The upcoming 100th episode ofMama June: Family Crisiscenters aroundLauryn “Pumpkin” Efird’schoice to divorce her husband,Josh Efird. The episodes leading up showed a frustrated Josh attempting to initiate conversations, and a fed-up Lauryn prioritizing her newly developed business instead of responding to him.The gradual dissipation of their relationship seems related to the crisis the family has been insince Lauryn’s mother,June “Mama June” Shannon, was arrested on drug-related charges in 2019.
Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompsonwas lucky to have had Lauryn step in during this period, to act as a mother to her younger sister, making sureshe flipped the script on the family history, got settled in to high school, and applied for nursing school after graduation. Just asJune is lucky that her adult daughters have agreed to continue filmingthe family series together. Without Alana and Lauryn, there would only be a crisis, without the family. Alana’s narrative about her new relationship and career path, and Lauryn’s budding business and failing marriage, make up the heart of the series. June’s unrepentant attitude about past behavior is not tracking well this season, but her daughters have enough going on to keep viewers invested.
June Creates Conflict, But Making Connections Is a Challenge
Much of the tension this season has revolved around Alana’s accusation thatJune had stolen the $30,000the young reality star had earned from her season onDancing With the Stars. This, in addition to the fact that Alana claims she hasn’t seen any compensation for her hours of reality TV as a child performer onToddlers In TiarasorHere Comes Honey Boo Boo. While acknowledging she owed Alana $30,000, June claimed that the other funds were used to raise her daughter.
The way that June handled the return of the funds shows just the intensity of the strain. Alana had initially provided her mother a grace period to return the money, but after some time had passed, the young reality star turned to social media to vent her frustrations. June took this as bait, immediately flying into a rant about her daughter airing family laundry online. The matriarch did set up a meeting to return the money to her daughter, who needed it for her education, but the details of the meeting showed a lack of maturity. Bringing a giant check, as though Alana had somehow won the money, and forcing her daughter to take a photo with the check to ensure it could be posted for followers online to see the amount had been repaid, showed thatJune is better at creating moments of conflict than she is at repairing connectionsonMama June: Family Crisis.
There’s Drama in Mama June Shannon’s Family
Custody drama heats up again.
Lauryn and Alana Are the Heart of ‘Mama June: Family Crisis’
Lauryn fought to get custody of her younger sister Alana, and through different tragedies,the older sister patiently worked to keep the family together, and to keep Alana on track to follow her career goals after high school. The family crisis, including the loss of their eldest sister,Anna “Chickadee” Cardwell,to cancer in 2023, also put strains on Lauryn’s marriage. While Josh was a solid partner throughout much of Lauryn’s family crisis, his frustration with their situation fed into the downfall of their relationship, since Lauryn seemed to always be stuck trying to do the right thing amid the impossible situations she was put in by June. While it is nice to see that the couple have seemingly sorted out a civil co-parenting situation after the split, it is sad to see the couple incapable of communicating anymore after years of suffering under the effect of June’s choices.
The couple, of course, suffered under the usual strain of normal family life, and Lauryn’s pivot to expand her online business seems to have bothered Josh in the last days of their relationship. But both Lauryn and Josh have acknowledged that the different stages of crisis in the family had a negative impact on their relationship. As the couple struggled to communicate, they pulled further apart. In a touching moment, Josh confessed he wished he could go back and fix the issues that started over a decade ago, but he felt powerless to salvage the relationship now, despite still loving his wife. Inan interview withPeople,Lauryn said she feltthe divorce was the right choice for her children, and that she was breaking a cycle she had witnessed with her mother staying too long in relationships, trying to fix them once they were bad. The family crisis will continue this season as June and her husband,Justin Stroud,seek custody of Anna’s daughter, Kaitlyn.
Mama June: Family Crisis100th episode airs onFriday, June 13, at 8pm on We TV.
Mama June: Family Crisis
