Why Lydia Plath Broke Down On The Season Premiere Of Welcome To Plathville

After months of speculation about the family coming apart at the seams, Welcome to Plathville is finally back on our screens for its hugely-anticipated, and highly-contested, second season. Last time we visited the Plaths, they were eking out an idyllic living away from the perils of modern life on a rural Georgia farm. The Plath kids were forbidden from drinking soda, watching TV, or going on social media and were home-schooled by their strict parents.

Now, everything has changed. Eldest son Ethan and his wife Olivia, who were responsible for most of the drama on season one, purely because they questioned his folks' approach to raising the family, are now completely estranged from them, while teens Micah and Moriah, sick of living under their parents' thumb, have fled the family homestead which, shockingly, is now a gorgeous, modern property in Cairo, Georgia. Poor Lydia, who's still living with her parents and younger siblings, isn't taking the changes well, however.

Lydia Plath misses her older brother

During the season premiere, while fighting back tears, the youngster recounted how "almost everything" had changed over the past year. She admitted Ethan's decision to cut himself off from their parents was really hard on everybody. Lydia now writes all of her prayers down and hangs them up in her "prayer closet," where the cameras captured the reality star asking for guidance about Ethan and Olivia. She revealed how difficult it is not having her big brother around, with Lydia missing the positivity he'd bring upon returning home from work each day. "I love him so much, I pray from him all the time, and he's always in my everyday thoughts," she shared tearfully.

The cameras left Lydia as she crouched on the floor, praying for God to bring her family back together. Social media rallied around to share their support for Lydia, and to condemn her parents for their treatment of her, with one user tweeting, "you are DESTROYING Lidia [sic]. That poor girl. She is being ripped apart," while another argued, "mother and father ought to be ashamed for what they are putting Lydia through." It's worth noting that, earlier this year, Moriah responded to a fan encouraging her to "save" her sister by explaining, "It's hard to help someone who doesn't want help and hard to save someone who doesn't see the potential damage."