[PREVIEW] 'The Hunting Wives' Is A Sexy Soap For Our Hypocritical Political Moment

“The Hunting Wives” is one of those rare shows where nothing makes much sense, but it still somehow works. Thanks to her very middling husband, coastal liberal Sophie O’Neill (Brittany Snow) gets dropped into the gun-toting world of East Texas socialites, led by Queen Bee Margo Banks (Malin Åkerman). Longing glances are exchanged, handguns are casually purchased, dark secrets are uncovered, and a local teen girl ends up dead.It’s an absurd, sudsy, romp through MAGA-land — with a healthy dose of murder and an even healthier dose of illicit sexual encounters. Before you can say “bless your heart,” Sophie — who is initially disgusted when she and her husband show up at his new boss’ NRA party — is buying a gun she doesn’t know how to load and blacking out at honky tonks with her new girlfriends and their teen sons/paramours. As Judy Berman points out in Time, “The Hunting Wives” falls beautifully into the grand tradition of “wives” pop culture. Stories about single women are often stories about finding love. Stories about wives are stories about what happens after an alleged happily ever after is procured. And there’s pretty much always darkness and conflict lurking underneath the glittering surface of a group of (rich) women’s lives. Men are still there, but they’re no longer at the center.Nothing about “The Hunting Wives” is subtle. Not the fashion (Margo looks like she could be going out for a night in Vegas during her husband’s political fundraisers); not the sex (see: pegging); not the political rhetoric (Margo’s local kingpin husband, played by Dermot Mulroney, toys with a gubernatorial run by making a speech about “personas malos” crossing the border); and certainly not the dialogue. (One character literally croaks out “you cunts” as she dies.)It’s also a study in the allure of hypocrisy: Church leaders who preach about Godliness while doing blackmail. Women who express anti-abortion sentiment and then procure abortion care when they need it. A sheriff who is eager to solve a murder only when it can bolster his own career ambitions. Wives who perform traditional hetero-femininity publicly while engaging in queer relationships privately. As Margo tells Sophie early in the season of her arrangement with Jed: “Open marriages are for liberals. We just keep it simple. I don’t sleep with other men, and when Jed and I see a girl we like, we go for it.” In this episode we talk about the right-wing political backdrop of the show, the abundant plot holes, how hetero the whole thing feels despite the queerness, and what we’d like to see from a second season. Hope you enjoy! XoShare Rich TextIf you liked reading this, click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon!Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod • Subscribe • Request a free subscription