Hockey Wives: Season 1, Episode 4
This episode continued on with following women around without too much (obvious) staging of the action. This week's ep focused on Noureen DeWulf, Tiffany Parros, Brijet Whitney, and Maripier Morin. We also see a lot of Kodette LaBarbera, but most of her time is spent with Tiffany and/or Brijet, so I've put her scenes in with my comments on the two of them.
Content note: Tiffany uses a gendered slur. The show beeps it out, but I've reproduced it here as part of a quote from her.
Noureen
For this episode, we go home to Georgia with Noureen for an Indian baby shower. Noureen says, "Growing up in Stone Mountain, Georgia, there were not a lot of other Indian families, but there were other Indians in the state of Georgia, which we tried to get in close contact with immediately once we moved there." Of all of the people around for the baby shower, we get to meet five significant ones: Noureen's parents, her two sisters, and one of her longtime friends. Noureen's older sister Aziza is a law professor, and her younger sister Sara is a lawyer; Noureen says, "I myself am educated from Boston University. I studied theater there and international relations, and I graduated in three years with a 3.8 GPA, but compared to my sisters, I'm really nothing." We don't see Sara or Noureen's mom much, but we do see Aziza not putting up with Noureen's dramatics. "I feel like people don't know that I have a really good body anymore," Noureen says, and Aziza teases her back by saying, "I feel like people don't know how hot I am all the time." That's said in good humor, but as Aziza continues to not be interested in Noureen's dramatics, Noureen says, "She doesn't really have time to tolerate my bullshit." Noureen also says, "I think it's obvious that my family and I have some cultural differences. I'm not sure how I fit into all this."
I'm starting to really like Noureen, and I greatly enjoyed seeing her at home for her baby shower. There are serious moments here. She says to Aziza about her baby, "If my child is completely white, I'm going to be upset. ... We're going to have to bond on a different level since we don't share the same skin color." She needs to take a twenty-minute break from all the people and the activity. She's really excited to see Erica. The show captions Erica as "Noureen's childhood friend;" Noureen says she was the maid of honor at Erica's wedding and Erica was the maid of honor at hers. I was the maid of honor for someone I've been friends with since fourth grade, so I could really relate to this. At the end of the party, Noureen FaceTimes Ryan, and then gets her dad to say hi to him too. Noureen says of her dad's relationship with Ryan, "He texts him after almost all of his games, stuff like, 'Great effort, son,' 'You did a great job,' 'You are a wonderful player.'"
There are also a lot of bits around the baby shower designed to make you laugh, and I loved the way the camera and Noureen's family framed the jokes. We see Noureen talking to a woman who's labeled only as "Noureen's Auntie." Then we get Noureen's explanation that, "'Auntie' is a term that you use for any older Indian lady. She could be your real auntie. She could not be your real auntie." The camera goes back to the party to show a crowd of older women in saris with the caption, "Noureen's Aunties." One of the baby shower games is a quiz, which includes the question, "What position does Daddy Miller play in hockey?" After the women chorus "goalie," Sara asks, "Did anyone put 'quarterback' or 'left winger?'" and one woman sheepishly raises her hand. Noureen talks about growing up very Americanized and drops right into a creditable Southern accent. I think despite the first episode's deliberate attempt to make Noureen unlikeable, she might turn out to be the best character on the show.
Tiffany
Tiffany's adventures in this episode include packing up to move and visiting Brijet in Scottsdale. The moving adventure is mostly entertaining for George, who is left to do the final walkthrough of the house - "Oh, no, Tiff, come on, you're killing me," he says when finds a still full kitchen cabinet; it only escalates from there - and who has to drive their car up onto the trailer and then somehow get out of it without being able to open the doors. The show cheats us out of the ending of this last adventure by cutting off with George sticking his feet out of the window. My favorite comment on this move is from this article, which says, "It ends with them packing up for Las Vegas, which for people who say they move a lot, they are not very good at." Tiffany says about her frustration in the packing process, "Moving is stressful for me because I'm OCD, so, like, to see things not perfect, that part is the tough part." I have no idea if she means she actually has OCD or, more likely, she means the colloquial use of preferring strict order. She also says they're loading the car onto the trailer instead of having it shipped because, "Every time we've shipped our car, we've had a leather seat ripped from a key or the truck driver gets in the car and leaves oil stains all around the wheel. My poor car has been damaged enough from shippers." She follows this up with being annoyed with both George and his dad as they try to figure out the best place to position the trailer to drive the car up on it: "Those two men cannot make a decision to save their lives. I think they're brilliant, but on paper."
If you're sensing a pattern here, you're not wrong, and it doesn't stop there. When she's out with Kodette and Brijet in Scottsdale, she tells a story about how the first half of the season they were in Anaheim, her kids were in the hospital, so she wasn't involved with the other wives and girlfriends. "One of the new girlfriends tried to kick me out of the wives' room after I'd been there seven years because I showed up at the end of December, and they were like, 'Who is this girl in the wives' room?'" Brijet, who seems to be a very kind, diplomatic person says, "What should have happened, I think, would be that someone would walk up to you and go, 'Hi,'" to which Tiffany replies, "You'd think. If she wasn't a cunt that wouldn't have happened." Tiffany is extremely money and status conscious, and her narrative throughout this show is not only that other people are always terrible to her, but also that she and George don't get invited to spend time with people because the rest of the hockey world, at least in LA, only cares about you if you're playing and you have money. While that might be true for some people, watching this show, I think it's also extremely possible that people who included her in their social circle while their husbands were coworkers are taking this opportunity to no longer spend time with someone who comes across as consistently angry, bitter, and unpleasant to be around. I really want to be compassionate toward her and feel for whatever suffering she's going through that is coming out this way, but I have to admit that it's a real struggle.
The relationships with other women should give us a positive view of Tiffany. Noureen and Kodette both name her as a close friend, and Maripier said in an interview that she was a little distrustful of the wives and girlfriends social circle until she became friends with Tiffany. Unfortunately, it's not really working out that way. In this episode, while they're both in Scottsdale, Tiffany and Kodette go horseback riding - "I'm not a mani-pedi chatty kind of girl. ... When most kids were going to show and tell and they were bringing, you know, their stuffed bear, I was bringing a soda can that I shot and I would say, you know, whatever gun I used to shoot it. I'm certainly not scared of horses like some people are," Tiffany says - and then sit down to chat. Their "chat" is mostly Tiffany saying, "Complaining about it is not, like, gonna help the situation. You just have to, like, move forward. ... Just being alone and away from your husband and moving around all the time, and you don't have time to feel sorry for yourself basically." Now, she might have something of a point in terms of general life advice - if all you do is complain without looking for a way to make things better, nothing's going to get better - but in the specific moment, it's really out of place. First of all, there's a difference between complaining and talking about how you feel. We don't get to see much of what Kodette has to say, but my impression of her is that she's not a complainer, but she might need someone to listen to her and be sympathetic to how she feels. Kodette herself, despite her comment to the camera that Tiffany is a great friend, has a "Why are you telling me this?/This is not what I wanted" look on her face in response to this. Secondly, while Tiffany is taking charge of moving to a place where they can create a new social circle, a not insignificant amount of her time on this show has been spent complaining. I really hope her move to Vegas also includes whatever kind of life change is going to let her learn to be happy.
Brijet
I like Brijet a lot. Every time we've seen her in a situation where the conversation gets awkward or mean, she redirects in a very kind, gentle way. She seems very settled into herself. I expect most of this is because she's a few years older than the other women on this show, and we tend to be better at knowing who we are as we get older. In this episode, she talks about dancing. She danced all the way from the time she was three into her year of University, and then did choreography for professional companies. She says, "When I'm dancing. I feel so overjoyed. ... You kind of put yourself on a back burner being a mom, but you have to keep finding a place for yourself, no matter what is. Something that gives you a little fire, you have to nurture it." Now that Ray is home and they're staying in one place, she can expand out into dancing a little more, and we follow her to guest teach a tap class at a studio owned by a friend of hers from her professional dancing days. I will admit that I am a total sucker for people dancing and also people learning things, so I absolutely loved watching her teach kids tap dancing.
Brijet in this episode also gets to have a really interesting conversation around the business of hockey. Brijet and Kodette go over to Wendy Tippett's, and Wendy and Brijet chat while Kodette and her boys swim. Brijet asks Wendy how Dave started coaching. Wendy tells her that Dave played in the minor leagues during a previous lockout, then got injured and decided his body couldn't do it anymore. The team then offered him a place as assistant coach. "He said, 'Okay, we're making $35,000 a year assistant coaching.' I'm like," here she gives a dramatic, gulping gasp, "'Okay, bit of an adjustment.'" Wendy then gives Brijet some advice if Ray is looking to coach: "When you go in for a coaching job, if they say to you, 'Your wife is not allowed to talk to a player's wife,' you need to say, 'We can't take this job, because I can't do that.'" This is exactly the kind of thing I want to know about these women navigating the hockey world as an institution.
That wasn't the only conversation in this episode about how the change in their husbands' circumstances affects the women's social lives. Brijet, Tiffany, and Kodette go out for drinks on Kodette and Tiffany's last night in town. There's a great sequence where they get served lemon drop shots in tiny mugs; Brijet says she's going to sip hers, Tiffany makes a disapproving face at that but only drinks half of hers to start with, and Kodette throws the whole thing back. Tiffany says, "If you go out with Kodette, five minutes after you get there, you'll be looking around the bar and she's dancing with a stranger." Brijet asks, "Do you remember the Halloween party in, um?" and Kodette says, with a laugh, "Probably not." The rest of the conversation is about how the three of them no longer have the support that comes with being part of a team of wives. Brijet and Kodette are particularly close. Brijet says that when Ryder was diagnosed, she was there and talking to Kodette all the time. Kodette says, "In Scottsdale, we were all so close, and we did everything together," and then, specifically about Brijet, "They lived right behind us, and Brijet and I always did everything together." It's hard for the three of them to now be in situations where they don't have the built-in support and friendship of other wives.
For all that I like Brijet, there is one thing I find continually frustrating about her story. She and Ray hang out with Tiffany - Tiffany stays with them on her trip to Scottsdale - and Brijet listens carefully when Tiffany asks Ray about his plans. Brijet's voiceover comment is, "I just kind of perk up and listen. I'm not sure if it makes Ray uncomfortable or not, because Ray's not telling me. I, at this point, still don't know what Ray's plan is. ... I'm so frustrated, just waiting and wondering." When she's out with Tiffany and Kodette, Brijet again says in voiceover, "It's definitely hard for me to talk to Ray about what's coming next and what's going on." To the other women says, "I was like, You know what, I'm tiptoeing around your emotions right now because I'm really worried about what's happening, but the truth is, this is happening to me too. For twenty-three years, this has been my life too, and I don't know if you realize how it not being there is affecting me as well," but there's no follow-up to indicate that she and Ray actually talked about it. I resorted to actually yelling at the screen, "You could ask him!" I find it incredibly frustrating that not only have they apparently not talked about this, but that she hasn't asked. "What are your thoughts/feelings about this big change in our life circumstances?" is a highly appropriate question to ask your partner.
Maripier Morin
In this episode, Maripier and Brandon spend a day together. This review says about this, "Early in this episode, Maripier talks about how excited she is to spend a whole day with Brandon since their schedules don’t often allow it. Then you wonder why." It's a good point. We begin with the two of them in the car together. Maripier asks if Brandon put his clothes away, and then if he saw the sweater she bought him. He tells her he hates it and they argue about it for a bit. Personally, I agree that it's an ugly sweater - you can see it here - and in the absence of any other knowledge about their relationship, this wouldn't seem that bad. But we do know enough about their relationship dynamic now that it's just one more example of Brandon being unkind to her, especially with his tone - he seems to imply that anyone who might like the sweater is stupid - as he talks to her about it.
Brandon drops Maripier off at the gym. There's a bit that's supposed to be cute where she leans over for a kiss, and he pretends he can't reach her, and then gives in and kisses her. Then, as she gets out of the car, he says, "Have a good workout. Keep that ass tight." The Sportsnet review says, "The line stands alone, so icky and controlling and mean-spirited that it’s hard to imagine how even the most misleading editing could have changed the intent." I can see a world in which that's a joke between the two of them that fell flat on camera, but that world is not our world. In our world, it's one more way Brandon acts like an entitled asshole. Maripier talks about Brandon's workouts - we see some footage of him working out in what I recognize as the Habs' facilities; interestingly, the show did not get clearances from the team, and every instance of the Habs name/logo is blurred out, including on his shirt - and says, "He's a dude. Like, he's a real guy. ... But when you look at him, he looks like a caveman. He's rough on the edges, and that's what I like." His workout is contrasted with hers, about which she says, "Working out is definitely not for me. It's crap."
After the gym, Brandon and Maripier go shopping, which is an interesting look into the culture of hockey players in Montreal. Maripier says, "In Montreal, the hockey players make big bucks, they're in great shape, they look good, they drive nice cars, they wear nice clothes. A store will close their door for Brandon to come shopping." They are, indeed, the only people in the store. They do credit card roulette to see which of them is going to pay for his clothes, and Maripier is very excited to "win." "You're not supposed to cheer when you win," Brandon tells her.
The culmination of their day together is a charity event Maripier is hosting in both French and English. Brandon hassles her about getting out of the house on time, and about smoking: "You're gonna have a smoke. This is what's gonna happen. We have fifteen minutes and you're gonna have a smoke. ... You know smoking is bad for you. ... You don't need a smoke." Maripier's commentary on this is, "Brandon and I, we always fight. It's so frustrating. ... Brandon hates me smoking." Brandon apparently has no idea what she's doing at this event, as he's confused by the idea that she has to have a speech prepared, and doesn't quite get that it's stressing her out both because she has to switch back and forth between English and French and because she's comfortable on camera but gets nervous speaking in front of people. Brandon continues to harp on her smoking - "See, if you hadn't had that cigarette we would be right on time." - and stands in the doorway sighing as she tidies up a few last things in the kitchen: "You want to clean anything else up before we go?"
The event goes well, and we also get to see Maripier taking pictures with the other Habs wives and girlfriends participating in the event: Angela Price, Rhianna Weaver, Larissa Gilbert, and Elsa Parenteau. This was a really nice contrast to Brijet, Tiffany, and Kodette's conversation about not having the support of a team full of wives and girlfriends. On a not really related to Maripier note, as part of the fundraiser, they raffle off a Carey Price jersey. The winner asks Maripier if she can meet Carey, and Maripier in voiceover says, "Carey Price is a superstar. People are obsessed with him. He's the star of the team. When people in the room realized that the guys were there, and that Carey Price was there, I kind of saw a wave coming from the back of the room, like people trying to get close to him."
In the first episode of the show, Maripier talked about telling Brandon to go home for the summer and figure out if he really wanted to be with her, and she says that she thinks it never occurred to him that he might lose her. Given the fact that they're still together despite the way he's treated her in all the interactions we've seen, I don't think he's wrong. The Sportsnet review says, "One of Maripier Morin’s friends needs to have a serious talk with her. ... On the show, their relationship appears to be an endless spiral of passive-aggression: Maripier complains of some way in which Brandon is brushing her off; Brandon doubles down, wearing the sort of open-mouthed look of adolescent scorn that must drive substitute teachers to drink oceans of wine; Maripier pouts, trying to put a sassy spin on what looks like genuine hurt; Brandon grudgingly offers a tiny crumb of affection while finding one last way to take a shot at her." I was glad to see that even the mainstream reviewers are realizing how awful this interaction is. For Maripier's sake, I hope this isn't what her everyday life is like.
Content note: Tiffany uses a gendered slur. The show beeps it out, but I've reproduced it here as part of a quote from her.
Noureen
For this episode, we go home to Georgia with Noureen for an Indian baby shower. Noureen says, "Growing up in Stone Mountain, Georgia, there were not a lot of other Indian families, but there were other Indians in the state of Georgia, which we tried to get in close contact with immediately once we moved there." Of all of the people around for the baby shower, we get to meet five significant ones: Noureen's parents, her two sisters, and one of her longtime friends. Noureen's older sister Aziza is a law professor, and her younger sister Sara is a lawyer; Noureen says, "I myself am educated from Boston University. I studied theater there and international relations, and I graduated in three years with a 3.8 GPA, but compared to my sisters, I'm really nothing." We don't see Sara or Noureen's mom much, but we do see Aziza not putting up with Noureen's dramatics. "I feel like people don't know that I have a really good body anymore," Noureen says, and Aziza teases her back by saying, "I feel like people don't know how hot I am all the time." That's said in good humor, but as Aziza continues to not be interested in Noureen's dramatics, Noureen says, "She doesn't really have time to tolerate my bullshit." Noureen also says, "I think it's obvious that my family and I have some cultural differences. I'm not sure how I fit into all this."
I'm starting to really like Noureen, and I greatly enjoyed seeing her at home for her baby shower. There are serious moments here. She says to Aziza about her baby, "If my child is completely white, I'm going to be upset. ... We're going to have to bond on a different level since we don't share the same skin color." She needs to take a twenty-minute break from all the people and the activity. She's really excited to see Erica. The show captions Erica as "Noureen's childhood friend;" Noureen says she was the maid of honor at Erica's wedding and Erica was the maid of honor at hers. I was the maid of honor for someone I've been friends with since fourth grade, so I could really relate to this. At the end of the party, Noureen FaceTimes Ryan, and then gets her dad to say hi to him too. Noureen says of her dad's relationship with Ryan, "He texts him after almost all of his games, stuff like, 'Great effort, son,' 'You did a great job,' 'You are a wonderful player.'"
There are also a lot of bits around the baby shower designed to make you laugh, and I loved the way the camera and Noureen's family framed the jokes. We see Noureen talking to a woman who's labeled only as "Noureen's Auntie." Then we get Noureen's explanation that, "'Auntie' is a term that you use for any older Indian lady. She could be your real auntie. She could not be your real auntie." The camera goes back to the party to show a crowd of older women in saris with the caption, "Noureen's Aunties." One of the baby shower games is a quiz, which includes the question, "What position does Daddy Miller play in hockey?" After the women chorus "goalie," Sara asks, "Did anyone put 'quarterback' or 'left winger?'" and one woman sheepishly raises her hand. Noureen talks about growing up very Americanized and drops right into a creditable Southern accent. I think despite the first episode's deliberate attempt to make Noureen unlikeable, she might turn out to be the best character on the show.
Tiffany
Tiffany's adventures in this episode include packing up to move and visiting Brijet in Scottsdale. The moving adventure is mostly entertaining for George, who is left to do the final walkthrough of the house - "Oh, no, Tiff, come on, you're killing me," he says when finds a still full kitchen cabinet; it only escalates from there - and who has to drive their car up onto the trailer and then somehow get out of it without being able to open the doors. The show cheats us out of the ending of this last adventure by cutting off with George sticking his feet out of the window. My favorite comment on this move is from this article, which says, "It ends with them packing up for Las Vegas, which for people who say they move a lot, they are not very good at." Tiffany says about her frustration in the packing process, "Moving is stressful for me because I'm OCD, so, like, to see things not perfect, that part is the tough part." I have no idea if she means she actually has OCD or, more likely, she means the colloquial use of preferring strict order. She also says they're loading the car onto the trailer instead of having it shipped because, "Every time we've shipped our car, we've had a leather seat ripped from a key or the truck driver gets in the car and leaves oil stains all around the wheel. My poor car has been damaged enough from shippers." She follows this up with being annoyed with both George and his dad as they try to figure out the best place to position the trailer to drive the car up on it: "Those two men cannot make a decision to save their lives. I think they're brilliant, but on paper."
If you're sensing a pattern here, you're not wrong, and it doesn't stop there. When she's out with Kodette and Brijet in Scottsdale, she tells a story about how the first half of the season they were in Anaheim, her kids were in the hospital, so she wasn't involved with the other wives and girlfriends. "One of the new girlfriends tried to kick me out of the wives' room after I'd been there seven years because I showed up at the end of December, and they were like, 'Who is this girl in the wives' room?'" Brijet, who seems to be a very kind, diplomatic person says, "What should have happened, I think, would be that someone would walk up to you and go, 'Hi,'" to which Tiffany replies, "You'd think. If she wasn't a cunt that wouldn't have happened." Tiffany is extremely money and status conscious, and her narrative throughout this show is not only that other people are always terrible to her, but also that she and George don't get invited to spend time with people because the rest of the hockey world, at least in LA, only cares about you if you're playing and you have money. While that might be true for some people, watching this show, I think it's also extremely possible that people who included her in their social circle while their husbands were coworkers are taking this opportunity to no longer spend time with someone who comes across as consistently angry, bitter, and unpleasant to be around. I really want to be compassionate toward her and feel for whatever suffering she's going through that is coming out this way, but I have to admit that it's a real struggle.
The relationships with other women should give us a positive view of Tiffany. Noureen and Kodette both name her as a close friend, and Maripier said in an interview that she was a little distrustful of the wives and girlfriends social circle until she became friends with Tiffany. Unfortunately, it's not really working out that way. In this episode, while they're both in Scottsdale, Tiffany and Kodette go horseback riding - "I'm not a mani-pedi chatty kind of girl. ... When most kids were going to show and tell and they were bringing, you know, their stuffed bear, I was bringing a soda can that I shot and I would say, you know, whatever gun I used to shoot it. I'm certainly not scared of horses like some people are," Tiffany says - and then sit down to chat. Their "chat" is mostly Tiffany saying, "Complaining about it is not, like, gonna help the situation. You just have to, like, move forward. ... Just being alone and away from your husband and moving around all the time, and you don't have time to feel sorry for yourself basically." Now, she might have something of a point in terms of general life advice - if all you do is complain without looking for a way to make things better, nothing's going to get better - but in the specific moment, it's really out of place. First of all, there's a difference between complaining and talking about how you feel. We don't get to see much of what Kodette has to say, but my impression of her is that she's not a complainer, but she might need someone to listen to her and be sympathetic to how she feels. Kodette herself, despite her comment to the camera that Tiffany is a great friend, has a "Why are you telling me this?/This is not what I wanted" look on her face in response to this. Secondly, while Tiffany is taking charge of moving to a place where they can create a new social circle, a not insignificant amount of her time on this show has been spent complaining. I really hope her move to Vegas also includes whatever kind of life change is going to let her learn to be happy.
Brijet
I like Brijet a lot. Every time we've seen her in a situation where the conversation gets awkward or mean, she redirects in a very kind, gentle way. She seems very settled into herself. I expect most of this is because she's a few years older than the other women on this show, and we tend to be better at knowing who we are as we get older. In this episode, she talks about dancing. She danced all the way from the time she was three into her year of University, and then did choreography for professional companies. She says, "When I'm dancing. I feel so overjoyed. ... You kind of put yourself on a back burner being a mom, but you have to keep finding a place for yourself, no matter what is. Something that gives you a little fire, you have to nurture it." Now that Ray is home and they're staying in one place, she can expand out into dancing a little more, and we follow her to guest teach a tap class at a studio owned by a friend of hers from her professional dancing days. I will admit that I am a total sucker for people dancing and also people learning things, so I absolutely loved watching her teach kids tap dancing.
Brijet in this episode also gets to have a really interesting conversation around the business of hockey. Brijet and Kodette go over to Wendy Tippett's, and Wendy and Brijet chat while Kodette and her boys swim. Brijet asks Wendy how Dave started coaching. Wendy tells her that Dave played in the minor leagues during a previous lockout, then got injured and decided his body couldn't do it anymore. The team then offered him a place as assistant coach. "He said, 'Okay, we're making $35,000 a year assistant coaching.' I'm like," here she gives a dramatic, gulping gasp, "'Okay, bit of an adjustment.'" Wendy then gives Brijet some advice if Ray is looking to coach: "When you go in for a coaching job, if they say to you, 'Your wife is not allowed to talk to a player's wife,' you need to say, 'We can't take this job, because I can't do that.'" This is exactly the kind of thing I want to know about these women navigating the hockey world as an institution.
That wasn't the only conversation in this episode about how the change in their husbands' circumstances affects the women's social lives. Brijet, Tiffany, and Kodette go out for drinks on Kodette and Tiffany's last night in town. There's a great sequence where they get served lemon drop shots in tiny mugs; Brijet says she's going to sip hers, Tiffany makes a disapproving face at that but only drinks half of hers to start with, and Kodette throws the whole thing back. Tiffany says, "If you go out with Kodette, five minutes after you get there, you'll be looking around the bar and she's dancing with a stranger." Brijet asks, "Do you remember the Halloween party in, um?" and Kodette says, with a laugh, "Probably not." The rest of the conversation is about how the three of them no longer have the support that comes with being part of a team of wives. Brijet and Kodette are particularly close. Brijet says that when Ryder was diagnosed, she was there and talking to Kodette all the time. Kodette says, "In Scottsdale, we were all so close, and we did everything together," and then, specifically about Brijet, "They lived right behind us, and Brijet and I always did everything together." It's hard for the three of them to now be in situations where they don't have the built-in support and friendship of other wives.
For all that I like Brijet, there is one thing I find continually frustrating about her story. She and Ray hang out with Tiffany - Tiffany stays with them on her trip to Scottsdale - and Brijet listens carefully when Tiffany asks Ray about his plans. Brijet's voiceover comment is, "I just kind of perk up and listen. I'm not sure if it makes Ray uncomfortable or not, because Ray's not telling me. I, at this point, still don't know what Ray's plan is. ... I'm so frustrated, just waiting and wondering." When she's out with Tiffany and Kodette, Brijet again says in voiceover, "It's definitely hard for me to talk to Ray about what's coming next and what's going on." To the other women says, "I was like, You know what, I'm tiptoeing around your emotions right now because I'm really worried about what's happening, but the truth is, this is happening to me too. For twenty-three years, this has been my life too, and I don't know if you realize how it not being there is affecting me as well," but there's no follow-up to indicate that she and Ray actually talked about it. I resorted to actually yelling at the screen, "You could ask him!" I find it incredibly frustrating that not only have they apparently not talked about this, but that she hasn't asked. "What are your thoughts/feelings about this big change in our life circumstances?" is a highly appropriate question to ask your partner.
Maripier Morin
In this episode, Maripier and Brandon spend a day together. This review says about this, "Early in this episode, Maripier talks about how excited she is to spend a whole day with Brandon since their schedules don’t often allow it. Then you wonder why." It's a good point. We begin with the two of them in the car together. Maripier asks if Brandon put his clothes away, and then if he saw the sweater she bought him. He tells her he hates it and they argue about it for a bit. Personally, I agree that it's an ugly sweater - you can see it here - and in the absence of any other knowledge about their relationship, this wouldn't seem that bad. But we do know enough about their relationship dynamic now that it's just one more example of Brandon being unkind to her, especially with his tone - he seems to imply that anyone who might like the sweater is stupid - as he talks to her about it.
Brandon drops Maripier off at the gym. There's a bit that's supposed to be cute where she leans over for a kiss, and he pretends he can't reach her, and then gives in and kisses her. Then, as she gets out of the car, he says, "Have a good workout. Keep that ass tight." The Sportsnet review says, "The line stands alone, so icky and controlling and mean-spirited that it’s hard to imagine how even the most misleading editing could have changed the intent." I can see a world in which that's a joke between the two of them that fell flat on camera, but that world is not our world. In our world, it's one more way Brandon acts like an entitled asshole. Maripier talks about Brandon's workouts - we see some footage of him working out in what I recognize as the Habs' facilities; interestingly, the show did not get clearances from the team, and every instance of the Habs name/logo is blurred out, including on his shirt - and says, "He's a dude. Like, he's a real guy. ... But when you look at him, he looks like a caveman. He's rough on the edges, and that's what I like." His workout is contrasted with hers, about which she says, "Working out is definitely not for me. It's crap."
After the gym, Brandon and Maripier go shopping, which is an interesting look into the culture of hockey players in Montreal. Maripier says, "In Montreal, the hockey players make big bucks, they're in great shape, they look good, they drive nice cars, they wear nice clothes. A store will close their door for Brandon to come shopping." They are, indeed, the only people in the store. They do credit card roulette to see which of them is going to pay for his clothes, and Maripier is very excited to "win." "You're not supposed to cheer when you win," Brandon tells her.
The culmination of their day together is a charity event Maripier is hosting in both French and English. Brandon hassles her about getting out of the house on time, and about smoking: "You're gonna have a smoke. This is what's gonna happen. We have fifteen minutes and you're gonna have a smoke. ... You know smoking is bad for you. ... You don't need a smoke." Maripier's commentary on this is, "Brandon and I, we always fight. It's so frustrating. ... Brandon hates me smoking." Brandon apparently has no idea what she's doing at this event, as he's confused by the idea that she has to have a speech prepared, and doesn't quite get that it's stressing her out both because she has to switch back and forth between English and French and because she's comfortable on camera but gets nervous speaking in front of people. Brandon continues to harp on her smoking - "See, if you hadn't had that cigarette we would be right on time." - and stands in the doorway sighing as she tidies up a few last things in the kitchen: "You want to clean anything else up before we go?"
The event goes well, and we also get to see Maripier taking pictures with the other Habs wives and girlfriends participating in the event: Angela Price, Rhianna Weaver, Larissa Gilbert, and Elsa Parenteau. This was a really nice contrast to Brijet, Tiffany, and Kodette's conversation about not having the support of a team full of wives and girlfriends. On a not really related to Maripier note, as part of the fundraiser, they raffle off a Carey Price jersey. The winner asks Maripier if she can meet Carey, and Maripier in voiceover says, "Carey Price is a superstar. People are obsessed with him. He's the star of the team. When people in the room realized that the guys were there, and that Carey Price was there, I kind of saw a wave coming from the back of the room, like people trying to get close to him."
In the first episode of the show, Maripier talked about telling Brandon to go home for the summer and figure out if he really wanted to be with her, and she says that she thinks it never occurred to him that he might lose her. Given the fact that they're still together despite the way he's treated her in all the interactions we've seen, I don't think he's wrong. The Sportsnet review says, "One of Maripier Morin’s friends needs to have a serious talk with her. ... On the show, their relationship appears to be an endless spiral of passive-aggression: Maripier complains of some way in which Brandon is brushing her off; Brandon doubles down, wearing the sort of open-mouthed look of adolescent scorn that must drive substitute teachers to drink oceans of wine; Maripier pouts, trying to put a sassy spin on what looks like genuine hurt; Brandon grudgingly offers a tiny crumb of affection while finding one last way to take a shot at her." I was glad to see that even the mainstream reviewers are realizing how awful this interaction is. For Maripier's sake, I hope this isn't what her everyday life is like.