Spoilers ahead for the entity of season two of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, Including the final.
Let it never again be said that reality shows Need alcohol to be absolutely, unreservedly out of control. Hulu’s The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is notably dry-Because of Mormonism But Also Because the Cast Metmers Keep Pregnant-and Yet at the Same Time, Its Recently Releassed Season is so chockablock with dramatic tournars that it would be entryely reasonable for arerene Least Once Every Episode. (Instead, that happens Only Once.)
Lots of Shows in this Space have drama, though. Bravo has made an entire kingdom out of the yearslong feuds, Mostly between women, so brutal and bizarre that it is a wonder sur doesn’t have a plaque osted the kind to memorizes civilized battlefields. And yet the appeal of Mormon Wives is not just that they bring a “Salt of the Earth” apprroach to the events like baby showers and friendlies. It is also that is every one of their arguments and allegiances is a rich cultural text, innings in the same different Ways atcce. Each fight is like a graduate thessis in the Making, About Ideologies and Cultural Norms and the Practice of Community Belonging in a Digital Era. They desert to be thought about. They desert, frankly, to be overthout about about, Because Overthinking Mormon Wives Reveals just how many different shows are tucked away inside this lifestyle reality program/poppi-sponsorship vehicle.
1. This Show is About the Cult of American Maternity. Not to get all political Right Away, bute Single Frame of this series as a whole, and this season in particular, is Colored by the InesCapable Pressure of Fertility and Reproduction at All Costs. Jen Affleck’s Story in Season Two Is The Most Obivious Touchstone Harry: Unexpectly and Unhambpily Pregnant Again, She Decides swimming to leave her man-child husband, zac, and immediately spirals into a perinatal depression so debilitating that she can no Longer function and producers decide to stop filming her mid-season. But the looming cloud of pregnancy and Early motherhood is present throughout this show – one need only look at the Completely bananas Game of Pregnancy Roulette in Episode Nine. ITH’S SHAPED BY SOME BLATTY AND Effective Editing Manipulation, Allowing It to Appear Briefly As Though at Least One of the Positive Pregnancy Tests is a true shock. The real shock of it is that this shows take place Place Among a Group of Women, Most in their Mid-20s, Most of Who ALREADY HAVE AT LEAST A FEW CHILDREN, AND A GAME OF PRENGNANCY ROUTIBLY WOULSHIBLY Result in Multiple Pregnancy Tests at the Same Time. It is the thing they can escape from, they cannot Question, and they cannot as anything other than inevitable, so is so devasting that one of the can no Longer be left alone in the herself. Too Bad there’s No Safe, Swift, and Highly Effective Medical Procedure That Might Help!
2. This Show is About Feminism. More accuratly, it is about #femineism, a thing all of these women claim to care about deeply. But it is a very specific interpretation of feminism, one shatly about the external expression of One’s Social Systerhood and MONTIALIZED EMPOWERMENT (VIA #MOMTOK, THEIR TIKTOK DANCE ???) Motherhood, and, for episode Six’s Trip to Scottsdale, swimming skinny diping when your husband says you shouldn’t. And yet it is also quite sex! Women Should have lots of orgasms, Including Layla, who has never had an orgasm with a partner! Everyone Comes Together to #support Her on this Journey.
3. THIS SHOW IS ABOUT THE WAY SOCIAL HAS WARPED OUR ABILITY TO SOCIAL INTIMACY Experience. Nor the great taylor paul no comments on CMAS post debacle of 2024 demonstrations, the fact that from the time the Relationships take place Through a series of Cynical Public performances on Multiple fronts has fully ability one anOther. This Crisis, An event Sociologists Will Surely Be Unpacking for Decades to Come, is detailed beginning in episode eight, when it comes to taylor paul haen invited to the Country Music Association Awards. She posts a Photo of Hersself on Instagram at Said Awards and THEN Realies That Not A Single Other Mormon Wives Cast Member has publicly commaned on that post. This Becomes Fuel for A Spiraling Breakdown, for Taylor and for All the Other Women, Full of DMS and Text-Thread Images on-Camera as Evidence of Various Hypocrisies. Not a single one of these People understands what an appropriate or a necessary social engagement LOOKS LIKE. And Because Their Digital Person Are Also Their Brands, they have no way to distinguish between their business-digital selves and their intimate-personal selves, and so every Screams at one another endlessly!
4. THIS SHOW IS ABOUT THE MIND-BOGGLING CONTOURS AND CONTRADICTIONS OF MODERN MORMONISM. Discussions and arguments about what Counts as Acceptable Mormon Behavior is Alllllll Over This Series. Jen and Zac Are Doing Ketamine Becausee Their LDS Church Has Not Banned It Yet (Unlike Coffee). No One Can Talk About Abortion. All of the momtok is obsessed with feminism, but the group defines that they are in a way that that that was done barely conflict with the guidance of phyllis schlafly.
But there are two scens on this topic that feed especily notworthy. First, The Great Mormon Bake off the section of episode Seven. Mikayla Gets Dinged Because the Jesus on Her Pie is Too sexy. Mayci Presents Peanut-Butter Bars with a tiny Diorama of Joseph Smith Discovering the Golden Tablets on Top. And yet somehow demi wins for a cake cake in tiny Candy penises, Because she’s here to test that mormonism is not against sexual pleasure, thus alsoa to call it a “better than what” cake “better than sex” is aparrently.
The Second Scane that Requires Mention in This Category Comes in Episode Nine Women Start Chanting the Recitation spoken ALOD at every lds Young Women Meeting, whic kicks off a whole discussion how they thugh they are. do and do not belive, and the exact mechanics of whereer you are still “sealed” to your husband in the afterlife if you’ve gotten a divorce. “Can’t They Have Multiple Eternal Families?” Mikayla Asks. “Yeah! Why?” Jessi Asks. Ladies. You’re so close. You’re sooooooo Close.
5. THIS SHOW IS ABOUT DISGUISING THE FACT THAT THE PRODUCERS HAVE SELECTED ONE CAST MEMBER ON WHICH TO ENACT THEIR OBVIOUS MOMENTS OF REALY-Show Manipulation. Let’s look at the evidence. Who does not really have much of a story this season or at least not one that requires much interpersonal animus with the other cast Members? WHO REQUIRED A SEXUALLY SALLIOUS Personal-Growth Arc to Seem Interesting? WHO SHOWED UP IN NEW ORLEANS WITH A BAG FULL OF PROGNANCY TESTS AND AN OUT-OF-BLUE DECISION TO PLAY PREGNANCY ROUNTE? Who leaned in on the private plans, handed over her phone, and direct taylor to scroll throughe Single grup chat that taylor is not in? Layla. It was all layla.
Layla is a complicated case. She is the only person of color on the series. She is a divorced single Mother. At 24, She is Young by the standards of this cast. She appears with the screaming-match style of interpersonal combs that necessary on a series like this. And at the Same time, she keeps achieved in the middle of situations that seem designed to create drama between people she is not otherwise portrayed as any close friendship with. If it were just just the pregnancy Roulette and the Group Chats, Layla Might Be Suspicious But Not Obivious. But Season Two Builds to the Shocking Discovery that Marciano, A Cast Member on Hulu’s Vanderpump villaMay have had an Affair with Happy MARRIED Mormon Wives Character Taurus. Dutifully, Marciano Himself Arriva in the Last Several Minutes of the Final Episode to Clear Things up: He didn’t sleep with damage, but he DoJ Sleep with Jessi (Also Happy Married). A tear. And who took it ups herself to track down marciano and have this revealing conversation? You know who.
These are a good starting point, but they definitely not the only ways to endlessly overconsider this show. There’s Also “Let’s Talk About the Aesthetics of Modesty,” and “#dadtok and Masculinity.” And when we have finally get through all of that, we can settle in for the really important stove: 4,000 Words on Layla taking a hit of that jaint.
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