With Josh Duggar’s Return Expected, Family Hypes Wedding Episode With Secrets And Surprises

Josh Duggar’s presence as a public figure has been vastly reduced over the past two-and-a-half years, but that may be about to change. Some social media accounts belonging to Duggar family members or their friends have shared photos that seem to hint at Josh’s appearance in an upcoming episode, and not all viewers are happy about that. Now the Duggar family, their friends, and some TLC official pages are promoting the episode with promises of secrets and surprises.

The Duggar Family website released an album of photos from Joe Duggar’s wedding to Kendra (née Caldwell), which took place on September 8. As fans and others perused these photos, and others released on social media accounts, Josh Duggar’s appearance began to stand out. Since the public became aware in 2015 of police reports describing a series of molestations of underage girls, Josh has stepped back from the public eye. He hasn’t joined in the ritual of uploading congratulation videos for public consumption when his siblings marry, give birth, or announce a pregnancy, courtship, or engagement. He has been hidden in wedding episodes.

Now, however, the family seems to be taking a u-turn. They’ve included him in moresocial media posts over the summer. Also, in the past week, Josh has been featured in uploaded videos twice — once wishing Michelle Duggar a happy birthday, and once congratulating Joe and Kendra on their marriage.

It was in this video that viewers noticed Josh seemed to be wearing the colors of the wedding party. Then the Duggar family released the wedding photo album linked above, appearing to confirm that Josh was included in the wedding party — which would make him hard (though not impossible) to edit out of the episode.

There’s another clue that Josh may be in the wedding episode: leaks earlier this year indicated that the eldest Duggar son would be appearing in a webisode first, then worked back onto television if that went over well with viewers.

Guess where Joe Duggar’s wedding episode will air first?

That’s right — TLC has announced that the episode will first be available online, via the TLC Go app — and no air date for television has been announced. Could this be Josh Duggar’s promised webisode?

TLC and the Duggar family aren’t saying — but they are promoting the episode heavily, with promises that it will be full of special surprises and secrets.

Immediately after the wedding, the hints started dropping, with a family friend posting on Instagram to announce that there were “surprises” but that she couldn’t say more until the episode aired, because of “spoilers.”

“The wedding was beautiful, and there were some fun surprises, but I can’t give any spoilers before it airs on TLC.”

Over the next few days, this friend answered a few questions, promising that the surprise wasn’t the birth of Josh and Anna Duggar’s baby (which was announced a few days later, September 12, confirming that his birth was not the wedding surprise) or another Duggar entering a courtship or announcing a pregnancy.

However, Josh’s inclusion in the wedding album and his public release of a video congratulating the couple support the theory that his presence in the wedding party could be one of the “sweet surprises” promised. Now another Duggar is dropping hints, posting on social media to suggest that there will be unexpected revelations in the wedding episode. This time, audiences are promised a good laugh.

“Of course, he can’t ask me to be his best man without expecting at least one prank, right?”

Josiah Duggar hints that he played an amusing prank on his brother Joe while serving as best man — but leaves viewers to watch the episode to find out what it was. A social media post from Josiah is an attention-grabber in itself, since he created his Instagram account back when he was announcing his own courtship, and largely abandoned it when that courtship broke off. Though the account has been open over two years, there are barely more than a dozen posts, painting Josiah pretty clearly as more of a dabbler in social media than a regular.

TLC and the Duggar family recently released another teaser to promote the wedding episode, with Joe and Kendra Duggar answering quick questions from Jana Duggar about likes and preferences. With Josh Duggar possibly appearing, and numerous teasers about surprises and secrets appearing on the show, will viewers flock to the special webisode when it’s released on the TLC app, or will they avoid it?

[Featured Image by Josh Duggar/Twitter]