‘Welcome to Plathville’ Recap: Ethan Tells Sister Lydia He ‘Doesn’t Like’ Zac Hours Before Proposal

Ethan Plath made his sister Lydia Plath cry on the latest episode of Welcome to Plathville, criticizing her whirlwind romance with Zac Wyse prior to their engagement.

“I want you to be happy, and I’m very happy to see that you’re happy. But I just have to say it,” Ethan, 27, told his younger sister, 21, on the Tuesday, August 5, episode of the TLC series. “You’ve only known him for three months and you’re getting married in two months. Are you sure you’re good with that?”

While Lydia said she was confident that Zac was The One, Ethan questioned the speed of their engagement and subsequent marriage. (Zac and Lydia set a date for their wedding before he popped the question.)

“It’s too fast. It’s too much. … I don’t really know him. I don’t really like him. Just being honest with you,” Ethan told Lydia, admitting that he didn’t have an exact reason for his feelings. “I just don’t like him, but I don’t know if that’s because I don’t know him yet or if it’s just because I’m being protective of you and it’s all really fast.”

Lydia got quiet and broke down into tears before hugging her big brother. Ethan eventually said, “I feel like I don’t know you really. I don’t talk to you a lot now you’re gone already.”

The siblings had their heart-to-heart hours before Zac’s surprise proposal, and through the tears realized that maybe Zac wasn’t the issue between them — at least not entirely.

“That’s just the first time that I really feel you care,” Lydia confessed to Ethan, who responded, “I didn’t know you didn’t know.”

Lydia then told the cameras that while her brother “doesn’t really like Zac,” she thinks “it’s much deeper than that.”

“I think the problem is more he doesn’t know me very well,” she continued. “And that’s a hard reality to face.”

“I wish we would have had more opportunities to be close,” Lydia then told Ethan through tears. “I know it’s been hard with you in Minnesota, and there were never opportunities for it to be expressed.”

Ethan replied, “Now you do know,” confessing, “I’m just being hard on Zac because I think that you’re just amazing and nobody really ever would be good enough for you.”

The eldest Plath sibling later told the cameras that hearing how distant Lydia feels he’s been “stings a little bit.” Ethan also revealed that while it’s “not my place” to tell Lydia not to marry Zac so quickly, he wanted to make sure she was being “careful.”

“I’ve seen him protect [our sister] Moriah at times, and I knew he and Moriah were really close. I just always wanted that for myself, and I feel like I probably got that today,” Lydia said in her confessional. “Not that he has anything to protect me from, but just the fact that he’s showing he cares.”

While Ethan has been vocal all season about how fast Zac and Lydia were moving, the couple got engaged in December 2024. (Fans will see the proposal play out next week on the TLC series.)

Lydia and Zac tied the knot in February surrounded by their loved ones, including Ethan, who was on hand to celebrate. The ceremony took place on the Plath farm in Georgia.

Welcome to Plathville airs on TLC Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET.