Somewhat lost in the shuffle on Tuesday night’s Counting On premiere was the long-suffering Anna Duggar’s return – and what she had to say.
If you watch Counting On online, you’ll see the expected focus on the “big three” Duggar girls – Jill, Jessa, and Jinger – and their siblings.
While Jeremy Vuolo telling Jinger Duggar “I love you” should get the most headlines, and understandably, Anna’s appearance was telling.
Ostensibly, she was brought into the mix because Jessa was baby-proofing for lil’ Spurgeon, and Anna has years of experience there.
Beneath the surface, though, we know producers had more in mind for this scene than Jessa simply hanging out with her nice sister-in-law.
Anna, with her son Marcus in tow, came over to inspect the baby proofing and tell Jessa just how many things she missed in the process.
Spoiler alert: A lot! Jessa is great at making babies (Ben Seewald just got Jessa Duggar pregnant again) but sucks at baby-proofing!
Then the gang headed to a store, bought all of the necessary supplies and did their best to get everything installed properly this time.
The $ 10 million-dollar question remained, though:
Can Anna’s marriage to the disgraced family pariah Josh Duggar be reassembled and built from scratch as solidly as these projects?
Her demeanor was quite different, we’ll say that much
In stark contrast to last season, Anna was upbeat when discussing life with Josh, who is now home from sex addiction rehab labor camp.
Fans still castigate the Duggar first-born on a regular basis, but behind closed doors, it looks like all is forgiven, or heading that direction.
Anna summed up the state of their relationship thusly:
“Personally, I have a lot of hope for our marriage.”
“As I see Josh taking steps to do what’s right, it brings a lot of joy and helps heal the pain that we walked through,” she explained.
“We are just taking it one day at a time,” Anna added, “and working on strengthening our relationship as a couple and with our children.”
Listening to her gloss over the “pain” he inflicted is enough to make you sad, as it feels like she’s letting him off the hook in many respects.
Obviously, she wasn’t going to leave him, but either she’s being put up to this public display of forgiveness or actually got over it quickly.
We’re not sure which is crazier, to be honest.
The Duggars seem to have forgiven and fully accepted Josh, who has slowly been welcomed back into the fold – privately and publicly.
Most recently, he appeared on social media with his siblings, as did a video showing little Meredith, Josh’s daughter, learning to walk.
Sure, Michelle and Jim Bob snubbed Josh in a recent anniversary message, making passive reference to their “first child” and that’s it.
Part of that could be a conscious plan to rebuild Josh’s reputation slowly, however, rather than a deliberate, passive-aggressive smackdown.
One of the most fundamental, basic Christian teachings is forgiveness, so it’s not really shocking for the Duggars to do so with Josh.
They are family, after all.
Still, they have a media empire to run. Perception is everything, and Josh got 19 Kids & Counting canceled once before, as you recall.
The Duggars are keenly aware of their fragile income stream, and how Josh’s unfavorables are worse than Clinton and Trump combined.
So while they aren’t going to shun him or tie him up in the basement during family outings, they still try to keep him on the DL at times.
It’s a fine line.