transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:00] Surviving Sister Wives contains adult content that may not be suitable for Latter-day Saints or sinners. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2:
[00:13] Hello, and welcome to Surviving Sister Wives.
Speaker 1:
[00:16] I'm Corey.
Speaker 2:
[00:16] And I'm Carly. And this is Almost Married, Chapter 8. What do I do with all of this?
Speaker 1:
[00:25] All of this? It's only two pages. So, all of this, Chapter 8, I think they're talking about, you know, the book prior to this chapter, not so much this chapter.
Speaker 2:
[00:37] Funny how once Mary's no longer talking to the catfish, they seem to really run out of material to come up with a story about.
Speaker 1:
[00:45] We have nothing else to mention, nothing else to speak on. Yeah, the information really dries up really fast.
Speaker 2:
[00:54] They even stopped giving us creative titles.
Speaker 1:
[00:57] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[00:58] We're not tying it to the month?
Speaker 1:
[01:01] What would this be for September? What creative title would you come up with for September when it's out?
Speaker 2:
[01:08] Wake me up when September ends.
Speaker 1:
[01:10] That's copyright issues. That's copyright issues all day. Yeah. You're not going to be able to get away with that.
Speaker 2:
[01:15] What do they care? They wrote a whole book that's disbandatory.
Speaker 1:
[01:17] Do you remember? 25th night, September.
Speaker 2:
[01:21] Maisie used to hate that song when she was a puppy.
Speaker 1:
[01:26] There was a stretch, yeah, when she was a puppy, where that song was just stuck in my head, so I was singing it. But every time I would sing it, she would get real fired up. She would not like me singing that song.
Speaker 2:
[01:39] She's desensitized to it now.
Speaker 1:
[01:41] Yeah, it doesn't really seem to have the same effect anymore.
Speaker 2:
[01:45] Where we left off last week, though, so Meri went to Alaska with the family and stayed in touch with the catfish the entire time. And apparently didn't think there was anything going on because she kept talking to them. Like nothing had changed until after she gets back from the trip. And then August 17th asks to talk in person.
Speaker 1:
[02:11] So this is where things get complicated. People are still confused because normally when we're talking about the book, we're talking about like four different things in theory. We're talking about Sam's experience. We're talking about...
Speaker 2:
[02:27] Oh, bless you.
Speaker 1:
[02:29] Oh man. We're talking about Sam's experience.
Speaker 2:
[02:32] The listeners are lucky that you're a silent sneeser.
Speaker 1:
[02:34] God bless it.
Speaker 2:
[02:35] Not me.
Speaker 1:
[02:36] No. So we're talking about Sam's experience. We're talking about Meri's experience. We're talking about what actually happened. And then kind of like Jackie's experience that's in there too, that we're theorizing on. So there's a lot of different layers to when we're talking about this because the book obviously is all over the place in terms of timelines, in terms of what happened, what the claims are. The thing about the ultimatum that Meri was giving, that's based on her story, where she was saying, when I got back from Alaska, I said, I need to meet with you in person and know that you're real before we continue conversing, I think is what it really came down to.
Speaker 2:
[03:19] The part that was conveniently left out of this book is the whole know your real part.
Speaker 1:
[03:24] Yeah, because that directly conflicts with all of Sam's previous chapters of the salacious sexual content and the nature of their relationship aside from this. So that really, it just throws a wrench into things because we've already built this narrative that's this love story for the ages and we can't leave that out to dry.
Speaker 2:
[03:48] I mean, it doesn't make much sense that if Meri said, I want to meet up and talk on August 17th, why did Sam take weeks to finally come back and say, okay, let's meet?
Speaker 1:
[03:58] If you have been banging this entire time and that's just a normal part of the-
Speaker 2:
[04:02] Just bought her a whole house to go live in?
Speaker 1:
[04:04] Yeah, why is having a conversation at Tropical Smoothie the barrier that's going to be unbreachable here for this relationship to continue?
Speaker 2:
[04:14] Well, and we didn't even get a good reason as to why. That's because this is where the Catfish's story falls apart.
Speaker 1:
[04:21] Yeah, that's the real complexity here. So it was just the struggle for trying to get Meri to change her mind because Meri's whole thing was we need to meet in person, otherwise I'm not going to talk to you at all. I'm cutting off contact entirely. And Sam just kept trying to weasel their way back in. And can't we just still talk, Meri? It's so nice to talk, though, on the phone.
Speaker 2:
[04:48] Don't you miss talking to me?
Speaker 1:
[04:49] Don't you miss that? It was constant communication. That was really good.
Speaker 2:
[04:53] How could you just cut me out of your life like that? We used to talk every day, and now you've just gone silent on me. Why is it that easy for you? See, there's manipulation that's taking place.
Speaker 1:
[05:03] A little bit, yeah, a little bit, which that's the basis of the relationship, too.
Speaker 2:
[05:08] So we got to the last chapter. The end of the last chapter was all about how they were going to meet at Tropical Smoothie. And then Sam said Meri never showed up. But now we start the next chapter, and we're still talking about being hopeful about meeting at Tropical Smoothie.
Speaker 1:
[05:24] But, well, that was like the plan. The stuff, the preparation that had gone into it where Sam got real nice haircut, brand new suit, had an engagement ring in their pocket, ready to go if Meri had turned up, which she never did. She never did.
Speaker 2:
[05:44] Why would you buy a suit to go to Tropical Smoothie Cafe?
Speaker 1:
[05:47] Well, and then that's the thing too is obviously Sam is way more romantic than they weren't going to, they weren't going to propose at Tropical Smoothie. What do you think they are? Like a degenerate or something?
Speaker 2:
[06:01] I was going to take her back to my house. I was going to lure her back there for more conversation than I was going to propose to her there.
Speaker 1:
[06:06] I was going to take her to a second location. Yeah, that was what was going to happen.
Speaker 2:
[06:11] Multiple things, I don't understand the suit to Tropical Smoothie Cafe, only to then go back to your house to propose?
Speaker 1:
[06:19] Odd.
Speaker 2:
[06:20] Then putting the ring in the pocket of the suit. Now, you've proposed before.
Speaker 1:
[06:26] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[06:26] Would you just put, because they've mentioned that they take the ring out of the box that it came in, put it into his pocket, and he knows he's not going to propose at Tropical Smoothie. Does that make sense to you?
Speaker 1:
[06:39] Who's going to try and slip it in to the smoothie or drop it around her straw or, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:
[06:45] The tip of a banana.
Speaker 1:
[06:45] Oh, that would be very apt to propose in that way. But no, that's not, I don't think that's what's happening here at all.
Speaker 2:
[06:53] Wouldn't you be paranoid that you're going to drop the ring?
Speaker 1:
[06:56] Well, yeah. I mean, but I would be, because I kept it in the box. Keep it in the box.
Speaker 2:
[07:02] Most people do from what I've seen.
Speaker 1:
[07:04] Well, because it's not going to be, yeah, I mean, I guess depending on the circumstance and like where you're planning to propose, if you're not able to-
Speaker 2:
[07:12] Not at Tropical Smoothie.
Speaker 1:
[07:13] Not at Tropical Smoothie. You could have left the ring back at your place if you were planning to bring her back anyway, and that was where that was going to be. But no, we just had to casually mention that of all the things that Meri missed out on because I was ready to propose to her the day that we were going to meet up, and then she flaked on me. And that never happened. It never came to be.
Speaker 2:
[07:36] Sure. No.
Speaker 1:
[07:38] What could have been? Star-crossed lovers here.
Speaker 2:
[07:42] He never made plans to meet her.
Speaker 1:
[07:43] No, no.
Speaker 2:
[07:44] That's the true story.
Speaker 1:
[07:46] The excuses were all on Sam's side. The reason why Sam couldn't meet Meri in person is because Sam's not a real person. That's the problem. That's the barrier.
Speaker 2:
[07:56] Well, it's unfortunate because this ring that Sam bought is engraved. We didn't hear with what.
Speaker 1:
[08:02] Did Meri engrave it? Remember?
Speaker 2:
[08:04] Meri used to be a Trophy engraver.
Speaker 1:
[08:06] She used to be. She knows her way around the metalworking.
Speaker 2:
[08:09] She could scratch it off for you.
Speaker 1:
[08:11] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[08:11] You can melt the ring down.
Speaker 1:
[08:13] We've already proven that. Yeah, that's easy to do.
Speaker 2:
[08:15] Cody can give you some advice on how to get that done.
Speaker 1:
[08:17] Cody can give you recommendations. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[08:20] So now we're supposed to feel bad for him because he's stuck with this engagement ring.
Speaker 1:
[08:23] Oh, poor Sam. Of all the heartless victims that we've heard about, just like, it's just terrible to see it. You hate to see it.
Speaker 2:
[08:36] Don't feel too bad for him because I read ahead a little bit and in the next chapter, we learn about how he starts dating someone new who's like amazing. So we're so heartbroken after this about getting stood up at Tropical Smoothie.
Speaker 1:
[08:49] Of course.
Speaker 2:
[08:50] That it takes just a couple of weeks to get over Meri and start dating somebody new.
Speaker 1:
[08:54] I can't even show my face in my local Tropical Smoothie anymore because I'm just full of shame over it, really, is what it comes down to. So yeah, we'll have to pack up everything, move out of Vegas. I'm going to have to switch my number again now to get a Chicago area code because that's a whole other thing now.
Speaker 2:
[09:13] The sacrifices I made.
Speaker 1:
[09:16] Something like that.
Speaker 2:
[09:17] Wasted.
Speaker 1:
[09:22] Do I sound more like Cody since I have sun tanned too? I got the raccoon eyes.
Speaker 2:
[09:26] I know you do look like you spent a lot of time in the family tanning bed.
Speaker 1:
[09:29] I got a little crispy doing some yard work, yeah. The farmer's tan is really kicking in too, so it's good.
Speaker 2:
[09:34] That'll be good for our Welcome to Plathville episode.
Speaker 1:
[09:37] Yes, yeah. Got my base layer on, so this is good.
Speaker 2:
[09:41] Okay, so Sam moved back to Chicago. He's no longer in Vegas.
Speaker 1:
[09:45] Of course, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[09:46] But then there was this weird side journey that we went on where somebody got sick, a family member, and so Sam had to go to Nebraska. And while he's in Nebraska, all of his family members confront him about these stories in the press that happened months earlier. Remember when he was all upset and they had to unfollow each other on Twitter?
Speaker 1:
[10:08] Yeah, the stories that we couldn't find anything that was publishing because it was just online rumors and forums and message boards and fans of the show stuff. It wasn't anything that was actually published or any publications.
Speaker 2:
[10:20] Not like in a magazine or anything like that.
Speaker 1:
[10:21] No headlines or, yeah, none of that stuff.
Speaker 2:
[10:25] Correct. They got wind of those rumors and they then confront Sam.
Speaker 1:
[10:30] The family who may or may not exist to-
Speaker 2:
[10:33] Right, right, he had no family.
Speaker 1:
[10:34] Has existed when ever convenient to gain sympathy during this story, but also simultaneously does not exist. So Schrodinger's family here to fill in the plot holes as needed for the shoulder for Sam to cry on.
Speaker 2:
[10:50] Wasn't that supposed to be the thing that made Sam so perfect for Meri because Meri could spend all of the holidays with the family still because Sam had no family.
Speaker 1:
[10:59] Right, there was no competition there, I guess, if you want to look at it that way, like that was what-
Speaker 2:
[11:04] They've re-emerged in Nebraska.
Speaker 1:
[11:06] Yeah, they're back.
Speaker 2:
[11:08] And he has to tell them that he had an affair with a married woman. And of course, like everybody else in this book, they are very Catholic. And they tell him God doesn't forgive affairs.
Speaker 1:
[11:20] Okay. Oh, I think that was- was that the family who didn't support him or was that- he was saying that he like lost childhood friends that he'd had since the age of 10.
Speaker 2:
[11:31] Well, it was- it started out in the chapter of family. Then he tells his friends.
Speaker 1:
[11:37] Right.
Speaker 2:
[11:37] Because he basically got confronted by his family, and then he confesses to his friends.
Speaker 1:
[11:43] Okay. So it was like, I think his family was more okay with it. Right? Like, and then the friends were the ones who were rejecting.
Speaker 2:
[11:53] The friend he's had since he was like 10 years old or something.
Speaker 1:
[11:56] Allegedly.
Speaker 2:
[11:56] There's something about how he was young.
Speaker 1:
[11:58] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[11:58] A lifelong friend.
Speaker 1:
[12:00] Lifelong.
Speaker 2:
[12:00] Who did not get mentioned at any other point in this book.
Speaker 1:
[12:04] Carly Nipkin.
Speaker 2:
[12:07] God doesn't forgive affairs. Did I miss that part of the Bible?
Speaker 1:
[12:12] God doesn't forgive affairs. Well, I mean, like, adultery. I think that's, you know.
Speaker 2:
[12:21] Let's argue the theology, because Sam is big on theology.
Speaker 1:
[12:25] Yeah, we skipped that part of the debate of the discussion there. No, from my understanding, the only unforgivable sin in most Christian faiths is rejecting God, not accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior. I think that's where they draw the line in most instances. Not having affairs with married polygamous women.
Speaker 2:
[12:50] I mean, that sounds pretty bad.
Speaker 1:
[12:53] There's not a specific reference to that in the Bible at all, actually, so.
Speaker 2:
[13:01] Well, it's unforgivable. So now he's lost friends, family, business partners.
Speaker 1:
[13:07] Sam should try to join Mom Talk then. Because they got a lot of loopholes on, you know, dabbling in a little bit of special K with some therapy or some laughing gas when you're having certain cosmetic procedures that are done, because Jesus never said, don't use ketamine, because like, hey, he didn't say that, you know? So I'm just listening to what Jesus said, verbatim.
Speaker 2:
[13:35] I guess he does need a MomTalk comeback, huh?
Speaker 1:
[13:38] I don't know. Yeah, do you think he could swing it? Has his domestic violence circumstances have those videos leaked yet?
Speaker 2:
[13:47] Yeah, by the way, they decided not to charge Taylor with anything.
Speaker 1:
[13:52] Because that's what I was confused about. Everybody was getting upset. The video that leaked was not from the recent accusations. That was the stuff that Taylor already served time for.
Speaker 2:
[14:01] Yeah, but I think it made people assume if that's how bad that was, then what may be happened now.
Speaker 1:
[14:08] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[14:09] Well, apparently, something that wasn't... Didn't have enough evidence to prove.
Speaker 1:
[14:14] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[14:14] So she's clear and free. She's fine. Which means, I bet you were going to get a date for The Bachelorette going straight to streaming.
Speaker 1:
[14:25] Probably, yeah. They'll just quietly drop it over on Hulu, I guess. Not to actually air it out and in Primetime on ABC, but...
Speaker 2:
[14:36] But I digress. Yeah. We'll see. So let's get back to Sam. So we had nothing to lose, but we lost everything. And now he's got to try to get over Meri.
Speaker 1:
[14:48] It's tricky. Yeah. This is... It's tricky to have stakes in a story to like... Yeah, you have to have something that's at risk here, but then like Sam doesn't really have any earthly attachments.
Speaker 2:
[15:01] Also, am I supposed to feel bad that a couple of vendors didn't want to work with you anymore? Aren't you a multimillionaire who runs six different businesses?
Speaker 1:
[15:08] Your businesses?
Speaker 2:
[15:08] I think you're okay.
Speaker 1:
[15:10] Your businesses didn't want to work with you? Well, I mean, I guess we saw that.
Speaker 2:
[15:13] Yeah, he lost vendors. Remember the very religious Catholic vendors that he works with?
Speaker 1:
[15:18] He works with the Vatican specifically. Yeah, I think that is probably a big customer for him. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[15:27] Can we get like a spinoff journey with Sam, where he's employed by the Vatican and we're doing exorcisms?
Speaker 1:
[15:36] Interesting.
Speaker 2:
[15:39] I'm here for the side quest. I can only imagine the stories that the catfish would come up with.
Speaker 1:
[15:45] Ooh, yeah. There's a couple of good episodes of that, I think. And that was that movie with Anthony Hopkins and stuff. Yeah, it was good. I'm not talking about Silence of the Lambs. I'm talking about The Right.
Speaker 2:
[15:58] I'm not saying that we're going to get a whole movie made about it, but...
Speaker 1:
[16:01] No, maybe not a movie.
Speaker 2:
[16:02] Maybe that is something that Sam can aspire to.
Speaker 1:
[16:05] But at least, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[16:06] I'm sure Sam thought that this book would be made into a movie.
Speaker 1:
[16:09] I'm not saying you have to launch into... Your book deal has to become a movie deal, so maybe you get another book deal.
Speaker 2:
[16:15] Luckily, he's used so many photos of other actors that we already know we have a few, like a short list of people that they could cast.
Speaker 1:
[16:23] Right. Who would play you in a biopic movie, Carly?
Speaker 2:
[16:27] Who would play me in a biopic movie? I've never thought of this, because I feel like I don't look like any celebrity.
Speaker 1:
[16:33] It's tough. This is tough.
Speaker 2:
[16:35] Do you have an answer for that?
Speaker 1:
[16:36] Zach Galifianakis.
Speaker 2:
[16:37] Okay.
Speaker 1:
[16:37] Probably.
Speaker 2:
[16:39] Then I want a funny person.
Speaker 1:
[16:40] He's getting old, though. You want a funny person? He might be getting too old, though. Maybe like Superbad Era Jonah Hill. That's who could play me in a biopic.
Speaker 2:
[16:53] Okay.
Speaker 1:
[16:53] Maybe.
Speaker 2:
[16:54] You guys tell me who would play me, but try not to make me feel bad about it.
Speaker 1:
[16:59] Right. I think we're getting too old, too. A lot of celebrities now are-
Speaker 2:
[17:04] Oh, yeah. We don't know. I have no idea who anybody is.
Speaker 1:
[17:06] A lot of celebrities who are coming around. Yeah, we're scrolling through stuff and it's like, I don't know any of these people.
Speaker 2:
[17:11] You know what would solve that? If we subscribe to Star magazine or People magazine.
Speaker 1:
[17:17] People still subscribe to magazines?
Speaker 2:
[17:20] Yes. They're very inexpensive now if you can get them on a discount. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[17:26] I thought that those were just things that you randomly see at the grocery store when you're checking out.
Speaker 2:
[17:31] Oh, no. My mom subscribed to Star magazine growing up. That was the bathroom reading material before we had phones. So I knew everything that was going on in the celebrity world.
Speaker 1:
[17:44] It's like Bobby Hill when he joins the trivia team for school because he becomes like their pop culture guy because he just knows all the stuff.
Speaker 2:
[17:54] I'm telling you, a couple of Star magazines and we'd be up on everybody, including who's best and worst dressed.
Speaker 1:
[18:01] No, I don't think so because it's like, that's not where the celebrities are now, you know, like.
Speaker 2:
[18:07] They're online?
Speaker 1:
[18:08] Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:
[18:09] Are there still paparazzi? There are paparazzi in this story.
Speaker 1:
[18:13] There are paparazzi still, yeah, because I think Chaperone's been struggling with that recently, so that's a good example of, yes.
Speaker 2:
[18:22] Paparazzi, or is it just, I thought it was her, like her own fans.
Speaker 1:
[18:25] It's fans too, yeah, her own fans too. It's stardom in general that she's struggling with.
Speaker 2:
[18:30] All right.
Speaker 1:
[18:31] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[18:32] Back to Sam.
Speaker 1:
[18:33] Okay. Sam, Sam's struggling with?
Speaker 2:
[18:36] Yeah, there's a room, a womb, a nasty rumor.
Speaker 1:
[18:41] Nassiness.
Speaker 2:
[18:42] That Sam unalived himself.
Speaker 1:
[18:47] And that's why he doesn't exist anymore, but he never existed.
Speaker 2:
[18:51] I think he went quiet a little bit on social media at the time because now Meri's not talking anymore. And so people started like speculating what happened.
Speaker 1:
[19:03] Well, the trolls are after him. The online trolls, as Sam lovingly refers to them, and coined the phrase that we learned. Yeah, they are back with a vengeance now because they need to figure out who this Sam character is. And Sam doesn't have really good answers.
Speaker 2:
[19:21] I'm going to quote the next part because I don't want anybody to incorrectly think that I am saying this. This is from the book. They called Meri an orange-faced whore and fat bitch. Now she's listening to them and believes they're photoshopped evidence.
Speaker 1:
[19:37] Yeah, I mean, some of that was censored, and then you just read it, though. But yes, there were, it was heavily implied that those were the names.
Speaker 2:
[19:46] It was censored in the book?
Speaker 1:
[19:47] Censored in the book.
Speaker 2:
[19:48] Okay, well, I read between the lines.
Speaker 1:
[19:51] Fat whore.
Speaker 2:
[19:52] So the same people who made fun of Meri now are like, girl, you've been catfished. And they're sending all the evidence that they've been compiling for months and months and months. And now she's lending a listening ear because she's like, you know what? I think these trolls have a point. Maybe I am a little orange. And maybe I have been fooled by a catfish.
Speaker 1:
[20:18] Maybe I am a bitch. Maybe.
Speaker 2:
[20:23] Hey, it's not always a bad thing.
Speaker 1:
[20:24] It's some self-reflections, some self-realization that's happening here. So we can't say it's all bad that came out of this, right? If Meri had a realization where it's like, maybe I need to change some things in my life.
Speaker 2:
[20:37] What's going on? Meanwhile, Leon's like, I told you this months ago.
Speaker 1:
[20:43] Yes, a long, long time ago.
Speaker 2:
[20:45] I didn't need to compile evidence of your own online conversations that you had. Like you engaged in those conversations.
Speaker 1:
[20:55] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[20:56] And now people are like, hey, just so you know, this is evidence of the fact that this person's not real.
Speaker 1:
[21:03] Well, I think this is where the story was like shifting for Meri, right? Because for the longest time, she was in this as a way out, as a way away from Cody. She was ready for that. And then now it's coming to light that no. And now you've divulged a little too much information where you were hinting that you were going to leave, that you were going to divorce Cody and move away.
Speaker 2:
[21:32] Yeah, when they already thought that too, from the time that she got divorced.
Speaker 1:
[21:35] You can't walk this back. Yeah, like you're too far in on this process now that you have to then lean in to where people are saying, you got catfished. And so Meri says, aha, not only did I get catfished, I was tricked. I was tricked in all of it.
Speaker 2:
[21:53] I was looking for a friend.
Speaker 1:
[21:54] I wasn't involved in any sort of scheme or any planning that would involve me leaving or abandoning anything. None of that. I was looking for online friendship. The laughs, oh, the laughs. But then we had subsequent trickery, some tomfoolery that was going on here.
Speaker 2:
[22:18] It's not even the good kind of catfishing where you find out that the person doesn't look the way they've presented themselves to be, but you can get beyond that.
Speaker 1:
[22:27] It wasn't a Jenny and Cement catfish. No, unfortunately not. Where it's, oh, it's everything that I've said. That's been me. And behind the words.
Speaker 2:
[22:38] There's no call center.
Speaker 1:
[22:39] I just, I don't look the way that I presented myself to look, and for that I apologize. No.
Speaker 2:
[22:46] That could have been a second shot at love.
Speaker 1:
[22:49] Could it have been? If the bank account matched, I think then she would have been a little bit more willing to look past that. But that wasn't really... From the business... I don't want to say advice. From the business verbiage that's been dropped throughout this entire book from Sam, this is not somebody who has a functioning business at all, let alone several multi-million.
Speaker 2:
[23:20] Nor someone who has ever actually considered proposing to another person.
Speaker 1:
[23:25] No, I don't think so. Yeah, like this is... We're nowhere near that. And so I think Meri fully realizes that now and is like, uh-oh, I need to play up the sympathy side of this, and I need to backtrack as far as I can, where basically the brainwashing, that's what happened to me, was I was so in it on believing that this person was real and they're not real, and I was scared of that.
Speaker 2:
[23:55] Well, we're not even getting that part of it, because we're just hearing the catfish side of the story here.
Speaker 1:
[23:59] No.
Speaker 2:
[24:00] And they don't know what's going on with Meri anymore.
Speaker 1:
[24:02] No.
Speaker 2:
[24:02] Aside from this stuff where they're seeing people send things online and say, hey, you were catfished.
Speaker 1:
[24:09] And then what was this about? It was Kendra who started a whole other Twitter account, and then Lindsay was harassing Kendra until she deleted her Twitter account.
Speaker 2:
[24:20] So Kendra isn't mentioned in this part of the book, even though, remember the book was dedicated to Kendra?
Speaker 1:
[24:26] Yes.
Speaker 2:
[24:26] One of the multiple people who the book's dedicated to.
Speaker 1:
[24:29] Right.
Speaker 2:
[24:29] So all they say-
Speaker 1:
[24:30] One of the only other real people that the book was dedicated to. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[24:35] So the only thing that's mentioned in this chapter is that one of Meri's friends joins the troll army. And we know that that's Kendra because Kendra has come forward with her side of the story.
Speaker 1:
[24:49] Right.
Speaker 2:
[24:50] About everything that occurred in the fallout of the catfishing. So what the catfish claims in the book is that this friend starts participating with the trolls. And so Lindsay then has to start harassing them and successfully gets the friend to delete the Twitter account, which is accusing Sam of being a fake person.
Speaker 1:
[25:15] Yeah. And I think this was like, it was tying back to, it was Kendra because there was something that linked back to like her personal account and though she was pretending to be, you know, because it was somebody who was online pretending to be somebody else, which we know Catfish does not stand for that. Like, that is egregious.
Speaker 2:
[25:36] How dare she?
Speaker 1:
[25:37] Yeah. Just, what kind of a sick person does that, you know?
Speaker 2:
[25:41] They were saying that it was like bleeding into her personal life, personal account.
Speaker 1:
[25:46] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[25:46] So that's why. I think it's probably because you scared the shit out of her by coming after her and threatening her, and so that's why she deleted the account, would be my guess.
Speaker 1:
[25:56] Most likely, that'll do it, usually.
Speaker 2:
[25:59] So let's talk more about Kendra then, because that's kind of where we leave off in this chapter. It was two pages long.
Speaker 1:
[26:05] But first we're going to take a quick break. Yeah. And then we'll get Kendra's version right after the break.
Speaker 2:
[26:11] All right. Let's talk about Kendra.
Speaker 1:
[26:13] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[26:14] So we mentioned this, I think in the first episode that we did before we got into the book where we talked about the backstory and the timeline of the catfishing. Kendra was hired by, or a private investigator was hired by the online trolls. I guess the same people that Sam is complaining about in the book. And they had the private investigator do an interview with Kendra on, and it got posted to YouTube. It's two parts long. We mentioned it before. It's the one with a terrible audio where there are cars going by. But in that, there is some interesting information that I feel like we should insert into the story now, because there's a lot of loose ends, I feel like, at the end of this book.
Speaker 1:
[27:01] Yeah, because this is just, this is September, I guess, as a summation here at this point, for the most part, because this is where the catfish's story that they're presenting to us, they have no other way to fabricate what actually happened or how this information came out. They're basically blaming the online trolls who were investigating who was Meri talking to. Oh, it was a catfish. That's where the news came out. No, this was Sam who was sending these out to publications, posting stuff on their blog. So then that way, it all gets linked back to this. So it's just like, it was Sam that was leaking all this stuff that was causing all of this press in September and October.
Speaker 2:
[27:49] Yeah, yes.
Speaker 1:
[27:49] But they can't say that as part of this book because that makes them look bad because this is like the revenge aspect of the breakup.
Speaker 2:
[27:57] Yes, and it doesn't track with the whole story of, I don't want to be associated with having had an affair with Meri from Sister Wives.
Speaker 1:
[28:04] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[28:04] Because that's what the catfish continues to claim in the book.
Speaker 1:
[28:08] Right.
Speaker 2:
[28:08] But in reality, they posted hundreds of voicemails from their interactions with Meri online so that people could listen to them to embarrass her. They posted a bunch of photos, including the banana photo. There's magazines sending people out to try to get a comment from the real person behind the catfishing, Jackie, who denies that she's involved in any way, shape or form, even though they've traced everything back to her. That's what's really happening, but that won't be mentioned in the book.
Speaker 1:
[28:45] Right. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[28:46] So what Kendra tells us is that she didn't even suspect that Meri was being catfished until like early October. That's when all the voicemails leaked.
Speaker 1:
[28:57] Right. She just thought that Meri had met someone online. She was falling in love with this person and was planning to leave Cody. So, kind of an affair, sort of. Yeah, an affair, yes. But then like, oh, no, that was a person who was pretending to be someone online in order to convince Meri to leave Cody and the rest of the family. So that's where Kendra's opinion shifted was in October when everything started getting released online.
Speaker 2:
[29:31] She does have a lot of interaction with Lindsay at this time. She still has interaction with Lindsay as of the time that the interview is being done because she calls her at the end of the second YouTube video and talks to her on the phone. And this is like 2016, later in 2016. So Lindsay at the time threatened Kendra and said, you need to tell people that Sam is real because everyone's questioning if this is a real person now because of what the online trolls are saying. So there's a post made from Kendra's Facebook account that says Sam is real. Also at some point, Kendra claims that she visited Sam in the hospital and so that's another time that she had interaction with him in person and knows he's real.
Speaker 1:
[30:23] Yeah. But also wasn't this, this was kind of like that suspicious side of things too, was where it was like, did Lindsay hack Kendra's Facebook? Was Lindsay making those posts at certain points? Like it was hard to tell.
Speaker 2:
[30:39] It's kind of unclear from Kendra's story about when things were hacked versus when she did something herself because she was being threatened. And to be honest, that's why I feel like she's not a reliable narrator.
Speaker 1:
[30:54] Yeah. It's all under duress, you know, any way you cut it, because it's either somebody who's posing as you saying things or they're forcing you against your will to corroborate their story.
Speaker 2:
[31:07] So once that gets posted about Sam being real from Kendra's account, the Browns stop talking to Kendra because now they're questioning if she's involved.
Speaker 1:
[31:17] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[31:17] Because they don't believe Sam to be a real person.
Speaker 1:
[31:20] Right.
Speaker 2:
[31:20] And now she's further pushing the narrative publicly that he is real.
Speaker 1:
[31:26] And this is where you have Lindsay who's constantly threatening violence against Kendra at this point too, to which she's like, this is a dangerous person who could definitely harm me and is speaking and intending to do that.
Speaker 2:
[31:42] So it sounds like Lindsay would say a lot of things that maybe weren't like directly threatening to physically hurt somebody, but would talk about maybe having hurt somebody else, or talk about connections that they had, and talk about, she mentioned a lot of gambling and hanging around casinos, like trying to make you think that she interacts with maybe shady people and has an access at least to somebody else who could hurt you, if it's not Lindsay herself.
Speaker 1:
[32:09] Right.
Speaker 2:
[32:10] So Kendra's getting more and more nervous that this is not a safe person, and she doesn't want them to be mad at her.
Speaker 1:
[32:20] Well, also even just like that personality, because then that's the other thing that Kendra realizes in this conversation too, is where it's like, the catfish truly believes that they are all of these fake people. Yeah. So every single personality that is brought up and made into its own persona, that is the catfish, and they fully believe that.
Speaker 2:
[32:47] So that's where it's like, well, where will they draw the line?
Speaker 1:
[32:51] If they believe that they themselves are fully Lindsey, and she does crazy stuff, and threatens people with violence all the time, that could be a very real thing that could harm me. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[33:04] She also mentioned that Lindsey would make a lot of comments about if Cody was gone, if there was no Cody. And so they were also worried that maybe she would try to hurt him. So she's worried that there's other people that could get harmed, not just herself.
Speaker 1:
[33:25] Right. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[33:28] One of the crazier parts of the interview was Kendra trying to theorize why the catfish would be doing this to her. That maybe they're trying to pin everything on Kendra so that they could kind of walk away and be like, the person who was originally suspected of having done this isn't the person who did it. It's a close family friend.
Speaker 1:
[33:55] Yeah. Who had access to family and then that explains why they were able to infiltrate in such a way or whatever that circumstance could look like. But I mean, at that point, it's just like, I think there's too much other stuff. Meri knows Kendra. She would know that she wasn't talking to Kendra when she was talking to Sam on the phone. Not to say that Meri is the best at determining who's speaking on the phone because if she was talking to Sam and then talking to Lindsay and then not realizing that this is the same person, clearly. But at least I would credit Meri with understanding, she would probably know when she's talking to Kendra versus talking to somebody else who's posing as all these different personalities.
Speaker 2:
[34:47] I still wonder if maybe Kendra was used by the catfish in some way and I don't know if she was aware or not aware of like when she was providing valuable information to the catfish.
Speaker 1:
[34:59] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[35:01] I also question when she says that she's really scared of them, if that's really true because why do you continue to engage with them?
Speaker 1:
[35:09] Yeah, it's a weird need, the kind of desperation that happens with this, where it's like I need to get to the bottom of it. I need to catch them in the act of what's going on here. But then that's why Lindsay, Sam, the catfish is always two steps ahead of everything because there's probably all these different channels where they already know what Kendra's intention is every time they call. So having that understanding and then knowing what somebody is up to when they're trying to catch you doing something, you already know what that person's up to so you can avoid it.
Speaker 2:
[35:54] And this catfish is not new to this game.
Speaker 1:
[35:57] No.
Speaker 2:
[35:58] They've been doing this a long time and they're very good at it. That's why even as we've been reading the book, we've been trying to pick little things apart. Like when we're talking about being in different time zones or what the weather was at the time. And when you look it up, it all checks out. That's because they do their homework.
Speaker 1:
[36:14] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[36:15] You know, they're good at figuring out a believable enough story that people buy it.
Speaker 1:
[36:23] Believable enough, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[36:26] It's when you look at the overall picture, but I think they rely on the person that they're talking to being really frazzled and confused and not having the ability to put all the pieces together themselves without outside help.
Speaker 1:
[36:39] Well, they have to scare people into not asking questions.
Speaker 2:
[36:43] So it's part of being frazzled. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[36:45] Yeah. It's the programming where then that's what Meri had to deal with, too. Even just like how Meri knew she had to put the delicate gloves on before the Alaska trip, where it's like, hey, I'm not going to have phone signal in a lot of the places that I go because I'm going to be very remote up in the mountains and stuff. Like, I'm not going to have access to respond to you or answer your calls whenever you're reaching out. So like, there is that level of just knowing that this person is very hypersensitive to these types of situations.
Speaker 2:
[37:23] Not being able to get in touch with you.
Speaker 1:
[37:25] Not being able to get in touch.
Speaker 2:
[37:25] Not having access to you.
Speaker 1:
[37:27] And so if you question them, then they're gonna turn that around as, why are you questioning me? It's a trust thing that's built between them, but it's built all on a lie and gaslighting and manipulation, though, is the basis of it.
Speaker 2:
[37:42] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[37:45] I guess.
Speaker 2:
[37:46] One of the things that kind of irks me is, a lot of people make this point online that like Lindsay, the person, not Lindsay, Jackie, the person behind both the Sam and Lindsay identities.
Speaker 1:
[38:00] And several more.
Speaker 2:
[38:02] Who's the catfish, allegedly. Has never been charged with a crime. So if they did all of these things, why would that be the case? Like that's used as a rationale as to why maybe someone else was behind the catfishing.
Speaker 1:
[38:20] Well, most cyber crimes, there's not a lot of legal recourse that you would have, unless it's like financial things that are involved, or, and there wasn't really like too much exchange of money. There were exchange of like gifts and stuff. Like there were gifts that were sent, but that wasn't fraudulent activity. I don't think it didn't seem like it, even though, I don't know, maybe Sam was catfishing other people, and then was asking for somebody else to send somebody else a gift or something, you know, like if they're using money from whatever. So it's just like, that's a thing too, is that sometimes they can have multiple victims who then they are showering gifts and affection on the less suspecting people.
Speaker 2:
[39:10] You don't even understand that they're being used to inadvertently commit a crime.
Speaker 1:
[39:14] Right, yeah. That is what happens in some of these circumstances.
Speaker 2:
[39:18] Which is something Kendra says when she's being asked questions by the private investigators, that this person knows how to do things in a way that they're in a gray area vaguely, or they know what the laws are so that they make sure they don't do something that's going to get them in trouble. Now the book itself is something that people have questioned. This book is all made up. Why was she not sued by the Browns? Why wouldn't they come after the catfish for having written it and making money off of selling it?
Speaker 1:
[39:53] Right.
Speaker 2:
[39:54] And I think we talked about that earlier on, but part of it is probably, it's very expensive to sue somebody. I don't think you're going to get anything in the end. And then you embarrass yourself in the process.
Speaker 1:
[40:10] You're adding validity to it by suing and trying to do that. So I think they worked around it the best way they could because the catfish messed up by putting the disclaimer at the beginning of this book that everything that's in here is true. These are all real stories and real people. And it was like a law and order intro, you know? So it was just kind of read that same way, but like that opened them up to then, you are claiming that this is a work of nonfiction. If you had presented it as a fictionalized version of what took place, you could have had free reign.
Speaker 2:
[40:50] That's like all the people who have been on TV shows, and then they write a fictionalized version of having been on that show. Like there's a book about Laguna Beach or the hills, that's like that. And then one of the Jays wrote a story that was about basically being on America's Next Top Model without saying that that's what it was. It's a fictional account.
Speaker 1:
[41:11] Yes. Yeah. Because, yeah, it's... Then it's art, and it's covered, yeah, under more protections then, because you're not making claims necessarily. But you could be telling a story from your perspective, and then names were changed to kind of work around that.
Speaker 2:
[41:34] Yeah, and I kind of question still why this book is not available to be bought anywhere, anymore. Like, if there was some type of legal action taken, even if it was just sending a cease and desist, that you need to pull this off of Amazon or wherever else it was being sold. And so that in and of itself could have been as far as they had to take it, just to get the book off of the internet.
Speaker 1:
[41:57] Right.
Speaker 2:
[41:59] So Kendra keeps talking to Lindsey. One of the things she mentioned was that Lindsey was making fake profiles to talk to her daughter.
Speaker 1:
[42:08] Let's talk about that after the break. We're back. Oh, we're back.
Speaker 2:
[42:14] So apparently that happened multiple times. That there was like a, it had become a conversation of like, if someone reaches out to you, you do not engage with anybody online.
Speaker 1:
[42:24] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[42:24] Because the belief is that it's the catfish.
Speaker 1:
[42:26] It's catfish. Yeah. This is a person who is known for making accounts, making personas, making up all these things, to reach out to people and have conversations with them and get information out of them, valuable information out of them. So it's just, this is all stuff that you need to be aware of. This is also just general online etiquette that you need to be aware of. Internet safety stuff, yeah, to kind of take into account here, especially when you know you're in close proximity with that sort of person who would go out of their way to do all these things that you're suspecting here.
Speaker 2:
[43:04] She gets details about her own life posted online, she believes that the catfish is behind it. So I wonder partially if one of the reasons why Kendra feels so passionate about getting the catfish caught is because she's experienced some of that herself.
Speaker 1:
[43:23] Yeah, but then you end up in this cycle, right? You get stuck in it where then you're trying to catch this person who keeps divulging information about you or using what you say as validation for other circumstances that they're kind of fabricating along the way here, and it just continues to perpetuate itself because you're trying to catch them doing something, but then they're just taking that information and spending it to their own advantage. So you get stuck with, you're just spinning your wheels at that point.
Speaker 2:
[43:58] Yeah. And also obviously after this interview was posted, now Lindsay knows that you're supposedly trying to catch them.
Speaker 1:
[44:06] Yeah. Once that becomes public.
Speaker 2:
[44:09] Because I don't think that the catfish knew that when Kendra called at the end of this interview that it was being recorded by anybody, which is part of what makes it very fascinating. So Kendra calls Lindsay, who again, Lindsay is Jackie, who is also Sam, all the same person. So we're on the phone with the catfish now at the end of this interview. And some of the things that they said were like, they were bragging about Sam getting famous off of this.
Speaker 1:
[44:45] Yes. Almost defamed.
Speaker 2:
[44:47] Which is funny because Sam's complaining about all of the attention in the book.
Speaker 1:
[44:53] Right.
Speaker 2:
[44:54] But then on the phone, they're talking to Kendra about how, you know, everybody thinks that this is a bad thing, but ha ha, like we ended up getting famous off of this. Everybody knows who we are. I think that maybe gives us a glimmer into what the motivation could have been to try to attach yourself to this person who's on TV, because you know that when it all comes out, there are gonna be a lot of people paying attention to it.
Speaker 1:
[45:20] You guys ever seen the movie Split? It's kind of like that, a little bit. Am I right, Shyamalan, you guys remember that movie?
Speaker 2:
[45:27] Was that with James McAvoy?
Speaker 1:
[45:29] Yeah, yeah, it's like where, you know, when the catfish has, but it's, Lindsay has the spotlight. You know, she's in the light, and so that's who we're hearing from in this conversation.
Speaker 2:
[45:42] Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
[45:43] It's kind of like that.
Speaker 2:
[45:44] Yeah, maybe we should have explained that at the beginning.
Speaker 1:
[45:47] Contextualize? It gives you like something to kind of root it in, of like, yes, she's in the light. She has the microphone for this, and that's how we're hearing this from Jackie in the voice of Lindsay, and that's where this conversation is going. So it is interesting to hear Lindsay then talk about Sam in this conversation, because it's Jackie talking about Jackie.
Speaker 2:
[46:15] Right, right. They also mentioned wanting the show to be canceled, that basically they think they're really close in that goal.
Speaker 1:
[46:24] Yeah, every day getting closer.
Speaker 2:
[46:26] 2016.
Speaker 1:
[46:28] Yeah, you got a ways to go here.
Speaker 2:
[46:30] Yeah, they were on TV for many, many, many years after this, that the catfishing had been so bad for them, and for the show, that there were advertisers that don't want to sign up with them again. Lindsay claims to know this.
Speaker 1:
[46:44] Yeah, that's not how that works.
Speaker 2:
[46:47] No, can I give a PSA to everybody out there? I know this from the work that I've done in the past. That is not the way that television is bought. That's not the way that advertisers buy commercials during a show. You don't say, okay, so you typically don't say, I wanna buy a show. Maybe you say you wanna buy like the Super Bowl. Maybe you wanna buy something during the Olympics.
Speaker 1:
[47:13] But that's like a, those are like events. It's not a program.
Speaker 2:
[47:17] You don't say, hey, I wanna buy Sister Wives at 10 p.m. Eastern time on TLC, because just so many people are talking about it. You say, I have an audience that I'm trying to reach. I wanna reach women between ages 18 and 54. And then there's all this data that exists on who's watching what television networks. And then the TV buyer comes back and says, perfect, these are all the TV networks that deliver that audience, okay? And then they buy programming, the shows that are on those networks. They don't say, I don't wanna buy, or I wanna buy Sister Wives. Now, could you say, I don't wanna buy a specific show because I don't think it's safe for my brand? Yeah, you could. That's not what was happening here. Like, would you say, hey, pull us out of the duggars if we have ads that are supposed to run during that because there's currently a scandal going on?
Speaker 1:
[48:16] Yeah, but that's, when that happens enough, then TLC, as the network, as the channel, Pulls the show. then says, this show is radioactive, and we can't include that in our programming offerings for the advertising dollars that we're trying to sell.
Speaker 2:
[48:36] So at this time, all the Duggar stuff has happened.
Speaker 1:
[48:39] Yes.
Speaker 2:
[48:40] They're polling counting on. So I think that the Catfish decided that what they had done was big enough to be like that, and that TLC was gonna pull this show off of TV.
Speaker 1:
[48:51] Yeah, because realistically, it's like, no, if you're looking at it holistically of, oh, TLC's advertising dollars have really taken a hit, I think that was more to do with the Duggers, not so much to do with the catfishing that was going on with Meri on Sister Wives.
Speaker 2:
[49:07] If anything, the Catfish story on Sister Wives brought viewers, because people were curious to see what happened and to hear the truth of it. Because as we know, it takes forever for this show to air between the times things happen in real life and then the time that we see them on TV.
Speaker 1:
[49:25] Well, and then still, as we're talking about it, this is like 10 or 11 episodes that we've done just for this book at this point now. People are still confused, too. It's like this is a very complex universe and a tapestry of things that are going on. And to understand all of the subtle nuance of what took place, what people were saying online, what actually gets reported on the show, and everything in between all of that, there's a ton of information to sort through. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[50:01] My other evidence that this was not bad for the show is they continued to bring it up in later seasons.
Speaker 1:
[50:05] They would not stop talking about it, even when the audience was like, I think we're done.
Speaker 2:
[50:10] You know what's funny to think about, because I feel like a lot of people think that that was Meri, who was trying to continue to bring it up. I wonder if the show, in a way, pushed to like, let's talk about the catfish again. Do you have anybody who you wanna fly out to come meet you? Like, because they did that two times.
Speaker 1:
[50:30] They did it several times, multiple times.
Speaker 2:
[50:33] And they would have done it more.
Speaker 1:
[50:35] They would have done it more, because there were more people where it was like, oh, that person fell through, but I had another person over here who would come visit instead. They would have done it 10 times over. Yeah, they would have kept going with that.
Speaker 2:
[50:53] And Kendra mentioned that she suspected that this person watched Meri for a long time before they ever even engaged with her. Which would make sense. I mean, they've been on TV for years at that point. So I think they studied Sister Wives. They studied the Eeyore type things that Meri posted before she met them. And it was pretty clear that this was not the happiest of people and somebody who's manipulative was able to just sense that. Somebody who's a predator can tell that there's somebody who's waiting to be taken advantage of.
Speaker 1:
[51:29] Yeah, it's just like Kendra points out then too is where it's like Meri was a victim, Robin had nothing to do with it because she has to back up how Robin wasn't involved. And it's just like, okay, like we don't really have definitive reason to understand that Robin wasn't directly involved, I guess, because there was even like with her sending Cody over and so like that element of it.
Speaker 2:
[51:59] You mean indirectly involved in a way.
Speaker 1:
[52:00] Yeah, indirectly, sorry. But like how to know like where that level of involvement began or ended, because I think just from the fan group too, like that was something that Robin was feeding information to. Inadvertently, maybe at that point, like she didn't, she wasn't fully aware of the repercussions of answering some of those Q&A questions. You are letting people know who have direct access to Meri right now and are manipulating her. You're giving them absolute control over her at this point too.
Speaker 2:
[52:40] That's again why I question Kendra, because I think that Kendra mentioned a couple of times that Robin told her everything. And then Kendra had a connection back to the catfish through Lindsay. I think that Robin said a lot of things that ended up going through the grapevine and getting back to the catfish. Now, do I think that she knew that she was doing that? No. I think it went on for long enough that maybe she should have connected the dots that there was something suspicious about what was going on.
Speaker 1:
[53:14] A little slow. She's a little slow.
Speaker 2:
[53:17] I think that tracks.
Speaker 1:
[53:18] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[53:19] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[53:20] That makes sense.
Speaker 2:
[53:21] And I kind of think Cody didn't really care what was going on.
Speaker 1:
[53:25] That we know. Yeah. That we can confirm. Definitely.
Speaker 2:
[53:31] So there really wasn't anybody who was going out of their way to advocate for Meri, aside from Leon.
Speaker 1:
[53:37] Leon was trying their best. And-
Speaker 2:
[53:40] To be like, wake up.
Speaker 1:
[53:41] Nothing. Yeah. Nothing to show for that, unfortunately. And then even, I think that's the most frustrating part though, is to be Leon, where the entire time, Meri's telling you, no, no, no. Like, I'm not gonna listen to your advice at all here, because you're a child and you don't understand what's going on here with my friendship that I have with this person on Twitter. And then to flip into Meri is going full, I've been tricked, victim area here. And Leon is like, you can't claim that, because I told you months ago that this is what was happening and you dismissed it. So how can you then flip this around where you were being so strict and you had no idea what was going on?
Speaker 2:
[54:40] Up until the very end, you had no idea what was going on.
Speaker 1:
[54:42] Until the point where you were about to get caught is what we're getting down to here.
Speaker 2:
[54:48] No, I think one of the big problems that still exists in all of this is that Meri never has taken accountability for her actions here, that she was talking to somebody and that she thought that either it was a fun fantasy to engage in and then it turned a lot more serious than maybe she originally thought it was going to be. I don't know if that's the truth behind it, or that she was engaging in an emotional affair and she knew it the entire time and she just happened to get tricked by somebody and at the end it was embarrassing, so she backpedaled everything.
Speaker 1:
[55:29] Is that why the show brought it up at the season 20 tell all? Are we trying to still give Meri an opportunity to own up to this, I guess?
Speaker 2:
[55:43] I think that that would have been the perfect time to do it, to say, look, now you guys know a lot of stuff that we were trying to keep under wraps about how bad my relationship was with Cody for like a decade plus. I mean, really, in reality, since the first day that they got married. But the bad, bad stuff was like the last 10 years or so. That I was in a really dark place. I didn't want to be in this marriage anymore, but I felt like I was kind of trapped because my whole family is here and there's this commitment of being on the show and somebody approached me and we started talking and I enjoyed it and it turned into an affair. And I feel stupid in the end because this person wasn't real. But I wanted them to be.
Speaker 1:
[56:34] Yeah, if it had been, things would have been different. Definitely, even if it was a Jenny and Sumit thing where maybe they look a little different than their profile picture, but yeah, we could have made it work.
Speaker 2:
[56:47] The communication was real. Yes. The person they are within is real.
Speaker 1:
[56:53] But none of that was real. So yeah, that was the bigger issue here, but still no progress on that front. Still haven't seen that or heard that from Meri, and she still just kind of perpetuates that it was this vindictive effort that was against her from the start.
Speaker 2:
[57:13] I do think it was.
Speaker 1:
[57:14] True, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[57:16] But she-
Speaker 1:
[57:17] But there was a level of involvement.
Speaker 2:
[57:18] Yeah, she's failing to explain how she so easily got hooked into it.
Speaker 1:
[57:25] Yeah, and then the, you know, abject rejection of every other warning from every person in your life who's telling you that this seems a little too good to be true. It doesn't seem like you're doing the right thing here. No, no, no, shut that out, block that out until I go too far down the rabbit hole here and then realize, yeah, there's no good way out of this, but I've been tricked. I've been deceived this entire time.
Speaker 2:
[57:54] So next week, I think we're going to end up talking a little bit more about how all of that played out.
Speaker 1:
[57:58] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[57:59] Because the catfish continues to just spin their wheels through the end of this book, making shit up.
Speaker 1:
[58:04] Okay. I skimmed through, because chapter 10, we'll probably end up doing like chapter 9 and chapter 10 together, maybe, because chapter 10 was mostly just like a bunch of random photos, but yeah, it was like a few of the photos of Sam, allegedly, Sam in there, which is just ridiculous to think about now, where it's like you've still completed this book and you're still going to try to say that you are this person, present yourself as this person. Unbelievable.
Speaker 2:
[58:36] Yeah. No, I thought it was funny too, how the picture at the end, they're claiming is of themself is the same picture that they used as their author bio over on Amazon.
Speaker 1:
[58:47] Was it the one with like half the face? That's strange to not use a full face for your author bio.
Speaker 2:
[58:55] That's what everybody had to say about when they would talk on the phone with Sam, was that Sam would really try to like either not show his face at all, or just show like parts of his face. And the same thing with pictures. It wouldn't always be like a full photo of a face. So, I mean, things that should have been red flags.
Speaker 1:
[59:17] Definitely. Yeah. Well, if you're turning a blind eye, it's really hard to notice. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[59:23] Well, if you guys are looking for more content from us, we have a Patreon, patreon.com/survivingpod. We just dropped a recap of all of, trust me, the false profit on Netflix.
Speaker 1:
[59:35] Yes. So, that was a wild ride. And it's a four-part documentary series on Netflix. And so, it's like two hours of the recap that we went through there, where we're talking about all of it, start to finish.
Speaker 2:
[59:50] With Christine Marie, who you guys are familiar with, from the Sister Wives on the Ropes episode in season six, when they go to the polygamy panel.
Speaker 1:
[59:58] Yes. The polygamy panel.
Speaker 2:
[60:00] That's what I'm calling it.
Speaker 1:
[60:01] It feels like.
Speaker 2:
[60:02] The Professor Perbs polygamy panel.
Speaker 1:
[60:05] Oh, no. Yeah. Really rough.
Speaker 2:
[60:09] After they had the anthropologists stay with them.
Speaker 1:
[60:11] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[60:12] Yeah. And Christine, she's back and she is, I mean, the star of this documentary.
Speaker 1:
[60:18] Doing the Lord's work.
Speaker 2:
[60:21] We had a lot of opinions about it.
Speaker 1:
[60:24] Yeah. Yeah. A lot of thoughts.
Speaker 2:
[60:25] Some of which I feel like are a little controversial.
Speaker 1:
[60:27] Yeah. A little bit. Conversation starters. It's not all good stuff because yeah, we take the good, we take the bad too. So like we call out both sides. Both sides of that.
Speaker 2:
[60:39] Now, I feel like we try to be pretty fair with our criticism.
Speaker 1:
[60:42] Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[60:44] And if you're interested in that, that's at the bonus content tier, the bonus tier.
Speaker 1:
[60:48] Bonus tier.
Speaker 2:
[60:48] Bonus access tier. That's what it's called.
Speaker 1:
[60:50] Okay. Throw me a fricking bonus access here.
Speaker 2:
[60:56] We also had a mediocre down deep dive episode about Emma's Rings and Things from Emma Johnston. That's part of Seven Little Johnstons and all of the recapping that we're doing over there. We are hearing the people you were telling us you want us to recap Seven Little Johnstons from the beginning.
Speaker 1:
[61:15] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[61:17] So something we're considering is, do we do that on the Surviving Sister Wives feed?
Speaker 1:
[61:22] Right.
Speaker 2:
[61:23] We've been covering that over on Surviving Reality, the new season that's airing right now, Season 17. But this just feels so, in a way, adjacent to Sister Wives, just like the dynamic of the family, that do you want us to recap it over here? Because it's something we're really considering.
Speaker 1:
[61:41] Yeah, because we've talked about what to do next once we wrap up the book, where we were going to do, obviously, a couple of little rehash episodes that we'll throw in there as well for the Sister Wives stuff that we'll go back to. And then we were talking about dipping a toe into Big Love, which we kind of started, but that was like before we were even really watching Sister Wives on a regular basis too. So we were going to try to pick that up again, and then just kind of review that or talk about similarities to Sister Wives and connect it back to that. So what content do you guys want to see?
Speaker 2:
[62:17] We're getting asked to do Sister Wives from the beginning again.
Speaker 1:
[62:19] Sister Wives from the beginning again.
Speaker 2:
[62:20] But I feel like that would be like a post-Sister Wives endeavor.
Speaker 1:
[62:23] I feel like it needs to, yeah, like I want to hold off until like Sister Wives is like done, done.
Speaker 2:
[62:28] Yeah, to start back at the beginning.
Speaker 1:
[62:30] Once they confirm out that it's like over, completely over.
Speaker 2:
[62:34] We need to know all of the information.
Speaker 1:
[62:36] Yeah. We could do a holistic one where we go back, but in the meantime, we'll just kind of find some other stuff to fill in between seasons as they're still airing.
Speaker 2:
[62:46] I feel like we're probably going to start getting close.
Speaker 1:
[62:48] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[62:49] To it coming back again.
Speaker 1:
[62:50] Getting there, getting to that point. They kept trying to talk about how they were going to speed up that timeline. Get us caught up to current day is what they kept saying, current day. I don't know what that means.
Speaker 2:
[63:01] It really worked out.
Speaker 1:
[63:02] Don't know what that means.
Speaker 2:
[63:04] Thanks for listening. See you next time.