BREAKING: Teen Motherhood Still Sucks

Given the way things have gone for the first two rounds of the Teen Mom franchise, MTV is probably mostly hoping that none of the stars of the new Teen Mom 3 don't end up in jail -- and, for what it's worth, so far it seems like none of them is in danger of getting arrested on assault charges (AMBER) or drug charges (JENELLE). However, just because none of the ladies appears to be a threat to the community, that doesn't mean MTV hasn't remained true to the brand by finding four young women whose grim life circumstances serve as eloquent advertisements for family planning. But whose life is the most depressing at this early stage? We've ranked them from "not that bad, all things considered" to "yiiiiiiikes."

Mackenzie

From what I can tell, Mackenzie alone in the cast still lives with both her parents, who seem to like each other. I seem to recall from her 16 And Pregnant that her mother Angie was such a Christian that even after Mackenzie had given birth to one unplanned baby while still in high school, Angie wouldn't agree to get Mackenzie hormonal contraception, though I can't confirm that now, so grain of salt; anyway, despite that, Angie seems very kind and supportive; from what I can tell from this episode, Mackenzie seems to be the only member of the cast who's still attending high school classes in person, and she's even still keeping up with her cheerleading and aspires to join an elite competitive team. Angie is so supportive that she and Mackenzie's father Brad even consider letting Josh, her boyfriend of two years, move in to their house (though he wouldn't share a room with Mackenzie) to help with the baby and be nearer job prospects (other than his passion, rodeoing, which Mackenzie has convinced him to give up so that Josh doesn't injure or kill himself, out of consideration for their child). Too bad Josh is less interested in co-parenting his son Gannon (ugh) than he is in figuring out how to move out of his own parents' house, getting his own place, and enjoying life as an independent young adult in a way that, you know, the mother of his child totally can't. At the start of the episode, Mackenzie and Josh seem to hate each other's guts (not a great sign when you're out "celebrating" your second anniversary and have to ask your boyfriend in so many words, "Can you make eye contact with me?"), but I guess we'll see them work things out, since they just got married.

Briana

It's possible that Briana is ranked too high here because I think we didn't really get a full sense of what her life is like. I couldn't tell if she still goes to school or takes classes at all; I know she doesn't have a job because she tells her mother, Roxanne, that she plans to get one and to help Roxanne out financially. All I knew for sure, based on her 16 And Pregnant, was that she had the most trifling boyfriend; Devoin was so fully checked out of co-parenting even before baby Nova was born that Briana had decided not to put his name on the birth certificate. From what we saw last night, she hasn't counted on him to do much of anything since then, and she certainly wouldn't be the first teen mother to excise an absentee father from her life. But then Devoin decided to make the extremely classy move of publicly trashing Briana on Twitter. In the entire first two hours, Briana and Devoin have no direct contact with one another, and even though she drops the order of protection she'd taken out on him for harassing her online, I...have a feeling she will regret that.

Katie

Poor Katie. She did manage to graduate high school on time; she has a part-time job in a store; and she's living on her own with Joey, father of baby Molli. Unfortunately, Joey works nights (as a coal miner), which means that Katie and Joey are on opposite schedules and seemingly spend their limited time together fighting. Like all the teen dads that we actually see interacting with their children's mothers in this episode, Joey is mopey and laconic and riddled with so much regret about his life choices that we can practically see it, like a glowing radioactive aura. So I'm not sure it's for the best when, at the end of the episode, he proposes marriage. I mean, I know they're most of the way there already, but still -- if Katie's goal is not to have a marriage as miserable as her parents', saddling herself to a man who'll let her car (which he shares) get backed into by his aunt, dither around about getting his aunt's insurance information, and leave the scene of the accident without filing a report WHILE their child is in the car is not a great start.

Alex

Pooooooooor Alex. What she has going for her the most is a kind, supportive mother, Wendy -- who tried her hardest in Alex's 16 And Pregnant to push her toward placing her daughter for adoption, but has come around to Alex's motherhood and let her continue to live at home with baby Arabella (bit pretentious but AT LEAST IT'S A NAME, MACKENZIE) even though she'd said on tape that she wouldn't allow any babies in the house. The very determined Alex has three jobs and is trying to complete her high school classes online, though she's pretty far behind (to the tune of 252 assignments, if that wasn't comic hyperbole). Alex also has a boyfriend, Matt, who's just gotten out of an eight-week course of rehab for substance abuse, and though they never say what substance he was addicted to, whatever it is made him practically nod out in the middle of conversations when we first met him in Alex's 16 And Pregnant. Based on the fact that he moves straight in with Wendy and Alex after rehab, it seems like Matt has very little familial support on his side, or, at least, we don't see it if he does. Also, one of the first things Matt says to Alex upon release from rehab is that he's not sure it really changed him and that he still has his "demons"; later, when he and Alex do get a rare night out together, he wants to go to a restaurant in a part of town where, she knows, he used to buy drugs, and comes out of the place having supposedly "lost" ten dollars' worth of her change. Every time we see Matt, he appears to be high as hell, and Wendy and Alex suspect he's still using too. So I guess I owe Devoin an apology: there is a worse teen dad than he after all.