The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives commits the mortal sin of being too tame
After a scandalous debut, Hulu's guilty-pleasure reality series returns with an overly manufactured second season.
Photo: Disney/Fred Hayes
“Has the fame already gone to our heads?” questions Whitney Leavitt, the designated villain and breakout star of Hulu’s guilty-pleasure reality series The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives, during the premiere episode of the show’s second season. The sophomore installment examines that very query: Leavitt, Taylor Frankie Paul, Jennifer Affleck, Demi Engemann, and the rest of the #MomTok crew—a group of twentysomething, mermaid-haired Mormon mothers who gained popularity on TikTok by sharing relatable lifestyle and parenting content—were already influencer-famous in their corner of the social sphere prior to starring in the soapy, Utah-set reality show. But the first season catapulted them to TV fame, with their cutesy dance clips and wholesomely maternal images being scandalized by rumors of soft swinging among the devout married couples in their community.
Season one made for a juicy watch, sure, full of conflicts, contradictions, and cop run-ins, one where that Latter-day devotion and picture-perfect domesticity regularly butted against the whole, you know, being a fallible human thing. But the drama of the second season, the episodes of which have vaguely theological titles like “The Book Of Revelations” and “The Book Of Accountability,” feels less like an immaculate conception and more prophetically calculated.
To play devil’s advocate, Hulu docusoaps—from The Kardashians to Vanderpump Villa—do tend to feel more manufactured than their feral brethren over at the likes of Bravo and MTV. Yet The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives season two feels particularly produced—and by the wives themselves. It’s a kind of dogged determination to drop the best talking-head soundbite or host the most drama-filled themed gathering that a veteran Real Housewife would be trying to pull off in season seven as a late-in-the-game ratings grab rather than a bright-eyed 24-year-old on her 11th episode of television.
Early on in the premiere, Leavitt—who pointedly removed herself from MomTok and its subsequent group chats after the events of last season (“She didn’t attend Taylor’s baby shower or Mayci’s baby mama event…she has upset every person in the group,” Demi gripes)—candidly reveals that the only reason she’s back in the Mormon mom orbit, and in the season-two cast, is because it’s her literal livelihood. And you can certainly feel the other women actively working for their own screen time. Demi and Jessi Ngatikaura, nearly identical with their long, honey-highlighted waves, are seemingly around solely to resurface the swinging scandal from the season prior or the Chippendales drama between Jen Affleck and her husband Zac.