Best Episodes of Wife Swap
AKA I Watched All Available Episodes of Wife Swap so You Can Only Watch the Good Ones: A syllabus detailing the best episodes of an iconic show.
Note: Hi! It’s been a while! Sorry to the three people who had to hear my FBoy Island takes via text or DM. Also sorry that I have completely fallen off of Dangerous Bodies. Erotic thrillers really take it out of me.
I would like a bumper sticker that says “I’d Rather Be Watching Wife Swap” please. This show is so good and there is NO way it could or would exist anymore in the year 2023. There’s so much I love about it, and for a lot of the same reasons I love The Mole (the real one. Celebrity Mole can go suck an egg and the new version was just fine). Like, People On TV just don’t look like this anymore.
I am so interested in how we got from following families in Erie, Pennsylvania who make their kids adhere to rigorous schedules and compete in sports (it’s like watching how millennials are made) to whatever Selling Sunset is. And that’s not a linear path because these shows are two different genres, of course, but the only show you see people who look normal, average, and real on these days is maybe Undercover Boss? Also, the way that people behave in this era of reality TV is so different. No one is producing themselves, the kids are SUPER weird but also relatable. No one had any ideas of what it was like to be A Person On TV yet so they were just themselves (or a more awkward, camera-shy version of themselves). And no one was on social media waiting to bully the shit out of everyone on the show yet, either.
Anyway, if you haven’t had the pleasure of watching Wife Swap yet, 7 seasons are on Hulu (and might be missing some episodes?) and while Trading Spouses is the show that gave us The God Warrior, Wife Swap gave us icon and legend King Curtis. And it probably inspired almost every show on TLC. Do I want to know where these kids/families are now? Absolutely not. I don’t need to know that most of them were probably at the Insurrection. They exist frozen in carbonite for me to stream whenever I want.
Here is the basic premise of the show: Two wives in families with different lifestyles (sometimes opposite, sometimes just really different) “swap lives” for a week. For the first few days of The Swap, they have to live according to the rules of the family they have swapped into, keeping their schedule and habits. Then, they have a “rule change ceremony” where they recommend changes that the family has to live by for the rest of the week. To this show’s seven-season credit, they found a lot of different ways to tell the “order vs chaos” story and it is almost always entertaining and reliably uncomfortable. The whole show really causes one to reflect on their own upbringing and lifestyle—what elements might the Wife Swap producers extract and magnify as extreme? What type of family or wife would they swap you with?
So, without further ado, here are the Wife Swap episodes I recommend and why. It’s a list I started over two years ago, but it feels as though I have been preparing for this moment my whole life. My absolute favorite episodes are noted with an asterisk.
Season 1
Not much to write home about here. I think the show was still finding its footing and hadn’t realized that they needed to turn the families into caricatures of themselves yet.
S1 E12 Parsons / Bramhall
“A compulsively organized mother trades families with a waitress.”
Come for: the show’s first exploration of class/single parenting.
Stay for: one of the daughters saying, “yeah pick the flowers you rich ugly ass bitch” while smoking a cigarette.
S1 E14 Boone Luffey / Gillespie
“A politically liberal lesbian trades places with an anti-gay conservative.”
DO I RECOMMEND THIS EPISODE? I don’t know. It explores homosexuality and race and the wives have some real conversations. But it is not hilarious.
Season 2
What does it mean to be a good mother? What does it mean to be a good wife? This season is where we begin to explore the sometimes literal performance of being a woman in the early 2000s.
S2 E1 Allison / Hagerty
“A conservative disciplinarian swaps with a mother who eschews rules.”
Come for: An etiquette-teaching mom’s personal hell.
Stay for: The redemption arc of both wives.
**S2 E5 Yonts / Jan-Turan**
“The mother of a beauty queen swaps places with a mom who shuns makeup.”
Come for: The literal pageantry.
Stay for: The families actually learning from each other in a way that is genuinely touching!
**S2 E16 King / Reeves**
“A penny-pinching mother trades places with a free-spending mother.”
Come for: Extreme penny-pinching (before there was a whole show about couponers) and money-saving meets Motherboy type of relationship. Or the daughter hilariously playing the drums.
Stay for: Clark Richard’s whole deal. IDK, is this abuse? Also, the origin of “happy treat,” which I still use to this day.
S2 E19 Thompson / Askam
“A Wiccan high-priestess swaps places with a traditional mom.”
Lolllllll idk what to make of this one. But one of the families is Wiccan and any time there’s a depiction of the occult or a 2006 idea of being “woo woo” I love to see it.
Season 3
Wife Swap at its most pure. This is speculation, obviously, but I think they’d found their rhythm and were starting to see what worked. Also, they had proof of concept so interesting families started applying to the show and they weren’t completely fabricating things yet (I’m looking at you, seasons of Catfish beyond like, season 3). This is also where they started encouraging really weird rule changes and scenarios (“I’m an aspiring model so you must go on a photo shoot”).
S3 E2 Baur / Fine
“The mom of a modern-day pirate family swaps with an overly organized mom.”
Come for: The “pirattitude.”
Stay for: The organized mom making people wear labels and sit in a Rubbermaid.
S3 E9 Rowland / Rivera
“A motorcycle-riding mother swaps with a mother who rules with an iron fist.”
Come for: Phoebe: the dog in a dress.
Stay for: Men crying.
S3 E13 Koopman / Early
“A fun-loving aspiring model swaps lives with a conservative woman.”
Come for: All the animals in the Early house.
Stay for: The possibility that Wife Swap found the wildest Wives’ lives yet? The family constellations are really interesting here. Also, obviously, there’s a photo shoot.
S3 E14 Starling / Sweany-Ernst
“A woman who adores her son swaps with a woman who worships Mother Earth.” Props to whoever wrote that description, btw.
Come for: The unexpected clash of motocross vs fairy culture.
Stay for: The husband of the Sweany-Ernst house being Pacific Northwest as fuck. Also, an Emmy to the person who cut this together.
S3 E15 Meeks / Hoover
“A religious, conservative mother swaps families with a punk-rock mom.”
Come for: Sweet little Benji. And to see a family whose primary source of income is chimney sweeping.
Stay for: A really cunning edit and the wives really doing their best to honor the swap. Also, the choice someone made to have the "rocker" husband greet the Swapped Wife wearing a guitar.
**S3 E19 Silver / Pitney**
“A self-professed psychic swaps with an indulgent country wife.” Doesn’t “indulgent country wife” sound like a nice aesthetic for festival season?
Come for: The tap dancing sons.
Stay for: The absolute prop comedy of the rule changes.
**S3 E20 Rush / Rios-Bolman**
“A woman who puts her dogs’ needs first trades with an environmentalist.”
Come for: Sheila, who hates people and loves little dogs; “Phyllis is havin’ her ice cream.”
Stay for: The inevitable question you will ask yourself: am I a Sheila or a Melanie? I still think about this episode.
Season 4
A lot of cosplay and prop comedy in this season. And let me tell you, the weird kids be weirdin’. This is when the show officially becomes drag.
S4 E5 McDonald / Robarge
“A burlesque dancer trades places with an outdoorswoman.”
Come for: A discussion about sex positivity when a burlesque dancer swaps with a lumberjack competition mom.
Stay for: "I don't want to do lumberjack can I just cut off my arms?" Plus this episode is a nice break. The wives take it seriously, no one is too resistant. Low stakes, I don't worry that anyone is being abused, etc.
S4 E11 Graf / Medici
“A mother who devotes her life children trades with a demanding innkeeper.” That’s what it says. They forget to mention all the bodybuilding.
Come for: Bavarian Inn owners who make their kids keep timecards vs a family with a terrifying bodybuilder child. WARNING: SCARY BODIES
Stay for: Teen bodybuilder Nick wearing a pizza costume and saying it proved to him that he can do things other than bodybuilding.
**S4 E14 Figaratto / Martinez**
“A karaoke-singing mom trades places with an amateur-kickboxing mom.”
Come for: A glimpse into my dark future with this karaoke-loving family with a weird youngest son who says, "I guess I'll have a pickle or something" for his snack and drinks pickle juice. And the independent martial arts son Alex whispering "good morning" as he begins his day of chores. IDFK this is great but also I'm sobbing.
Stay for: The curious mystery of what this "online karaoke business" is. Also, the little weird kid gets a nosebleed.
**S4 E18 Coste / Ives**
“A stunt show woman swaps with an environmentally conscious family.”
Come for: The rare vilification of an artsy family (mostly because the mom makes all the kids stay in one bedroom and bike everywhere while she uses the car and has an art room). Also, the youngest daughter mashing a rock with a golf club for “fun.”
Stay for: The motocross dad hilariously riding a horse into town, and an interesting discussion about what qualifies as “art”! Plus the spotlight on the truth that you can be environmentally conscious and still an asshole.
Season 5
This season is simply dominated by King Curtis—in my opinion and in terms of legacy. I will note here that that goddamn “Balloon Boy” family is in season 5 TWICE. I don’t recommend their episodes because I have had enough of the dad/husband, who is a monster, and I don’t care to watch people so desperate for this kind of attention (early self-producing! Feral) but they are S5 E1 Heene / Martell and S5 E18 Heene / Silver. And it’s really too bad because I love the Silver family (the psychic with the tap-dancing sons).
S5 E13 Long / Stephens-Fowler
The episode descriptions get kind of messed up here because I don’t think this is the martial arts / actor swap.
Come for: A patriotic paintball family that says eating junk food is “the American way,” which is not actually untrue.
Stay for: Sad solo scrapbooking and intellectual elitism. Like, maybe fuck the “educated” family.
** S5 E20 Brown / Holland **
The episode description doesn’t match up here, again, but I think it’s supposed to be “A family who loves fast food trades moms with a family focused on health.” They just need to say King Curtis.
Come for: King Curtis! This is the King Curtis episode and he so deeply steals the show you almost forget about his mom’s whole storyline, and that he has a sister.
Stay for: The follow-up that shows neither family has really changed very much at all.
*S5 E24 Schults / Smith*
“A Halloween-obsessed family swaps moms with a swimming focused familiy.”
Come for: A Halloween-obsessed family who runs their own haunted house! This episode had me ROLLING, for this one moment alone:
Stay for: Production really forcing this Halloween thing to the point where the Halloween mom makes the whole family go trick-or-treating on a night that is clearly not Halloween.
Season 6
Starting to get even more invented and exaggerated here. Like, oh you like hockey? Now your family is OBSESSED with it. That’s the framework but the episodes still sing with weirdness as the families interact within it. It’s a good enough time to watch the introductory 3 minutes of every episode because the narration is SO funny and judgmental. Also, the Swap guides, which are clearly penned by producers, are getting more outrageous and incendiary: “Emma is a dancer and we do go to her dance recitals but they suck and we’d rather be watching the boys scoring goals.”
** S6 E1 Cameron / Drago **
“A mom with pampered children swaps with a woman who believes in discipline.” This could be any episode description. And they should really be mentioning the baby dolls that dominate this episode.
Come for: One woman’s obsession with “reborn dolls” (dolls that look and sometimes move like real infants) and the way it has taken over. This is such a formative episode because you learn what a Reborn is AND you get the family that makes their kids work at the family coffee shop and hot dog stand.
Stay for: An examination of the myriad ways people can be toxic and pass that toxicity on to the next generation. And this woman’s insistence on a coffee/hot dog stand as a viable business.
S6 E3 Schroeder / Wardle
“A Goth mother trades lives with a hockey mom.”
Come for: The “Goth” family that is really ahead of their time in a Jennifer’s Body kind of way.
Stay for: The hockey kids turning the “you suck” attitude against their dad and chanting, “Wear the skirt! Wear the skirt!” Also, I found myself changing “sides” several times throughout the Swap, which this show is really good at facilitating. And, like any episode, it made me think about the dangers of any kind of extremes when you’re raising children.
S6 E6 Haller-Wren / Spencer
“A free-spirited mother trades with a mom who caters to her husband’s whim".”
Come for: A complicated and extreme exploration of gender roles. And the dad of the “free-spirited” family is a literal clown.
Stay for: The football dad good-naturedly “giving birth” to a fake little baby, then bringing it to the post-Swap meeting.
S6 E8 Flannagin / Logan
“A family that recreates the 1840s swaps with a technology-obsessed family.” Like, SAY LESS!
Come for: “The Flannagins don’t spoil Colton, who is happy to play outside with worms,” and the “loud, stay-at-home dad Jim is an entrepreneur who works a few hours a week running his business picking up dog poop.” Two unnecessary drags from the narrator.
Stay for: A haunting look at what qualified as “technology-obsessed” in 2010. Also, the fur trader wife has some of the technology wife’s friends come over and read insults they’ve written on Post-Its to loud, stay-at-home entre-poo-neur Jim.
**S6 E14 - Cyboran / Owen-Ladino**
“A superhero dressing couple swaps with a down-to-earth couple.” Whoever was writing these descriptions was probably feeling Wife Swap fatigue. I relate! Hulu, if you need someone who watched all the episodes unpaid, for the joy of Wife Swap, to write new descriptions DM me.
Come for: The couple that dresses like superheroes to (more interestingly) run their brand of couples workshops (they call them “playshops”) and has a closet full of wigs. I love them, I am them. From what I understand, Arjuna used to be called “Harold” and he just picked a new name. He also says, “I take my beloved Shanti on three dates per hour.” They are living in 3008, understanding that we are living in a simulation.
Stay for: Another Post-It note intervention on a dad! The kids wrote things they thought of their dad on notecards and put them all in a fishbowl. Things like, “I make voodoo dolls of you and stab you when you are mean.”
Season 7
There’s definitely a gap in time here, or some lost episodes because we only have 14 episodes of Season 6 (there are usually like, 24) and then, boom, we’re in 2013, there’s a new narrator, the graphics are different, and there’s a polyamory episode. This is a crucial gap in the short history of reality television! Season 7 is markedly different. It looks SO 2013 (cosmetic procedures caught up, people had a slightly better sense of how to “be” on reality tv, and the aesthetic is different). Also, the sensibility of the editing and storytelling is different — it feels like this season is going for shock value. It also doesn’t demonstrate an understanding of what is great about the show. They removed the intros where the families pose in front of their homes while the narrator says hilarious things! If I remember correctly, they tried (and failed) to bring it back. But our taste in unscripted programming had changed.
There’s an oily film over this season. They are trying to present these stories as a raw and authentic look at these people’s lives when they are heavily structured and manipulated. It’s obvious to me now, but I think we have become more conscious of what goes on behind the scenes in the last 10 years. I also think it’s necessary to advocate for more and better media literacy these days because I’m observing a dip in critical thinking with so many new forms of media/entertainment. But I digress.
I don’t recommend watching this season. It doesn’t have the charm of the original six and it exploits an increasingly polarized country. The way the episodes are structured makes it easier to take and hold sides or to pick a villain and I like the balance previous seasons were able to maintain. Finally, it’s 2013 so there are rumblings of MAGA in the distance and honestly, I don’t like watching it! Season 7, the best thing about you is that you’re only 7 episodes. I make voodoo dolls of you and stab you when you are mean.