‘The Hunting Wives’ Burning Questions Answered After Surprising Deaths and Major Changes From the Book 

Netflix’s take on The Hunting Wives deviated from the book — to potentially accommodate a possible second season — so where could the story go from here?

Based on May Cobb‘s book of the same name, The Hunting Wives follows Sophie (Brittany Snow) who moves from Boston to an East Texas town where she finds herself drawn to prominent socialite Margo (Malin Åkerman). What ensues is guns, (a lot of) drinking, intense chemistry between Sophie and Margo – and murder.

But while Cobb’s novel unmasked Jill (Katie Lowes) as the one who killed her son Brad’s (George Ferrier) girlfriend, Abby, the show took some liberties with the source material — including making Margo the murderer.

In the show, Margo has a secret abortion amid her affair with Brad and ultimately kills Abby when the teenager finds out the truth. (In the book, Abby is the one who is pregnant, which is Jill’s motive to kill her.) After she’s initially framed for Abby’s murder, Sophie discovers it was Margo all along. But before Sophie could turn Margo in, Margo’s brother Kyle (Aaron Milligan) threatens Sophie. As a result, Sophie hits Kyle with her car and throws his body off a cliff.

“[Creator] Rebecca [Cutter] and May Cobb have a really great relationship. They’ve been talking a lot and May was kind of like, ‘Go for it,’” Åkerman exclusively told Us Weekly in July about those onscreen changes. “She was on set and was really elated to see her characters come to life and really loved the direction that Rebecca went in with the characters and the changes.”

Keep scrolling to find out what has been teased about possible season 2 story lines and more:

How Will Sophie Come Back From Rock Bottom?

After briefly owning up to her affair with Margo — which appeared to end her marriage — Sophie was hopeful about her future. That all came crashing down once she realized Margo was the killer and nearly pinned Abby’s murder on her. Sophie’s journey to prove the truth led to a twisted full circle moment where she once again killed someone after getting behind the wheel drunk.

“I think that that’s something that she probably hasn’t even wrestled with within herself, as far as why she’s comfortable keeping herself in that box and also keeping secrets from herself. That’s a dark night of the soul situation that we would only be seeing in season 2,” Snow teased to Collider in July. “I don’t know how she’s going to get there. Therapy? Maybe a really good therapist and a lot of time.”

Snow was curious how Sophie would dig herself out of the situation, adding, “The thing that I love about the character of Sophie, and I feel like what I loved about reading all eight scripts, was that Sophie ends up, at the end of episode eight, exactly where she was probably in the flashback before we even see her. She’s had this full circle transformation of finding herself again, and yet here we are. Her true self is a mess.”

She continued: “She’s been holding it so tightly and she’s been so tightly wound, but then, at the end, you see that she can’t hold it together anymore. She’s actually falling apart. She’s got an instinct in her that is really, really messy. She’s more like Margo than she’s not. What I really loved about the character is that she comes back to herself, and she is not a good person.”

Where Does Margo Go From Here?

Margo was in her own hot water after her lies led to her husband, Jed (Dermot Mulroney), kicking her out of their home.

“She’s a mess, but we see her survival skills kicking in. She’s not a quitter. So no matter how dire the situation is, she has her moment [after] everything falls apart. She’s lost everything, and she comes to Kyle in tears and says, ‘It’s over.’ And then we see her going back to Callie and putting together another plan, because that’s what she does,” Åkerman told Variety in July. “She’s going to get right back up and figure her s*** out. And as we see at the end of the finale, I think it’s going to go her way because of what happens to Sophie.”

Åkerman was glad to see the show return back to Margo and Sophie, saying, “Sophie’s in a s***storm, and she’s going to need Margo, so I think she’s going to be OK. I think Margo and Sophie are going to have to band together, for better or worse, and they’re going to have to figure this s*** out. Now Sophie can’t hang that over Margo’s head anymore.”

She concluded: “She hates to admit it, but this is the one person who she can always go back to, because she’s still his family and he will do all her dirty work for her. So again, there’s that desperation, there’s the fear. There’s a lot of emotions going through her at that moment, because this one person is all she’s got left.”

What Does the Ending Mean for Sophie and Margo’s Romance?

“I think the end is really interesting and I know that we would deal with it in season 2. There are a lot of questions that didn’t get answered because Rebecca wants to answer them in the next season if we get one,” Snow hinted to Collider. “We shot the scene where I am drunk and talking to Abby, that got seen on the trail cam, that showed how I even got there with Abby and what I’m trying to say to her. We improved the scene, where I’m trying to fight for Margo and I’m trying to tell Abby that she got Margo all wrong and we can work it out.”

Snow wasn’t sure whether there would be a reconciliation.

“It’s really a big blow to her that, no matter what she was doing, even when she was blacked out, she’s always been trying to protect Margo in this way, and then Margo just completely turned around and lied,” she noted. “I think that’ll be a really big question for the next season. I don’t know if you can come back from where Margo and Sophie are, especially because Sophie killed her brother.”

How Could Kyle’s Death Affect the Show?

According to Åkerman, it would be interesting to see Margo’s reaction to her brother’s murder.

“I do think that she’ll be able to survive without her brother. She’s going to keep surviving until she gets caught! She’s going to continue to make things happen and create alliances where she needs them until she finds one good egg who she’s not able to manipulate or pay off or blackmail or whatever version of tricks she wants to use,” she noted to Variety. “But in a second season, I think it’ll have to be Margo and Sophie banding together to cover up the murder, and Margo reconciling with Jed. Especially if he goes on this political trail, he’s going to want the image to be right.”

Åkerman argued that Kyle’s death would bring Margo back to where she started. “So I think she has something to gain there where she can come back to him and say, ‘Listen, I’ll stand by your side, and I’ll be the good little wife and do everything that you ask me to do. Just let me back in!’” she said. “Because I don’t think she wants to lose that lifestyle or that position of power.”