Hockey Wives: Season 1, Episode 5
In a comment on last week's post, secretsolitaire said, "I found this episode a little more boring than some of the others -- not sure why exactly." I enjoyed last week's episode, but this week's is where I started to lose interest, to the point that I kept bringing up the controls on my video player to see if I was close to the end yet. I'm not sure what made this episode less interesting to me than the others.
As seems to be the pattern now, this week's episode follows five of the women around - Nicole Brown, Kodette LaBarbera, Emilie Blum, Tiffany Parros, and Maripier Morin - including a planned trip for two of them - Maripier and Tiffany - to spend time together.
Nicole
Nicole plays in two hockey tournaments a year, one in Vegas and one in Phoenix. She says, "For me now that I'm older and not playing competitive hockey anymore, the social part of it for me is huge. Be around other people. Get to have adult time and not be talking to children all the time." In this episode, we go with her and Dustin to the one in Vegas. Dustin is going along because he's supposed to be coaching Nicole's team, and she seems to appreciate that they get to do this together: "To be away from the kids, to let loose, and to have my husband with me while I do that, which is very rare, it's really nice."
Probably the most entertaining bit of this adventure is the morning of their first game. Dustin is still half asleep in bed. Nicole sits on the foot of the bed eating, with some of the women she plays hockey with arrayed on the couch and chairs in their room. This is also where Nicole says, "They're not friends with me because of who Dustin is or what he does. They're friends with me because of me. I think it's really important to have friends that keep you grounded and friends that, quite frankly, can't get traded." I thought this was really interesting. We've seen women on this show talk about needing something for themselves - Brijet and her dancing, for example - and we've seen some of the results of how trades/the business of hockey affects their friendships with other women, but we haven't seen anyone tackle it quite so directly.
Dustin is supposed to be coaching, but Nicole, who adorably wears number 23 to play, notes that every time she looks over, he's signing autographs or taking pictures. The only time we see him even come over to the bench is after Nicole makes a mistake. He bangs on the glass and says, "What was that? ... Don't ever slide. Stay on your feet." In talking to the camera, Nicole says, "He likes to only come to the bench when I do something wrong. I make a slide on a two-on-one, and the puck ends up in the back of our net. My husband I don't think could get over to our bench fast enough to tell me not to ever do that again. Of course it's the only time he's watching. He's so annoying. Asshole." My favorite reviewers were back this week, with a conversation where one of them says, "Dustin Brown SERIOUSLY comes off as a piece of garbage. ... No one would be a total asshole on TV without some editing right? He isn’t a terrible person? Oh god." I somewhat disagree with this. He doesn't come off great, and I have some questions about how solid the Browns' relationship foundation is, but I get the sense that the chirping is a part of their relationship. When Nicole calls him an asshole, she didn't seem particularly upset about; she seemed like she had to make some comment to narrate the experience to the cameras. There's also what happens after the game: they go out for pizza and beer. Nicole says, "Hockey is our common bond. That's what brought us together in the first place, and it's his passion and it was my passion for many, many years. I'm way easier to deal with after a loss. Dustin takes it home and he is cranky for hours, and I just have a beer after the game and everything is okay."
Kodette LaBarbera
I like Kodette! I think she's probably a really interesting person with a lot of different facets. I was not particularly invested in her story this week. Jason is in Calgary for a game, so he comes over to hang out with Kodette and the kids for the evening. She offers him meatloaf, and he looks at the pan and says, "That's dinner? Gee, thanks." Does anyone in the hockey world treat their partner with kindness? Anyway, Kodette says, "I don't know what he expected, though. He knows I don't cook," and offers to order him a pizza instead.
The kids also take Jason downstairs to see the cat. Kodette explains: "Jason doesn't like cats. We've gone there before. I would bug him for years to get me a cat and he wouldn't let me have one so I would just buy shirts with kittens on them and just wear them around the house just to bug him." The cat, she tells Jason, is a shelter cat that's sick - "She just has a cold," she's quick to reassure him - and has to be kept separate from the other cats. Once it's better, it goes back to the shelter.
Most of Kodette's time in this episode is taken up with carting her kids around to see Jason, and explaining to Ryder and Easton what Daddy's circumstances are. I don't know why this didn't work for me. I would be all over this if it were kidfic, but maybe I just don't have enough attachment to Jason or the kids to be that interested.
Emilie
I have to admit that I wrote the rest of this entry, then remembered that Emilie was also in this episode and I should say something about her. Emilie and Jon move into an apartment in Iowa. Emilie goes to a game where she's part of a presentation to Defending the Blue Line, an organization that provides hockey equipment and tickets to military families. Emilie says, "I love to be connected especially to military charities, because it's just so close to my heart." Then we see Emilie and Jon playing Scrabble. Jon talks about the possibility of going to Europe. To Jon she says, "Your dream was not to play in Europe. Your dream was to play in the NHL. ... You know, I didn't marry you to have a long-distance marriage, so, we'll see," and to the camera, "I've worked very hard to support the United States, I'm patriotic, and I just would feel uncomfortable as an American living in Europe. If the offers should dry up here in the United States and Jon really feels like he has to make that decision to play in Europe, I would definitely have to really think about whether or not I would go with him." She apparently clarified on Twitter that she wouldn't object to Canada, but that Europe would be too far away from Jon's mom and the language barrier would make it hard for her to continue her charity work.
One of the National Post reviewers said she thinks Emilie is becoming the fan favorite. I can see why - she's sweet, and she doesn't really say controversial things - but I can't find it in me to care about her much. She doesn't seem to have much depth, and I can't tell if that's because she's only showing us the inoffensive facade (in a more interesting movie, she would be a superspy of some sort) or because she doesn't have much going on in her life other than following her husband around.
Tiffany
I liked Tiffany much better at the beginning of this episode than I have at any other time on the show. George and Tiffany did not rent any of the houses Tiffany looked at in episode three, but instead are moving into an apartment that Jill found for them. Jill, who in this episode is captioned as "Hometown Friend" (So many questions! Is Tiffany from Vegas? How do they know each other?), comes over to see how Tiffany likes the place and how they're settling in. Tiffany, in answer to a question about having more time for her business says with her usual brashness, "He still makes more money than me, even in retirement. I do all the wifey stuff, so I make up for it. Cook, clean, blow jobs, check. It's like, 'You got five minutes?'" I had to watch this again because I thought, "Did she really just say that and did they really not edit it out?"
Then Tiffany tells us about her philosophy of moving with small children. She and George move all their things, and then bring the kids in. "How do you explain, okay, we're putting your toys in this box. You're gonna get this toy back. In their mind, they see it in a box, and they think, oh, you're taking this toy away from me. It's tough for them." Part of this, she explains, is that she is extra protective because they were born premature at 24 weeks, which is just viable. George was with the Ducks opening the season in Finland, and for ten days Tiffany was in pain with children in the hospital without him. Three months later, they were able to come home. Tiffany says, "When you see your kids go through something that early, you're shocked into knowing how precious it is, and so you hold a little bit tighter, and it recalibrates, like, the way you think about things."
George and Tiffany bring the kids into their new apartment and show them around, which is super adorable. They're both very enthusiastic about the new place and do their best to make it a good experience for the kids. Tiffany says, "I'm sure all this transitioning is hard on them. Finally to the age where they're starting to understand this is not normal. I have to put a smile on my face and be excited, because I want my kids to be excited. I want them to have good attitudes about moving, and I want them to see different places." One of the rooms, possibly the kids' room doesn't have any lights, and Tiffany says, "I'm sure it's scary for them, but George will stay up all night fixing everything that's wrong with it." They take the kids to the upstairs part of the loft, but coming down the stairs makes Tiffany nervous - they're open stairs with thin, wire railings - so she suggests they slide down the stairs on their butts. She comments, "You want your house to be stylish, but at the same time, you don't want your kid to die." I found all of this with her kids really heartfelt and sympathetic, and I liked her a lot. This didn't last, but we'll get to that in a moment.
Maripier
This episode covers Brandon and Maripier's Rad Hourani shoot, which, for a shoot that resulted in an incredibly sexy photo, is extremely unsexy. Brandon and Maripier spend half the time apart - Brandon does part of the shoot alone while Maripier plays around with the Instagram for Lola (their dog). Lola is there too, wandering around until they ask Brandon to hold her for the shoot. Then Brandon and Maripier wander around the cold streets of Montreal - "Why can we never shoot in September?" Maripier asks - while Maripier in voiceover/to the camera tells us, "I like being the center of the attention. Attention's always on Brandon. I think he likes it. Professional athletes get their ego fed by so many people. They get totally lost in that world. Their personality changes. Sometimes I feel like he feels too cool for school. I'm like, dude, you're not one of those guys." This is the second time she's talked about not being the center of attention when Brandon's around, and she doesn't seem to like it. I was also disturbed by the part where she doesn't seem to think that he's one of those guys. From what we've seen of Brandon, he is exactly that entitled.
The rest of Maripier's time is spent with Tiffany, who comes to visit. They start out their visit by making brunch for the two of them and Brandon. This is the part where everything is terrible. Maripier says she and Tiffany are like big sister and little sister; Tiffany says, "Sometimes it's big sister, little sister, but sometimes she acts like my three-year-old so I feel like the mother." Maripier says about Tiffany and Brandon's treatment of her, "Tiffany and Brandon are pretty good at teaming up against me. I have a really good sense of humor, so sometimes they feel comfortable pushing, pushing, pushing." Then Brandon says, looking at a magazine Maripier is featured in, "Only two pages?" Maripier tells the camera, "When Brandon told me my spread was only two pages, he was kind of making fun of me, and I got angry, and I know that's the reaction he wants, but if I do get angry, I let them win. But I know that deep down he's so proud of me, and he does that just for me to not get a big head." Brandon and Tiffany continue to mock her - she looks unhappy - and she tells the camera, "Sometimes the line is pretty thin between a joke and a comment that can hurt my feelings." This is painful, so painful. It's painful to watch, and you can tell that it's painful for Maripier to live.
Tiffany and Maripier go shopping at Duo, Brandon's favorite store, partly so Maripier can pick out a Christmas gift for him, and partly so they can stand around and have a conversation for the cameras. Maripier says she's still so jealous when other women hit on Brandon. Tiffany says, "You act like he's the only one that gets hit on," and to the camera, "I don't think you should ever marry anyone you don't trust a hundred percent." It turns out that the thing that most made me like Maripier when I read it in a profile is something she also says in this conversation: "For me, my ideal dream would be to have kids and then ten years from now to get married and have our kids, like, walking down the aisle with us. But it's like, that would be our celebration of us making it."
Maripier also says to Tiffany, "People don't take us seriously because we're not engaged." To the cameras, Tiffany says, "Girlfriends are treated differently than wives, I don't care what you say. I felt the difference," but to Maripier, she says, "Maybe people don't take you seriously because you fight all the time." Maripier's response is, "We don't fight," which really needed an Arrested Development-style flashback captioned "earlier that season" with her comment from the last episode that, "Brandon and I, we always fight." I liked that Tiffany pushed back a little bit, and that she brought up the fighting. I think it was a good friend thing to do to point that out, and it gives us the (depressing) sense that the show is accurately portraying Brandon and Maripier's relationship. If Tiffany had stopped there, I would have been fine with her in this scene, but she doubles down on berating Maripier about her relationship. I mean, I'm talking about it a lot in very disapproving ways, but I only know her as a character, and I would be much gentler about it if I were actually speaking to her.
The last thing Tiffany and Maripier do together is go out with some of "the girls" who make up the Habs wives and girlfriends. Rhianna Weaver and Angela Price make sense; Dominica, Jiri Sekac's girlfriend, does not. She wasn't there when George and Tiffany were there, and I wasn't sure why Maripier invited her to be part of this friends for Tiffany to hang out with group. Maripier is still set on renting a house somewhere for All-Star break, despite earlier saying that Brandon wants to go to London, Ontario for his best friend's stag and doe party. She urges Tiffany and George to come with them, which Tiffany doesn't take kindly to because Maripier isn't thinking about the change in her financial situation. The other way Maripier puts her foot in her mouth is by telling Tiffany that the thing that makes this year different is that the women have a much stronger bond. Tiffany says, "Great, when I leave. Perfect. That makes me feel good. It's like a backhanded compliment," and then to the camera, "It was backhanded, but, you know, people say stupid shit all the time." Earlier in this episode, Tiffany says to the camera, "I love MP, and the most entertaining thing about her is she is, I wanna say self-absorbed, but not in a bad way," and she seems warm and charmed about it, but that didn't come across in their interactions. Maripier did not conduct herself particularly well here, and I haven't seen any evidence that she has any idea what a healthy relationship of any variety looks like, but this episode really left me wondering if anyone in her life treats her with kindness. I sure hope so.
As seems to be the pattern now, this week's episode follows five of the women around - Nicole Brown, Kodette LaBarbera, Emilie Blum, Tiffany Parros, and Maripier Morin - including a planned trip for two of them - Maripier and Tiffany - to spend time together.
Nicole
Nicole plays in two hockey tournaments a year, one in Vegas and one in Phoenix. She says, "For me now that I'm older and not playing competitive hockey anymore, the social part of it for me is huge. Be around other people. Get to have adult time and not be talking to children all the time." In this episode, we go with her and Dustin to the one in Vegas. Dustin is going along because he's supposed to be coaching Nicole's team, and she seems to appreciate that they get to do this together: "To be away from the kids, to let loose, and to have my husband with me while I do that, which is very rare, it's really nice."
Probably the most entertaining bit of this adventure is the morning of their first game. Dustin is still half asleep in bed. Nicole sits on the foot of the bed eating, with some of the women she plays hockey with arrayed on the couch and chairs in their room. This is also where Nicole says, "They're not friends with me because of who Dustin is or what he does. They're friends with me because of me. I think it's really important to have friends that keep you grounded and friends that, quite frankly, can't get traded." I thought this was really interesting. We've seen women on this show talk about needing something for themselves - Brijet and her dancing, for example - and we've seen some of the results of how trades/the business of hockey affects their friendships with other women, but we haven't seen anyone tackle it quite so directly.
Dustin is supposed to be coaching, but Nicole, who adorably wears number 23 to play, notes that every time she looks over, he's signing autographs or taking pictures. The only time we see him even come over to the bench is after Nicole makes a mistake. He bangs on the glass and says, "What was that? ... Don't ever slide. Stay on your feet." In talking to the camera, Nicole says, "He likes to only come to the bench when I do something wrong. I make a slide on a two-on-one, and the puck ends up in the back of our net. My husband I don't think could get over to our bench fast enough to tell me not to ever do that again. Of course it's the only time he's watching. He's so annoying. Asshole." My favorite reviewers were back this week, with a conversation where one of them says, "Dustin Brown SERIOUSLY comes off as a piece of garbage. ... No one would be a total asshole on TV without some editing right? He isn’t a terrible person? Oh god." I somewhat disagree with this. He doesn't come off great, and I have some questions about how solid the Browns' relationship foundation is, but I get the sense that the chirping is a part of their relationship. When Nicole calls him an asshole, she didn't seem particularly upset about; she seemed like she had to make some comment to narrate the experience to the cameras. There's also what happens after the game: they go out for pizza and beer. Nicole says, "Hockey is our common bond. That's what brought us together in the first place, and it's his passion and it was my passion for many, many years. I'm way easier to deal with after a loss. Dustin takes it home and he is cranky for hours, and I just have a beer after the game and everything is okay."
Kodette LaBarbera
I like Kodette! I think she's probably a really interesting person with a lot of different facets. I was not particularly invested in her story this week. Jason is in Calgary for a game, so he comes over to hang out with Kodette and the kids for the evening. She offers him meatloaf, and he looks at the pan and says, "That's dinner? Gee, thanks." Does anyone in the hockey world treat their partner with kindness? Anyway, Kodette says, "I don't know what he expected, though. He knows I don't cook," and offers to order him a pizza instead.
The kids also take Jason downstairs to see the cat. Kodette explains: "Jason doesn't like cats. We've gone there before. I would bug him for years to get me a cat and he wouldn't let me have one so I would just buy shirts with kittens on them and just wear them around the house just to bug him." The cat, she tells Jason, is a shelter cat that's sick - "She just has a cold," she's quick to reassure him - and has to be kept separate from the other cats. Once it's better, it goes back to the shelter.
Most of Kodette's time in this episode is taken up with carting her kids around to see Jason, and explaining to Ryder and Easton what Daddy's circumstances are. I don't know why this didn't work for me. I would be all over this if it were kidfic, but maybe I just don't have enough attachment to Jason or the kids to be that interested.
Emilie
I have to admit that I wrote the rest of this entry, then remembered that Emilie was also in this episode and I should say something about her. Emilie and Jon move into an apartment in Iowa. Emilie goes to a game where she's part of a presentation to Defending the Blue Line, an organization that provides hockey equipment and tickets to military families. Emilie says, "I love to be connected especially to military charities, because it's just so close to my heart." Then we see Emilie and Jon playing Scrabble. Jon talks about the possibility of going to Europe. To Jon she says, "Your dream was not to play in Europe. Your dream was to play in the NHL. ... You know, I didn't marry you to have a long-distance marriage, so, we'll see," and to the camera, "I've worked very hard to support the United States, I'm patriotic, and I just would feel uncomfortable as an American living in Europe. If the offers should dry up here in the United States and Jon really feels like he has to make that decision to play in Europe, I would definitely have to really think about whether or not I would go with him." She apparently clarified on Twitter that she wouldn't object to Canada, but that Europe would be too far away from Jon's mom and the language barrier would make it hard for her to continue her charity work.
One of the National Post reviewers said she thinks Emilie is becoming the fan favorite. I can see why - she's sweet, and she doesn't really say controversial things - but I can't find it in me to care about her much. She doesn't seem to have much depth, and I can't tell if that's because she's only showing us the inoffensive facade (in a more interesting movie, she would be a superspy of some sort) or because she doesn't have much going on in her life other than following her husband around.
Tiffany
I liked Tiffany much better at the beginning of this episode than I have at any other time on the show. George and Tiffany did not rent any of the houses Tiffany looked at in episode three, but instead are moving into an apartment that Jill found for them. Jill, who in this episode is captioned as "Hometown Friend" (So many questions! Is Tiffany from Vegas? How do they know each other?), comes over to see how Tiffany likes the place and how they're settling in. Tiffany, in answer to a question about having more time for her business says with her usual brashness, "He still makes more money than me, even in retirement. I do all the wifey stuff, so I make up for it. Cook, clean, blow jobs, check. It's like, 'You got five minutes?'" I had to watch this again because I thought, "Did she really just say that and did they really not edit it out?"
Then Tiffany tells us about her philosophy of moving with small children. She and George move all their things, and then bring the kids in. "How do you explain, okay, we're putting your toys in this box. You're gonna get this toy back. In their mind, they see it in a box, and they think, oh, you're taking this toy away from me. It's tough for them." Part of this, she explains, is that she is extra protective because they were born premature at 24 weeks, which is just viable. George was with the Ducks opening the season in Finland, and for ten days Tiffany was in pain with children in the hospital without him. Three months later, they were able to come home. Tiffany says, "When you see your kids go through something that early, you're shocked into knowing how precious it is, and so you hold a little bit tighter, and it recalibrates, like, the way you think about things."
George and Tiffany bring the kids into their new apartment and show them around, which is super adorable. They're both very enthusiastic about the new place and do their best to make it a good experience for the kids. Tiffany says, "I'm sure all this transitioning is hard on them. Finally to the age where they're starting to understand this is not normal. I have to put a smile on my face and be excited, because I want my kids to be excited. I want them to have good attitudes about moving, and I want them to see different places." One of the rooms, possibly the kids' room doesn't have any lights, and Tiffany says, "I'm sure it's scary for them, but George will stay up all night fixing everything that's wrong with it." They take the kids to the upstairs part of the loft, but coming down the stairs makes Tiffany nervous - they're open stairs with thin, wire railings - so she suggests they slide down the stairs on their butts. She comments, "You want your house to be stylish, but at the same time, you don't want your kid to die." I found all of this with her kids really heartfelt and sympathetic, and I liked her a lot. This didn't last, but we'll get to that in a moment.
Maripier
This episode covers Brandon and Maripier's Rad Hourani shoot, which, for a shoot that resulted in an incredibly sexy photo, is extremely unsexy. Brandon and Maripier spend half the time apart - Brandon does part of the shoot alone while Maripier plays around with the Instagram for Lola (their dog). Lola is there too, wandering around until they ask Brandon to hold her for the shoot. Then Brandon and Maripier wander around the cold streets of Montreal - "Why can we never shoot in September?" Maripier asks - while Maripier in voiceover/to the camera tells us, "I like being the center of the attention. Attention's always on Brandon. I think he likes it. Professional athletes get their ego fed by so many people. They get totally lost in that world. Their personality changes. Sometimes I feel like he feels too cool for school. I'm like, dude, you're not one of those guys." This is the second time she's talked about not being the center of attention when Brandon's around, and she doesn't seem to like it. I was also disturbed by the part where she doesn't seem to think that he's one of those guys. From what we've seen of Brandon, he is exactly that entitled.
The rest of Maripier's time is spent with Tiffany, who comes to visit. They start out their visit by making brunch for the two of them and Brandon. This is the part where everything is terrible. Maripier says she and Tiffany are like big sister and little sister; Tiffany says, "Sometimes it's big sister, little sister, but sometimes she acts like my three-year-old so I feel like the mother." Maripier says about Tiffany and Brandon's treatment of her, "Tiffany and Brandon are pretty good at teaming up against me. I have a really good sense of humor, so sometimes they feel comfortable pushing, pushing, pushing." Then Brandon says, looking at a magazine Maripier is featured in, "Only two pages?" Maripier tells the camera, "When Brandon told me my spread was only two pages, he was kind of making fun of me, and I got angry, and I know that's the reaction he wants, but if I do get angry, I let them win. But I know that deep down he's so proud of me, and he does that just for me to not get a big head." Brandon and Tiffany continue to mock her - she looks unhappy - and she tells the camera, "Sometimes the line is pretty thin between a joke and a comment that can hurt my feelings." This is painful, so painful. It's painful to watch, and you can tell that it's painful for Maripier to live.
Tiffany and Maripier go shopping at Duo, Brandon's favorite store, partly so Maripier can pick out a Christmas gift for him, and partly so they can stand around and have a conversation for the cameras. Maripier says she's still so jealous when other women hit on Brandon. Tiffany says, "You act like he's the only one that gets hit on," and to the camera, "I don't think you should ever marry anyone you don't trust a hundred percent." It turns out that the thing that most made me like Maripier when I read it in a profile is something she also says in this conversation: "For me, my ideal dream would be to have kids and then ten years from now to get married and have our kids, like, walking down the aisle with us. But it's like, that would be our celebration of us making it."
Maripier also says to Tiffany, "People don't take us seriously because we're not engaged." To the cameras, Tiffany says, "Girlfriends are treated differently than wives, I don't care what you say. I felt the difference," but to Maripier, she says, "Maybe people don't take you seriously because you fight all the time." Maripier's response is, "We don't fight," which really needed an Arrested Development-style flashback captioned "earlier that season" with her comment from the last episode that, "Brandon and I, we always fight." I liked that Tiffany pushed back a little bit, and that she brought up the fighting. I think it was a good friend thing to do to point that out, and it gives us the (depressing) sense that the show is accurately portraying Brandon and Maripier's relationship. If Tiffany had stopped there, I would have been fine with her in this scene, but she doubles down on berating Maripier about her relationship. I mean, I'm talking about it a lot in very disapproving ways, but I only know her as a character, and I would be much gentler about it if I were actually speaking to her.
The last thing Tiffany and Maripier do together is go out with some of "the girls" who make up the Habs wives and girlfriends. Rhianna Weaver and Angela Price make sense; Dominica, Jiri Sekac's girlfriend, does not. She wasn't there when George and Tiffany were there, and I wasn't sure why Maripier invited her to be part of this friends for Tiffany to hang out with group. Maripier is still set on renting a house somewhere for All-Star break, despite earlier saying that Brandon wants to go to London, Ontario for his best friend's stag and doe party. She urges Tiffany and George to come with them, which Tiffany doesn't take kindly to because Maripier isn't thinking about the change in her financial situation. The other way Maripier puts her foot in her mouth is by telling Tiffany that the thing that makes this year different is that the women have a much stronger bond. Tiffany says, "Great, when I leave. Perfect. That makes me feel good. It's like a backhanded compliment," and then to the camera, "It was backhanded, but, you know, people say stupid shit all the time." Earlier in this episode, Tiffany says to the camera, "I love MP, and the most entertaining thing about her is she is, I wanna say self-absorbed, but not in a bad way," and she seems warm and charmed about it, but that didn't come across in their interactions. Maripier did not conduct herself particularly well here, and I haven't seen any evidence that she has any idea what a healthy relationship of any variety looks like, but this episode really left me wondering if anyone in her life treats her with kindness. I sure hope so.