How many kids do the Walters have in My Life with the Walter Boys?
Every time I watch this show I lose track of a Walter. There is always one more boy in the kitchen. It's like a Where's Waldo where Waldo has a rodeo hobby.
So let's settle it, because Season 3 landed August 6 and added a plot twist that makes the count even messier.
The official number: 10
Netflix and the show itself go with ten kids under Katherine and George Walter's roof. That's the number Sarah Rafferty is talking about when she describes her character's life as a plate-spinning act. But ten is doing some quiet work, because not all ten are theirs.
Breaking down the ten
Katherine and George's biological kids, oldest to youngest:
- Will, 26, married to Hayley, running the ranch with his dad
- Cole and Danny, 17, fraternal twins. Cole is the one Jackie can't stop thinking about; Danny is the one dating Cole's ex
- Alex, 16, the bookish one who took up bronc riding, which is a very specific way to process heartbreak
- Nathan, 15, the calm one, who spent Season 2 in his own love triangle
- Jordan, 13, aspiring wildlife filmmaker, owner of a snake named Rumplesnakeskin
- Parker, 10, the only daughter, plays football, takes no prisoners
- Benny, 6, loves his chickens
That's eight. The other two are Isaac and Lee, who are cousins, not brothers. They're the sons of George's sister Hannah, who left them with the Walters years ago and then didn't come back. The Walters raised them as their own, so functionally they're Walter kids, biologically they're not.
Eight kids, two cousins, one legal ward from Manhattan. Eleven teenagers and children under one roof, and somehow the veterinarian mom still has time to give romantic advice.
And then there's Jackie
Jackie Howard isn't a Walter by blood or by name, but after her family died she became Katherine's legal ward, and by Season 3 she's legally part of the family. So if you're counting bodies at the dinner table, it's eleven. If you're counting Walters, it's eight. If you're counting people Katherine is responsible for, it's ten plus Jackie plus a husband recovering from a heart scare.
Rafferty described Katherine to Netflix's Tudum as:
"A woman who leads with her heart, who has a sense of humor about her life, and is able to spin all the plates."
Which is a generous way of saying this woman has not slept since roughly 2000.
Season 3 makes the cousin thing a plot
The big Season 3 wrinkle is that Hannah, Isaac and Lee's actual mother, shows up in Silver Falls. Erin Karpluk plays her as the free-spirited estranged sister who left her boys and now, awkwardly, wants back in. Sound familiar? Every family drama gets one of these eventually.
Creator Melanie Halsall told Tudum the whole season is "about growing up, maturing, and stepping up," and Hannah's return is the version of that for the adults. It also means that, for the first time, the show is asking whether Isaac and Lee count as Walters or as Hannah's kids on loan.
For the record
- Ten kids raised in the house
- Eight of them George and Katherine's
- Two of them cousins
- One Jackie
- One dog, probably, I honestly cannot keep track of the animals
Season 4 is already renewed and filming, so expect the number to stay at ten while the arguments about who counts get louder. That's the Walter way.
