At a look
Skilled’s Score
Our Verdict
Go away all essential pondering on the door and also you’ll have a whale of a time with this brazen and brash eight-parter a few clique of crimson state ladies who, regardless of their buttoned-up appearances, are arguably simply as dastardly as their wealthy husbands. Certain, it’s not excessive artwork, but it surely by no means pretends to be both.
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In search of one thing to binge-watch as you gorge your method by that super-sized field of miniature sweets? Properly, premiering in the course of that no-man’s land interval between Christmas and New Yr, ITVX’s newest American import The Searching Wives ought to be on the high of your checklist.
Mixing the prime-time cleaning soap opera antics of Determined Housewives and murderous twists and turns of Massive Little Lies with the crimson state attitudes of Taylor Sheridan’s ever-expanding Yellowstone universe, the eight-part sequence won’t be essentially the most authentic drama of 2025. However because of its gung-ho performances, seashore learn narrative (it’s tailored from Might Cobb’s bestseller) and unashamed sense of camp, it’s undoubtedly one of the enjoyable.
Brittany Snow’s Sophie is our gateway into its MAGA-supporting, megachurch-attending world. Previously a PR on the polar reverse finish of the political spectrum, she’s simply moved to the fictional Texas city of Maple Brook together with her husband Graham (Evan Jonigkeit), an architect now working for Dermot Mulroney’s brilliantly slimy oil baron Jed (there’s all the time an oil baron in this stuff, after all).
As you’d count on, she’s initially reluctant to embrace her new neighborhood. At a swanky soiree designed to lift funds for the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation, she has no qualms telling Jed that his speech was “barely racist,” a evaluate he seems to take as a praise. In one in every of many political asides steeped in the true world, she describes the military of immaculately styled Stepford-esque wives as a bunch of “mini Marjorie Taylor Greenes.” And she or he’s left aghast when after asking them about their jobs, they reply, “We don’t work, we spouse.”
Nevertheless, there’s one she does take an on the spot shine to, a sense very a lot reciprocated too. Certainly, Jed’s Queen Bee spouse Margo (Malin Akerman) is a pressure of nature completely averse to the societal constraints that outline the remainder of her buttoned-up posse. Inside minutes of assembly within the lavatory, she’s openly undressed from head to toe, an influence transfer which seems to awaken a distinct a part of Sophie’s sexuality. By the point they depart, they’ve shared a Xanax and solid a bond that may change each of their lives endlessly.
As a chunk of pure backstabbing, catfighting and drunk-and-disorderly escapism, The Searching Wives effortlessly hits the goal
Final seen co-hosting the Eurovision Music Contest, Swedish native Akerman is clearly having a blast exhibiting off her greatest Texan drawl. By no means too distant from a honky-tonk bar or the pants of an 18-year-old basketball star (and son of her reverend’s spouse buddy), Margo is an outrageous creation whose justification for inflicting chaos is solely “as a result of it’s enjoyable.” In reality, the one factor she’s apologetic for is the trailer trash background she desperately tries to cover. And Akerman, who apparently modelled the character on Melania Trump, lights up the display screen each time she takes heart stage.
It’s Margo’s magnetism which makes Sophie’s remarkably fast acceptance of the Maple Brook life simpler to swallow. By the top of episode two, the teetotal non-driver (two life selections which stem from a darkish secret of her personal) is sipping $25,000 whiskey and doing donuts in a car parking zone. By the third episode, the liberal who as soon as balked on the point out of the NRA is gleefully buying her personal gun. Oh, and shortly she’s additionally benefiting from Margo’s method to monogamy (“Open marriages are for liberals – Jed and I’ve an association”).
The Searching Wives forged. ITVX
ITVX
Sure, be warned: The Searching Wives isn’t the type of present to observe with all of the household. At instances, it resembles the type of old-fashioned ‘bonkbuster’ they used to make within the ‘80s. Jackie Collins, eat your coronary heart out. However in an age the place Hollywood has develop into unusually prudish – a research final 12 months revealed that sexual scenes in cinema have fallen by 40 p.c because the 12 months 2000 – it’s one thing of a novelty to see a grown-up drama that doesn’t shrink back from the bed room.
When its residents aren’t hopping into mattress with one another, they’re weaving one other tangled internet of lies and secrets and techniques involving all the things from teenage abduction and blackmail to modified identities and vehicular manslaughter. In fact, the central thriller is the homicide of the blonde-haired lady we see being gunned down within the woodlands-based chilly open.
…whereas The Searching Wives may by no means be described as boring, it will undoubtedly profit from a little bit of respiratory area
Nearly each main participant, together with Margo’s jealous greatest buddy Callie (Jaime Ray Newman), outcast mother Starr (Chrissy Metz) and creepy guitar-wielding youth pastor Pete (Paul Teal, who tragically died from pancreatic most cancers shortly after filming wrapped), discover themselves within the body in some unspecified time in the future or different. However there’s a lot illicit exercise occurring elsewhere that the whodunit nearly begins to fade into insignificance.
Certainly, whereas The Searching Wives may by no means be described as boring, it will undoubtedly profit from a little bit of respiratory area once in a while, cramming extra plot into its eight episodes than many reveals would throughout eight seasons. Nonetheless, it’s this relentless tempo which units the present other than the glut of ‘wealthy persons are horrible’ dramas which have develop into a staple of the schedules lately.
Dermot Mulroney in The Searching Wives. ITVX
ITVX
And these actually are horrible folks. “There are not any clinics left to bomb because of us,” boasts God-fearing Jill (Katie Lowes) concerning the wives’ affect as fervent pro-lifers: as with their advocacy of fine previous conventional household values, it’s a stance we be taught is steeped in hypocrisy. Maple Brook can be a neighborhood that revels in rampant consumerism, anti-immigration spiel and poisonous masculinity. They’re the Fox Information dream!
Must you watch The Searching Wives?
Though The Searching Wives sometimes has enjoyable at their expense, it doesn’t fairly skewer as sharply as you’d like. With the one progressive characters abandoning their ethical compass on the drop of a 10-gallon hat, the present seems to be selling the Trumpian line of “all sides equal.” In reality, it’s the proud Republicans who’re arguably given extra depth, with Graham, particularly, a clean web page of a personality who brings little to the desk.
That mentioned, you don’t flip to an unashamedly raunchy, extremely OTT potboiler for incisive social commentary. As a chunk of pure backstabbing, catfighting and drunk-and-disorderly escapism, The Searching Wives effortlessly hits the goal.
All eight episodes of The Searching Wives can be found to stream on ITVX from right this moment, 27 December 2025.