The Magnificent Bickersons

Okay, just to prove we're not above a little celebritardery ourselves here, and to throw some smackdown in a well deserved direction, here's a little shout-out to the Gosselins, who are apparently 'murka's favorite couple since the Lockhorns. I'm aware of these awful people via The Soup, where the exposure is mercifully brief, but tells the viewer quite enough about the dynamic.

(I am only half-joking when I say that The Soup may really be the closest thing we have to an anthropological documentary on working-class mores in end-stage capitalism. There are some freaky-ass motherfuckers out there, and they're not even doing porn. Jerry Springer only scratched the bumpy rash on the surface.)

So, you know, I'm personally not in favor of cheating on one's spouse, but in Jon's case, it's understandable. (And admirable in a way, since we all just figured Kate had cut off his balls and buried them in a coffee can in the backyard.) Domestic violence is bad, but if Jon finally loses it and smacks that Dennis-the-Menace haircut of hers sideways, it wouldn't be entirely unforeseeable.

At the same time, hopefully Jon realizes that if that's his game, he'd best get all the groupie trim he can right now, because ten years down the road, when he's just some schlub with a psycho ex and child-support garnishments and a bunch of kids who hate both their parents for turning their lives into a hillbilly circus, that well will be long dry and he'll need some memories to spank his monkey to. He'll be jostling with former Real World contestants in line at the food bank.

This is a genre of "reality" teevee that entirely escapes me, really. Your Survivor or Amazing Race type thing, played-out as they are, at least there's the pretense of competition, sort of a game-show-for-morons aesthetic. But these ones with uncomfortably dysfunctional families -- hell, I thought that's what Thanksgiving was for. It seems like a very strange, unfortunate thing to actually sit down and watch all the way through. Someone should do a reality show about the people who watch these reality shows; it might be just meta enough to blow your mind.