On August 11, 2020, Karen Derrico went into labor with triplets seven weeks early — and while she lay on bed rest, a Las Vegas earthquake shook the house. That was the first episode of Doubling Down With the Derricos, and no season since has matched it. Five seasons and one divorce later, here is every season ranked, from the one fans skip to the one they still rewatch.
#5 — Season 3 (2022): The Year the Show Started Repeating Itself
Season 3, 12 episodes in 2022, is the one even loyal fans admit they fast-forward. The storylines were the family’s greatest hits on loop: potty training the triplets, another round of birthday parties, another house never quite big enough. The best scene was small — 16-year-old Darian asking her dad to teach her to drive, Deon in the passenger seat, sunglasses on, while she grinned through her braces. Underneath, though, the season carried a shadow: GG’s cancer, first diagnosed in 2014, had returned. It ranks last not because it was bad, but because the show felt like it was running in place while real life quietly got harder.
#4 — Season 2 (2021): The Inferno, the Dance-Off, and the COVID Year
Season 2 opened June 1, 2021, with “Derrico Inferno,” and it knew exactly what it was: a pandemic-era party season. COVID-19 wrecked Halloween, so the family threw a sizzling ’70s dance-off instead. The kids were at their most charming, but it was a bridge season: no big births, no big breaks, just a very large family surviving a very strange year together. Fun to rewatch, hard to rank higher.
#3 — Season 4 (2023): GG’s Fight and the Last Happy Thanksgiving
Season 4, ten episodes in 2023, is the last season where the whole family still felt whole — and fans know it now. The finale, “We Are Family,” aired August 8, 2023, with Deon telling the cameras, “Just know, this is not a normal dinner. This is Thanksgiving dinner for a family of 18.” The emotional core was GG: her checkup brought news her tumor had shrunk to roughly a third of its original size, one of the most uplifting moments in the show’s history. It ranks third because it gave fans the last uncomplicated happy ending — before everything changed.
#2 — Season 5 (2024): The Season That Broke the Family
Season 5 premiered May 14, 2024, with eight episodes, and it is the season nobody can look away from. GG wanted to pause her chemo treatments despite Deon’s protests. Karen pushed Darian to apply to NYU while Deon urged her to stay local, and the college fight split the fandom down the middle. Then, off camera, the marriage ended: Deon and Karen filed for divorce on June 4, 2024, finalized it two days later, and announced it on June 15 via People, ending 19 years together. Deon later confirmed there would be no Season 6 on TLC. It is the most important season the show ever made — raw, real, and painful. It is not number one only because the season that broke the family cannot outrank the season that made it.
#1 — Season 1 (2020): Three Babies, One Earthquake, and the Magic
Seven episodes, starting August 11, 2020, and every one earned the show its audience. Karen and Deon, parents of 11 with triplets on the way, introduced America to four sets of multiples conceived naturally — twins, triplets, quintuplets, and another set of twins. The triplets arrived early, and the cameras stayed through the scariest part: baby Dawsyn’s heart surgery, with Karen and Deon holding their courage together in “Home for the Holidays.” It was chaos with a heartbeat — an earthquake, a hospital, a house bursting at the seams, and a family that laughed through all of it. Six years later, it is still the season fans press play on first.
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