Recap: Kate Plus 8 "Rocking the Boat": Wrong, everyone has a soul. Yeah, science!

Last time on Kate Plus 8, Kate and the kids have never been to New England before, except when they've been before. Mady ate a lobster because Kate had a deprived childhood. Maine-ly, Kate was a hobbling harridan strapped into a corset, and she put on a shoe so stiff a dog could break its teeth on it. And, that's what she said! Coming up, rowing and fishing and Kate plays hide the bunny with the children's pet lobsters.

They've been "oowwn" their family vacation at the beach house, says the doofus from southern PA who is too darn lazy to try to sound less regional.

They have a boat ride arranged, and mercifully, Kate gives the children anti-sea sick wrist bands. Aw, poor kids. Thank goodness somebody is finally giving them a remedy for it instead of just letting it happen because it makes better T.V.

Mady first embarrasses Joel by telling the cameras all he has to do is step foot onto a plane and he's nauseous, then when he protests, tells Joel to shut up and shoves him in the face. The poor kid just takes it. As I said in the last recap, the amount of pushing, shoving, hitting and smacking going on here, quite frankly namely from the girls, is astounding. I've never seen anything like this from ten and fourteen year olds. Kate is not upset about the shove Mady just gave the kid in the face, but is upset she told him to shut up. Well, she's halfway there which is how she does just about everything, half-baked.

Ha, Hannah's right, Kate does say "mainly" a lot, which explains why none of the kids knew she was giving them hints about Maine. Lol. "Mainly," says Doofus, Cara was "hesitant" about the boat ride.

Can everyone just be quiet for a sec so I can pretend I'm alone? Kate demands.

"No!" some of the kids retort and they just talk louder. Lol. Her number. They have it.

They've arranged to have lunch on a little island called Indian Island, which greatly excites the three teenagers. Mady explains they read a book for school called And Then There Were None about an Indian Island. Nothing makes me happier than seeing a child get excited about seeing in person the things they have read or learned about. Of course this is not the real location of the book, which takes place in England, but that's no matter. I'm just happy to see kids realizing learning can be really cool. I don't read much mystery and haven't read this one, but it's pretty famous. It's an Agatha Christie novel, and apparently considered her magnum opus. Hm, I may have to add this one to the list. My library has it, and how amazing is it that a book published 80 years ago has a hold list of ten people still? Wow, what a legacy, Ms. Christie. Cara thinks this book took place in Maine. That's simply not true, it clearly takes place in the UK, but I don't know that that matters much. I suppose I'm just a bit disappointed that comment of hers was left in, because it makes her look a little silly, or perhaps not really paying attention to what she read after all.

They can't actually dock at the island, they have to be shuttled over there in small groups on the teeniest little dingy boat. I really resent when I have to agree with Kate, but I don't know why the captain didn't tell her this was going to happen, unless she wasn't listening, which is entirely possible. I think most mothers would not want to be separated from their children like this while they wait on the larger boat. Me being me I would be having Natalie Wood nightmares and all that, this is not a comfortable situation for someone as paranoid as myself.

Of course this sends her into mini crisis mode/pouting/whining instead of just trying to roll with it since there's nothing they can do about it. Most of the kids do fine with it, only a few seem uncomfortable but they survive. Kate grew up on a boat in Canada??? There's a 180 degree change in the narrative from her childhood. With her grandparents, eh? Well, sounds like she had a good time with them, that's ironic. Were they the ones to not allow her to have lobster or was that some other adult meanie? Too bad, and the one thing all our resident Canucks here on the blog had going for them is that Kate belongs to us, not them. Ha-ha, she's all yours now, girls. Her and Bieber.

Even once they are on the island Kate is still griping about the dingy. I know Kate said we are not to say shut up, but, shut up. They picnic off the beautiful Maine coast, everyone relaxes and seems happy.

The "lobstery boat" captain takes some of them off to check some traps. Kate goes into a mind-numbingly long explanation about how she's going to allow the teenagers to stay behind on the island while they go off and do this. Fine, they're old enough. She sounds very defensive. Why does she feel she needs to justify a perfectly reasonable parenting choice like this but for massive insecurity? She claims she doesn't care what people think of her parenting, but when she endlessly drones on about her parenting choices and why she makes them, it suggests otherwise.

I don't mind when Cara gets the setting of Agatha's book wrong, she's just a kid, but when doofus thinks And Then There Were None was in Maine too, she gets the #dolt hashtag. UK, Kate. It was in the UK. Read sometime. Read anything. It's good for you.

To make sure we get the message that just because she let them stay on the island alone doesn't mean she doesn't care about their safety (nobody cares about this island thing, TFW), Kate says the twins won't be allowed to drive until they are 18 just as Kate was not allowed to. Wow, Cara and Mady are having none of that. We're not you, Mady retorts. Hehe, see ya when they're 16, Kate.

Aaden looks bored to death on the couch as they explain the boring lobster stuff. He lets out a yawn so big it's audible. Wonder how long they had to sit on those couches and be made to talk about their mother. Poor guy. The younger kids enjoy the lobster fishing. Kate's playing on her phone. They are obviously not understanding these lobsters are meant to be eaten, even despite the fact that they have been instructed to only keep the big ones. The kids are petting, kissing, and naming the things.

Kate realizes maybe she didn't explain quite clearly this was dinner. The moment a child starts naming them, that should have been emphasized. I think this makes the kids look dumb, and that seems unfair to have them portrayed like this. When the reality is I would bet money Alex Forrest here intentionally didn't tell them the true nature of her intentions, for maximum drama.

Commercials. Oh, another little people family. We need more little people shows because the world is just not educated enough about exceedingly rare genetic mutations you may go through life not ever encountering once. #Snark.

We're back, and the kids are still having a lovely time catching lobsters and Kate finally clearly tells Alexis that they are going to be eating her friends for dinner. Maybe Alexis thought she was joking, I don't know.

Only people have souls, Kate says. Not animals. Joel and this entire blog of dog, cat, bird and otherwise lovers lets out a collective gasp.

Did you learn this on a game or a show, Doofus wants to know? No Kate, we just looked into the eyes of our babies and simply could not reconcile that they don't have a soul.

In fairness, I know a lot of conservative religions, including the one Kate was likely brought up in, do teach that animals don't have souls, and there seems to be some Biblical support for that. However, I once read online something from a pastor addressing this question. He said heaven is where we are perfectly happy, and if you need your fur baby to be happy, then there he will be. That made a lot of sense to me. There has also been some very recent and groundbreaking research examining MRI's from dogs that is showing that dogs do feel love and many other complex emotions scientists used to think only humans could experience. No soul? Science says you're wrong, Kate!

What I don't understand is why this point is so important to Kate. Joel can believe what he wants. He's his own person and is, gasp, developing his own views on the world, and things not of this world. Leave him alone. Joel even says rather smugly, these are "my words, and my thoughts." Ha-ha, Joel! Kate must just hate they are old enough to form their own words and have their own thoughts, and he seems to take delight in being able to hold his own when she disagrees with him or tries to tell him his opinions are incorrect. Good for him.

The teens are having silly fun with a gopro as teens tend to do. Only usually when this sort of thing happens it's posted on Youtube and gets all of 12 hits from your friends. I think Kate thought it was cute to ask the younger kids if they could choose, would they leave Mady and Cara there on the island and not pick them up. But some of them actually don't want to pick them up and that's mostly just troublesome, not cute, funny, or whatever.

They get back? And the lobsters are going to be murdered? And this will occur in the kitchen? With the candlestick? I want to give Kate a Vivica stink-eye for the constant uplift to her speech, it's infuriating. The more Kate speaks in questions the more I notice so many other Americans doing it, too, and it's become like nails on chalkboards to me. This is a pretty recent development in the American accent and it's about as bad as the Valley Girl speak that developed in the 80's if not more annoying.

The helpful captain-ish man gives Kate cooking advice. Surely he must have heard she wrote a cookbook, I'm sure she can handle this. I bet her rich not-a-boyfriend could even find her a stock photo of a nice bright red buttery lobster tail.

Kate is getting the water going in the kitchen and asks Alexis to bring the lobsters inside. Lexi refuses to do it. Why is Kate asking the kid who is most disturbed by this to help her do this? This has gone beyond even remotely cute. It's sadistic. Alexis is clearly very disturbed by what's about to happen. Good grief.

Contrary to the sort of misleading previews and the segment leading up to this part, I now am pretty sure Alexis did know the lobsters were going to be eaten. She was just in massive denial about it. Kate couldn't have been clearer earlier. Even on the couch poor Alexis is crying just thinking about the incident, oh my gosh. Poor baby!

Back in the kitchen Alexis is screaming in horror.

Kate gets in yet another slam at her childhood. She had pet rabbits and her dad killed them and made her eat them. Well, that's fucked up. If true. I suspect it's not though.  I imagine her dad very clearly told her this is our food source, not a pet, so Kate Irene please don't name them, hug them kiss them, get attached or what have you. Kate being Kate likely just wouldn't listen. It's interesting that she doesn't seem to recognize the similarities between her and Lex. Alexis was very clearly told not to make these lobsters her pets but she wouldn't listen. At the end of the day Kate can't kill them with Alexis this upset, and they are released back to the wild where they will likely weaken and die anyway.

The kids say they would rather just eat lobster in a restaurant, and I know that sounds silly because what's the difference, but I get that. Lots of people are able to eat meat and seafood as long as they don't see it alive first. The second they see the animal alive and know it will die they can't handle it. Even some of the women on this Discovery show called Alaska: The Last Frontier chow down meat like buttered popcorn but end up in sobs at the thought of having to actually gun down the poor thing. I think that's a common reaction. That said, I hope the kids do understand that animals do have to be killed to eat them. There's not some special line on meat restaurants have that skips the killing part. Aaden is still exceedingly bored, yawning and stretching away.

They free Willie and get Chinese take-out instead. Heh, no irony there or anything.

Next up, they're going to go rowing, and the kids' default seems to be to just be contrary. They constantly oppose whatever suggestions Kate has for them and basically everything out of her mouth.

Although I always appreciate good karma and to some extent being contrary is normal at this age, I really don't think that should be happening this constantly. Kate says they always act like that and she just ignores it usually. While she's explaining all this she's vigorously rubbing away at some stain on Collin's t-shirt, the t-shirt he is currently wearing, while he stands there patiently letting her manually Kenmore him for what feels like forever. It's a t-shirt that looks like it cost all of about 15 bucks at Old Navy. That can't just be sprayed with a little stain fighter and thrown in the wash?

Emily is a long-time friend of Doofus here. Kate must think there are no historians on this blog. Oh, but there are. And turns out, no, Kate, Emily certainly is not a long-time friend. She is a fan who only just a few years ago said it was her "dream" to meet Kate, she made it happen by showing up at an event the Goz-lands happened to be at, and has weaseled her way in ever since, and we have a host of her creepy and obsessed tweets to prove she is just an obsessed fan. This is the person you are allowing around your children? How many celebs need to be killed or injured or emotionally harmed by their obsessed fans before it becomes clear this is a bad idea?

I don't want to rag on Emily for too long here though I would have a lot more to say about her, but I did want to point out one thing I find the creepiest about her. And that is that she is some 18 maybe 19-year-old kid who over the past few years has morphed to be more and more like Kate. She even admits her family says she looks just like Kate. It's so Single White Female and disturbing.

The kids were thrilled to see Emily, says Kate. Huh, the kids look rather quiet and indifferent to me. They've been through a revolving door of nannies over the years and I don't really know how much time they have even really and truly spent with Em. If they have, I see no evidence of any special bond having developed with her.

The teens go off to do paddle boarding and their instructor Tim says he understands they don't like authority. Wtf? Did Kate tell him that? What a douche thing to say to girls who were just standing there listening not doing anything wrong.

Emily's right there front and center living the dream of every fan as she helps Kate carry their boat down to the water, minus the sail off into the sunset part.

Kate slams Collin saying he's not very good at hearing and following instructions (or maybe he just doesn't want to follow instructions from you, dolt). She slams the other boys too saying Aaden hesitates about things and Joel dislikes things. She never does this sort of pegging to the girls. Never. But, but, they're all wonderful, she amends. The boys did a good job with the boat and are proud of themselves.

Back to the teens, I'm sorry but Tim is being a dick. Who is this guy? Even Cara and Marly agree he's being mean to Mady. Mady strips off her lifejacket and quits. Sheesh.

Kate is freaking out on the boat, claiming she is dizzy, and overall being a damsel in distress. The teens call her out on this, saying she always says she loves boats but when she gets on them she acts like a fool. Lol. Why does Kate do this to herself anyway? She does it a lot, acts like things that terrify her are actually great. Sounds like more catfishing of herself I guess. Even when this task is all over Kate said if she lived closer to water she'd be out there after the bus stop without a doubt. Makes no sense. She's freaking out so much she's holding up the whole boat from going, which is just annoying if you are in the boat. If you are that upset, please don't hold up everybody else while you pull yourself together. It's selfish and rude.

I like how Kate thinks she's so sharp but in reality constantly uses the wrong word or says the wrong idiom or gets things slightly or a lot off. Like saying the past tense "drowned" instead of the correct present tense "drown," and her comment that "Cara was born rowing." She came out of the womb pumping her arms? Hehe. Even the instructor can't help herself and has to correct Kate, saying the idiom the right way that Cara was born to row. Lol, sometimes ya just gotta fix things like that, like scratching an itch.

Timelapse of the ocean waves, and boy can you tell the difference in production values between TLC and NBC. This time-lapse is just an amateur one, looks like a kid could have made it. They didn't even bother with an interesting composition nor did they run it for more than maybe 10 minutes. Celebrity Apprentice time-lapse crews have slow-moving dollies and 16mm lenses and apertures wide enough to take in an entire dark sky for hours. I have seen all kinds of little production mistakes or amateurs shot over the years on TLC, and not only does it make me think they throw these things together on a shoestring budget for maximum profit, but I also don't think anyone in production particularly cares about this project. Kind of sad.

The twins say Kate pays them for good grades. Not so sure Kate wanted the fact that she's bribing them for good grades to come out, given that's one of the most controversial parenting choices you can make. (For the record, Dave Ramsey doesn't think it's a problem, because he feels it's essential that children be taught to associate hard work with money.)

Kate says she handles the children's money. Heh, I bet you do. She gives them souvenir money to go shopping and actually lets the kids carry it themselves this time. Geez, I hope they will be allowed to skip their bottles and nappie time today too. Kate orders the little kids to look with their eyes not their hands. Good grief already.

The kids want the sort of silly things most kids their age want like an outhouse bank and stuffed animals they are about 7 days away from outgrowing. Kate say hey it was their money they can get what they want so I'm not going to judge anymore, but then makes a big judgey eye roll at the camera. Oh, so the kids will just feel judged later when they watch the episode. Next they head to an epic candy store. I love little places like this that have absolutely everything you could think of.

They don't shop very often? It's exhausting? Gaaah!

Kate all but admits she doesn't usually take the kid out shopping because it's just too much on her. Kate gets the various lobster tools you need to cook lobster at home. I guess she's going to try cooking at home again instead of eating out like they were talking about last night. Only this time instead of cooking Alexis's friends she will just cook friends of Alexis's friends, so she seems to think Alexis will be fine with that. Hehe.

Wait, speaking of last night, she was about to put Lex's friends in boiling water last night, she didn't have all her tools gathered then? Someone as "organized" as her didn't have all her little lobster doo-hickey things all lined up like ducks in a row? I call B.S., this is so contrived and when things are made up by producers little mistakes or things that don't make much sense like this happen.

Collin has studied his script carefully I see as he says something no 10 year old would usually think independently, something about Kate doing pretty good for just one of her and eight kids. Eight kids is all he knows, and he's simply not old enough to really realize that it would be abnormal or difficult for a mother to handle all these kids. Except if Kate constantly told him so. That's what Kate always says on Twitter and the like, and I would bet the farm he's just picked that up and parroting her. He is proud she is his mom, which is a little bit more like what someone his age says, I guess.

The only thing more boring than being dragged along on a boring shopping trip is watching a boring shopping trip. Next, they stop at a seafood market type place so Kate can pick up lobster and various sea food, except all or at least some of it is being delivered. If it's being delivered why not just have all of it delivered? I'm slightly confused, but don't care enough to rewind. Kate talks like she just survived that tank battle in Fury and not a simple souvenir shopping trip where all the kids look well-behaved to me. Good heavens.

Kate likes to cook when she is on vacation. Yuck, I do too. Damn it. Eating out is fun and it's easy to find the best places with Yelp, but it gets time consuming and expensive and sometimes disappointing, and besides it's so fun to go grocery shopping in a little store and meet some locals and get recommendations and experiment. I love it. Thanks to a wonderful web site called AirBnB, you can now get a place to stay with a full kitchen for the same price as a hotel and often much less.

There are moments now and again where it's clear the children do love each other, which is a relief. Such as this one, when Alexis helps Aaden put on his lobster bib and then gives him a big hug and says "My baby, you're my baby!" Aw. Aaden seems to be a family favorite.

This really pretty lady shows up at the door carrying a box full of lobsters.

Are you the lobster delivery person? Kate asks the woman carrying a box full of lobsters. No, that's the pool girl. The lawn boys are coming right after her, and then the lobster delivery person will arrive, followed by four calling birds three french hens and two nannies.

Lobster delivery chick is not just a delivery person but a chef who comes in and helps to clean and cook the lobsters. If Kate ever caught this young woman's name she invited into the house and around her children all night or so much as shook her hand, we didn't see it. Kate even admits she left the woman in the other room with the kids and the lobsters while Kate hung out with the twins in the kitchen and cooked scallops.

The kids all try their lobsters, some of them thought it was okay, but Collin didn't like it, it was white and spongey. I don't much like it either to be honest, it tastes spongey to me too. I'll eat it in seafood bisques but that's about it. It has the look of shrimp but none of the delicious flavor. One of the most overrated delicacies ever. I think it's sad that for all the talk Kate has been doing the past episodes about how important it is the kids have this experience with the lobsters, she leaves a stand-in-nanny they just met to actually oversee the event, and completely misses the whole thing. I've been the nanny in that situation before that's for sure, and it's shitty because I knew darn well the kids noticed who wasn't there even if they wouldn't dare speak it out loud. Kate is so much like the parent I worked for in the sense that they both seem to grasp that it would be nice to give their kids fun and interesting experiences, like say a big lobster dinner in Maine. However, what they don't get is that it's not so much the experience that the kid really wants but rather to experience it with you, their beloved parent, as you laugh and recoil and go through it together. Stop, and sit down with your kids for once, Kate.

The kids are way too old to be spewing out food they don't like back on their plate in a big honking loogie. Pick up your napkin for goodness sake and be a lady. Kate happens to be there for that, and doesn't say anything about it.

On their last day, they had a nice sunny day and headed to the beach. The kids loved it and talk excitedly about writing everyone's name in the sand. Mady and Cara for some reason really didn't like how Kate walked on the names and said they just wanted to leave. Yikes, wonder what that was about, I don't think Kate was doing anything wrong, and that's not something I usually say! Everyone was running over it, for fun. You can redraw it. I think a lot of the twins' behavior and complaints goes much deeper than the incidents they claim are upsetting them.

The kids treat Kate like their personal Judge Judy, constantly running to her with complaints and transgressions and wanting her to dole out justice. They obviously do this because Kate has not made it clear to them she won't pander to that sort of nonsense. I think she actually sometimes likes hearing about their little spats and other conflict. She likes the drama, she's bored. I can just see Judge Judy saying, Child, you were at the ocean and you got splashed by your brother. It's the ocean for pity sake! Your case is dismissed!

Kate however helplessly tries to figure out who splashes who and then tells them if they splash each other they are done. Done? Wowser.

Wow, the splashing thing really pushed Kate over the edge. Holy smokes. She freaks out to the cameras, going on and on about how it's eight against one and 56 different sides to a story and as soon as she helps one there's another one needs help. She is the little dutch boy. Oh well, shouldn't have popped out eight kids and estranged every last person who ever tried to help you with them I guess.

"Stand by the road with a free to a good home sign," she tells the girls. Kate thinks that comment is funny, I think it's freaking nasty. There's teasing, and then there's being an asshole. She is an asshole. Correct, Jon.

Waahhh, the problems of the one percent. They didn't want to leave their already ridiculously long and luxurious vacation. They wanna stay longer, waahhh.

They have icecream for dinner and make their own ice cream. That can be really fun, we used to do that. Cool. Never done it that way, with the ice cream put in these little plastic balls to "cook", you can play with them! Most of the kids liked the rope course the best, and I think somebody else reported they liked the icecream. I don't recall any of them saying they liked the lobsters the best. Sure enough, the things the kids liked the best were the things Kate actually did with them and not the epic lobster dinner that she ended up skipping. Told ya.

Collin, who is only 10 years old, liked spending "quality time" with his family. Sigh, I fear he is being made Kate's mouthpiece by her, and it's disconcerting. He should not have to bear such a burden.

My DVR again recorded this nice though quite dysfunctional Whitney chick from My Big Fat Life, without my permission. DVRs should not be your rebellious teenager who openly defies your wishes. See you next time.