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March 5, 2007: Ridgely/Carrao
So, let’s talk about this explosive table meeting. I’d heard whisperings about the explosive scene and seen the frantic previews, but I had never seen this episode until the repeat tonight. I’m still trying to figure out what caused it.
First, Kim Carrao leaves the house because cowboy Randy Ridgely is being belligerent. On the way to the table meeting, Randy’s gearing up to fight Kim’s husband Louis. They get to the table meeting. Kim talks first. She accuses Randy of not doing anything she asked. He responds by saying she didn’t do anything at all, and she was a bad influence on the kids. He says she brought a “trough” of candy into the house, which makes Louis laugh (it made me laugh, too, 'cause it wasn’t really a trough, it was just a bowl and he was freaking out over candy of all things), which makes Jen angry at Louis for laughing. “What’s so funny?” she barks at Louis. Then Louis starts telling Kim how much of a prude Jen is; Jen gets heated and scoffs at Louis’ sudden development of a backbone. Then Jen’s going, “Do I look like a prude?” (Answer, in my opinion: kind of.) Jen starts calling Kim "disgusting" and a "slut," at which point Kim throws water at Jen. Randy flips out and throws the table on Kim and Louis. Louis freaks out and goes after Randy, who is all manly and wanting to punch him. All hell breaks loose. People come out from behind the cameras, everyone screams, someone’s telling somebody else “don’t do it.” Then there’s fancy camerawork, the scene blacks out, comes back up to show Louis threatening to sue Randy. More screams. The set workers are holding the guys back. Kim is acting all tough and yelling at Randy. And then a final shot of the table, where all kinds of learning and love are supposed to happen, in dishevelment.
I think I got that right…. And what a mess it was! I wanted to put it all down and go through it, because it all happened so quickly. Plus, I’ve never seen a table meeting like this; it was total chaos.
Before I get into what I thought about it all, guess what I found out? I was looking around to see if I could find anything about these families and, apparently, the families each get $20,000 for appearing on this show! Or at least, the Carraos said in an interview that that’s what they received. I didn’t know that. I figured they just did it for the 15 minutes of fame. I guess some money would have to be paid for the kind of embarrassing honesty that’s demonstrated, but that seems like a lot just to have a camera follow your family around for two weeks. I guess the emotional stress of it all does warrant a pay-out, but still…. It’s all very suspicious to me.
All right, back to these families. First, I’ll say that I didn’t like either one at all. Neither one offered any kind of redeeming qualities. Both seemed downright immature, for as much as the Ridgelys tried to come off as pseudo-disciplined and psycho-structured. I felt sorry for Jen Ridgely. I guess they’re happily married and they love their rodeo-obsessed life. But when she was cleaning her horse and saying that she loved the horse and that taking care of him was better than sex, that made me wonder how happy you can be if washing a horse is your idea of romance.
And the way she tried to make her kids all tough? The girls were 3 and 7 years old. How tough do you have to be at that age? I get that the rodeo business is tough and demanding, but shouldn’t they get to choose whether they want to be in the rodeo business? And shouldn’t they get some kind of childhood innocence? Can’t they play like girls? The older child has to do two hours of chores before she goes to school. My morning when I was a kid was having my mom get me out of bed and onto the bus, and those simple acts seemed to exhaust me. Two hours of morning chores for a 7-year-old seems a little, well, nuts.
I can understand wanting to discipline your kids, give them rules and structure and responsibility, and I will say that Jen’s kids were very well behaved, but at what price? Their family motto is “Refuse to Lose” and the girls aren’t allowed to whine or cry, but isn’t that part of growing up, too? Kids should, in some degree, get to be kids. Poor 7-year-old Peyton already knows that if she whines or shows weakness, she gets busted. She’s supposed to be strong and work hard, but if she doesn’t she knows her parents will be disappointed. And she’s been shoveling up poop since she was 2 years old? I just can’t get over it. They can only whine or cry if they have broken bones or are being taken off in an ambulance? The poor girl even gets timed in the bathtub. Everything is regulated in military fashion. I wonder what kind of childhood Jen had.
Of course, on the opposite end of the discipline spectrum is Kim and Louis Carrao and the freedom they like their kids to have. The kids can stay up as late as they want, run around in the hot tub with their friends while their parents party, paint on the walls and do whatever they want. Did you see Victor Carrao in the toy store? He was such a brat! And he was freaking out, saying he wanted out of the stupid world and that he was going to stick a fork in his stomach.
I don’t know, but is that a normal kid's temper tantrum? I’ve witnessed some temper tantrums and have had my own share as a kid, but I don’t remember ever wanting to stick a fork in myself because I couldn’t get some gum. I definitely agree with Jen Ridgely that it’s their mother's influence. Kim gets whatever she wants from Louis; she even flirts with other men and lets Louis do everything around the house. No wonder Kim’s kids throw tantrums when they don’t get gum.
But if it were a choice between Cowboy Randy and Louis, I’d opt to spend time with Louis. Quite frankly, Randy seemed like a big jerk. When Kim was putting makeup on the girls, he said “that’s what all the ugly girls in America need to make themselves pretty.” That was just mean and rude. I didn’t particularly enjoy Kim, but he was belligerent to her, which is what caused the explosion at the table meeting.
I think Randy was the biggest factor in the explosion. But to be fair, neither family really listened to each other. They were more about throwing accusations and getting angry.
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Mar 5, 2007 10:26 PM
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Honestly, this was one horrific hour of television. I've seen a lot of these episodes and have recoiled at the antics some of these families try to pull. Yet, each week the show goes above and beyond to terrify us "singletons" into never getting married and having families! Yikes... I'm going to say it ---- WHERE DO THEY FIND THESE PEOPLE????
The physical altercation, as I saw it, was largely instigated by Jen. I agree that both parties were being disrespectful of each other, but basically just pointing out opinions of bad parenting skills. Jen was the one who went entirely too far, calling Louis an "alcoholic" and Kim a "slut."
Out of line. There was no need for name calling. Furthermore, Jen spent time with the family, not Kim herself, so she has no right to make judgements upon a woman she has never even met.
That prompted Kim to reach for her glass under the table and attempt to douse Jen with it. In my opinion, I didn't think Randy was trying to flip the table to hurt anyone as much as to shield his wife from the liquid being hurled in her direction. Louis obviously took this as direct aggression toward Kim and thus.... violence ensues....
I believe both are at fault, with a little more blame toward Jen for instigating the physical violence with her nasty comments. It's funny that these people, who pride themselves on raising their children as obedient, polite, responsible and productive memebers of society, were aggressive bullies. Great role models for the children... way to go, Mom & Dad!
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Mar 6, 2007 10:46 AM
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Neither of these families had much to recommend them, and the table battle at the end was just the icing on the cake; frankly, it didn't surprise me. I do think the Ridgely's were worse than the Carrao's though; Randy was a big [insert other name for a donkey here] the whole time, and Jen calling the little Carrao children 'weaklings' to their faces was pathetic. And she's lucky all she got was a glass of water in her face; if I was Kim, she might've gotten a hand across it. Who is she to call anyone a slut?
I thought one thing was quite interesting, especially given the post saying that Randy was trying to protect Kim from getting a watering; did you see him pushing her away from him? Such a gesture from the hero. I think he was just itching to fight, and this was the straw that enabled him to bring it. JMHO.
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Mar 7, 2007 6:44 PM
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You're totally right, Solitary Phoenix, about Randy pushing Jen away. I wasn't trying to make him out to be the hero of the hour by any means. I just meant that he didn't seem like he was flipping the table to do any harm to anyone. Once he and Louis started to go at it, Randy seemed like he could have hit his own mother if she had been in his way. Guys like that creep me out!
I dated a guy once who got into a "who's the better man" fight with a male friend that ended up getting physical. Of course, here I was trying to break them up and I got shoved---HARD. I ended up with a palm-sized bruise on my breast and he threw his guts up all nite b/c of all the alcohol he'd drank. Needless to say, THAT ended quickly. You don't marry guys like that.
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Mar 9, 2007 5:21 PM
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