Screen: MTV
Normally, I use this space to examine the lives of the four teen moms of Teen Mom 3 and order them according to whose life, as portrayed in the episode, seemed be the crappiest -- since, let's face it, there is never any shortage of life-crappiness in any given episode; that is, after all, kind of the point of the show. But to mark the Scary Week occasion, I thought I'd switch it up, and rank the biggest scares in this week's episode, from least scary to scariest. Surprise! The people who are most scared are not the titular Moms.
Angie
Silly Angie thinks she can go away on a mission trip for nine days and come back to status quo. But, of course, while she's gone, Josh is moved to a change of heart by an extremely stagey conversation with a friend, during the course of which Josh realizes that he could spend more time with Gannon, and also maybe pick up when Mackenzie calls him. Josh decides to make up with Mackenzie by (a) first returning her saddle to her, so, mixed message there, and then (b) generously telling her he thinks they could try being a couple again without saying anything that sounds like "I'm sorry," which is kind of shocking considering that part of the reason they broke up is that Mackenzie and Angie caught him in a lie. Angie isn't thrilled to return to the news that Josh and Mackenzie are "Facebook official" again. But her big scare comes when Josh shows up to get Mackenzie at 10 PM, and Mackenzie hops to, waking up a sleeping Gannon to go out with them. It's a chilling vision of what things might be like if the time should ever come when Mackenzie and Josh are co-parenting Gannon on their own, (and yes I know that Mackenzie and Josh ARE co-parenting on their own now, but I hope Mackenzie's smartened up since then and learned that you NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING BABY, FOR GOD'S SAKE).
Roxanne
Once Devoin was dispatched (to hell, if there's any justice), Briana's storyline this season has mainly been driven by reminders that Briana, Brittany, and Roxanne have pulled together and gotten closer for the sake of Nova, because all they have is each other. (I know it sounds corny, and it kind of is, but it's also just nice to see any family in this franchise being so loving with each other -- not to mention that we never forget part of the reason Brittany can be so attentive to Nova is that when she was pregnant at the same time Briana was, Brittany chose to terminate instead.) But now Roxanne's vision for a dystopic future seems to be coming true: Briana's talking to a new guy, Jacob. Brittany has asked around, and reports that Jacob is just another Devoin; he's not in school, which according to Brittany means he ain't shit. But the quality of the guy is beside the point for Roxanne, because any guy could get Briana pregnant again. She and Brittany close ranks and keep Briana from going out to dinner with this bro by refusing to babysit Nova, and I can't say I blame them. But even if Jacob's out of the picture, I'd imagine Roxanne's terror remains.
Wendy
With Alex getting her shit together post-Matt, Wendy probably hoped she could stop being scared for her future. When the guy Alex has been talking to lately turns out to have been hitting on other girls via Facebook and Alex immediately brushes him off, it seems to be another good omen. But then, a message from Matt, who's just finished his second stint in rehab since this season began: he's been kicked out of his halfway house. So...that probably isn't good news? If a place specifically intended to help the recently clean stay clean can't handle Matt? Because it probably means he's using again, and we already know he has nowhere else to go? Alex is unfazed, telling friends she'll worry about Matt if and when he shows up on her doorstep needing her help, and not before. But poor Wendy, having to picture the havoc Matt seems destined to wreak on Alex's life again, to say nothing of the mess he is even more likely to make of Wendy's basement.
Luci
So things have gotten even more horrendously terrible between Joey and Katie: she's accepted that she and Joey have broken up and seems, overall, more resigned than sad about it. And then Joey kind of does her a favour by telling her (in "a letter," read: one ripped-out piece of notebook paper) that he's "seeing someone else." Yes, it's shitty of him to move on from Katie so quickly, after their two years together, and when I say "quickly," I mean it's been three days. But his being honest with Katie about his shittiness will, I hope, help her stop fantasizing about a happy future the two of them are neeeeeever going to have together -- and wouldn't have had together whether he'd already lined up some other girl or not. The current chaos has Katie leaning more heavily on her mother Luci than we've ever seen to this point, so Luci's been around more to see how aggressive Joey is with Katie and around Molli. And though Katie's attitude toward Joey seems to me to suggest that she doesn't fear that Joey will physically harm her or Molli (she's not cowed or flinchy, and confidently fights back against him verbally), Luci has had a little more experience of the world and is clearly scared for Katie and Molli's safety as Joey stomps around the apartment yelling and swearing -- scared enough to call the police on him. Congratulations to Joey on becoming this season's second Teen Dad to require that legal action be taken against him! And (sincere) congratulations to Luci on having read and remembered The Gift Of Fear and not ignored her instincts for the sake of maybe keeping peace between her daughter and an abusive shitheel.