The finale of WEtv’s “Marriage Boot Camp” opens with Travis attempting to soothe a hysterical Aubrey who got busted for lying and cannot handle the humiliation. All her screaming last episode about Travis daring to put her in a position to defend her character makes me wonder how much lying Aubrey has been doing, and how frequently she gets caught. That level of hysteria sorta indicates a problem, doesn’t it?
“Stop, just tell me the truth…” Travis says in a soothing voice. And Aubrey flips again. When she stops to take a breath, he delivers the real blow.
“After tonight you’re not going to have to see me again. I’m going to move and this is going to be a wrap,” Travis tells her.
Not long after that, Marriage Boot Camp Director Jim Carroll shows up at their bedroom to talk. Apparently they all spent hours sitting in the closet discussing the future of Aubrey and Travis’s relationship. Poor Jim, that’s a few hours of his life he can never get back. What a waste!
He’s trying to help them make a decision they “won’t regret in the morning.” He wants them to use the tools from “Marriage Boot Camp that” they’ve learned so far.
“You guys don’t need to trust each other 100 percent,” Jim just wants them to stay another day and finish the process. If they’re going to split up, the time to do it is at the recommitment ceremony the next night.
At breakfast, everybody talks about psycho Aubrey. Mike’s loving it and doing impressions of her. The only difference from other days is that they’re not eviscerating Hank and Kendra for breakfast. Lesson learned here: If you miss a meal, you’ll be the topic!
When everyone is called to the boot camp room, Aubrey and Travis are last to come down.
“I wanna get the f**k outta here,” Aubrey bitches.
“We told you on Day One this would be the hardest few weeks of your life and last night proved that,” Director Elizabeth Carroll begins, referring the drama surrounding the prior night’s lie detector exercise.
“You will leave here tonight either together or apart,” Elizabeth reminds them. Boot camp is over and it’s time to decide whether their relationships are worth saving. I personally think Travis and Aubrey should run like hell – away from each other. But nobody asked me.
Everybody who has a ring has to give it back til the recommitment ceremony. Kendra apparently flushed all four of her wedding rings down the toilet so they’ll let Hank give her a temporary if they stay together. Awkward.
“At that moment, I felt like my marriage was down the drain,” Kendra explains. Vivid way to demonstrate what you’re feeling, but if you can afford it, nice dramatic touch!
As they gave out “promise rings,” all I could think to myself is that this show would be so much better if the network and production could actually find some married reality stars willing to participate. With that said, look what happened to Kendra and Hank’s personal drama when the tabloids blew up during filming. Probably most successful reality couples prefer to keep their dirty laundry behind closed doors.
That said, it’s called “MARRIAGE Boot Camp” and I’d like to see some married couples participating. The Bridezillas may not have had the star power to draw in as many viewers, but at least they had real marital problems. I watch most of these “reality stars” and think the couples shouldn’t ever get married. I also think having successfully married couples as examples to the not-yet-marrieds would be helpful. Just not people currently going through a transsexual infidelity scandal.
So they give out promise rings to almost everybody since most of them don’t have engagement or wedding rings to turn in, and then they separate the men and women so they have time to think. That night, they’ll have to decide whether to stay together or go their separate ways.
Quick note to all the long-time fans of the show – I really missed the “free pass” night they usually have. You know, when they let them all go out like singles and see who gets in trouble. In the past, it’s resulted in some of the most intense chaos and drama of the entire season and frankly, I’d have LOVED to see Reggie and The Sitch working it at a club. Feeling a little cheated here. Please bring that back next season.
“Time to say goodbye to your mate,” Elizabeth tells them as they split up by gender. It seems like they’re all getting ready for prom together – in fact, one of the guys makes that joke. The girls are all curling their hair and putting on formal gowns. The guys are spiffing up.
Meanwhile, Jim and Elizabeth pull each individual camper aside for one-on-one sessions to see what they’re thinking of doing that night.
Hank’s feeling unsure. Duh. If you’ve seen the WEtv previews of their next show, “Kendra on Top,” you know that even if he’s not the brightest bulb on the tree, he SHOULD BE worried about what’s coming next. Kendra’s still pissed.
“She can’t hang this over my head every day,” Hank says when Jim asks if he’s giving her the ring.
Elizabeth checks in with Kendra. Kendra’s nervous.
“Do you have any fears that he’s going to revert back to that?” Elizabeth asks.
My question is two-fold: Do you think he’s going to cheat, and do you think he’s going to cheat with another transsexual? I’m not entirely convinced that was all the big mistake Hank claims it to be or he would be reacting differently. His reaction to Jim when role-playing the scenario means he’s either into it, or battling some really scary childhood demons and memories.
“Here’s the thing, I gave Hank multiple opportunities,” Kendra explains. And she has. From the first moment the scandal hit, she’s tried to team up with her husband to handle it and he’s been less honest and open with her than his attorneys. If that was my husband, I’d be angry too. And no, I wouldn’t trust him.
Kendra makes it perfectly clear that if ANYTHING else blows up in the media or if she ever finds out he’s done anything even remotely close to cheating, she won’t forgive him again.
Reggie and Tami are still at the same roadblock they were at when they entered the mansion. He wants marriage and kids. She doesn’t. Of course, we all know they got preggers (probably during the show if she wasn’t actually knocked up when they did the big pregnancy test on an actual episode) immediately so she wasn’t trying very hard to prevent it.
“When you guys pegged us as ‘disillusioned’ when we first got here, that was true,” Tami tells Aubrey as they’re dressing. “I’m still thinking it through.”
Lots of couples are thinking.
“Yesterday shook things up a little bit,” Mike tells Jim, referring to Lauren’s deception on the lie detector the previous day.
Jordan and Jeff are still boring and the biggest issue in their relationship that she doesn’t want to live in Los Angeles and that’s where his career is right now. Here’s the thing, boring as they may be, I actually think they’d have a happy married life and lovely family if they’re not trying to build their lives around reality television like some of the other couples that have graced this show. Boring is only bad for reality TV stars. For regular people, that’s called being “normal.”
Travis and the boys hit the bar once they’re dressed, and they chat about their relationship issues. It’s a little weird because most of the time, men don’t talk about this stuff. This is what a week at Marriage Boot Camp does to them.
“It’s like trigger, trigger, trigger… that’s unhealthy. I’m reaching my breaking point and we have a huge decision to make,” Travis says.
“My fears are that we leave here and Travis gets wrapped back up into wanting success over everything, like he said last night,” Aubrey is telling the girls at the same time.
In the one-on-ones, I thought Jim was trying to convince Travis to stay with Aubrey and I didn’t agree with him. I usually do.
“Why would you not want to give her that ring tonight?” Jim asks Travis.
I can answer that for him – because she’s a selfish, narcissistic bitch.
Travis says he doesn’t think he’s in that place.
“Appears to me that she disrespected you last night and she took a bunch of crap out on you, so did she change?” Jim asks him. Travis says she has changed. Not much, but some.
“I don’t know if she’s made enough changes for me to commit to this for the long run,” Travis says.
Meanwhile, separately, Aubrey tells Elizabeth she thinks she needs to be alone. I agree. Anyway, she won’t be alone because she has so many besties and hangers on. She even has a female friend who will rub her feet when she’s naked, right? Why keep a boyfriend that you fight with constantly? They both seem absolutely miserable together.
The actual ring ceremony where they have to either make up or break up is the critical moment for all of them.
It’s probably because they’re coached by production, but I hate the way they all try to make it sound like they’re not giving a ring when they are. It seems a little bit mean and a lot disingenuous.
Mike sounds like he’s not going to give Lauren a ring, but he does. And she reciprocates. Did anybody tell Lauren that it’s not an engagement ring? She’s crazy excited. Good for her. I think she’ll make a really good prison wife when Mike gets locked up for all the indictments he’s currently under. Her parents must be thrilled.
Aubrey’s dress breaks right before she’s supposed to go out to the ceremony and I think she should take it as a message from God, but as usual, she’s not listening.
“We have something that no one understands but us,” Aubrey says to Travis. That’s absolutely correct. Well maybe not. They study people like her in psych hospitals all the time for medical journals.
“I still fear that you will never be able to choose me or put me first. And I don’t want to go through my life being your second or third place in the eyes of the woman that I love,” Travis says. Aubrey’s face is CLASSIC.
“Really?” Aubrey asks. She doesn’t think she’s getting a ring. BEST moment of the show. Then he blew it.
Aubrey gives Travis a ring first. Then Travis gives Aubrey a ring. And so continues the sick warped relationship. Ugh. They deserve each other. Pardon me while I go throw up a little bit.
Why bother watching Jeff and Jordan? Of course, they exchanged rings. They’re getting married! But then it got really funny.
Jeff marches off humming “Hail to the Chief” cuz he’s a moron. No, seriously. They even call him out on it. He thinks it’s the “Wedding March.” As he walks away, he’s still trying to figure out what tune that was. Maybe he should watch more C-SPAN.
Reggie’s afraid of Tami’s inability to forgive, and the fact she keeps switching it up on whether she’s willing to have kids. But he gives her a ring. Which is good because we all know he won on the kids thing. Now they need to talk about getting married.
Hank and Kendra are last. Of course. This is the one couple I wanted to see make it through Marriage Boot Camp and save their marriage. With that said, I’ve come to the conclusion (based on the WEtv teasers of Kendra’s new show) that their marriage might not be salvageable.
“Hank, you’re a brand new man. It’s night and day, you’re my best friend. But are we really supposed to be married?” Kendra asks him. Then she gives him a ring.
At first, Hank doesn’t give Kendra a ring, and I thought “well, they’re done.” Empty ring box. OMG. But then he switches it up.
“You’re right, I have become someone new. And I have found my way. And I am alive, more alive than I’ve ever been,” Hank suddenly pulls out a diamond and gets down on one knee. Replacing the engagement ring she flushed with what looks like a canary diamond. Of course, Kendra accepts it and they’re going to move on.
The most succinct description of the entire “Marriage Boot Camp” protocol was summed up by Tami during the celebration after the ceremony.
“I think Marriage Boot Camp f**ked our relationship up, but then put it back together again,” Tami explains. Yep, exactly. That’s what Jim and Elizabeth Carroll have been telling them all since Day One. They have to tear it down to build it back up.
So where are they all now? Tami and Reggie have a baby.
Jeff and Jordan are still living together in LA with a wedding date set for October of 2016 (I’ll keep my opinion on the longest engagement ever to myself).
Aubrey and Travis broke up after the show. Lots of questions surrounding how much of everything was a publicity stunt.
Mike and Lauren say the show improved their sex life. I hope they’re taking lots of advantage of that before he “goes away” for tax evasion. They’re planning to get engaged. That means he’s waiting to find out if he’ll do time. It’s good to have somebody to put money in “on your books” so you can buy snacks in the pokey.
And we all know how it will go for Hank and Kendra thanks to the spoiler teasers the network showed us… the question is whether we can stand to watch? I haven’t decided yet. Let’s just hope he didn’t have an Ashley Madison account.
Looking forward to finding out which reality stars are on the next season of this show. And really looking forward to the new book about the top 10 marriage killers due out from Jim and Elizabeth Carroll in a few months!