The Hunting Wives

I saw the negative reviews on this and almost skipped watching it. I turned it on for background noise and ended up binge watching the whole show today. Some don't dig the nudity, I get it, but I don't mind it. Women have sex, people have sex, all sex lives are different and I thought it was about to be a crazy love story. This show turns out to be a who done it murder mystery kind of thing, and actually kept me on my toes after the first few episodes. I can usually predict what's going to happen in those types of scenarios because I watch too much TV but this show was pretty good at creating a Clue like situation. Im a country girl, and I was down for these badass women in this show. The ending was unpredictable and intriguing. I highly recommend you watch and decide for yourself. Brittany Snow in a role you've never seen her in before, and Malin Ackerman rocks her character so well it's hard to tell if she's acting.

Yes, it's incredibly predictable, and seriously problematic in terms of glorifying relationships between older women and teenage boys (I don't care if they are 18, you are even referring to them as boys, so yeah, no), but my biggest issue is everyone is just the worst. There were maybe three okay characters: Salazar was competent, and relentless, and I liked her rapport with Flynn. I liked Jack's dry, give-no-fs, tell-it-like-it-is attitude. But a six year old cannot carry an adult show, especially when he maybe got 11 minutes of screen time. Kyle was the only who made me laugh, but again, not enough screen time to make an impact. And probably more time with him would have diluted what enjoyment he did provide.

But Sophie?!?! All she did was storm around saying, "I have one question for you." Literally to everyone. Maybe think things through first. Maybe don't play endless victim/brat (and not in a Charli XCX way), it is not an effective way to move through life.

Malin Ackerman looks gorgeous, but her talents were put to waste here. The show could not decide whether she was complex and layered, or just Miley Cyrus's wrecking ball. Same with Jaime Ray Newman. I have always found her to be a really gifted and nuanced actress and was excited to see her play such a big personality, but Callie was a two note caricature.

And why even bother casting Dermot Mulroney? Total lost opportunity.

I knew when I started this that it was going to be a soapy thriller- not everything has to be a razor sharp mystery to be entertaining. And beneath all of the booze-drenched and drug-addled script is an interesting story. Hey, I stuck around for the whole thing. But here's hoping that if it does get a second season, the story runners sober up before they start crafting how it should unfold.

Love this. Anyone who is offended needs to grow up! I binged this in 1 day!! The acting is amazing and Malin is fantastic. I did not read the book, I don't care. I couldn't get enough of this from the minute I started it. I was hooked. Ignore the bad reviews- some people can't handle a little scandal.

This show was far better than I expected based on the information I had going into it. I started watching it on a whim. I rarely get past two or three episodes in a series. The fact that I finished this says a lot. I am giving it a rare seven because it kept me in suspense and intrigued and there weren't a lot of obvious plot holes and it was well written and well acted.

ABOUT MY REVIEWS:

I do not include a synopsis of the film/show -- you can get that anywhere and that does not constitute a meaningful review -- but rather my thoughts and feelings on the film that hopefully will be informative to you in deciding whether to invest 90-180 minutes of your life on it.

My scale: 1-5 decreasing degrees of "terrible", with 5 being "mediocre" 6- OK. Generally held my interest OR had reasonable cast and/or cinematography, might watch it again 7 - Good. My default rating for a movie I liked enough to watch again, but didn't rise to the upper echelons 8- Very good. Would watch again and recommend to others 9- Outstanding. Would watch over and over; top 10% of my ratings 10 - A classic. (Less than 2% receive this rating). For Lifetime Movies for Chicks (LMFC), drop the above scale by 3 notches. A 6 is excellent and 7 almost unattainable.

...it definitely would look like this. Yes, it's highly aestheticized garbage. But the show itself is self-aware of this to the point where you can't come for it accusing it of not being "poetic enough". I mean, it needs a very special kind of stomach for the "I'll have to swallow" situation and keep on watching it. Not Emmy material by any means or standards, but at least it's honest, albeit crude, on its own terms.