‘The Hunting Wives’: Why Everyone, Including My Mother, Is Watching 

If it feels like everyone and their mother is watching The Hunting Wives, it’s because they are. Literally. My mom just texted me that she’s watching the show. (I knew those gals in her canasta group were a bad influence on her.)

The Netflix series, which is based on the May Cobb book of the same name, makes those other “wives” shows (Desperate Housewives, Real Housewives, Mormon Wives) look like Bluey. It’s so juicy, PEOPLE’s chief critic Tom Gliatto described it as “a watermelon so overripe the seeds are spitting out through the rind” in his review. 

So when I read Features Editor Steph Sengwe’s hot take about watching the show because she had FOMO, it gave me FOMO — and now I’m the latest PEOPLE person to crush the entire season in an alarmingly short period of time “for work purposes.” 

If you’re wondering what all the giggling and gasping is about, here’s the deal: The Hunting Wives follows Sophie O’Neil (Brittany Snow), a Bostonite who moves to East Texas with her family after her dud of a husband Graham* (Evan Jonigkeit) gets a job working for wealthy businessman Jed Banks (Dermot Mulroney). Sophie befriends Jed’s wife Margo (played by a just-give-her-all-the-Emmys now Malin Akerman), who’s the Regina George of a group of conservative women who spend their time downing margaritas, shooting guns and having sex with each other. And I thought my book club was fun! 

While the main plot revolves around a murder mystery (R.I.P. Abby, you seemed nice, albeit kind of dim), as many others have said, that’s not why we’re here. We’re here for the sex. There’s so much of it between as many duos (and trios!) and scenes like that one with Callie and her husband will have you wondering if you really just saw what you think you saw (you did).

The sex is so graphic and raunchy that I had to laugh when I read an interview with Akerman where she said that the show is “reminiscent of Dynasty or Dallas,” two soapy ’80s drama about rich people behaving badly, because even the most scandalous moments on those shows — which my parents would occasionally let me watch with them because that’s how parents were in the ’80s — would be too tame for the opening credits of the The Hunting Wives. Trust me, the last thing you want is your kids to wander into the room while you’re watching Margot and Sophie “hang out” and ask why the ladies on the television are wrestling in bed without any clothes on.

If you made it through the wild finale and still have lingering questions like me (mainly, why are the wigs so hilariously awful?), you’ll be happy to know things are looking promising for a second season. While I wait for the show’s writers to figure out the sex combinations they haven’t explored yet, I’ll be over here on Amazon searching for the perfect ombre wig and plunging metallic gown for my Margo Banks Halloween costume.

*Graham is the worst.