly-adult children about David before saying their opinions wouldn’t change anything — and it later showed that she and David considered one another ‘soulmates’ right away.”
Pretty much everyone has seen a friend get burned by moving too fast in a relationship — and not only did it feel that way watching Christine and David look at wedding venues less than two months after they met, their disregard for 14-year-old Truely’s discomfort watching them kiss in public seems to have turned the tide:
“At the wedding venues … [Truely was] clearly not comfortable and [Christine and David] just … laugh at it? And say they’re not going to stop kissing in front of their kids?
“They’ve known each other for 6 weeks and Christine’s bringing her 14-year-old CHILD with them to VIEW WEDDING VENUES. What the f***?”
It was definitely giving “chaotic,” and viewers’ patience thinned significantly.
Related
Sister Wives’ Christine Brown Sues Kody For Child Support
Christine sued Kody a day after Sister Wives premiered.
Christine Acted Like A Teenager
It Went From ‘Cute’ To ‘Grating’ So Fast, Though
At the beginning, Christine’s excitement was almost contagious, and it could have stayed that way.
As mentioned above, viewer discomfort ticked up when Christine and David not only began scouting wedding venues, but also in how they involved her clearly uncomfortable children.
On November 28, a fan asked others on Reddit’s r/SisterWives whether Christine was “getting on anyone else’s nerves”:
The original poster (OP) admitted to “finding Christine increasingly annoying,” and the thread proved quite popular.
As it turned out, the fan was not alone, and many weighed in.
The thread’s top comment was somewhat sympathetic to Christine, but concurred that her presence in Season 19 was tiring:
“[Christine is] a bit much. She’s laying it on pretty heavy. I take into consideration she lived very lonely for years, starved for attention from a ‘spiritual husband,’ jealous of another woman & her kids receiving the attention she hoped for.
“Her bio children with a bum baby daddy. Being reprimanded by her ‘spiritual husband’ [whose] punishment to her is to withhold intimacy due to her poor behavior towards the favorite wife. I feel it’s almost like everything is brand new to her and she’s trying everything for the first time, in a very short time. Trying to get back time. My take, and I could be very wrong.”
That particular observation was insightful, because it encompassed the Christine issue pretty thoroughly — we’ve been watching Christine’s loneliness and suffering for many seasons, and no one wants to see her miserable again after rushing into a relationship for no good reason.
Another user’s response hit on something we’ve seen in Sister Wives discourse quite a bit this season, that Christine’s “grating” behavior came off as inauthentic and as motivated by a desire to get back at Kody:
“All of this plus I think she is trying too hard to show her happiness for her new life on camera, which is coming across too strong … I don’t think she misses Kody, but maybe the comfort and familiarity that goes along with an established life. She is almost rushing things to get to the established stage faster in her new relationship.”
Others blamed TLC’s editing, surmising that they intentionally painted Christine as clingy and annoying: “I think it’s more of a TLC editing issue. Yes, she’s excited and happy but TLC keeps repeating the same thing. TLC editing sucks.”
Several people agreed, and another said: “Yes, but only because they’re beating the David storyline like a dead horse. I’d love if [Christine] would talk about anything else [other than David].”
People were not unanimously bothered by the Christine and David omnipresence, and one person hadn’t yet tired of it, commenting:
“She is FINALLY happy, loved, and appreciated. Scream it from the mountain tops Christine! Those of us who escaped bad relationships and then found a true love that treats our battered souls with care… We understand her and her happiness.
“I don’t know why women hate to see other women happy. I just don’t understand. Can’t you just look inside and then quietly say, ‘You’ve got this sister[.]'”
To that, several commenters reiterated earlier complaints about Christine appearing insincere, trying too hard, or trying to annoy Kody.
One replied at length, making a lot of decent points supported by the timeline of their relationship:
“I think because this whole thing seems so unhealthy. I think a lot of people don’t look at her as being ‘happy’ with David so much as she’s using her relationship with him as a coping mechanism to get over the hurt and jealousy she felt when she was married to Kody.
“And it’s a lot of the things people have brought up: she’s bringing David, a man she barely knows, into her young daughter’s life immediately. She’s buying a house, a gigantic investment, with a man she’s known for two months. She keeps calling him the love of her life even though, again, they barely know each other AND she just got out of a bad 30 year marriage.
“It doesn’t seem like she has at all made any attempts to process the trauma of her marriage and heal from it and has immediately gotten married again? This doesn’t seem like a whirlwind love story, it just looks like she’s spiraling and trying to get some control back after not having it for 30 years.”
One person opined that it looked “like she’s trying real hard to convince everyone, including herself, that this is all okay,” but that it “seems very over the top, exaggerated, and not genuine at all.”
Another interjected with an observation about Janelle backsliding in her interactions with Kody, Christine, and Meri, asking: “When will these women realize they’re still running on Kody triangulation software?”
The balance was well-illustrated in a commenter saying to “give her grace” after “an abusive, depressing, unloving relationship,” but noting that “she’s always been a bit annoying.”
Ultimately, Sister Wives fan sentiment on the matter of Christine was best characterized in a salient comment that goes back to the thing where pretty much everyone has seen a rebound go horribly wrong: “Looks more like infatuation than deep love, but I could be wrong. In my experience, things that burn very hot early also burn out more quickly. However, I wish them the best.”
- TMDB User Rating
- 61
- Release Date
- September 16, 2010
- Main Genre
- Reality
- Cast
- Kody Brown , madison Brown , Janelle Brown , Tamron Hall , Aspyn Brown , Robyn Brown , Andrea Canning , Gwendlyn Brown , meri brown , Logan Brown , Christine Brown , Sukanya Kirshnan
- Seasons
- 19
- Cinematographer
- Doug Monroe, Callan Griffiths, Richard Alexander Walkling, Anthony Derosa, Matthew Thompson, Ray Farmer
- Distributor
- TLC
- Filming Locations
- Nevada, Utah, Arizona
- Main Characters
- Timothy Gibbons, Kirk Streb, Deanie Wilcher, Christopher Poole, Bill Hayes
- Producer
- Deanie Wilcher
- Production Company
- Puddle Monkey Productions, Figure 8 Films
- Number of Episodes
- 167
- Network
- TLC
