For a long time now, things with the Brown family have been … well, they haven’t been great.

They’ve actually been pretty horrific, judging by what we’ve seen on Sister Wives.

We’ve seen relationships change and deteriorate, we’ve seen family members be outright mean to each other.

It’s bad.

But this season has been especially interesting because a big theme of it all is Kody just entirely giving up on his family.

He truly seems to be over polygamy, and he’s said as much plenty of times in recent episodes.

He’s said that Janelle is “full of sh-t” and “lazy,” he’s said that he hasn’t felt a spark with Meri in the past several years.

In a sneak peek for this week’s episode, the season finale, he exclaimed that he was in “polygamy hell,” which seems quite dramatic.

And now, in another sneak peek for the finale, we’re seeing him with all of his sister wives, trying to work on their relationships.

But guess who doesn’t seem to care even the tiniest bit?

The clip, which you can watch in full below, begins with everyone gathered together while Janelle sets up a big ol’ easel so they can write things down.

Kody says that he doesn’t understand what they’re going to be talking about, and he asked in a sort of mocking way “Are we going to be talking about our feelings?”

“I’m coming into this whole conversation very cynical,” he admits during a confessional, “because I’m extremely discouraged that I can’t get my wives to all agree on one simple thing: preventing the spread of COVID in our family.”

“And so it’s pissing me off.”

This was all filmed early in the pandemic, and Christine was of the opinion that she’d already made plans for the coming months and she wasn’t going to cancel them while Janelle made it clear that she couldn’t stay quarantined all summer.

Still, Kody’s plan was that he’d be the only one to move between the four different households, which still wouldn’t be safe because he could still carry the virus from house to house.

Logic wasn’t really on anyone’s side here, obviously, so let’s just continue.

Back to the family meeting, we see Janelle writing something down on the easel — they seem to be taking turns writing down things that are important to them, and she writes that she “needs to make sure I’m heard.”

In her own confessional, she says “I think we’ve had communication problems for a long time,” and she goes on to explain that with the new stress the pandemic added to the family, that was made even more clear to her.

For Christine’s turn, she says “So I need to feel important at the end of a conversation, I feel like some of my ideas … I don’t feel like I’m important, I don’t even really have a say.”

“Everyone just assumes I’m just being a princess because I’m not expressing myself well,” she continues. “I’m not ever intending to be a princess, but I think I’m seen that way and it’s frustrating.”

Kody then tells her “I feel like everybody feels that same way, like it’s a fight constantly to like have an idea even heard, so …”

It really feels like he’s pouting here, so Robyn tries to hold his hand through this and ask him what he wants to write on the easel, what issue he wants to talk about when it comes to their communication.

“Nothing,” he answers, because of course that’s his answer.

“Yes you are,” Robyn chides him, “you have to play.”

He thinks for a minute then tells his wives “My problem is I don’t want to write anything down there because I don’t give a sh-t anymore.”

Absolutely charming, right?

We don’t get to see how the wives react to that beyond a few shocked expressions, but back in his confessional he tells the camera “You know, we’ve moved here, we’re going through the struggles, I’ve been arguing about COVID now for so long with these ladies …”

“That’s the reason I don’t care anymore,” he explains. “I don’t enjoy the relationship anymore because it feels like a constant fight.”‘

And that’s the end of the video.

At this point in the game, it’s pretty clear that no one is going to leave the family — they all believe so strongly in their marriages because of their religion, and it’s probably safe to say the perks of being on the show are an incentive to stay as well.

But it’s also clear that they’re all completely miserable with each other most of the time.

Is the show just going to be like this for the rest of its time on the air?

Are they just going to say worse and worse things to each other as they pretend like any of this is working?

Like, we’ll still watch, but man, are things looking bleak here.

What do you think about the current state of this family?

It’s a great day to be a Sister Wives fan!

At long last, nearly a year after the last season wrapped up, it’s finally time for the new season to premiere.

And not a moment too soon, right?

Thanks to social media, we know a little bit about what’s been going on with the Brown family.

We know about Maddie’s baby and the health issues she’s faced, and we know that Mykelti is pregnant with her first child!

We’ve also heard about Ysabel’s big surgery to help with her scoliosis.

But those are all pretty big things — we don’t know about the little issues, or the day-to-day drama we know comes with being a sister wife.

They usually save all that for the show.

And judging by a new sneak peek for the season premiere, we know that the drama is definitely alive and well.

In the video, which you can watch in full below, we see Kody, Meri, Janelle, Christine, and Robyn all gathered around a table, having a chat.

It seems like they’re having a big discussion about the family and their dynamics, because we see Janelle asking Robyn about why she chose to “enter the principle,” which she explains to the camera later is their “real term” for plural marriage.

Everyone seems taken aback by this question, so Janelle takes the time to explain her reasoning for wanting to be a sister wife.

“I did it because I loved the idea of the whole family,” she says, “and this whole group’s energy, and I really felt like we would get progression, the whole idea is that we would overcome our crap.”

The “crap,” she clarifies later, is being selfish.

Meri says that she wanted to be a sister wife because she grew up in that lifestyle, and Christine’s story is basically the same.

“The big family thing was always really cool to me,” Robyn says. “I loved when I first met you guys how you guys functioned. I loved it.”

“We seemed so functional,” Kody interjects, and Meri laughs and says “We really pulled the wool over your eyes.”

Robyn tells them that’s not what she meant, and that she thinks they still function well as a family, but Kody seems to disagree.

“I’ve thought about this a lot lately,” he begins, “because I’ve told friends recently that I didn’t want to be an advocate of plural marriage anymore.”

Say what?!

“I am more aware now than I ever was before the apparent and obvious unfairness in the relationship,” he continues. “I know I have all the love I want and you guys sometimes feel like you’re pining constantly for me to give you some.”

He says that he was recently having dinner with Logan, one of the family’s many children, and that he told him “I have really messed this up.”

Kody tells the camera later more about all of this, saying “We came into this by way of commandment, we felt like we were supposed to live it and we had an ideal that it was a better way, and I’ve come to a stark reality of the struggle that it is.”

And that’s it, that’s the clip.

So this is a huge deal, right?

After all, Kody has been defending plural marriage since the series began — how many times have we heard him saying “love should be multiplied, not divided” in the show’s opening?

He’s refused to really listen to his wives talk about how difficult it is to share their husband because he’s always believed so strongly that it was the right way to live.

To hear him finally acknowledge how hard it must be for his wives is …well, it’s really something.

So where do they go from here?

Is he going to try to divide his attention more evenly between the wives? Is he going to allow them to have other relationships if they’d like?

Is he going do what many fans of the show think he’s doing anyway and focus solely on Robyn, who seems to be his favorite?

Guess we’ll have to watch to find out!