TLC’s ‘Welcome to Plathville’: Ethan Plath Hasn’t Evolved at All, Was Olivia Plath Right?
TLC‘s Welcome to Plathville tries hard to untangle the web of the Plath family. They’ve come a long way from the conservative, Christian homeschooling, music-playing clan first depicted in 2019. Today, the Plath family is less conservative and more splintered than ever, and at the center of the turmoil is Ethan Plath, whose split from his wife, Olivia Plath, shows he hasn’t evolved at all throughout their marriage.
Ethan and Olivia Plath split because their values didn’t align
Olivia and Ethan Plath were both from conservative families. Their shared bond was that they wanted to live life outside of their parent’s restrictions.
Therefore, they grew together, sharing travel, good food, wine, and other life experiences that would have been restricted had they stayed under their family’s control. However, as Olivia continued to evolve and grow into her person, Ethan remained stagnant in many of his ways.
This inflexibility was the undoing of the couple’s relationship. Their values didn’t align, and the final period of their sentence was when Ethan said he didn’t want to have children with her.
“His position is that he doesn’t want a kid like me,” Olivia admitted during season 5. “He doesn’t want a kid that thinks what I think politically or socially.”
Has Ethan emotionally regressed since marrying Olivia?
In a Reddit post discussing Welcome to Plathville, viewers concluded that Ethan Plath emotionally regressed during his marriage to Olivia Plath. While she tried to open him up to new experiences, he clung desperately to the values his parents, Barry and Kim Plath, instilled in him.
“I don’t think Ethan has regressed as much as he just has not evolved AT ALL,” one Redditor wrote. “He doesn’t get it. Anything. Olivia made that clear when she told her friend about the letter Ethan gave her, which was verbatim about what he had said during their numerous other disagreements throughout the marriage. The only difference is that he’s getting sad instead of angry now.”
A second viewer wrote, “I think that’s my issue. I thought he had evolved! He had all those life experiences with Olivia that he seemed to embrace enthusiastically. To now see his complete and utter bewilderment is just so jarring because I saw him as more emotionally intelligent than he actually is. I feel like I was sold a lie!”
“More like he is emotionally stunted from the environment he grew up in,” claimed a third viewer. Finally, a fourth said, “Ethan has trauma from his childhood, marriage, and the way his parents and siblings treated his wife. That’s a lot more than what his siblings have endured.”
Will Ethan and Olivia ever get back together?
According to a Psychic and Tarot Card reader, Olivia Plath visited at the beginning of Welcome to Plathville Season 6; there is a chance she and Ethan could reunite down the road. The reader told Olivia she would be married once and have two children.
However, they added that Olivia had to “be patient” toward her former partner “and give him time to grow. He’s very stuck in his ways.” She said, “You see the mind here. He’s a little bit twisted.”
The psychic alluded to the fact that both Ethan and Olivia will have other relationships. However, they will likely reunite “in two years.”
Welcome to Plathville airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. EST on TLC.
