Twisted Sister

Welcome back to the House of Braxton: Toni, Trina, Tamar, Towanda, Traci and matriarch, Evelyn. These six women are back and down for round two of their new reality series, Braxton Family Values, on We TV. I feel like I'm missing a character, perhaps one of the most prominent and watched for character of them all... the Braxton Family wig collection. I swear, their hair accessories steal the scene in every segment as far as I'm concerned. At one point, I even saw a stocking cap peeking out from under one of their many suffocating head pieces. But lets talk about the episode as it was. We saw last week that Trina likes to get her drink on and this week she confesses to her sisters that she was pulled over and arrested for a DUI! This prompts the Braxton clan to become very worried and they all take turns diagnosing Trina with depression among other mental incapacities. There are two sub-plots, one that centers around The Taste of Atlanta, an annual cooking fest held in the city that the girls are all geared up and ready to throw down for (minus their mother's dreaded blackberry dumplings) and then there's Towanda's faulty marriage. Last week we found out Towanda and her husband have an open relationship and sleep in separate beds, this week we find Towanda airing her husband out for being an author who can't seem to sell a book. He appears to be complacent and willing to live off the Braxton name, a stay at home dad who takes care of the kids and watches lazily as his wife picks up the tab every time. But back to Trina. She is forced by her sisters into telling her mother about her run in with the law. She whines about how the police made her take off her wig and wig cap while she was getting booked. Evelyn's reaction is priceless, "Good Lord, you gotta mug shot!" The girl's make a trip to see Trina's husband, trying to get to the bottom of their sister's woes, they then decide it's time to call in the family therapist and host an intervention of sorts for her, as they feel she really may be suffering. This episode was packed with a lot of emotional weight. Maybe too much, even for an hour long show. While bickering between sisters may be normal, there is definitely some deep seeded historical problems between some or all of the Braxton bunch. If the point of the show is to follow Toni Braxton's claim to a comeback, that's one thing, but the family dynamic, although it may be as sweet as mama's blackberry dumplings, seems to be just as sticky and hard to digest.