“Please, Lord, let me get through this.” That was the prayer running through Meri Brown’s head as she stood in a stranger’s arms at a tantric speed dating event — an embrace she had seen coming, dreaded in advance, and still walked into with the cameras rolling.
The clip, shared exclusively with Parade ahead of Sunday night’s episode, catches Meri’s latest dating adventure after her split from Kody. An instructor calls it an “embrace station,” inviting the women to bring in their “most feminine energy — the most open, the most nurturing energy” — and then, to take a deep breath in. Meri does as told. The hug goes on. And on.
Open Your Arms
“This is an embrace station,” the instructor tells the room. “If you are open to an embrace, go ahead and open your arms.” Meri steps toward a man she has just met and holds the hug far past the point where a polite greeting would have ended.
To producers, Meri is blunt. “Hugging a complete stranger is not my favorite thing to do,” she says. “Any of these people in this room… I just knew this was coming, and I knew it was going to be uncomfortable.” Her confessional face carries the same wince as her body in the hug.
“Don’t F—ing Honor Me”
The instructor keeps going. She tells the men to send it “across your timeline to that awkward teenager. That part of you that needed this feminine energy.” Then comes the line Meri repeats back to producers, mocking it openly: “The masculine in me honors the feminine in you.” Her reply: “Don’t f—ing honor me.”
It is the sharpest moment in the clip, and the one fans will quote — the first time all night Meri sounds like herself: unimpressed, and done performing gratitude for an experience she never wanted.
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She Saw It Coming — and Went Anyway
Meri did not stumble into this room. She knew what was coming, knew it would be uncomfortable — and went anyway. After three decades in a plural marriage, Meri is dating on television in her fifties — where every first is public, every awkward minute is footage, and the only way to find out whether something might work is to stand in the room while it happens — right up there with Season 21’s boldest moves.
The Room Splits in Two
The clip has two clear camps. One camp says Meri did exactly what dating after divorce requires: she showed up, tried something outside her comfort zone, and was honest about hating it. The other camp says the show pushed her too far — that a woman who already told producers she dreaded it should never have been steered into a stranger’s arms for a storyline. Both sides are arguing about the same line: where a brave date ends and a setup begins.
The San Francisco Setting
According to episode listings, the speed dating event took place during Meri’s trip to San Francisco, the same episode that carries the campfire debate, as Christine and Janelle talk polygamy while camping. The new episode airs Sunday at 10 p.m. ET on TLC, streaming the next day on HBO Max. What it still has to show is whether the night produced anything past the hug.
Meri walked in praying to get through it — and walked out with a one-line review no producer could have scripted. So here is the split: was that hug a brave first step for Meri, dating again on her own terms — or proof that the show asked too much of her? Tell us which side you are on — and whether you would have stayed in that hug, or walked out.
More Sister Wives drama
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Sister WivesMeri Brown’s Dating Timeline: From ‘I Do’ at 19 to Tantra Speed Dating at 55
