When The Looking Wives star Jaime Ray Newman was on a small ferry exterior of Vancouver Island final week, she realized firsthand simply how a lot buzz the attractive drama has created.
Newman, who performs fiery, red-haired Texan Callie, overheard a gaggle of mates debating what to binge-watch subsequent. When certainly one of them talked about The Looking Wives, two ladies on the boat who weren’t a part of the group interjected: “Oh my God, we simply completed that. Have you ever seen it but?”
“Unexpectedly, the entire boat began speaking concerning the rattling Looking Wives,” Newman tells Yahoo. She had modified her hair for the reason that present got here out, so she wasn’t instantly recognizable. However when a producer she was with pointed her out to the group, they began to freak out. “Unexpectedly, I used to be Julia Roberts on the boat. Everybody needed selfies.”
It’s a transparent signal of how The Looking Wives is the present of the second. Final week, it pulled in over 2 billion minutes seen on Netflix, based on information analytics platform Luminate. That was greater than double its debut week numbers, a formidable accomplishment for a present licensed for less than U.S. streaming. It stays in Netflix’s High 10.
Based mostly on Could Cobb’s bestselling novel, the sequence follows Sophie (Brittany Snow), who strikes together with her household from Boston to Texas. As she settles into the small city, Sophie turns into dangerously entangled with a socialite named Margo (Malin Akerman), spiraling into obsession, seduction and homicide. Politics, weapons and a contact of campy dialogue are thrown in too. Past the premise, what’s so resonant about this raunchy sequence?
The shock issue
From steamy scenes to surprising plot twists, The Looking Wives pushes the envelope. That is very true with how the sequence explores intercourse.
There’s the unconventional marital association between Margo and her husband, Jed Banks — a debauched oil tycoon performed by Dermot Mulroney — which permits them each to sleep with different ladies. And so they each do … lots. Akerman’s character in the end shares intimate moments with each Snow’s and Newman’s. There’s additionally a storyline of her sleeping with the son of her greatest good friend, a barely authorized teen.
Apart from 2021’s Intercourse/Life, this could be probably the most risqué authentic sequence Netflix has ever launched. Up till simply two months in the past, The Looking Wives was really slated to premiere on Starz. As Snow informed Glamour, the solid filmed the sequence believing it will land with a smaller viewers and probably turn out to be a “cult basic.” However Netflix modified the equation — and with a a lot larger streaming viewers comes much more opinions.
As for the nudity, sure, it’s meant to be provocative. “No person who places this many bare folks on TV does it completely for instructional or inventive functions,” Linda Holmes wrote for NPR, whereas additionally declaring how “all people appears to be having a transparently nice time.”
Snow informed Glamour she didn’t discover that nude scenes had been “gratuitously achieved, the place we’re displaying this shot of a lady’s physique for no cause.”
“It’s all a part of the story that must be informed, particularly due to Margo’s coercion and energy and making these strikes on Sophie, the intercourse scenes have to occur as a result of Margo makes use of her sexuality and prowess to guarantee that Sophie appears like she’s lastly being seen,” she mentioned.
This present isn’t simply buzzy due to the intercourse, though Episode 7’s pegging scene could be probably the most jaw-dropping second of all of them. “Respectfully, your entire meat of the sequence is its indescribable, inescapable, horniness,” Rolling Stone says. There are many wild antics that make The Looking Wives an unhinged binge.
In a single episode, the searching wives load up for a boar hunt, and after Callie calmly finishes one off, the ladies rejoice with a boozy brunch of mimosas, gossip and a sport of never-have-I-ever that ends with a manslaughter confession. That abruptly ends the get together … till two characters embark on an alcohol-and-Xanax rager and invite youthful males over for a sport of spin the bottle.
There’s additionally sufficient political satire to ruffle either side of the aisle. Akerman has mentioned her character was impressed by Melania Trump, and an abortion storyline comes with a facet of anti-abortion posturing. Critics have known as it a “bonkers, bisexual culture-war cleaning soap,” with every episode going additional than anticipated.
Whereas all that chaos retains the leisure dialed all the way in which up, it’s a part of the present’s allure. This isn’t a status drama like Succession or The Crown — it’s your new responsible pleasure, dripping in scandal and served with a chilly glass of whiskey. Beneath the intercourse, energy performs and whodunit homicide thriller, The Looking Wives is aware of precisely what it’s: a shiny, high-octane escape that doesn’t take itself too significantly.
Escapism at its best
With its biting one-liners — “she’s a coastal elite with a physique depend” or “open marriages are for liberals” — chaotic Southern model, The Looking Wives is about having time.
“There are critical issues that we’re coping with, however we come off the [storylines] shortly. We wish to entertain,” Newman says, crediting showrunner Rebecca Cutter for this no-holds-barred method.
“Oftentimes exhibits pussyfoot just a little bit. They’re just a little too scared to upset this group, just a little scared to upset that demographic. In order that they find yourself simply enjoying it so down the center, and Rebecca has no concern,” Newman continues. “She threads that very delicate needle. From time to time, you get a author who comes alongside who simply speaks to everybody.”
The Looking Wives actually speaks to a feminine viewers. The present affords complicated, unapologetic characters who break the mould, telling tales that entertain an often-overlooked demographic.
Though Intercourse and the Metropolis paved the way in which in 1998, it is uncommon to seek out TV exhibits centered on feminine need and ambition, particularly relating to portraying ladies over the age of 40. SATC spin-off And Simply Like That… was not too long ago canceled after three seasons, highlighting the problem of sustaining these narratives.
The Looking Wives rises to the event, providing a daring exploration of ladies navigating energy, intimacy and self-discovery with out hesitation.
“Why cannot ladies discuss desirous to have intercourse and be happy?” Newman asks. “Most tales are centered round males’s pleasure, however lastly, we get to be the forefront of those tales. So I believe it is about time.”
Jaime Ray Newman in The Looking Wives. (Tudum)
This angle in storytelling is chatting with audiences, particularly as ladies are more and more demanding their voices and experiences be heard.
“Thank God we’ve got writers like Rebecca to clear the way in which for us. Individuals are so ,” Newman says. “You’ll be able to see that [portraying] ladies of their 40s garners big audiences.”
Will there be a Season 2?
There’s no official phrase but on whether or not Netflix plans to greenlight a second season, but when the present stays on the prime of the charts and the tip of everybody’s tongues, it’s onerous to think about why the streaming large wouldn’t make investments. Newman says the solid and crew all hope it occurs.
“I can’t categorical sufficient the bond that all of us had on this set. There was not a foul apple among the many bunch. It’s extremely uncommon to expertise that. All of us got here into the present very seasoned,” she says. “That can be the advantage of casting ladies who’ve been round for a very long time. We have all seen good habits and dangerous habits on set.”
Newman is comfortable to go away the dangerous habits in your TV screens. If that offends you, too dangerous.
“Pay attention, perhaps there are a couple of those that this angers, however no matter,” she says. “Discover one other present.”
