"Teen Mom's" Reason of the Week to Always Wear a Condom (Nov. 11, 2013)

The season finale of Teen Mom 3 didn't hold back.

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This week on Teen Mom 3—the season finale!—it seems that the young moms have finally gained a little perspective in their life. Case-in-point: When this season began, Mackenzie was a starry-eyed teenager with dreams of a little family and living happily after with her boyfriend and father of her son, Josh. Now, thirteen episodes later, she seems to finally realize that dreams like that are fairly unattainable when you have a kid at seventeen, and she's beginning to wonder more than ever if she and Josh actually have a healthy relationship to raise a child. Similarly, Briana has begun to grow up and tell her daughter's father, Devoin, that if he wants to be in their kid's life, he has to step up of his own accord—she's not going to force him, because she doesn't need him.

It was deeply refreshing to finally see some development after a whole season of watching these teen moms make mistake after mistake, but that's supposed to be the point—having a kid at a young age is tough, even for those moms who just so happen to have a whole crew of MTV cameras following them around all the time.

Mackenzie

For a change, this week was definitely not all sunshine and roses and cheerleading practice for Mackenzie. Now that she and Josh are officially back together, the couple is having to learn the perils of being in a seriously serious committed relationship as teenagers, when all they want to do is have fun—unfortunately, with a young child to take care of, this isn’t an option. Too bad the two of them didn’t have the advantage of watching Katie and Joey’s relationship crumble on cable television before they decided to have unprotected sex—one of them would probably have made that trip to the drugstore if they had. 

Anyway, Mackenzie is worried that she and Josh don’t get excited and have light-hearted, fun conversations anymore, because they’re always too concerned with being responsible and discussing Gannon. This leads to a lot of tension on Gannon’s first birthday, with Josh reverting back to his only-say-one-word-an-hour habit, and Mackenzie rattling on about memories and their relationship and the future, etc. etc. Do you think these two ever have meaningful conversations about life, the world, or even, like, Jersey Shore? Do they even have anything in common?

Concerned that their relationship is on the brink of collapse, Mackenzie suggests counseling, and Josh sort of agrees to trying it out, though it’s hard to tell because homeboy REFUSES TO SPEAK. 

Unfortunately, this just causes more harm than good. On their first trip to couple’s counseling, the two end up fighting majorly, first about whether or not to have the radio on (maybe Josh was just sick of hearing “Wrecking Ball” ten times in a row), then about Mackenzie picking up his phone. And here’s where things shatter: Josh stops the car, and tells Mackenzie that the two of them don’t have anything close to a family or stable relationship, and that he’s done with her—before threatening to leave her on the side of the road. When she refuses to get out of the car, he leaves instead. We already know these two crazy kids work it out, but how?! CLIFFHANGER ALERT.

Katie

For once, things were a little better for Katie and Joey—which is good, considering this is the season finale. For Molli’s first birthday, Katie wants to take a day trip to Salt Lake City (her obsession with this city knows no bounds) with just her, Molli, and Joey. Sounds cute, but if past experiences have taught us anything, it’s that Joey and Katie can’t be in in the same room with each other, let alone a tiny car, without wanting to rip each other’s heads off. Happy birthday to Molli, indeed.

Unfortunately, when she proposes the idea to Joey, he wants to include his new girlfriend, Brigette, in their plans. Katie is obviously opposed to this, so the two, naturally, get into another big fight because they’re children trying to co-parent a child of their own. When they hang up, it seems that the idea is a bust—however, for some reason, Joey ends up changing his mind and agrees to go, sans Brigette.

And somehow, against all odds, the trip actually goes pretty well! Katie and Joey are able to be civil around one another for the sake of Molli (how responsible!), and they seem to both accept the fact that they weren’t meant to be, and things worked out for the best now that they’re apart. Hopefully this is the start of them building the foundation for a real friendship so they can co-parent Molli in peace, because no one can take another season of these two yelling at each other nonstop.

Briana

For Briana, this week was a gamechanger after pretty much a whole season of nothing happening. For Nova’s first birthday, Briana decides (under the recommendation of her mother, Roxanne) to reach out to Nova’s dad, Devoin, for the first time in months so that he can spend it with his daughter on her special day as well. If you don’t recall—last we saw Devoin, Briana was serving him with a order of protection, and he was tweeting about how now he was finally free of parenthood. Classy guy, that one. Apparently, though, Roxanne thinks that time may have allowed Devoin to really grow as a human being, so she suggests that maybe he’ll want to start thinking about being in Nova’s life again.

So, Briana calls Devoin to invite him to the party. He accepts, and when he shows up, it’s with a box of diapers because what else do you get a one-year-old? Toys? Briana apparently thinks the diapers are a “good step,” though (her Aunt Christina doesn’t agree, noting it’s just one box of diapers for the entire year), so things seem to be off to a good start. Roxanne even apologizes to Devoin for snapping at him and nearly hitting him in an earlier episode, which is disappointing, because that scene was probably the best one in this whole series. 

Anyway, things go well, and finally Briana and Devoin talk one-on-one. Briana basically tells Devoin that she doesn’t need him for anything, but Nova does, so she’d like it if he were a bigger presence in her life—but he’ll have to be committed to sticking around, because she doesn’t want a flake. Spoiler alert: It doesn’t work out, because he’s now a flake with a criminal record.

Alex

Things weren’t great for Alex this week, but judging on what we saw before with her major fights with Matt, it was definitely a calmer step up. In this episode, Alex jets off to Bermuda with her family for some R&R, after discovering that she’s missing two credits from her school, and will need to repeat her senior year in order to graduate. Alex is, obviously, crushed, and the vacation seems to do her some good in terms of kicking back and relaxing. With Arabella now a year old, Alex notes that she has a lot to look forward to with motherhood.

After weeks of being pretty much AWOL, Matt is finally back in the picture this week too. Apparently, being homeless and kicked out of rehab and a halfway house have forced somewhat of an epiphany in him, and he really wants to be apart of Arabella’s life as a good father—not one who’s unstable and can’t evens show up to his own daughter’s birthday. He calls Alex to set up a time for them to meet, and though she’s slightly apprehensive about giving him another chance, she ultimately agrees to see him because she wants Arabella to be able to see him.

Unfortunately, when Alex arrives at their set meeting place, the park, with Arabella in tow, Matt is nowhere to be found—and Alex ends up waiting for an hour and a half before eventually taking off. No word on where Matt is, but at this point, do we even care anymore? It looks like MTV wants us to wait until next season to decide. 

Teen Mom's reason of the week to wear a condom

Thankfully, in the finale, Teen Mom 3 did not hold back any reasons to always wear a condom. The message was pretty crystal clear from the very start, really: Wrap it up, lest you want to deal with the perils of co-parenting after your relationship with your ex crumbles (and it will), and trying to graduate high school while taking care of a kid. Calculus is difficult enough on its own. Once again, Teen Mom 3 is the best condom commerical on TV, and for that, we couldn't be happier. Go buy some Trojans.

Until next season, everyone!

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