If you tuned into the premiere of Sister Wives season 18, you might be wondering when the show was filmed. Let's break down what we know based on the clues from the August 20 season premiere.
In "No Such Thing as a Free Lunch," Kody Brown and wives Meri, Janelle and Robyn are trying to figure out how to celebrate the upcoming holidays, especially given the departure of Kody's third wife, Christine.
Given that at this point Christine has already left Kody and is living on her own, and with the holidays coming up, it is safe to assume that filming on Sister Wives season 18 took place in the fall of 2022.
Christine left Kody in November 2021 after their marriage deteriorated beyond repair. The strain of the family's physical separation during COVID-19, concerns over Kody spending more time with "favorite" wife (Robyn) and the couple generally drifting apart are some of the main issues that led to the separation.
Despite their plural marriage, Kody is only legally married to Robyn (Meri was his first wife, but Kody ended up divorcing Meri to legally marry Robyn so that he could adopt her children from her first marriage). When Christine left it was a matter of working out the details of how Kody would see the former couple's only minor daughter, Truely. (The couple shares a total of six children, with five over the age of 18: Aspyn, Mykelti, Paedon, Gwendlyn and Ysabel)
Fall 2022 is a very interesting period of time for the show and for the Brown family. Though some time has passed since Christine's departure, Kody is still very angry about their separation. He acknowledged early on in the season premiere that he has been "an ogre," but toward the end of the episode he admits, "I want to spend some time hating [Christine]."
Kody's anger toward Christine, and the ongoing issues that led to Christine's departure from their plural marriage, eventually lead Janelle and Meri to leave, too.
We already know that Janelle left Kody in December 2022 and Meri followed in January 2023, which means fans will have a bird's eye view of what happened in the Brown household leading up to their decisions to leave Kody in future episodes.
New episodes of Sister Wives season 18 air Sundays at 10 pm ET/PT on TLC, with new episodes streaming on Max the following day.
