Recap: Kate Plus 8 "New England Adventures": Maine-ly, Kate is a #dolt

Coming up on Kate Plus 8, screaming, crying, screeching, whining. Which is usually what's coming up on this god-damned show. There's normal familial disagreements, and then there's an unhappy family. There's a difference.

Cool drone shot of the kompound. You can tell it's probably GoPro because of the fisheye. Not that their property isn't already out there, but it seems to me this is kind of reckless. It would make it really easy for anyone to find it on Google maps who maybe already doesn't know. They used to only film little snippets of the property, such that it would be very difficult to pin down its location based on the footage. I don't get the sense anyone cares about common sense anymore, least of all Schmoopy here.

Kate has discovered, Chris Columbus style, that they have never been to New England before, so that would be a great place to get TLC to pay for a trip to.

Hm. But they all went to Connecticut in 2012 to run a race together. Maybe she thinks New England is its own state.

Kate tells Zorro she's going to miss him while they're away. He bites her. Heh, I imagine he's a fan of Vivica Fox this season on CA. A long, boring explanation about how they will all get packed. Schmoopy's in her element when she incessantly drones on about pointless things about herself and the things she does nobody else cares about. She treats her show sort of like a video version of Facebook. Next she'll be showing us the green smoothie she is about to drink and the cute little booger in one of the kid's noses when he woke up this morning.

More long, boring shots of the kids packing. Much to the dismay of Doofus, who rolls her eyes like a child, the kids, who are getting older and wiser by the day, actually want to pack their own things and choose their own clothes, which makes packing a nightmare for a control freak.

I love this part! Hannah says Mom used to try to make them wear all matching clothes, and quote, "that is so annoying." I remember many a debate back in the good ole days between the haters and the sheeple, with the sheeple saying just let them wear matchy-match clothes they probably like it! And us mean haters saying matching clothes are silly they are not toddlers, they should be allowed to be their own people and express themselves and choose their own damn shirt to wear.

Now, the golden child herself tells us that it turns out the kids hated doing the matchy-matchy thing! I feel validated, and I have a funny feeling we're going to continue to be validated as the kids get older and find their voices and confirm many of our wise speculations.

As so many have pointed out, the boys have shaped out to be so awesome. They just sort of go with the flow of packing as Kate barks orders, is over-the-top unreasonable, and tries to get a rise out of them. They're just like sure whatever you want Mom, I'm sure you know best. If you just don't engage with Kate, it's the same as cutting off her arms and legs. A histrionic narcissist craves somebody to engage with, and they won't do it.

As per her usual, Kate won't tell them where they are going. Then she teases them by using the words "main" or "mainly" in every sentence. Hannah's like no we didn't pick up on that because she always says that. Lol. And you mainly ignore her usually anyway, right kids? Actual research shows you get the biggest boost of happiness from planning and anticipating your vacation, not from actually being on it. This boost can last almost eight weeks! There is virtually no boost in happiness either on the trip or after you get home from the vacation. It's always grated on me she takes away the fun of anticipation from them. Instead they're always packing in the dark and headed down the road to nowhere, completely clueless. Poor kids.

Packing was such a struggle for this trip, and was half a day of their lives they won't get back, says the problems of the 1%. This is like Facebook, or Pinterest! Now Kate is shredding zucchini! Kate has confiscated Mady's phone again, but neither Kate nor Mady can remember why. Well, that's an effective punishment.

Mady describes the phone thing as Kate thinking, "I'm so cool, I have all the power." I think that child is pretty darn insightful.

The next morning, it's so early it's dark. Mady is still begging Kate for the phone back. I get that, it sucks not to have your phone on a long traveling day and vacation shouldn't start out on the wrong foot like this with you still being punished (for a reason no one can remember, apparently). Kate kind of gives her a "maybe, we'll see," type thing, then turns around and tells the cameras she's not getting it back. Mady's right, it's a power thing.

Mady and Cara are bringing a friend with them, Marley. Cara asked if she could bring a friend. I.e. Cara refused to film unless she gets her way, eh, Kate? Heh, I quite like these kids.

They arrive in Philadelphia airport and head to the plane. They don't want to road trip this one? It's not that bad of a drive. Ha-ha, schmoopy's slumming it in coach with the kids. Poor thing has to use her own hand as a headrest to doze. All the kids are glued to their iPads and iPhones the whole flight, quiet as mice. I think on the one hand it's nice you can just stick an iPad in front of a kid and they shut up the whole trip. On the other hand, what has happened to us?

There's a lot of filler in this episode, and I don't mean the kind you get in Beverly Hills. It's a lot of little unnecessary flashbacks to other trips, other flights, other griping. I could do without the history lesson.

Do you guys like flying? the producer asks the boys. Does anyone care? But incidentally, yes they like flying.

Kate rents a sprinter identical to the one they have at home. "Same seats!" she orders. For pity sake they are ten and fourteen years old, they still have a seating chart?

They head right to Plimoth. Did you know your very own Admin is a direct descendant of Pricilla and John Alden, two of the original pilgrims to settle here? I think I have my great-grandmother's nose.

They get dressed up as pilgrims, which strikes me as rather babyish, but the kids really seem to be enjoying this, so fine. At least a few people have mentioned that the kids may be more willing to participate in whatever, even babyish things, just because at least they are getting a chance to socialize and get out of the house. I think that's a fair point. Collin especially is so cute all head to toe in stockings, wool and brass buttons. It's nice to see the boys so much more relaxed and happy than in previous updates where they seemed frighteningly checked out. Kate too gets dressed, complete with a corset. The woman assisting her is too nice. Too bad Frances Fisher couldn't help her lace that one up.

He-he, Kate looks more like The Flying Nun than she does my great-grandmother. She's upset the stiff pilgrim shoes don't have Nike technology. She says they were so stiff a dog's teeth could have been broken on them. Tee-hee, that's what she said.

They meet up with one of the Pilgrim reenactors. I was last here when I was a teenager and being the history nerd that I was, I loved it. These people never step out of character. If your cell phone rings they act frightened and want to know what that is, that's how much they are into it. Viewing it now from an adult's eyes, it's sort of cheesy to have a bunch of actors everywhere pretending they are in a time warp. But on the other hand, it's obviously a great way to get kids interested and excited about history, and that I love.

Kate takes hobbling harridan to a whole new level as she stumbles after the kids who are gathering hay, carrying water, and other chores. Post trip, mostly all the kids can talk about was how hot it was. They need air conditioning, Collin says. I'm sure William Brewster will get right on that. Did they clear the entire Plimoth Planation in the middle of high tourist season for this family? It's utterly empty. A pilgrim ghost town.

Kate's really taken aback by the sheep and how vocal they are. You would think she would be quite comfortable amid dumb sheep by now, even vocal ones.

The kids help one of the pilgrims making some food, like eggs and mussels. In keeping with how she usually checks out an hour or so into the task on Celebrity Apprentice, Kate goes off to take a nap. Somewhere up there in heaven my grandma is snickering at this doofus. I come from a long line of both patriots and humorists.

The next day they make the long drive up to Maine, stopping at a little town called Bath for lunch. For some reason this name seems to really entertain Kate. She knows it was likely just named after the famous spa town in England, right? Lots of Northeast states have a Bath, including PA and NY. For only being on the road one morning Kate sure has a laundry list of complaints about the drive, including the Dolt giveth and the Dolt taketh away iPads. Aw, this restaurant looks like just about every little family restaurant you can find in any little Northeast seaside town. The kids seem too old for those plastic cartoony kid drinks. Maybe I'm getting out of touch with ten-year-olds.

Mm, fried pickles and calamari. And lots of other deep fried goodness. I love summer and small little coastal towns. Hehe, Mady orders lobster. The kids, being ten, are kind of forgetting their manners, playing with the food a bit, but since it's all about the details for Kate, nothing is allowed to just be let go on vacation. They even have to use a knife and fork to eat calamari. Stupid.

Mady ordered the lobster both because she was interested in trying it and because she knew it would piss Kate off because Kate finds lobsters gross. I find myself thinking Mady is my new favorite character on this show, then catch myself because that's just weird to think. She's a young woman for pity sake. A real person, not an actor or character. And yet the poor child is being discussed on the inter webs as if she were a "character", and I see how it happened. I fell into it too.

Predictably, Kate has to get in a slam about her upbringing saying she never got this sort of opportunity to try lobster so have at it, Mady. I daresay many of our parents could not afford this sort of nonsense and would not allow us to order it even if they could afford it. Especially when we're far too young to appreciate the delicacy and would, nine times out of ten, leave 90% of it on our plates to waste. I think we turned out all right despite being deprived of such a fine crustacean. Why is everything about her kids directly related to her own perceived bad childhood? Maybe a therapist could tell her. Hehe, now Lexi wants a lobster too. Well, that's what happens when you allow your children to go down this rabbit hole.

Mady loves that she's found something Kate hates. She wants to put lobsters under Kate's pillow. Hehe, the next four years are going to be long, very long, for poor Doofus.

They hit the road again and end up in Lincolnville where their beach house is. This is more than just a shanty. It's a beach-mansion. It also doesn't really appear to be on or near the beach. Maybe it's off camera somewhere.

Mady, being a teen, is mad there is no cell or wifi service. It's gonna be a long two weeks for a teenager.

Dramatic ensue because Lexi doesn't want to sleep on the couch. Well, I get that. It's kind of unfair the other two girls get nice lush bunk beds and she's stuck on the couch. Not sure how that happened, but poor Lexi is promising, tears welling in her eyes, that she'll be quiet if she can just have a bed. Aw, that's so sad. Maybe they need to at least take turns. Remarkably even Hannah suggests that if Leah and Lexi both really want that top bunk maybe they could just trade off each night. That's reasonable. Kate is dismayed the children have minds of their own. Heh. Kate shuts the three younger girls in a room and tells them to figure it out. Eh, I know this is Kate just being lazy, but at this age, they need to figure out such trivial things among themselves and stop running to Kate to solve it and betting she'll do something unfair that will end up in their favor. Interspersed with all this, the girls are giving each other random little pushes and shoves. That is so bizarre to watch. I've never seen such a thing except among preschoolers. It's like a second form of communication for them other than their words. They are ten for gosh sakes. And Kate just stands there, doing nothing about all this physical violence.

Hannah, bless her heart, volunteers to sleep on an air mattress so that Leah and Lexi can both get what they want. Well, that was nice of her, and mature. Good for her.

Commercials, and what a coincidence they are showing the trailer for Paddington, which Kate just happened to tweet about. Another grift?

The next day it's pouring rain as it tends to do in the Northeast during summer exactly when you're planning to go to the beach. I think it's nice that they put rain gear on and head to the beach anyway. The beach can still be fun even in the rain. They tackle the rocky shore and explore, finding some little crabs. I hate screamers. I think her screaming is getting worse as the years go by. More shrill.

After the beach, they hazmat the house to do some painting like they are two. If you really watch closely, the kids are constantly smacking each other. I mean it is non-stop. In one little clip, I spotted Alexis smacking Aaden and then whipping her easel toward him like a bayonet. This sort of thing goes on all episode long. Geez.

When all is finally set up the kids finally calm down and concentrate on their paintings. None of these are very good even the twins', except maybe Collin's, of a whale. Somebody should have told them to paint a base color on their canvas first. It would look so much better.

The next day they head to a ropes course. That's really cool, and Kate is right about it being difficult to find activities the two different age groups both like. I give the producers credit for really trying to find activities that appeal to the whole crew. I like ten-year-olds because they look at a sheer vertical wall with like two dozen teeny tiny little plastic peg things to hold onto, and they're all about it, can't wait to tackle it. They don't have the stupid fears and reservations and logic us silly adults have.

Doofus can't figure out something as simple as how to clip on and off. She even admits she felt sort of stupid. However I think she thinks being a #dolt is cute, which it's not. Alexis and the boys especially loved this activity, aw! Kate is being one of us adults with stupid fears and reservations and won't do most of these. That's fine, but don't teach your children your fears.

Nice, the only good flashback clip they've shown so far, to when our favorite Kiwi and honorary blog husband, pushed her off a tower and laughed at her. Hehe, nice one!

On a side note, splicing in a bunch of flashbacks into the episode makes these episodes so much more low-budget. All these flashbacks add up, which means you don't need nearly as many days of footage to make one episode. Money saved. I think that's just an interesting thing to ponder about TLC's game plan here. Showing incredibly long, drawn out clips of the kids swinging across ropes also saves money. A couple of the kids have GoPros on their helmets. Fun.

Collin and Aaden are so cool. They encourage each other and Collin tells him it's nice spending time with him, "we're the boys!" he proclaims. Aw. I'm so happy they've found their voices. They close the place out like you might a bar, lol.

After just having watched the RV episode it's nice to see a relatively less stressful vacation, at least so far. I suspect a big factor in that is that Kate hasn't brought along any hired help who is over her and primed to call her out.

Next up, my DVR has also decided to record the oh so educational My Big Fat Fabulous Life. Whitney's fat girl dancing Youtube video got 5 million hits. And, I'll skip recapping that.