February 6: Hunting Wives S1

[kinetic_elaboration]

Finally finished The Hunting Wives. I started watching the last episode last night even though I knew I was too tired to really enjoy it because I couldn’t help myself and today I watched the last 20 minutes.

Some overall thoughts and reactions, big, small, and possibly repetitive (spoilers):

 

I do think the first couple episodes, maybe like the first three, were the best/most fun. I liked the show as a whole and it kept my attention the whole time, but the first episodes were the most over the top and silly and gay. Also the least serious, which is what I was really here for.

In a way, it kind of felt like two shows? The ridiculous, excessive, unserious, almost campy one with all the wives just being silly and gay and over the top all the time (whether it be about the murder or not) and the murder mystery story line(s). I mean obviously they were connected in that the wives were invested in the Abby story and Sophie in particular was obviously very involved, but they didn’t care much about Kaycee’s disappearance or any of the stuff with Nina or the Suspicious Pastor etc. And ultimately those stories actually were pretty unconnected.

I didn’t dislike the murder mystery(/ies) plot at all but it felt a lot more like other things I’d seen before. Like a competently done and interesting but standard genre Mystery/Drama.

But again kind of the whole thing was in the genre of Women with Mysterious Pasts and/or Secrets, in the mode of, say Big Little Lies or Yellowjackets’ 2021 story (s1 especially), which I do like. One of my favorite guilty pleasure genres.

I liked Margo best when she was being extremely manipulative and evil. For most of it, I assumed that she was kind of masterminding everything and I fully distrusted her begging on her knees for Sophie’s forgiveness thing. I thought that was just manipulation and I still… kind of feel like it is? But she really fell apart in the last episode. I think the way she begged Sophie in 1x08 was genuine, I think the Jed scene was genuine, and I think her plan to just give up, which she shared with Kyle, was genuine. And it’s kind of too early to tell completely if she’s back on the horse now, but I hope so.

Speaking of the mystery plot(s), Salazar so carried that whole part of the show. I wouldn’t say she was more interesting than the Wives–it’s sort of hard to compare because they were kinda in two different genres/shows?–but she was as compelling to me in her own way. She could anchor an entire procedural, honestly. I do sort of wish they hadn’t dropped her habit of forgetting words… the long term effect of neurological AND physical injury that nevertheless never stopped her from being way more competent than all of her male colleagues put together was very interesting.

Most of the men in this show are really nothingburgers. The worst offender: Brad. Very annoying. Needs to shut up. The best of them: Jamie, surprisingly wholesome. I thought Jed was fun in a villainous way and I kind of wish there’d been more of him. Mixed feelings about Graham but I don’t care enough to unpack them.

That pegging scene was so good.

Also like literally whatever Callie and Jonny have going on should be put under a microscope and studied.

Not at all sorry Kyle was killed off. Speaking of nothing men who were very annoying and just took up space.

The replacement of the one-eyed man with, I’ll just call him two-eyed man, was the funniest recasting ever. I don’t know why they did it but I’m guessing it was more for BTS reasons than story reasons, and the explanatory dialogue was literally, “Yeah, I’m a different guy. Why? Don’t worry about!”

I haven’t said anything about her because my feelings aren’t deep but I did like Sophie a lot as a protagonist. What a hot fucking mess. The full circle of her downfall was satisfying. I hope she and Margo reconnect as Women Committing Crimes next season.

I do feel bad for Jack. His parents are like soft-launching their divorce in front of him without explaining a thing.

Jill might have been the most hilarious to me. The thing with murder shows is that once you’ve murdered one character you’ve (1) put that kind of character death on the table and (2) all but mandated that you have to do it again because that’s just where teh stakes are now. And unfortunately that means (1) some degree of lack of realism because what is the chance that Small Republican Town in Texas becomes Murderville USA, and (2) good characters will have to die. And I am going to MISS Jill, and Starr as well. Sort of bummer.

This show probably doesn’t need to be two seasons. It honestly probably doesn’t need to be two even with that cliffhanger. Like yeah there are a lot of questions open about Sophie and Margo specifically, but mostly on a plot level. One could absolutely argue that Sophie’s plot on a thematic level is complete. I mean if absolutely nothing were changed but the show had no sequel, I would find it insufficiently satisfactory but I also think it wouldn’t have to be tweaked much to feel actually finished.

That said, I’ll watch s2. Even if it’s not as good, it should still have some batshit moments and I enjoy this cast.

Anyway, I wanted to go to sleep early today even with my nap but now I’ve started slowing down and this has taken me forever. But I can still get to sleep soon.