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    ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,’ Plus 6 Things to Watch on TV This Week

    The reality show returns to Hulu, while AppleTV+ debuts a new sci-fi series.Between streaming and cable, there is a seemingly endless variety of things to watch. Here is a selection of TV shows and specials that are airing or streaming this week, May 12-18. Details and times are subject to change.Sexy!First there was #MomTok, and then came “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” a reality series following a group of TikTok-famous moms who are either practicing Mormons or are in the community. The first season was a hit and became Hulu’s top-watched unscripted series in 2024. Now the ladies from Utah are ready for more dirty sodas, baby daddy drama and rehashing of the swinging scandal. Joining the cast is Miranda McWhorter, who was involved in the original TikTok drama that popularized the group. Add some coconut creamer to your Dr Pepper, read up on the Book of Mormon, and pour your coffee down the drain because Taylor Frankie Paul, Jen Affleck, Demi Engemann and the others are so back. Streaming Thursday on Hulu.Why are Chad Michael Murray and Scott Patterson in Nova Scotia, Canada? Because “Sullivan’s Crossing” is back for a third season, of course. The series follows the neurosurgeon Maggie Sullivan (Morgan Kohan) who fled to the small town that her father, Sully (Patterson), lives in to get away from a work-related scandal. Now, three years later, Maggie and Cal (Murray) are officially an item, and the trio are dealing with the aftermath of a diner fire from the Season 2 cliffhanger. It’s about to be cottage season in Canada, and this show perfectly sets those vibes. Wednesday at 8 p.m. on the CW.The Ryan Murphy series “Doctor Odyssey” has left viewers with lots of questions: Was it all a fever dream? Why is this cruise ship equipped with a CT machine? How can we clone Joshua Jackson in real life? It is unclear whether any of these questions will be answered in this week’s finale. The show — which follows the lives of a doctor and two nurses in charge of a cruise ship’s infirmary who spend more time canoodling, drinking and relaxing in the hot tub than doing any actual work — has covered orca attacks, mistaken pregnancies and the dangers of a raw diet. During the season (or series, ABC has yet to renew the show) finale, Max (Jackson) deboards the ship and, needless to say, several natural disasters strike. Thursday at 9 p.m. on ABC and streaming the next day on Hulu.Thrilling!Let’s set the scene for the new thriller series “Duster”: The year is 1972, we’re in the Southwest and Rachel Hilson plays the F.B.I.’s first Black female agent. With Josh Holloway’s character at her side as a getaway driver, the two go on a mission to break up a growing crime syndicate. Of note, this is J.J. Abrams’s first co-writing gig in six years, since “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” Thursday at 9 p.m. on Max.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    When the Devoted Wife Becomes a Winning Brand

    “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” the new Hulu reality show, centers on a clique of influencers in Provo, Utah. In their community, they are steered at young ages into marriages and pregnancies. But on TikTok, they converge into a #MomTok squad, executing coordinated dances in crop tops amid beige McMansions as they rack up followers and brand deals. Now they’ve been upgraded to reality television stars, a cast of frenemies who act out mean-girl scenes and hunt for loopholes in the strict codes of their church.It’s significant that the show identifies these women first as wives, not as influencers. They are professional content creators and, in some cases, family breadwinners. It is their social media popularity that landed them the show, not their unexceptional husbands. Several cast members are actually divorced.The “Mormon Wives” join an extended wife universe — see also: Bravo’s chaotic “Real Housewives” and Instagram’s ethereal tradwives — where the term “wife” no longer strictly refers to a woman’s marital status. “Wife” is a brand. In “Mormon Wives,” it suggests a woman whose public identity is defined by her relationship to the home. A woman whose worth is still measured by her proximity to the patriarchy, even as she claims that her profitable TikTok presence challenges it.These wife-themed shows and tradwife social-media accounts might qualify as simple brain-bleaching distractions, were they not proliferating during this particular presidential election season. The Trump campaign and some of its allies have repeatedly suggested that a woman’s domestic contributions are her highest calling — so much so that they have cast motherhood as a prerequisite for her participation in work outside the home. If a woman hopes to claim a role in public life, she must play the wife and mother everywhere that she goes.In comments from three years ago that resurfaced recently, Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, complained of “childless cat ladies” in business and politics, and railed against the “leaders of the left,” like the American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, whom he called “people without kids trying to brainwash the minds of our children.” (Like Kamala Harris, Weingarten is a stepmother.) Last week, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas appeared alongside Donald J. Trump and suggested that because Harris has not birthed children, she has acquired a character defect unbecoming of a leader: “My kids keep me humble,” Sanders said. “Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.”Meanwhile, since Elon Musk took over Twitter, rebranded it X and transformed it into what Charlie Warzel of The Atlantic has called “a right-wing echo chamber,” my feed has featured commentary about how infant formula is poison, day care causes mental illness and children ought to be home schooled or “unschooled” by devoted mothers. Instagram and TikTok supply montages of fantasy housewives: white women in pastoral settings, wearing aprons and kerchiefs, kissing their husbands, rubbing their baby bumps and proselytizing about the benefits of beef tallow.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Taylor Frankie Paul and the Story Behind ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’

    A new Hulu series will explore a cheating scandal — and its aftermath — that rocked the world of Mormon social media influencers.In the summer of 2022, the world of Mormon influencers was rocked by a scandal that even their most dedicated followers did not see coming. Taylor Frankie Paul, a married TikTok influencer and mother of two, announced in a TikTok livestream that she and her husband had decided to get a divorce after “soft swinging” with other Mormon couples in their Salt Lake City-area friend group.The public admission prompted denials from Ms. Paul’s friend group, cheating accusations and even more shocking revelations, all of which have followed the so-called #MomTok influencers ever since.Now, the scandal and its aftermath have been documented for a new reality series for Hulu — the aptly titled “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” — which premieres on Friday. Here’s what you need to know about the women, and the scandal, at the heart of the series.OK, what is #MomTok?“I created MomTok,” Ms. Paul, 30, declares in the trailer for the show.MomTok is a nickname for a loose collection of popular young Mormon influencers who post TikTok videos of themselves dancing, lip syncing and behaving in ways you wouldn’t necessarily expect religious women to behave. But that’s part of the point: Ms. Paul and her friends, including Mayci Neeley, Mikayla Mathews and Whitney Leavitt, say that MomTok is about subverting expectations of how Mormon wives and mothers should act.“We are trying to change the stigma of the gender roles in the Mormon culture,” Ms. Neeley says in the trailer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More