Stream It Or Skip It?

The Hunting Wives was originally slated to air on Starz before the premium channel was spun off from Lionsgate, who produced the series based on May Cobb’s novel. When Lionsgate bought back the rights from Starz, Netflix jumped on the chance to debut the series. It certainly has the makings of a show that will stay in the streamer’s top ten for a good long while.

Opening Shot: A woman runs through the woods, screaming for help. She’s being shot at. She gets shot in the shoulder and falls to the ground, face first.

The Gist: We flash back three weeks. Sophie O’Neill (Brittany Snow) has moved with her family from Cambridge, Massachusetts to deep in the heart of East Texas; her husband Graham (Evan Jonigkeit) has a new job there. To say that she feels like she’s out of place is an understatement.

The O’Neills are going to a fundraising party being thrown by Graham’s boss, Jed Banks (Dermot Mulroney). It’s not until they get there that Sophie finds out that it’s an NRA fundraiser, which of course makes her cringe.

In the bathroom she meets a sexy woman named Margo (Malin Akerman), who openly flirts with her, drops her slinky dress and goes topless to put an improvised pad in her panties, and eagerly joins Sophie as they both take some Xanax. It’s not until later that she finds out that Margo is Jed’s wife. She also meets two of Margo’s friends: Callie (Jaime Ray Newman), who seems weirdly close to Margo, and Jill (Katie Lowes), a pastor’s wife.

Other shenanigans are going on at the Banks house, like Jill’s son Brad (George Ferrier) trying to have sex with his girlfriend Abby (Madison Wolfe) while not-so-secretly lusting after Margo.

Sophie really connects with Margo, who invites her to the family cabin for the usual Friday whoop-up she and her friends have. There, Sophie sees Callie and Jill as well as two more group members: Taylor (Alexandria DeBerry) and Monae (Joyce Glenn). As the day wears on and turns into a night at a honkytonk, Sophie and Margo definitely have a connection, and Sophie talks to Margo about the reason why she doesn’t drink or get behind the wheel.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of?: The Hunting Wives, created by Rebecca Cutter and based on the novel by May Cobb, is Desperate Housewives with the addition of streaming-TV-level sex.

Our Take: Everything about The Hunting Wives is as big as Texas itself. The performances are over the top, the sexual entanglements of the various characters are writ large and telegraphed in big neon letters; the emotions are charged to the hilt; and the politics are glowing red vs. pulsating blue. It can be a bit much at times. But this show is a case where casting helps make the over-the-top goings-on watchable.

Going in, we already know that Sophie has secrets. She wouldn’t be the protagonist in a show like this if she didn’t. Snow has always been good at being wide-eyed in a “taking it all in” way, and she displays the best of that skill here as Sophie. When you’re a New England native who uses the name “Marjorie Taylor Greene” as a pejorative, being in East Texas must be a constant series of shocks to the psyche. And the look on Sophie’s face in much of this episode indicates this; she’s not trying to fit in, but certainly can’t extract herself from Margo’s gravitational pull.

Speaking of Margo, we know that Ackerman has never been shy in whatever role she plays, and Margo is no different. It’s certainly one of the darkest roles we’ve ever seen her in, which is probably why her signature Scandinavian blonde locks were darkened (or wigged) for this role. Still, the part of the sexually-open shit-stirrer with secrets suits her, and the dance that Margo has with Sophie will be what drives the show.

Mulroney is always interesting, of course, and given what we know about how Jed and Margo conduct themselves as a couple, it’ll be interesting to see what Mulroney can contribute to this series besides square-jawed conservative joviality.

The rest of the cast needs some more time to have their characters rounded out. We’re fans of Lowes, but so far she’s just a big-haired pastor’s wife who seems to speak in a giggle. Newman’s character Callie seems to be defined by the fact that she’s no longer Margo’s “favorite” in the group. DeBerry and Glenn right now don’t have a lot to do as the wives that round out the “Hunting Wives”. And Jonigkeit’s character Graham just seems like a wooden husband that tries to order Sophie around but is bound to fail.

To expect this show to be anything more sophisticated than what it is is a fool’s errand; it’s going to be silly at times, with twists that are will likely be shocking in some instances and predictable in others. The dialogue will be eye-rolling at times. But, boy do we like watching Akerman and Snow play off each other, which is what will keep us watching.

Sex and Skin: Lots of both.

Parting Shot: We go back to the woods, where the woman is lying in the leaves. Someone in cowboy boots walks up to her and shoots the woman in the head.

Sleeper Star: Chrissy Metz is Starr; she’s Abby’s mother and is desperate to be a part of the wives’ group, despite her relative lack of money. This seems like too small of a role for the former This Is Us standout, so we’re going to keep our eye on Starr to see how she disrupts things.

Most Pilot-y Line: There’s a scene which liberally uses the c-word, which to some may be a delightful occurrence, but might tick off others.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Hunting Wives is a show you know is going to be ridiculous going in, and it doesn’t try to hide its sexy, at times campy personality under the sheen of a prestige drama. Such brazenness is pretty refreshing these days.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.