Even though it’s almost time for the next episode of Teen Mom 3, The Ashley finally managed to plunk her reality-TV-lovin’ butt in front of the television and devote two hours to watching (and recapping) the series premiere of this marvelous show! We first met the gals back in 2012 on the fourth season of 16 and Pregnant, but a lot has changed for Mackenzie, Briana, Katie and Alex since then.

There’s nothing The Ashley likes more than recapping episodes of any show that has to do with babies having babies, so let’s get this party started!

The show starts off by introducing the girls with the mandatory “Teen Mom” theme song. (Seriously, MTV, you’ve used this same stupid ditty for three different series. You’d think you could bust out the Casio keyboard again and create something new for this show!) Also back are those scrapbook pages (that look straight out of a Lisa Frank Paint-by-Numbers book) with the girls’ mugs smiling back at us. For some reason, they’ve chosen a creepy disco/boom box theme for Alex’s, so I’m assuming she has a passion for doing the Hustle and listening to Donna Summers’ Greatest Hits.

We kick things off with Briana. First they try to familiarize us with her story, which The Ashley is happy to run down for you: Both her and her sister, Brittany got knocked up at the same time, Brittany just said no to mothering, while Briana chose parenting and eventually sprung the spawn of Devoin from her loins, an adorable daughter named Nova. Briana got herself a snazzy new ‘do and that basically brings us to today. (And by “today” I mean over a year ago because, as per usual, MTV lagged more than Jenelle Evans after a drug binder in terms of getting this crap on the air.)

Anyway, back to the “present” day. Briana tells us she left Devoin’s name off the birth certificate and Devoin has yet to come around, even though the baby is now five months old. Because he’s MIA, Briana’s mom Roxanne and sister Brit all make a pact to raise the baby together. (Hopefully this goes better than Jenelle and her pal Tokin’ Tori’s no-more-pot pact! We all know how well that turned out!)

Roxanne decides to bring up the fact that her daughters have a lot in common; for instance, both of them like to “be sexually active!” She talks about the fact that her girls both decided to bone–and get pregnant– before marriage with a creepy amount of joy. Brittany assures her that waiting until marriage is just not a possibility for modern women such as themselves. “Nobody these days does that no more. It isn’t the ‘40s no more!” she exclaims.

Next we swing over to Wyoming to catch up with Katie, who, you might remember got pregnant by her boyfriend, Joey, and was devastated that her unplanned pregnancy prevented her from going away to college in Colorado. She’s determined to make her family work, despite the fact that she and Joey work opposite schedules. He comes home from coal minin’ and the soot on his face makes Katie think about how crappy it would be if the mine Joey was in caved in and he died…and stuff.

Next it’s time to catch up with everyone’s favorite thrice-knocked up cowgirl, Mackenzie! She’s been hee-hawing down in Oklahoma since we last saw her. She’s still cheerleading, but Josh is no longer ropin’ cattle at the rodeo, which leaves plenty of time for him to look through the want ads for a job. However, it’s been six months since their son Gannon was born and Josh has yet to secure a job…or a shirt that still has the sleeves on it.

Mackenzie and Josh are engaged, but live separately, which is a good thing because, other than tumblin’ and tobacco spittin’, their favorite hobby is fighting.

It’s Josh and Mackenzie’s two-year anniversary, so they head out to a fancy meal at Waylan’s Hamburger’s. It’s the kind of place you need to get yeeerself all fixed up for, because, you know, they have napkin holders at your table, not just in a heap by the ketchup and mustard jugs like those other less-fancy burger joints.

While waiting for their food, Mackenzie brings up their upcoming wedding. “Aren’t you excited that we’ve been together for two years?” Mackenzie screeches. Josh, however, not only looks less-than-excited, he practically looks comatose. Seriously, someone check this kid’s vital signs!

Mackenzie wants Josh to have a positive attitude about their future, but Josh ain’t having it. She just wants love back, Josh!

Finally, we catch up with Alex. She’s the girl from Pennsylvania that contemplated placing her daughter, Arabella, up for adoption with her neighbor’s friend’s cousin’s uncle’s mother (or something), but decided to keep the baby instead. When we last saw him, her baby-daddy Matt was quite the sight for sore eyes: hopped up on drugs, sporting bright orange hair and some seriously sweaty bangs. Alex tells us that Matt went to rehab after “16 and Pregnant,” and has been there for eight months. While Matt’s been in there trying to get off the vein juice, Alex has been forced to work three jobs (not counting her MTV job, of course!) Josh—this chick has three jobs and you can’t even get one?!

Apparently, Matt will be moving into Alex’s mom’s house after he’s released from the ‘hab, but Alex is hesitant to trust him again.

Back in Florida, Briana and her mom are doing a bit of grocery shopping. Luckily, Briana is WIC’ing her way to free baby food, so they are able to fill the cart to the brim! However, Briana doesn’t feel right about relying on the government to take care of her kid, but Roxanne points out that if her Devoin had stuck around, they wouldn’t have had to call Uncle Sam to pay for their formula. Nova also contributes to the conversation, letting out a large belch which Roxanne dubs a “WIC burp!”

Later, Briana tells Brittany she wishes she had listened to their mom and gotten an abortion. (Awww, let’s save this clip for Nova’s baby book!) She loves her daughter, of course, but it’s hard to be alone.

To make things worse, Devoin has been busy writing nasty things about Briana on Twitter. Briana prints out the nasty comments to show her mom. Roxanne isn’t too sure what a “Twitter” is, but she’s plenty mad that this goon is writing mean things about her daughter over the Internet. Briana decides to take Devoin to court for his cyber-bullying, and Roxanne agrees it’s best to get the law involved to handle this.

In Oklahoma, Mackenzie is bummed out that the date at the greasy spoon wasn’t exactly the romantical evening she had envisioned. She and Gannon go to visit Josh, but unfortunately Josh is once again in a stupor, and is having trouble making cohesive sentences and keeping his eyes open, but Mackenzie decides to try to get him to talk about their relationship. Josh leaves to go cut the sleeves off more of his T-shirts, and Mackenzie is once again feeling disappointed and unwanted.

Afterwards, Mackenzie sits down with her sister Kayla to talk about what Mackenzie wants for her future.

“Cheerleading!” she says gleefully. Kayla informs her sister that “You can’t cheer for the rest of your life,” to which Mackenzie delivers a blank stare, and it’s obvious that the thought had never crossed her mind.

At Alex’s house, it’s homecoming day for Matt! He arrives home with no more orange hair, but the same attitude. Alex tries to discuss their relationship, but Matt feels bombarded and tells Alex that he’s no longer the great person she used to love.

A few days later, Alex’s mom, Wendy, is pissed because Matt has basically become a useless waffle-eatin’, couch-sittin’ blob, and isn’t pulling his weight around the house. Wendy tries to level with Matt about the house rules, to which Matt grunts his response and leaves.

Matt actually ends up stepping it up a bit, which makes Alex’s mom happy enough to agree to babysit so Matt and Alex can go out and bowl. They are having a great night, but soon, Matt and Alex are screaming at each other, because Alex isn’t too keen on Matt’s choice of after-bowling cuisine.

Soon, however, we learn why Alex is reluctant to go to the eatery: it’s in the part of town where Matt used to buy his drugs.

“We’re going to die!” Alex exclaims. Matt, however, is thrilled to be back in his old ‘hood and even wants to roll down the window so he can conversate with the local street hoodlums! Suddenly, Matt begins to act all shifty and goes inside a convenience store, marveling at how great their “sandwiches” are in there. He goes inside and five minutes later emerges with just a soda, but tells Alex he spent her money on “candy.”

Um…yeah, vein candy.

Alex ain’t no fool and knows that something isn’t right. I wonder if Matt ran into Kieffa and Juh-nelle in there?

In Wyoming, things aren’t going any better for Katie and Joey. They share a car (a.k.a. Joey is car-less and drives Katie’s car), and one day she notices a sizable dent in her ride, much to Joey’s dismay. Katie is angry that Joey was trying to hide the fender-bender from her, which results in a fight and Katie getting out of the car. (Awww, this is reminiscent of those Amber and Gary “I’m done!” fights of years past! Memories….)

Katie leaves to get yogurt with her friend, and immediately Joey calls her to continue the fight via phone. He also wants her to act as his human alarm clock to wake him up for work, a role Katie is less-than-thrilled to take on.

Josh and Mackenzie still aren’t talking, and Josh tells his pal, Will, that he won’t “be heart-broke” if Mackenzie up and leaves him because he won’t get a job or stop “rodeoing.” His other pal, Caleb (who, for some reason is dressed like Comic Book Guy from “The Simpsons”) agrees with Will that Josh will miss Mackenzie more than he thinks if they were to break up.

Will and Comic Book Guy must have gotten through to Josh because he decides to make peace with Mackenzie via a heartfelt text. The next day they head out to the stables, and finally Josh is ready to talk about how much he loves Mackenzie…and stuff. They head off for a ride and the first episode of the two-part premiere ends.

We head back to Wyoming and find that Katie and Joey are getting along a lot better. Joey invites Katie to dinner for some adult time. While Katie is at work, Joey tells Molli that he’s planning to ask Katie to marry him. He has even purchased a ring for the occasion. Katie’s excited for their date and goes to get her makeup done by her friend. Meanwhile, Joey goes to the restaurant he’s planning on taking Katie to that night and talks the manager into doing something special for the proposal.

They arrive at the restaurant and Katie’s thrilled to finally be out alone with Joey. The waiter brings out a slice of cake that’s topped with a very special surprise—the ring! Joey gets down on one knee and presents the raspberry-syrup coated ring to Katie.

Things are also going well with Josh and Mackenzie. Since they’ve been on speaking terms for over three whole days, Mackenzie decides it’s about time that they live together. Mackenzie just keeps rattling on and on, and Josh has barely grunted a word. It’s obvious that he’s become an expert at tuning her out, yet Mackenzie fails to notice as she coos about how they’ll soon be waking up next to each other.

Later, Mackenzie tries to convince her mom, Angie, to allow Josh to move into their house. Angie is a Godly woman and isn’t keen on the idea of helping her daughter shack up with her boyfriend, but thinks it might work if Mackenzie and Josh stay in separate bedrooms and don’t do the nasty on the regular. Mackenzie assures her that they aren’t going to have sex, but Angie isn’t so sure.

Unfortunately, Josh gets the news that he didn’t get the weldin’ job he was up for because there was another guy that was more qualified (a.k.a he turned his application in before Josh.)

Mackenzie is still pushing for Josh to move in and her parents decide that maybe it might be a good idea. Josh doesn’t seemed thrilled with the plan and says he’d rather wait until they can move out on their own, which shocks Mackenzie, who has been so busy running her mouth that she failed to realize Josh’s eyes would roll back into his head every time she started talking to him.

Meanwhile, Briana is preparing for her court date against Devoin, but manages to find time to hang out with her pal, Jailie. She fills her friend in on the protective order she filed on Devoin for talking crap on her on Twitter.

Although the court has been unable to find Devoin to serve him with the papers, MTV managed to track him down and is present to capture a conversation with Devoin and his assorted pals, who are all eager to know what’s up between him and Briana. 

Devoin texts Briana asking her if they can be a family, but she’s unimpressed, and is still planning on serving the protection order against Devoin. She tells her sister that she does “really much hate him” but she’s trying to be civil with him. Brittany advises her to drop the court order and Briana thinks it might be a good idea. Briana (who’s donned her best sweatpants for the occasion) and her mom head to the courthouse and dismiss the protective order.

Alex and Matt are still on the rocks, and Alex is falling behind on her online schoolwork. Her mom encourages her to go to summer school because a GED just isn’t as good as a diploma. Alex’s mom is also encouraging Matt to help out around the house.

Matt’s pal Rudy arrives to “shoot hoops” and Alex is suspicious that Matt has more than basketball on his mind. Rudy and Matt leave for a bit, and Rudy begins to ask the mandatory producer-fed questions. Unfortunately, Rudy is a terrible actor and it’s just uncomfortable and awkward.

Later, Matt comes inside and Alex tells him he looks impaired. Alex’s mom does an eye test and threatens to give him a “piss test” to see if he and Rudy were out there shooting more than hoops. Matt insists he’s clean, but Alex doesn’t trust him. Alex comes home to find that Matt has left with Rudy yet again, despite the fact that he was supposed to watch the baby. He comes back about an hour later claiming he’s late because Rudy’s car broke down and that he had left to go get a burger.

Alex isn’t buying it and soon Alex’s little sister is yelling at both of them for being immature. She’s like 10 years old but she’s honestly making the most sense of anyone in that house. Alex listens to her sister and goes and tries to explain to Matt why she’s so overprotective of him, but Matt looks high as a kite and doesn’t seem to be computing anything she’s saying.

The episode ends with all of the girls trying to fix/save/create a relationship with their baby’s father. Something tells The Ashley this is going to be a looooong season— raise your hands if you miss Barbara Evans!

 Until next week kids!

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(Photos: MTV)