The second-season "Celebrity Wife Swap" premiere promised a lot of things: chaos (eight kids!), tension (…Kate Gosselin), screeching (eight kids! and also the one toddler!), and a lot of laundry (we may have mentioned the eight kids). We thought for sure former "Girl Next Door" and Playmate Kendra Wilkinson Baskett would crack under the strain of cooking, cleaning, and carpooling for Kate Gosselin's "Plus 8" kids, or that Kate would refuse to compromise on her own rules.
[Related: Kendra on finding out which family she'd swapped into: "I lost it"]
We got some of that, and the predictable Kate lemon-face glaring, but surprisingly, there wasn't much real conflict. Kate made a few judgy comments, but seemed to genuinely want Kendra to spend more time with her son. Kendra and Kate learned from each other, and instead of the customary "uhhhhh this is really awkward" scenes we have to watch through our fingers, "Celebrity Wife Swap" gave us some good one-liners and sight gags -- one for each Gosselin kid, in fact. The eight moments from the premiere that made us snicker:1. During the introduction of the wives, the collage of Kate photos has Jon Gosselin's face blurred out in every one.
2. Kendra leafs through Kate's rulebook and is baffled at Kate's scheduling -- not at its existence, but at the kooky times. The kids don't get up at "6, not 6:05 -- 6:03?!"
3. Kendra fills a shopping cart with bags just for a single night's dinner, and sighs while stuffing everything into the back of the SUV that those same groceries would feed her household for two weeks.
4. Hank, Kendra's husband, takes Kate golfing to try to loosen her up. It doesn't really work, and her putting is worse than ours (that's really bad), but Hank gets off a good line when he promises Kate he won't put his arms around her to teach her to swing the club, calling it "the whole 'I'm trying to date you' style of teaching you golf." Hey, we were thinkin' it.
5. Mady, one of Kate's 12-year-old twins, is just the right amount of snarky, asking at grace before dinner that God let Kendra survive the week. Hee. And she's not feeling Kendra's "let's break the rules by picnicking indoors" strategy for taco night, either: "We're going to be picking up lettuce for weeks." Hee!
Twitter's take on the ep:
So watched Kate gosselin on celebrity wife swap while structure and being organized is good let your kids be kids
— Jen E (@je052423) February 27, 2013
6. This isn't a moment we actually got to see, but when a Mr. Softee ice-cream truck pulled up at the Gosselin farm and Kendra willingly, inexplicably sugared up all eight children with giant soft-serve cones, we amused ourselves during the remaining commercials by imagining the bedtime bedlam that ensued.
7. Kendra later takes the Gosselins to an indoor amusement park; she confesses, "Just counting all of them and making sure they're all here is, like, the biggest thing."
8. When the wives meet, Kate is snotty at first, but softens eventually in her insistence that Kendra do more around the house and give Hank a break sometimes. But Kate also lets it slip that Hank not only wanted to do all the chores; he "asked [her] twice a day" if he could go do them all again. It's unclear if Hank would even let Kendra do chores, but what is clear is that Hank might want to think about getting a post-NFL job to keep himself busy.
Curious? Watch the whole episode here:
Were you expecting more drama and tears from the episode? Was the golfing its own joke? Tell us what you thought about the episode -- and whether you're watching next week's Coolio/Mark McGrath switch -- in the comments!
"Celebrity Wife Swap" airs Tuesdays at 8 PM on ABC.