Looking back on it I trace my slow dissatisfaction
with Showtime's master class Billions (readers know this is a less a
contradiction then it seems) with the decision by the writers to write out
Bobby Axelrod's wife Lara at the end of Season 3. In the first two seasons
Malin Akerman's character had been just as much a force as her husband and if
anything far more level-headed. Her character had not been born into money and
was proud of everything she and her husband had built. She took a greater role
in defended the reputation then Bobby, who as we saw, was far more controlled
by his impulses and was prone to acting recklessly even if it threatened his
freedom. When he went too far, she made the sanest decision by any character on
the show and chose to take the money (and the kids) and run as far as she could
from the madness that surrounded Axe Capital. That didn't make her departure
any greater a burden for the show.
I suspect the fact that Akerman was
one of the lead characters in Netflix's new audience sensation The Hunting
Wives is the likely reason I chose to make it the first new streaming show
of the 2025-2026 season rather than the second season of Wednesday or
the latest season of Slow Horses. (Trust me, I'll get to both.) And were
it solely for the incredible work of Akerman, it would be more than enough to
guarantee that I will watch the entire thing. (This review is based on just the
first two episodes.) In many ways her Margo Banks is a descendant of Lara
Axelrod, slightly older, better looking (in this viewers opinion) and far more
invested in her survival then her husband is. That husband Jed Banks is played
by that always versatile character actor Dermot Mulroney, who tweaks his persona
of playing likeable Everyman types to someone who is oozes sleaze and
unctuousness with every line he says. You can tell Mulroney is having the time
of his life, playing a Texas billionaire who is setting himself up as a man of
the people, cheerfully holding NRA rallies, teasing crowds with whether he's
going to run for governor, quietly badmouthing the architect he's hired when
all he wants is to sleep with his wife. There isn't a trace of virtue in Mulroney's
work and I love every minute he's onscreen.
It's clear that Margo comes from a far
seedier background than Lara did, we see her visit a slum where her poor, drug
addicted brother lives dropping off a gym bag full of cash to buy his silence
for another year. She's also far more savvy then her husband is when it comes
to the electorate then he is: Jed sees
no reason why the fact that he regularly has threesomes in a hot tub should
have to stop because he's running for governor, nor why that would be a problem
for the conservative voters he's trying to do if he did. Like the majority of
the men in this series he is very much a do-as-I-say not as-I-do and he thinks
its Margo's job to clean up her messes while he can do whatever he wants.
Looking at this you set the feeling
that Margo's very sexual behavior among both men and women is as much a
cry for freedom as meeting her own needs. Late in the second episode when asked
if she has an open marriage she says: "No open marriages are for liberals.
Jed gets to f--- whoever he likes and when both of see a woman we like, we both
screw her." This is obviously a
huge laugh line but we quickly see what the rules are in this relationship and
they clearly favor the husband. When we see her about to perform oral sex with
a teenage basketball star (the son I should add of one of her best friends who
also has a girlfriend) we know that this is as much of an act of defiance as it
is sex. (Though trust me, she gets plenty of that.)
The Hunting Wives is seen from the perspective of an
outsider, in this case Sophie, played by Brittany Snow. Snow, like Akerman,
started her career as something of an ingenue usually starring in roles in film
and television in TV and movies that were frankly beneath her (except her work
in the Pitch Perfect franchise) As she's gotten older she's become a more
fascinating actress: she had a great recurring role in Season 2 of The Night
Agent and her work as Sophie is her best role since her work in the first
season of Harry's Law.
Where much of Snow's previous work
focused too much on her appearance and little else Sophie is someone who is
fragile from the start. Her husband Graham (Evan Jonigkeit) is an architect
who's moved to Texas for a project for Banks's. Graham manages to come across
as both a milquetoast and a sexist at once. Sophie had a successful career
working in politics before she got pregnant and has become a stay-at-home mom. She
was in a hit-and-run two years ago and Graham seems to have made it clear she
should neither drink nor drive. He has no problem taking her to place she is
genuinely uncomfortable with whether it is an NRA rally where she first meets the
Banks' or at church. The writers make it very clear how much Graham is as much a
source of toxic masculinity and so many of the husbands are in Texas: he
doesn't agree with their politics (at least not to Sophie) but he clearly
thinks a woman's place in the home. Sophie has clearly been chafing under this
for a long time and everything involving the Banks's brings to the surface.
Much of this is brought on by Margo.
From the moment they meet when she chooses to strip in front of her in the
Banks's bathroom to the time she takes them to a cabin where they shoot with
her fellow wives (the title!) Margo is actively and not at all subtly flirting
with Sophie. This is clear to Margo's current
squeeze, Callie (Jaime Ray Newman) who Margo is forced to break up with when Banks
begins to run for governor. It's unclear
how much of this really bothers Margo and how much is a façade: its clear from
the start she's actually more gifted at lying then her husband, who aspires to
politics. But it's also clear that Sophie is in a place of despair and
solitude. When she pleasures herself in front of an Instagram post of Sophie,
its clear watching her this may be the first time she's been truly happy in a
very long time.
That, of course, won't last long. As
we see in the opening teaser, in three weeks' time, someone who is young and
blond will be seen staggering through the woods with a bullet wound in her back
before dying. At this point I'm pretty sure that it's not going to be one of the
regulars but rather someone relatively minor. My theory (don't spoil it) is
that its Abby, the young teenage girl who is hopelessly in love with Brad, fully
devoted to God, and who now knows all too well that Brad has been lying to her
about 'coaching the Evans twins in basketball'. Brad, as is far too clear, is
basically a Jed Banks in waiting: he's already the worst kind of sexist teen
who thinks he's God's gift (and yes, his father is the preacher of a
megachurch)
The Hunting Wives is just as much fun as Danny McBride's
many HBO comedies that take place in the Bible Belt, just as unsparing as to
the hypocrisies of many of its characters. The difference is that the women are
(slightly) more self-aware then the men. That doesn't mean they can't be any
less selfish then their male counterparts but they know all too well what people
like Sophie think of them. The first time she meets with them at the hunting
lodge one of them actually says: "You think of us as deplorables." It's
been a while since I've seen any TV show take this unflinching a look at red
state America; longer still since I've seen one show them as human beings who
are perfectly aware what the blue staters think – and maybe don't mind as much about how they're
seen as we coastal elites then to view them. Honestly when was the last time
you saw a Massachusetts liberal and the spouse of a prominent Republican talking
to each other on a work of entertainment, much less, well, you know.
I might be reading to much into the
politics part of it but you can choose to ignore it and still have a hell of a
good time watching The Hunting Wives. I'm not saying that I'm convinced it’s a masterpiece
yet. For one thing it hasn't in the first two episode made the best use of its
entire cast. This is the first real TV show that Katie Lowes has done since Scandal
and Chrissy Metz has done since This Is Us and neither has been used
nearly to their potential. And by this
point I think there should be a permanent moratorium on any TV show opening in
media res and then working back as to how we got there. But it's yet another
engaging series that honestly isn't like something I've seen on any platform in
a while in its tone or its politics while keeping within the trend of my belief
the future of Peak TV is definitely female. Need I point out that The
Hunting Wives also makes it very clear of the old cliché 'Blondes have more
fun?" (Yes I know Akerman's dyed her hair slightly, let me have this one.)
My score: 4.25 stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment