Photo: Fred Hayes/Disney/Hulu
The MomTokers of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives are finally where they belong: on a reunion couch talking about all the insane drama from the past two seasons of their Hulu reality show. For some reason, Nick Viall (of The Bachelor and podcast fame) is the host for this exercise, but he does a mostly fine job keeping the ladies on track and extending empathy to them and their partners when warranted.
The entire reunion is an hour and 40 minutes long, and a lot of it is filler; how many times can we recap the swinging scandal that started all of this three years ago? But the reveals, when they happen, are satisfying. Grab your dirty sodas and some ketamine — here, everything you need to know about the SLOMW reunion, airing today on Hulu.
One of the most confusing story lines on the second season of SLOMW involves Marciano Brunette, a cast member on another nascent Hulu reality show, Vanderpump Villa. In an impressive display of corporate synergy, some of the MomTok ladies visited the villa prior to filming SLOMW season two, and they mixed it up with the wait staff there, including Marciano. Initially, the Mormon wives accused Demi Engemann of being too flirty with Marciano in the villa, but by the end of season two, Layla Taylor sat down with the man himself, and he alleged that he actually had sex with her (now-former) best friend, Jessi Ngatikaura.
Nick did his best in the reunion to settle the rumors, but he had two forces working against him: Demi did not show up to the reunion in person, and Jessi declined to talk about her experiences with Marciano because they will play out on season three of SLOMW. “There’s no secrets. We’re exposing it all,” she said. Just not yet. (She pointedly wasn’t wearing her wedding ring.)
Jessi did reveal, however, that Demi and Marciano exchanged texts in which Demi made jokes about oysters and “swallowing c*m.” (Yes, Demi self-censored.) So we know, at least, that Demi did flirt with Marciano, albeit in an interesting way.
It sure seems that way. At the close of season two, most of the wives had turned against her — most notably her onetime BFF Jessi. Demi made a big push to oust MomTok’s original leader, Taylor Frankie Paul, from the group, and Taylor responded by revealing that Demi had disparaged Jessi’s hair-salon-and-extensions business, JZ Styles, behind her back. This understandably did not sit well with Jessi.
Demi did not show up to the reunion — she claimed she had a preplanned family trip to Disneyland — but she did sit down for a one-on-one interview with Nick, in which she expressed little remorse for her actions against Taylor and Jessi. In fact, she doubled down, claiming that Layla, Whitney Leavitt, and Jen Affleck all said they didn’t like getting their hair colored at JZ Styles. (They denied this.)
But by skipping the reunion, Demi missed out on a chance to respond to one of the biggest reveals of the night. Jen, who had her own falling-out with Demi at the beginning of the season over an unwelcome, amateur Chippendales performance, played a recording of a phone call Demi made to her before filming in which she asked Jen not to talk about what happened with Marciano on-camera.
Hilariously, Demi suggested on the call that Jen tell producers that she actually admires how open and honest Demi’s marriage is. This obviously did not happen, and Jen and her husband, Zac Affleck, alleged that Demi sent them a cease-and-desist afterward to prevent them from discussing Marciano. Eep.
MomTok’s most dramatic on-again, off-again couple appeared together at the reunion, but Taylor told Nick that they will “never” get back together in real life. She did admit, however, that they are still kind of hooking up. (Nick noted that they posted photos of themselves licking each other at Stagecoach this year.) Sigh. I hope Taylor finds peace.
The reunion concluded with another stunning display of corporate synergy: Two of the wives are going to be contestants on ABC’s upcoming season of Dancing With the Stars! Congratulations to Jen and Whitney. This is a nice reminder that all of this started with the women dancing to trending audio on TikTok.
