Is The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives good? I turned it on to laugh at MomTok and finished all five seasons

It premiered on Hulu on September 6, 2024, and it's now five seasons and 45 episodes deep, with more already ordered. The cast is a group of Utah moms who built big followings on TikTok as "MomTok." The show exists because of one viral moment: in 2022, Taylor Frankie Paul told her followers that she and her husband had been "soft-swinging" with other couples in the group. The cameras showed up months later, while everyone was still picking up the pieces.

Why it looks like a hate-watch

On paper, it's made for laughing at. Influencer moms, a swinging scandal as the origin story, and an opening title sequence filmed at the Provo Utah Temple. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints put out a statement criticizing sensationalized portrayals of its members before the first episode even aired, and someone started a Change.org petition asking Hulu to cancel it.

The joke wears off fast. What's left is a reality show with real stakes: divorces, a criminal case, mental health crises, and a group of women trying to stay friends while their personal lives are their content.

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What each season gives you

The show changes shape a lot over five seasons. Spoilers ahead:

• Season 1 (8 episodes, September 2024) — Taylor is on the outside after the scandal, Whitney Leavitt comes back to Utah dealing with a marital scandal of her own, and Taylor is arrested after an altercation with her boyfriend, Dakota Mortensen. She later gives birth to their son.
• Season 2 (11 episodes, May 2025) — the rumors that Dakota cheated turn out to be true, Miranda Hope rejoins the group, and Taylor publicly calls the other women out, which splits MomTok down the middle. Demi Engemann leaves.
• Season 3 (11 episodes, November 2025) — Jessi Draper's affair with Marciano Brunette, a Vanderpump Villa cast member, comes out, and she separates from her husband, Jordan. There is a lie detector test. Stassi Schroeder hosts the reunion.
• Season 4 (10 episodes, March 2026) — Taylor is named the next Bachelorette, Jen Affleck and Whitney go on Dancing With the Stars together and strain their friendship, and the husbands take over far too much of the screen time with a boys' trip.
• Season 5 (5 episodes, September 2026) — the shortest season by far. Production paused in March amid an investigation into another domestic violence allegation against Taylor, and her Bachelorette season was shelved. Much of what's left is built from confessionals.

Critics weren't fond of the husbands' season either. Marie Claire's Jessica Toomer put it most memorably.

"The bar for these and all men is truly below sea level," Toomer wrote in Marie Claire.

So, is it good?

As reality TV goes, yes. It's not prestige television, and it doesn't pretend to be, but it's genuinely hard to stop watching. PureWow called it "reality TV gold," and the industry agreed more than you'd expect: the show was nominated for the Emmy for outstanding unstructured reality program in 2025.

Here's the honest version:

• seasons 1 through 3 are the core of the show, and they go fast;
• season 4 is fun when it's about the women and a slog when it's about the husbands;
• season 5 is short, and you can tell it was made around a production shutdown.

It's also a hit by Hulu's standards. The first season was Hulu's most-watched unscripted premiere of 2024, and the show was the first Hulu reality series to make Nielsen's weekly streaming chart for original series.

Hulu isn't stopping at Utah. A spinoff, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County, is in the works, and Jen Affleck has joined its cast.

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