From time to time, we as a people (lesbians) have been known to passively enjoy a psychological thriller based on a Hudson News bestselling novel in which the sexual tension between this or that pair of female characters is so palpable that their failure to consummate the relationship feels low-key homophobic. We have been known to openly lament the show’s refusal to “go there” (have sex) when the characters so clearly want to. Thanks to the new Netflix thriller The Hunting Wives, I now realize I was incorrect to want what I wanted before.

But I wasn’t wrong.

In The Hunting Wives, these homoerotic friendships do, in fact, lead to homosexually erotic conclusions. When one woman’s stare lingers upon the clavicle of another, that does in fact mean she wants to go down on her. When one woman, in the process of teaching the other to shoot a hunting rifle, slips her leg between the other’s two legs, that does in fact mean they will eventually scissor.

The result is an eminently watchable, over-the-top, fully realized viewing experience with the panache of a soapy beach read and the electricity of ’90s hotel room soft core pornography. The Hunting Wives is a remarkable feat of heterosexual media — how can something be so gay and yet so straight? Watching it, I can easily imagine the inevitable backlash this show is liable to inspire, the Virgin River fans taking to Reddit, furious that the on-screen adaptation of their favorite mass market paperback is teeming with bisexuals. To them I can only say “hahaha!!”

Based on the novel by May Cobb, The Hunting Wives follows Sophie O’Neill (Brittany Snow), a former political campaign advisor from Cambridge, apparently married to Graham (Toby from Pretty Little Liars), an architect who gets a job of some kind in Texas and thus relocates his family there. If I had a husband and that husband told me we were leaving our liberal academic hometown to assimilate into a community of gun-toting Southern gals who wear full faces of makeup, designer gowns and heels to answer the door, I would simply say, “No ❤️.” It’s unclear why exactly they must, or why they know so little about their future home or Graham’s new boss prior to their arrival in Maple Brook, or if Sophie has any friends or family back in the Boston metro area. But honestly, who cares? Look at these cunts!!!!

In the season’s first episode, Graham hauls Sophie to a party at his boss Jed’s (Dermont Mulroney) palace, which turns out to be an NRA fundraiser. On the mic, Jed tells his guests that there are bad hermanos coming over the border, and it’s very important for everyone to have a gun so that they can protect themselves. Of course, of course, we know the truth — the bad hermanos are right here at this party and they are rich white people who talk about “bad hermanos” and already have plenty of guns.

Graham wants Sophie, who harbors a Dark Secret From Her Past that is Holding Her Back, to let go and Have Fun and Make New Friends, and despite her initial hesitation to do so — after all, she has ostensibly nothing in common with these women when it comes to values or hobbies — she finds herself immediately drawn to Jed’s wife, Margo Banks (Malin Akerman), who for some reason asks Sophie for a pad while in the bathroom of her very own house.

Margo and Jed

Margo Banks is the Queen Bee of a clique of wealthy Maple Brook wives who enjoy hunting wild boar (?!?!), dressing fancy, driving drunk, going to church, helping their husbands amass power and being against abortion. On the one hand, Margo’s personality is sometimes like the robots in dystopian sci-fi novels that men invent to satisfy their unceasing sexual desires. On the other hand, she is complex and confusing, smart if predictable, and possessing unstoppable #girlboss energy despite being unemployed.

It doesn’t take long for Sophie to overcome her aversion to the Hunting Wives and fall entirely under Margo’s spell, even gamely consenting to breaking her two years of sobriety and buying herself a whole entire gun she doesn’t know how to shoot. This immediately creates tension between Sophie and Callie (Jamie Ray Newman), Margo’s previous girlfriend.

After a fun day of jet-skiing, killing wild animals and drinking out of go-cups, Margo and Sophie keep the party rolling all night (pills are snorted, boys are called, tequila is consumed, bottles are spinned) — and that same night, a girl is murdered. Thus we have a mystery in motion! Everyone’s a suspect! The twists are twisting!

Apparently in the book upon which this is based, Sophie is described as a “bored housewife” who slips into Margo’s world in search of excitement, but in the show we never really see much of that boredom. From what I gather, the show compensates for this lack by making the sexual and romantic connection more explicit. I can’t complain! But there’s something else there, too — Sophie finding refuge in a community where Dark Secrets are only a problem if the wrong people find out about them, where everybody’s comfortable with the diabolical contrast between what someone stands for and who they actually are. And who might Sophie be, here?

Also worth noting: Katie Lowes gives a killer performance as Jill, the high-strung Reverend’s wife who is also a member of Margo’s clique. I would’ve loved to see more of Detective Salazar (Karen Rodriguez) and Jamie (Chosen Jacobs), Jill’s son Brad’s best friend — both characters felt layered in a way that invited curiosity.

I’ve seen this show billed as some kind of journey into the culture wars, but if there’s any war at play here, the battles are all offscreen. Any meaningful exploration of political or social ideology is just set dressing, really, for a story about sex and murder and whiskey, about perverted pastors and hunky idiot teenagers. Sure, there’s some obvious points made — having so many guns around means people get killed instead of sorting through their conflicts with words like normal adults, the moralists preaching purity are doing the opposite in their private lives — but, aside from an unexpected swerve in an abortion-related conversation between Sophie and Star (Chrissy Metz) later in the season, this potential conflict is mostly a wasted opportunity.

But ultimately does that really matter? Is that what we are here for? No, we are here to turn our brains entirely off, our sentience only occasionally rousing to the surface to ask questions like, “why are their margaritas the color of green pool water?” We are here to see two women in very nice wigs make out. We are here for Margo’s perilous blouses, always worn bra-free. We are here to be entertained! We are here for pegging! We are here for a world in which a lady needing cowboy boots can find them immediately at a store called The Boot Barn. We are here for Brittany Snow, of the legendarily gay Pitch Perfect cast, doing gay stuff.

I was incorrect that lesbian storylines would make this type of television series feel gayer. But I was completely right that it would make this type of television series a whole lot more fun.

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