Just How Phony Is Couples Therapy?
Good job, VH1. You got me. I didn't see a single second of Couples Therapy -- an unscripted series, in the mold of Celebrity Rehab, that documents couples undertaking intensive, in-patient treatment to help heal their relationships -- in its first season. But you managed to land Courtney Stodden and Doug Hutchison for Season 2, and I can't pass that shit up.
Couples Therapy kicked off its second season last night by introducing us to the four couples who are embarking on the very serious business of salvaging their marriages (I actually had to go check that there were five other couples, because Courtney and Doug really eclipse them all), with at least one element of its production already debunked: Maria Elena Fernandez of The Daily Beast published a post on Monday noting that, due to child labor laws, the seventeen-year-old Stodden couldn't live in the Couples Therapy mansion, not that the finished episode gave any inkling of it. In fact, the audience is given to believe that the couple did live in the mansion together throughout the shoot: we see Courtney carrying luggage into the mansion as the episode begins; later, Doug lounges on a bed while Courtney heads into the ensuite bathroom as though to start her evening ablutions.
Beyond the details reported in Fernandez's (great) post, I don't know for a fact what parts of the Couples Therapy premiere were something less (or more, depending on your perspective) than documentary footage. But here are a few elements that seemed fake.*
- Doug says the reason he and Courtney are on the show is that he's frustrated by all the attention he and Courtney get for their relationship, as though (a) getting attention isn't the reason they're on the show, and (b) getting attention isn't the reason for everything they do.
- Though Simon van Kempen and Alex McCord claim the reason they're on the show is that they can't stop fighting, it seems pretty clear that they're on the show because, having been fired from The Real Housewives Of New York City, they want to be on TV again. That may sound cynical, but Alex's stint on Couples Therapy coincides with this Groupon deal on her signature bath towels! (Really, that she cites Couples Therapy in her Groupon bio as though it were any other IMDb credit tells you everything you need to know about the health benefits of the "therapy" the participants undertake.)
- Brought to the room she is to share with her husband, Nik Richie, Shayne Lamas waits for him to leave the room and then pulls one of the twin mattresses that have been pushed together into a king size bed and sets it across the room for Nik to sleep on. When he gets mad, one assumes she's achieved the reaction she wanted and will be happy, but she cries and claims it was a joke. Not funny and also mean, it has the whiff of having been coached by producers.
- Courtney calling Doug "Dad" and Doug responding to Joel "Jojo" Hailey's question about whether he has kids by smirking "I'm raising my wife" seems like trolling -- and it's not subtle, either.
- Shayne says she doesn't know who Courtney is, which -- given the circles they both run in -- seems actually impossible. I've been living in Los Angeles for two months and I've already seen Courtney at Target. (This is not a joke: I really did.)
Do I think anyone's marriage is really going to be saved by the couples' therapy of Couples Therapy? Nah. But I don't think the hoarders of Hoarders are going to learn to stop hoarding either, and I will devour both shows for the irresistible pleasure of judging strangers.
* Note: I am not even mentioning everything about Doug and Courtney that seems fake outside the context of the show. Okay, I will: her stated age, her hair, her lips, her breasts, her general hypersexualized demeanour, their supposed love for each other.