Sister Wives Season 19 Episode 4 Finally Showed Us Robyn And Kody's 'Snow Fight'

The first three episodes of Season 19 of TLC’s Sister Wives focused a lot on where things stand — but last night’s Episode 4, “How The Mighty Have Fallen,” largely dealt with why things are the way they are.

As we’ve mentioned in the lead up to and throughout the season, information about the cast of Sister Wives has escaped the reality TV timeline followed by the show, and fans know a bit more beyond what’s happening on the show currently.

In last week’s recap, we observed that the angry stances everyone espoused in the first and second episodes started to give way to something else — genuine expressions of regret and bereavement, to start, a trend that continued into Episode 4 in a big way.

Before we get into it, we recapped the first three Sister Wives episodes, too, in case you need a refresher:

At the end of Sister Wives S19 E3, an episode about Thanksgiving was teased in the promos for Episode 4, and it indeed kicked off with the Brown family facing their first “post-breakups” Turkey Day.

However, the bulk of the episode was devoted to a scene we’ve seen teased repeatedly since before the Season 19 premiere — Kody and Robyn’s fight in the snow.

Regarding that “snow fight,” fans on Reddit have been speculating that the scene was filmed in March of this year, the same month Kody’s son Garrison died suddenly.

Their suspicion ties back in to the fact that the episodes airing now were filmed in late 2022, and Garrison’s unexpected death could have influenced whether the original scene was appropriate to air, given the entire point of Robyn and Kody’s argument.

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Robyn Refused To Back Down From Kody

How Old Is Robyn Sister Wives
via TLC

Then Kody Tried To Manipulate Her, And It Was Gross

The first third of Sister Wives Episode 4 was almost perfunctory, providing an overview of how each member of the Brown family was spending Thanksgiving.

At the very beginning, some of the sadness later addressed reared its head in scenes just before the holiday, when Robyn and Christine both stayed with Mykelti to help with her newborn twins, Ace and Archer.

How Old Is Robyn On
Sister Wives?

Robyn said she was excited about “grandbabies,” which brought to mind Meri’s remarks about Robyn’s age earlier in the season.

Sister Wives’
“How The Mighty Have Fallen” aired on October 6, making Robyn 45 when it aired.

Robyn’s birthday is October 9, so she turns 46 on Wednesday, and she was 44 in November 2022.

Robyn slept in the closet, and Mykelti again expressed gratitude for “both of [her] moms,” while Janelle and Christine fondly reminisced about having sister wives post-partum — quite a bit of wistful remembering preceded Robyn and Kody’s snow fight.

Robyn started to become emotional when it was time to leave Mykelti and Tony’s house, and managed not to cry until she got in her car and broke down — her distress sounded genuine, and it opened the door for the themes of the rest of the episode.

As for Thanksgiving, Robyn and Kody’s was their first one “alone”; Christine cooked at Mykelti’s, Janelle went to her son Logan’s house in Las Vegas, and Meri pulled away from everyone — later revealing she was sick in bed the entire time.

At Mykelti and Tony’s house, Christine listed off who was present – Ysabel, Aspyn, Mitch, Tony’s family, Gwendolyn, and Gwendolyn’s girlfriend Bea (pronounced “Bee-Uh”) – and she excitedly added:

“Gwendolyn and Bea together are adorable. They’re a cute couple. They’re really cute.

“If they wanted to get married, I’d be fine with it. I’m just saying.”

In the background, a theme about the family’s past closeness hummed throughout the episode, and Christine’s son Paedon went to Janelle’s son Logan’s Thanksgiving dinner.

Christine and Janelle both talked about how Paedon was Janelle’s son too, particularly because Christine’s children are largely daughters, and Janelle had sons.

Janelle’s explanation was almost hopeful, as if all was not lost between the estranged wives in the Brown clan:

[Paedon] is my kid, but he’s not my biological child … it just feels like he belongs there.

Thanksgiving scenes at Robyn and Kody’s were interspersed with old footage of massive gatherings, and a suffering Robyn said: “I wish we were together. So, yeah.”

After Thanksgiving, the episode began to switch gears, with Kody admitting in a confessional that he hoped grandchildren were a way for him to get back in his kids’ good graces — a sentiment he immediately discarded under Robyn’s extremely gentle chiding in the snow.

2:02

Meri Brown

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After an ad break, one of the network’s interstitial screens appeared.

Heralding the argument that was the crux of Episode 4, it read:

Shortly before cameras arrived, Kody and Robyn had a heated exchange.

Before tensions could escalate, Kody decided to go for a drive.

Prior to the argument, Kody and Robyn hinted at the tension in confessionals — unsurprisingly, it was a fight about Kody’s failure to maintain relationships with his adult children.

Surprisingly, however, Robyn refused to back down, even when Kody tried to gaslight her about why he doesn’t speak to most of his kids — though she did frame it as if she was out of line, “putting pressure on him.”

At the beginning, Kody tried to shut Robyn down by asserting that he didn’t want “these people who have created the biggest rift in [his] life” to “create a rift” between him and Robyn — in other words, he implicitly threatened to be cold to Robyn if she didn’t give in … but she didn’t give in.

TLC’s focus on this particular scene before it aired made a lot of sense while it was airing, as it truly cut to the heart of the divisions in the Brown family, to a point where it was hard to watch.

Confessionals also interspersed the argument, and Kody claimed “the ugly finger of blame is coming out” with his adult kids before launching into a general “woe is me” thing as he paraphrased his adult kids’ complaints he was an absent dad:

“‘Dad, you were never at my house.’ I’m sorry. I had four wives. I was at your house though, because the other wife was complaining that I was at your house.”

Back in the snow, Robyn said she didn’t understand “why [Kody was] not reaching out to them more.”

Kody said he avoided his children because they were “trash talking,” and a chagrined Robyn responded:

In confessionals and in the scene itself, Robyn specifically said Kody’s behavior made her “lose respect … a little” for Kody, because her own father was largely absent.

Kody focused quite a bit on the wedding, how some of his children refused to talk to him, and he accused them of “betraying” him.

As is often the case, there was a gap between what Kody was saying and what Kody was saying, one which was very clear in an exchange with Robyn about his daughter Madison (Maddie):

[Kody]: “Some of my kids have flat out rejected me! You saw Madison take her kids and scuttle them away from me [at Logan’s wedding]!”

[Robyn]: “Yeah, I saw.”

[Kody]: “She [Maddie] never told me she was pregnant, she never told me she was gonna have a baby.”

Janelle was not present during the snow fight, but in a confessional, she said Kody’s adult children are only angry that he “ditched out,” and explained that Kody’s inconsistent presence is why Maddie is reluctant about his role as a grandfather.

Kody spoke in a confessional, saying it was “unrealistic” to expect people “to be in their grandchildren’s lives all the time, especially if you move your children to an entirely different coast,” adding that he has “work and a life in Flagstaff” — apparently, grandchildren are not part of “life” for him.

Swinging back to the argument, Kody accused his adult children of intentionally shunning him for the following reason (after previously saying he “actually loved” Janelle):

They’re purposely leaving me out of their lives to punish me for a crime I did not commit.

I am only guilty of not falling madly in love with their mothers!

Robyn tried to get the discussion back on track, but Kody began complaining about Maddie being a “gossip,” something Janelle disputed and claimed was truer of Kody:

“Kody has this narrative about Madison, where she’s such the gossip, but he is as big of a gossip … he would always say things to me about Meri and Christine.”

Kody told Robyn he’d rather his children do the work of mending fences: “I will love those children who allow me to do it. And in time, maybe the rest of them will come back around.”

Telling on himself again, Kody added: “I’m not gonna do it with the rejection every single time. I’m not abandoning my children. They have betrayed me. Inadvertently, maybe.”

Robyn made it clear in a confessional that she viewed Kody’s behavior as uncomfortably similar to her own father’s, leading to the following exchange:

[Robyn]: “They’re kids.”

[Kody]: “They’re adults.”

[Robyn]: “No, they’re YOUR kids.”

At Robyn’s long teased “losing respect” line, Kody huffed: “Well, join the club!”

Then, Kody became unpleasantly manipulative after failing to wear Robyn down or win her over to his side.

His initial approach of blaming his children for gossiping, being envious of his love for Robyn, and “trash talking” didn’t sway her, and he began to frame the problem as one borne of his protectiveness for Robyn.

As in, Robyn was out in the snow trying to convince him to be a father, and when he was unable to counter her reasonable suggestions, he tried to make her think his children with Meri, Janelle, and Christine simply disliked her.

To put it more plainly, he tried to convince Robyn she was the cause for his abandoning his adult children.

After asking if Robyn knew of anything he “did wrong besides not falling madly in love with their mothers,” he aimed directly at Robyn’s fears of abandonment and her wounds over the breakups, saying:

I don’t wanna sit down with them and have to defend you.

Kody clearly felt he found a good excuse for his behavior there.

After an ad break, he reiterated the claim in a confessional, but fleshed it out a bit more.

In this explanation, Kody framed his abandonment of his other children as an effort to “protect” Robyn, and he contradicted his earlier claim that he “actually loved” Janelle again:

“Where this hate for Robyn came from, I don’t know, but it’s like, if I can’t protect her from it, I’m just not going to engage it.

“She never did anything to you, what are you complaining about, I just loved her, and I didn’t love your mother.

“So there’s the guilt. The guilt lies there.”

Cutting back to the fight, Kody said: “They can be mad at their mothers in 10 years when they want a relationship [with me].”

Robyn said in a confessional that the entire reason she fell in love with Kody was because he was “present” with his children, and in the argument, Kody implied her issues with her father were the problem — not his failure to have a relationship with his own children.

Again, to her credit, Robyn didn’t take the bait either time, and pled with Kody: “Their whole family is in pieces … that’s gotta be hard for them. Don’t you see that?”

In a subsequent confessional, Robyn admitted:

“I don’t wanna judge Kody, but at the same time … I don’t think Kody should be accepting it.

“I think he should be camping out on their doorsteps saying, ‘hey, you gotta talk to me,’ because sometimes that’s just what you gotta do.”

Back in the snow, Robyn cupped Kody’s face in a final attempt to get him to see how much his behavior hurt her:

Kody, honey, yes, your kids need you. They need you in their life … I know you’re angry, but they need you.

In yet another confessional, Kody admitted to two “big mistakes,” insisting his sons move out during the pandemic (“that just became sort of a foolish power game”), and not going to Ysabel’s surgery.

He told Robyn all he’d do was “more damage” if he tried to talk to them, said he just wanted to focus on Robyn, and angrily added that the rift “hurt us more than it’s hurt them.”

Kody also said that one of his children verbally cut him off, hinting at the real cause for his avoidance — the discomfort of accountability:

One of my kids said ‘you’re an a******, I’m never talking to you again.

You manipulated me, and you brainwashed me.

As the scene wrapped, both Robyn and Kody were in tears, but Kody insisted he wouldn’t “camp out on someone’s doorstep.”

Robyn spoke last in a confessional, observing: “I know those kids need their dad … they need him to try. Harder … He just doesn’t grasp how important a dad is to a child.”

Robyn’s firm insistence may not have influenced Kody much, but some people on the normally anti-Robyn Sister Wives subreddit took notice, albeit not as a consensus opinion:

“The most respect I’ve ever had for her is now. Watching her fight with Kody about abandoning the kids was eye-opening.

“I forget she’s a victim of [Kody] too.”

Finally, Episode 4 of Sister Wives concluded, hinting at next week’s scenes with Christine and David as Robyn and Kody remained at odds.

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