The Hunting Wives: 2025's 'sexiest' and 'controversial' show is coming to ITVX soon
The Hunting Wives will be your next obsession... and it'll be free to stream
The Hunting Wives became a huge, spicy Netflix hit in the US earlier this year – and in a couple of weeks, it’ll be available to stream on ITVX.
The best shows on Netflix are usually rolled out globally, like Stranger Things and Harlen Coben’s upcoming Run Away series.
However, The Hunting Wives is one of the rare exceptions. The trashy, twisty, and very adult whodunnit series topped the streamer’s chart in North America a week after it dropped. However, it’s been awkwardly released in other territories (for reasons we’ll get into).
Christmas is just around the corner. However, if you’re looking for a new binge-watch, The Hunting Wives may be the show for you.
Where to watch The Hunting Wives
The Hunting Wives will be available to stream on ITVX for free from Saturday, December 27.
All eight episodes will be completely free to stream, and they’re around 50 minutes long. That’s just over six-and-a-half hours of telly to watch (when you’re not working your way through the BBC Christmas TV schedule).
If you can’t wait, you can watch it right now on Netflix… but you’ll need the help of a VPN.
All you need to do is change your location to somewhere in the US, log into Netflix, and you can start streaming.
What is it about?
The Hunting Wives follows Sophie, who moves to Maple Brook, East Texas: a gun-toting (and fictional) town with sinister secrets.
Sophie also has a dark past, but she quickly befriends Margo, the charismatic, brash leader of a group of wealthy housewives.
As they grow closer, she becomes entangled in all sorts of scandalous behaviour. This includes the mysterious murder of Abby, a young girl found dead in the same woods where the titular ‘Hunting Wives’ meet.
The series, based on May Cobb’s best-selling novel, is a risqué soap that drew acclaim for its “over-the-top” and “raunchy” content.
For example, The Boston Globe’s critic Lisa Wiedenfeld wrote: “It’s extremely silly, and yet this week, despite having a lot to do, I somehow watched all eight episodes. Enjoy.”
It may push some of your political buttons, though; in one scene, Sophie describes the women as “Marjorie Taylor Greenes”.
Who’s in The Hunting Wives cast?
Brittany Snow (recently seen in The Beast in Me) leads the cast of The Hunting Wives as Sophie. She stars alongside Malin Åkerman’s Margo.
Åkerman is a bona fide movie and TV star, particularly for her roles in the late 2000s: Watchmen, Couples Retreat, The Heartbreak Kid, and The Proposal, to name a few.
The Hunting Wives may be Snow’s best performance to date, but she’s no stranger to big, popular titles. She starred in John Tucker Must Die, Pitch Perfect 2 and 3, and A24’s cult horror hit X.
TV fans will also recognise her from her roles in Harry’s Law, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and The Night Agent.
The cast also includes:
- Dermot Mulroney (My Best Friend’s Wedding, The Wedding Date) as Jed Banks, Margo’s husband and Texas gubernatorial candidate
- Evan Jonigkeit (The Night House, Archive 81) as Graham O’Neil, Sophie’s husband
- Katie Lowes (Scandal, Inventing Anna) as Jill, Brad’s mother and a member of the Hunting Wives
- Jason Davis (Outer Banks, Tulsa King) as Reverend Clint, Jill’s husband
- Madison Wolfe (The Conjuring 2, I Kill Giants) as Abby, the murder victim
- George Ferrier (Sweet Tooth, One of Us is Lying) as Brad, Jill’s teenage son
- Jaime Ray Newman (The Big Cigar, The Punisher) as Callie, the town sheriff’s wife and unofficial number two of the Hunting Wives
- Chrissy Metz (This is Us, American Horror Story) as Starr, Abby’s mother, who isn’t part of the Hunting Wives
- Hunter Emery (The Penguin, Harlan Coben’s Shelter) as Deputy Walter Flynn
- Karen Rodriguez (Power Book IV: Force, The Big Leap) as Deputy Wanda Salazar
Brittany Snow addresses The Hunting Wives success
Speaking to Glamour, Snow admitted she was surprised by the show’s success, given its graphic scenes and satire of right-wing America.
“Men behaving badly has, for a really long time, been very accepted. There’s men shooting people up and killing people, and heads are being chopped off and they’re having sex with women,” she said.
“No one is clutching their pearls because those are the types of gangster movies we’ve become so fascinated with – and which I love, too – but when women do it, it’s more shocking and it’s more talked about. I think that’s something we all need to figure out.”
Why is it so ‘controversial’?
The Hunting Wives is unapologetic in its skewering of Republicans and MAGA culture, and it tackles some pretty taboo topics.
In one scene, one of the wives says her church’s anti-abortion groups aren’t violent because “there are no clinics left to bomb, thanks to us”.
There’s also a pegging scene, and more notably, one of the wives has a bizarre, icky dynamic with her son. As several viewers have pointed out, keep an eye out for her smirk when he walks naked out of the shower.
The show’s creator Rebecca Cutter told the New York Post: “I wanted to do an exploration of women behaving badly, unapologetic sexual conquest running rampant, and just something fun.
“I just think TV has evolved. The first anti-heroes were all men. Now, there can be more female anti-heroes and I certainly think Margot Banks falls into that category.”
Speaking about its politics and the clash between liberal and conservative ideals, Cutter explained how she wanted to be “honest about the culture”.
“It was just to serve the fish-out-of-water element of it. Sophie feels an outsider, and Margo’s her way in,” she added.
Is The Hunting Wives a Netflix show?
Netflix acquired the US streaming rights to The Hunting Wives, but it was conceived as a Starz original.
Netflix doesn’t own the first season: that’s why ITVX has been permitted to stream it.
However, following its season 2 renewal, The Hunting Wives will be considered a Netflix original series. So, enjoy streaming it for free while you can, because you’ll need a Netflix subscription to watch the next season.
Read more: The 30 best ITVX dramas you missed on ITV
