If you’ve been craving something queer, chaotic, and completely off the rails, The Hunting Wives is here to fill the void. Netflix’s newest southern-fried thriller serves up an intoxicating blend of lesbian yearning, murder mystery, marital betrayal, and conservative hypocrisy—all set against the lush, shotgun-wielding backdrop of East Texas.
This isn’t your usual queer drama. It’s sapphic, scandalous, and soaked in every wild choice imaginable. It’s Desperate Housewives meets Big Little Lies—if the cast were hornier, higher, and way less emotionally stable.
Welcome to Maple Grove, Where the Real Housewives Hide the Bodies
At the center of this gloriously unhinged story is Sophie O’Neil, played by Brittany Snow, a prim and proper Boston transplant who moves to Maple Grove, Texas, with her husband and young son. Her life is Pinterest-perfect on the surface—until she meets Margo Banks, played with magnetic chaos by Malin Akerman.
Margo is the queen bee of a group of wealthy suburban wives who call themselves, fittingly, “The Hunting Wives.” These aren’t your typical PTA moms. They drink whiskey straight, fire rifles in designer boots, and bed whomever they want—often each other.
Sophie is quickly lured into Margo’s world of powder-pink gloss and powder-keg secrets. Within episodes, she’s caught in a dizzying spiral of secret parties, late-night rendezvous, sexual awakening, and, of course, a dead teenage girl in the woods.
Oh yeah—there’s a murder, and Sophie’s the main suspect. But that’s almost secondary to the real drama: the ever-thickening sexual tension between her and Margo.
The Gay Subtext Is Practically Screaming
From the first moment Margo lays eyes on Sophie, it’s game over. The chemistry is immediate, ridiculous, and undeniably sapphic. One minute, Margo is asking Sophie for a pad in her bathroom while undressing in front of her for no reason. The next, she’s spooning her on a shooting range while breathily whispering instructions on how to fire a shotgun. Subtle? Not even close. Delicious? Absolutely.
The show never uses labels—no one says the words “lesbian” or “bisexual”—but the desire is loud and clear. Margo, married to a Republican power player running for Governor, has a string of affairs with women behind closed doors. Sophie, meanwhile, is visibly rethinking everything she thought she knew about herself, and her marriage, every time Margo’s within arm’s reach.
The entire show plays like a fever dream of suppressed desire. Passionate hotel room encounters. Jealous glares at backyard barbecues. Tearful confessions in the dark. It’s not subtle. And that’s the point. The Hunting Wives isn’t trying to be nuanced—it’s a full-throttle, lipstick-smudged melodrama with its foot on the gas and no plans to slow down.
So Many Sins, So Few Sundays
While The Hunting Wives goes heavy on the lesbian drama, it also skewers the hypocrisy of small-town Southern life. These characters are drenched in wealth and religious conservatism by day, but by night they’re chasing threesomes, popping pills, and plotting cover-ups like it’s a sport.
There’s something gleefully chaotic about watching supposed moral pillars unravel in backyards and motels, all while trying to maintain the illusion of wholesome perfection. Jed, Margo’s husband, is a prime example—a churchgoing, gun-toting political hopeful who’s way more concerned about his image than the reality of his marriage.
And don’t worry—if you think The Hunting Wives might let things cool down after a few episodes, think again. The chaos only ramps up. There’s an attempted kidnapping, a stripper-turned-private-eye, and more twists than a corkscrew. And somehow, it all works. Or at least, it doesn’t matter that it doesn’t work—because it’s impossible to look away.
It’s Queer, It’s Camp, and It’s Completely Unrestrained
Let’s be honest: this show is not subtle, and it’s not trying to be. The camera lingers, the music swells, and the acting is served hot with a side of ridiculous. It’s campy, messy, and borderline feral in the best way possible.
What makes The Hunting Wives stand out, though, is how rare this kind of story still is. Queer women—especially in rural, conservative settings—rarely get this much screen time, this much longing, this much space to be complicated, impulsive, and self-destructive. It’s not perfect representation, but it’s something. And sometimes, that’s enough.
And while some critics are side-eyeing the show for being “unrealistic” or “too over the top,” that’s kind of the whole point. We want the drama. We want the fantasy. We want the forbidden love story, the scandal, the explosive secrets that unravel over tequila shots and tearful glances. We’ve had enough realism—we’re overdue for a good gay soap opera.
The Hunting Wives is one part erotic thriller, one part pulpy whodunit, and one part queer awakening—with a whole lot of vodka and loaded guns thrown in. It doesn’t care if it offends. It doesn’t care if it makes sense. It just is. And in a TV landscape full of restraint and subtlety, that’s something to celebrate.
Will it make some viewers uncomfortable? Probably. Will it become a guilty pleasure for thousands of queer women across America? Almost definitely.
It’s not prestige TV—but who needs prestige when you have powdered sugar lies, lakeside makeouts, and gun-toting girl gangs?
Let’s be real: if this show inspires even one church-going Texas housewife to take a second look at her best friend over mimosas, it has done the Lord’s sapphic work.
