When The Hunting Wives star Jaime Ray Newman was on a small ferry outside of Vancouver Island last week, she learned firsthand just how much buzz the sexy drama has created.
Newman, who plays fiery, red-haired Texan Callie, overheard a group of friends debating what to binge-watch next. When one of them mentioned The Hunting Wives, two women on the boat who weren’t part of the group interjected: “Oh my God, we just finished that. Have you seen it yet?”
“All of a sudden, the whole boat started talking about the damn Hunting Wives,” Newman tells Yahoo. She had changed her hair since the show came out, so she wasn’t immediately recognizable. But when a producer she was with pointed her out to the group, they started to freak out. “All of a sudden, I was Julia Roberts on the boat. Everyone wanted selfies.”
It’s a clear sign of how The Hunting Wives is the show of the moment. Last week, it pulled in over 2 billion minutes viewed on Netflix, according to data analytics platform Luminate. That was more than double its debut week numbers, an impressive accomplishment for a show only licensed for U.S. streaming. It remains in Netflix’s Top 10.
Based on May Cobb’s bestselling novel, the series follows Sophie (Brittany Snow), who moves with her family from Boston to Texas. As she settles into the small town, Sophie becomes dangerously entangled with a socialite named Margo (Malin Akerman), spiraling into obsession, seduction and murder. Politics, guns and a touch of campy dialogue are thrown in too. Beyond the logline, what’s so resonant about this raunchy series?
The shock factor
From steamy scenes to unexpected plot twists, The Hunting Wives pushes the envelope. That’s especially true with how the series explores sex.
There’s the unconventional marital arrangement between Margo and her husband, Jed Banks — a debauched oil tycoon played by Dermot Mulroney — which allows them both to sleep with other women. And they both do… a lot. Akerman’s character ultimately shares intimate moments with both Snow’s and Newman’s. There’s also a storyline of her sleeping with the son of her best friend, a barely legal teen.
Aside from 2021’s Sex/Life, this might be the most risqué original series Netflix has ever released. Up until just two months ago, The Hunting Wives was actually slated to premiere on Starz. As Snow told Glamour, the cast filmed the series believing it would land with a smaller audience and potentially become a “cult classic.” But Netflix changed the equation — and with a much bigger streaming audience comes a lot more opinions.
As for the nudity, yes, it’s meant to be provocative. “Nobody who puts this many naked people on TV does it entirely for educational or creative purposes,” Linda Holmes wrote for NPR, while also pointing out how “everybody seems to be having a transparently great time.”
Snow told Glamour she didn’t find that nude scenes were “gratuitously done, where we’re showing this shot of a woman’s body for no reason.”
“It’s all part of the story that needs to be told, specifically because of Margo’s coercion and power and making these moves on Sophie, the sex scenes need to happen because Margo uses her sexuality and prowess to make sure that Sophie feels like she’s finally being seen,” she said.
This show isn’t just buzzy because of the sex, although Episode 7’s pegging scene might be the most jaw-dropping moment of them all. “Respectfully, the entire meat of the series is its indiscribable, inescapable, horniness,” Rolling Stone says. There are plenty of wild antics that make The Hunting Wives an unhinged binge.
In one episode, the hunting wives load up for a boar hunt, and after Callie calmly finishes one off, the women celebrate with a boozy brunch of mimosas, gossip and a game of never-have-I-ever that ends with a manslaughter confession. That abruptly ends the party … until two characters embark on an alcohol-and-Xanax rager and invite younger men over for a game of spin the bottle.
There’s also enough political satire to ruffle both sides of the aisle. Akerman has said her character was inspired by Melania Trump, and an abortion storyline comes with a side of pro-life posturing. Critics have called it a “bonkers, bisexual culture-war soap,” with each episode going further than expected.
While all that chaos keeps the entertainment dialed all the way up, it’s part of the show’s charm. This isn’t a prestige drama like Succession or The Crown — it’s your new guilty pleasure, dripping in scandal and served with a cold glass of whiskey. Beneath the sex, power plays and whodunit murder mystery, The Hunting Wives knows exactly what it is: a glossy, high-octane escape that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Escapism at its finest
With its biting one-liners — “she’s a coastal elite with a body count” or “open marriages are for liberals” — chaotic Southern style, The Hunting Wives is about having a good time.
“There are serious things that we’re dealing with, but we come off the [storylines] quickly. We want to entertain,” Newman says, crediting showrunner Rebecca Cutter for this no-holds-barred approach.
“Oftentimes shows pussyfoot a little bit. They’re a little too scared to upset this group, a little scared to upset that demographic. So they end up just playing it so down the middle, and Rebecca has no fear,” Newman continues. “She threads that very delicate needle. Every now and then, you get a writer who comes along who just speaks to everyone.”
The Hunting Wives certainly speaks to a female audience. The show offers complex, unapologetic characters who break the mold, telling stories that entertain an often-overlooked demographic.
Although Sex and the City paved the way in 1998, it’s rare to find TV shows centered on female desire and ambition, especially when it comes to portraying women over the age of 40. SATC spin-off And Just Like That… was recently canceled after three seasons, highlighting the challenge of sustaining these narratives.
The Hunting Wives rises to the occasion, offering a bold exploration of women navigating power, intimacy and self-discovery without hesitation.
“Why can’t women talk about wanting to have sex and be pleased?” Newman asks. “Most stories are centered around men’s pleasure, but finally, we get to be the forefront of these stories. So I think it’s about time.”
Jaime Ray Newman in The Hunting Wives. (Tudum)
This perspective in storytelling is speaking to audiences, especially as women are increasingly demanding their voices and experiences be heard.
“Thank God we have writers like Rebecca to clear the way for us. People are so interested,” Newman says. “You can see that [portraying] women in their 40s garners huge audiences.”
Will there be a Season 2?
There’s no official word yet on whether Netflix plans to greenlight a second season, but if the show stays at the top of the charts and the tip of everyone’s tongues, it’s hard to imagine why the streaming giant wouldn’t invest. Newman says the cast and crew all hope it happens.
“I cannot express enough the bond that we all had on this set. There was not a bad apple among the bunch. It’s very rare to experience that. We all came into the show very seasoned,” she says. “That is also the benefit of casting women who’ve been around for a long time. We’ve all seen good behavior and bad behavior on set.”
Newman is happy to leave the bad behavior on your TV screens. If that offends you, too bad.
“Listen, maybe there are a few people that this angers, but whatever,” she says. “Find another show.”
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