‘Wife Swap’: Son Throws a Tantrum When New Mom Removes His TV From His Room (Exclusive Clip)

With the return of Wife Swap for another season comes another deep dive into a family flipped upside down. Thursday’s season premiere episode, “Akinbode vs. Mullis,” shows a no-nonsense Nigerian mom who raises her kids in a strict culture of respect swapping lives with an overwhelmed mom whose disconnected husband and kids run the house.

In an exclusive clip of Thursday’s premiere, the Mullis family experiences a little more than what they bargained for when Elizabeth Akinbode, the family’s new mom for the week, enacts the strict rules from her own household on their lenient lifestyle. Much to the dismay of 10-year-old Keigan, those rules include no TV or cellphones in the house.

“No more TV in Keigan’s room. No more TV in anyone’s room during weeknights,” Elizabeth tells the camera as dad Scott Mullis unplugs all the TVs in the house.

“That’s all of them, right?” he yells from another room.

“And the one in Daddy’s room!” Elizabeth reminds him, Keigan and the rest of the kids — Annika, 8, and 4-year-old twins River and Race.

“And Daddy’s phone!” one of the twins says.

“Daddy was not too happy about his phone. And he was not too happy about his TV. But everybody’s on the same page now,” Elizabeth says.

The group gathers in the family’s living room for a “family night,” which Annika wonders if it will include games or other alternative activities to watching television.

A fed-up looking Keigan covers his head with his arms and says, “I’m miserable. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

Soon, the family has lost track of Keigan, only to find him lying down on his bed with his face buried in the blankets.

“Keigan, are you OK?” Elizabeth asks, walking into his room. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t wanna talk right now,” he says in a muffled reply.

“Talk to me,” Elizabeth replies. “Because I took the TV out of your room?”

“Me taking the TV out of your room is not the end of the world, OK?” she tells Keigan, who is sniffling on the bed. “You have to find something else to do in place of that.”

When he refuses to come back downstairs to play games with the rest of the family, Elizabeth tells the camera his love for TV is like an addiction.

“He’s hooked on it. It’s almost like being hooked on drugs. What can I say? It’s not his fault. He’s just a little child caught up in this bad habit.”

The new season of Wife Swap — its second since Paramount Network rebooted the series last year — premieres Thursday, Feb. 13 at 9 p.m. on Paramount. In total, Season 2 will boast 20 new episodes.

Photo credit: Paramount Network