The 9 most cringeworthy moments of 'Sister Wives' season 17, ranked

On the season 17 premiere of TLC's "Sister Wives," Kody Brown told his ex Christine Brown that he wasn't attracted to her on their wedding day.

"OK, so we can unravel this further because it's true that I wasn't attracted to you when we got married," Kody said. "I felt pressured into the marriage. I did not know better at the time."

Even though Christine said his statement confirmed that their marriage was over, it's still hard to watch as a viewer. Honesty is a good quality to have, but he could've kept that detail to himself.

In season 17 episode seven, Kody chose to officiate his friend Brian's wedding in the middle of the pandemic. A disheartening choice considering that months earlier, he decided not to travel with Christine and his daughter Ysabel Brown to the east coast where she was having scoliosis surgery.

On "Sister Wives," Christine said Kody's choice made her daughters "mad."

"Ysabel's heartbroken, oh my gosh," Christine admitted. "She goes, 'How can he justify officiating Brian's wedding when he wouldn't even come to my surgery?'"

It's a valid question that Kody had an answer to when producers presumably asked him to explain himself in a solo interview.

"Ysabel's surgery was at a time and a situation where it would've required that I'm six or eight weeks away from home," he said. "No man can be away from work and from home and from family that long."

This explanation is a little bit of a stretch because it's unclear if caring for Ysabel actually would've meant he had to be away for "weeks" or just a few days while she recovered in the hospital.

On the season finale of "Sister Wives," during a family discussion about the holidays and Kody's previous bout with COVID, Kody asked his second wife, Janelle Brown, "Would you ever have any empathy for me? When you're in pain I try to understand you."

We experienced second-hand embarrassment hearing those words coming from Kody, mainly because he was angry with Janelle for wanting to spend Christmas with her sons. Viewers know that Kody has a pattern of prioritizing his social life during COVID over the needs of his children. So, watching him ask Janelle for "empathy" is confusing, to say the least.

In season 17 episode 10, Kody chastised Christine for treating his fourth wife Robyn "like dirt."

He said that he had made "sacrifices" to love Christine and accused her of never trying to get along with her sister wives.

But in the season 17 premiere, Christine explained that oftentimes when she was working outside the home and caring for kids, Kody wouldn't even help her put the kids to bed (a claim that Kody denies).

Regardless, marriage requires sacrifice from both parties, so it was uncomfortable watching Kody hold that over Christine's head. <<hold what over her head?>>

When the Brown adults were discussing what their children were going to do since COVID protocols had changed in schools, Kody heavily favored kids staying home and had told his teenage daughter Aurora that. But Christine said he never called Ysabel to ask her to do the same so that he could see her.

When Christine told him that Ysabel wanted to go to school in person for her senior year, Kody said, "I need her to just make her own choice and then not be bitter about anyone else having to react to that choice."

He went on to tell the women that "teenage kids don't need parents quite like preteens do" and considered social distancing safely in Christine's yard so that he could visit Ysabel an inconvenience.

Kody's words would be hard for any kid to hear, so to hear them as an outsider on national TV was difficult.

While reflecting on a conversation between the Brown adults about Christine and Kody's divorce in season 17 episode nine, Robyn told cameras, "Technically, from my understanding, until Christine is physical with another man, she's not divorced."

She went on to say that couples in the Brown family's sect of the Mormon church are required to get "approval" before they're considered divorced and are usually required to seek counseling.

She also said that Christine was "invalidating our beliefs" by saying she's divorced without actually going through that process.

All of the Brown adults eventually agreed that because Christine no longer believed in the faith, the process was unnecessary for them. But Robyn's words were awkward to hear nonetheless, especially because the wives had previously struggled to show affection towards Kody in front of each other. So why was Robyn so interested in Christine's sex life, suddenly?

In the penultimate episode of the season, Kody and Janelle's son Gabriel Brown recalled how his father had called Gabriel to ask about his previous experience with COVID symptoms, as he had fallen ill with the disease himself.

But the call happened to fall on Gabriel's birthday. "I shouldn't have done this but I did anyway," said the 21-year-old. "I didn't remind him that it was my birthday because I wanted to see if he remembered, and he didn't."

Gabriel said that his dad did call back hours later and tried to make up for the mistake. "That's the last time I ever talked to my dad," he added through tears.

Kody's self-centered nature here is so cringeworthy that it's off the charts. Moreover, Kody never explained the situation in season 17 or the tell-all.

In one of the most awkward moments in "Sister Wives" history, Kody made a plea for his wives to "conform to patriarchy."

"I'm going to be the head of my household again, and so I'm not going to be circumvented in that," he said. "And so, if everyone's willing to conform to patriarchy again, I guess."

"'Cause, I've been fighting to make everybody happy," added Kody. "My bitterness is out of trying to do that and not having the family that I had thought about and designed."

His whole speech is downright painful to listen to, for no other reason than he's clearly desperate for power he never had.

A clearly desperate grab for power he never had, Kody's speech isn't just cringe — it's downright painful.

Christine spent her last night in Flagstaff, Arizona in season 17 episode 11. At one of her daughters' requests, she had Kody, Robyn, Janelle, and any members of the Brown family who lived in the Flagstaff area come over to say goodbye to her.

The tense scene rivaled a modern-day scripted drama. There was a clear physical divide between Kody, Robyn, and their kids on one side of Christine's yard and the rest of the family on the other.

Kody tried to step in the middle of the yard at one point to try and make the situation less awkward. But there was no avoiding the cringe, especially because he wouldn't let his young children hug each other.

At one point, Kody's youngest daughter with Robyn, Ariella, told Christine to "have dates" with Kody to fix their marriage. As viewers, we were at least able to turn off the episode, so I can't imagine what it was like to live through that.

"Sister Wives" season 17 is available to stream on Discovery+.