If there is one thing that we’re learning quickly on The Chicken Sisters, it is that everything relating to family is complicated. At least in this show, it is. It’s kinda funny to me how the littlest things in this show become the biggest things and everyone is experiencing a lot of big feelings. But, big feelings aren’t a bad thing, as long as you can be open about them.
When it comes to Frannie’s and Mimi’s you’re experiencing a wound so old and so deep that it has defined the culture of the fictional town of Merinac. You were either a Frannie’s girl or a Mimi’s girl – and who you were defined you.
If you were a Frannie’s girl, you were an upstanding woman. They were debutants, wives, and good mothers. Frannie’s girls were picture-perfect in public and kept everything private.
If you were a Mimi’s girl, you were fast and loose, odd and from the wrong side of the tracks.
They were two different types of people. It didn’t matter if you weren’t those things, as long as you were one of them – that is what you were perceived as. If you lived in Merinac, the way that you were identified stuck with you. It was the thing that people would associate with you.
It was the way that you would associate yourself.
Kitchen Clash may not have been the best idea, because of the way that this town takes their chicken seriously. But even more than that, it seems as though it’s going to bring out the worst in everyone.
It’s kind of sad that Mae is so ashamed of where she comes from. She’s living a lie and at a certain point, that has to get exhausting. She’s searching so hard to be something more than she is but isn’t taking a moment to think about how the way she acts is going to affect those around her. She doesn’t want to think about how the lies she’s told are going to catch up with her and what it will leave her with is an emptiness.
The thing about emptiness and lies is you become so used to it that all of a sudden what you have left is thinking that it’s easier to never confront anything else about the feelings you’ve had. Mae may not love the place where she grew up, but it didn’t mean that Merinac didn’t love her.
The people that she left behind are still there and love her.
Kenneth, her best friend from when they were kids, had moved back. Mae had been so wrapped up in her life that she didn’t keep in touch with him. But Kenneth welcomed her back with open arms and a love for her that had never faded. Even seeing him, she was only thinking of herself. She didn’t ask about him. She didn’t think about what he could have gone through.
For Mae, everything was about Mae.
Just like for Amanda, everything was about what she wanted. The tension between her and Sergio is real. Frank Jr still doesn’t notice if she’s alive. Her daughter may think that she’s boring. Amanda’s very existence is something that she doesn’t like, but that’s why she wanted Kitchen Clash there – she wanted to be seen. Only with Mae’s return, Amanda thinks that she’s not going to be seen.
And jealousy rears its ugly head.
The funny thing about Hollywood and television is when it comes to reality, everyone just wants to produce the best reality television. Sabrina Skye is doing just that and as she sees Amanda start to spin out of control, she manipulates it. In doing that she believes that she can get what she wants – the tea. Amanda thinks that she’s making a friend, but Sabrina is using her.
It’s thinking that she’s making a friend that has Amanda opening up. When she opens up to Sabrina, she doesn’t know she’s recording, but she is. Amanda divulges Mae’s deep secret and thinks it will stay between the two of them. But it never was Sabrina’s intention to keep that secret.
It’s not that Maw wasn’t also trying to produce her sister. She just didn’t think that her sister would sell out her secret. For her coming home suddenly felt like a bad idea.
Gus is doing her best to change, but that’s hard to deal with. She’s a hoarder and she knows it. But she also knows that she’s pushed away her girls and she’d do anything to draw them back in. She doesn’t want Mae to leave, so she goes to get the help she needs and then tells her daughter she can do what she wants.
It feels like everyone is having a bad time – well everyone except Nancy. She’s lived her whole life thinking that she was a Frannie’s girl and she was going to live in the background. But, when Frank Jr. fails at being on camera, she steps in. It’s when she steps in that she starts to shine even more. Nancy wants to make her son happy, but somehow she realizes that she wasn’t meant to be in the background. She was meant to shine.
It didn’t matter if you were a Frannie’s or Mimi’s girl – secrets and submission can only be kept for so long. Everything will come out, payback will be had, and things will somehow come up even. You just may not like how it turns out.
OTHER THOUGHTS
- Frankie and Linzey sure know how to get in a lot of trouble
- Linzey has the worst attitude
- Kenneth may be my favorite character – he gives no f***s and he legitimately is filled with love
- Ok, his husband may be my second favorite
- Mae has the worst attitude and painting over Mimi’s sign is stupid
- Sergio offers to drive when Frankie and Linzey get arrested. He’s a hero.
- Sabrina Skye is a good producer, but man she’s cruel
- Gordo – I adore you
- Nancy, don’t let Frank Jr. make you feel bad for living your best life
New episodes of The Chicken Sisters premiere weekly on Hallmark+.
