Wow! MTV knows how to pack a lot of emotion into one hour, don't they? Thanks to tonight's Being Maci special, we finally got see what Maci Bookout has been up to since Teen Mom went off the air a year ago.
Let's just tackle the elephant in the room first, huh? How crazy was it to see Ryan Edwards playing the concerned parent?
Holy role reversal Batman!
Now that Maci has broken up with Kyle King (they didn't even mention him!) and she's living in a house with two girlfriends plus Bentley that they've nicknamed the tree house, she's finally getting to do some of the teenage things she missed out on by having a kid so young and playing house with a guy. She's got a garage with a beer pong table and a keg ... which bugged the heck out of Ryan, considering Bentley plays in there.
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You can't blame the guy for being a little perturbed, but it does seem like Maci reserves the partying for when her son isn't around.
When Bentley is home, she's still that responsible mom who is focused on her kid that we saw back in her Teen Mom days -- dealing with things like how to convince her son that he needs to move into his own bedroom and disciplining him for talking back.
And while we're on the subject of things that haven't changed, it seems Ryan is still kind of a dick to his girlfriends. The way he treated Dalis Connell, getting nasty with her on the phone when she simply wanted to talk, was uncalled for. I guess now we know why they broke up ... and it isn't just because he's still carrying a torch for Maci.
And oh man, is he ever! He can blame it on the alcohol all he wants, but Ryan went and called his ex-fiancee sexy. To her face! When he still technically had a girlfriend!
Watching them, I had that playground rhyme bouncing around my head. Ryan and Maci sittin' in a tree ...
We know the two aren't back together -- this was filmed back in December, and right now Maci has a boyfriend -- but it was nice to see them getting along, at least for Bentley's sake. They have come a long, long way from the days of Maci moving her son to another city without telling Ryan and Ryan threatening to take her to court every five minutes.
They've both changed since Teen Mom, and certainly because of it.
Maci now has to figure out whether her friends are truly her friends or just people hanging on to her famous coat-tails, which can't be easy. But it hasn't hurt her lifestyle -- she has the money to help friends cover rent and a job at a radio station where she's billed as Maci of Teen Mom.
Not everything in her life is typical of teen motherhood these days, but considering the struggles we saw in the past, it was NICE to see Maci having fun too. Just because she's a mother doesn't mean she has to give up on ever being normal.
Ironically it's because she's an adult now that she can finally do all those teenage things she missed out on by being a Teen Mom. She's got her school and job handled, and she deserves to blow off steam when her ex has her kid.
What did you think of the new Maci?
Image via MTV