Meet the Mormon mom-fluencers taking on reality TV

Welcome to Screen Gab, the newsletter for everyone who’s at least a little curious about the #MomTok phenomenon.

As staff writer Meredith Blake explains in this week’s Break Down, the group of Utah influencers has now inspired a TV series, “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” that delves into their marriages, friendships and religion — along with “the usual reality TV hijinks (Botox injections and hot tub arguments).”

Also in Screen Gab No. 148, author Lisa Taddeo explains why she moved into TV with “Three Women,” plus two streaming recommendations for your weekend.

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Joan Vassos, star of “The Golden Bachelorette.”

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Can ‘The Golden Bachelorette’ Joan Vassos help restore luster to Bachelor Nation?: Despite the Golden Bachelor’s failed marriage and other controversies, the latest “Bachelor” spinoff hopes to strike ratings gold, this time with a 61-year-old grandmother.

The 15 movies we’re most excited about this fall: Among the titles that have our writing staff stoked: “Gladiator II,” “Wicked,” “Joker: Folie à Deux,” “Blitz,” “Anora,” “We Live in Time” and “The Apprentice.”

The 16 TV shows we’re most excited about this fall: Among the shows our TV writers are looking forward to this season are “The Golden Bachelorette,” “Matlock,” “St. Denis Medical” and “Landman.”

Inside Tonka’s life after ‘Chimp Crazy’: Vegan meals, painting and lots of sex: “It’s amazing how well Tonka is doing,” says the head of the Florida animal sanctuary where the chimpanzee now lives.

Turn on

Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times

Lesley Manville in Masterpiece’s “Moonflower Murders.”

(Jonathan Hession / Eleventh Hour Films / Masterpiece)

“Moonflower Murders” (PBS)

Like the 2022 “Magpie Murders,” “Moonflower Murders” is adapted by Anthony Horowitz, the lord of television mystery (“Midsomer Murders,” “Foyle’s War”), from his own novel. When last we met Susan Ryeland (Lesley Manville) she was heading to Crete with her boyfriend, Andreas (Alexandros Logothetis), to run a hotel, having barely survived being murdered by her boss. Now the hotel is struggling, Susan longs to return to publishing and Atticus Pünd (Timothy McMullan), the fictional ’50s detective alongside whom she solved the earlier case, is making his presence felt. The new series finds her back in England, attempting to discover the fate of a missing girl whose parents believe that the key to her disappearance, eight years earlier, lies in a Pünd novel she edited. As before, twin mysteries unfold, as Pünd works on his case and Susan works on hers, with occasional advice from Pünd, with characters from the “real world” mirrored in the “fictional.” Triple timelines (Susan’s, Pünd’s and the events surrounding the disappearance) are interwoven — sometimes confusingly, but that’s the game, and it’s a lot of fun. —Robert Lloyd

Melanie Scrofano in “Wynonna Earp.”

(Michelle Faye / Syfy)

“Wynonna Earp” (Netflix)

Can a TV show feel like a hug? That’s the only way I can describe what it was like to watch “Wynonna Earp: Vengeance” (Tubi), the new 90-minute special that picks up a couple of years after the events of “Wynonna Earp.” The supernatural western following the demon-hunting adventures of Wynonna and her ragtag team/family had a four-season run on Syfy and is by no means a cuddly show. There’s the violence and gore that comes with its monster-of-the-week format as well as the various vices that the show’s reluctant Chosen One turns to for comfort. Not to mention the angst of heroes who don’t always feel like they deserve a happy ending. But the show also features a charming cast, zippy dialogue and so much humor and heart. I changed my mind: Maybe it is a cuddly show. With the release of the new special, now is the perfect time for viewers to catch up on the (very bingeable) original series. —Tracy Brown

Guest spot

A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching

DeWanda Wise in Starz’s “Three Women.”

(Emily Aragones)

With her 2019 bestseller “Three Women,” author Lisa Taddeo delved into the sexual and emotional lives of three women — a suburban mother, a high school student and a successful restaurateur — with rare candor. Now, after a circuitous route to the screen, a TV version executive produced and largely written by Taddeo, starring Shailene Woodley, DeWanda Wise and Betty Gilpin, premieres Friday on Starz. The series, she tells Screen Gab, offers a chance “to honor [the women] further”: “I’m more afraid to not take the next step into bringing something important to a wider consciousness than I am of messing it up.” We caught up with Taddeo recently to ask about moving into a new medium, why she gave up her “Sex and the City” comfort watches and more. —Matt Brennan

What have you watched recently that you’re recommending to everyone you know?

“The Zone of Interest” [Max]. I saw it over the winter, and I wasn’t prepared, and it was hard and dark and gutting, but it was also one of the deepest experiences I’ve ever had. The words, the images, all of it was beyond expectation of what art can do to lengthen understanding and empathy. The production design, too, left no gaps and did away with all notions that this was a film and not actual historical record.

What’s your go-to “comfort watch,” the film or TV show you return to again and again?

“The Princess Bride” [Disney+] and “Punch-Drunk Love” [Hulu, The Criterion Channel]. It used to be “Sex and the City,” but the older I get, the more real the issues have become, and during moments when I’m just looking for escape, I want something that doesn’t resemble my current world or the older ones from which I’m still healing.

You’ve written long-form magazine journalism, short stories, a novel — why take the leap into writing for television with “Three Women,” and what has been the greatest challenge of adapting to the demands of the medium?

I took the leap because I’m more afraid to not take the next step into bringing something important to a wider consciousness than I am of messing it up. I was worried about the women I wrote about being misunderstood in new ways, but I was more worried that I would have wasted the opportunity to honor them further. The emotional core of a thing is always the most important to me, but from an art’s-sake perspective, there is also the opportunity of colonizing the next concentric circle of a story, and I find that exciting.

What do you think is most lacking in depictions of women’s sexuality in pop culture, and what do you hope “Three Women” brings viewers on that subject that they may not be getting elsewhere?

Showing the things we’d rather hide, because society told us they were either too obscene or irrelevant or not representative. I believe that our show takes the veil off of female intimacy — both a woman’s own intimacy with oneself, and also with partner(s) — in a way that I hope provides everyone watching the safety and space to share their own, or at least feel less alone in their own minds.

Break down

Times staffers chew on the pop culture of the moment — love it, hate it or somewhere in between

Jen Affleck and Bret Engemann in “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.”

(Fred Hayes / Disney)

“The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” is a much-discussed Hulu reality show following the women of #MomTok, a clique of Utah influencers who were thrust into the spotlight when their unofficial queen bee, Taylor Frankie Paul, announced she and her husband had participated in “soft swinging” — and were now getting a divorce. The salacious revelation lit up social media, in part because of how it contradicted the straitlaced image of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The eight-part series chronicles the aftermath of that bombshell, and explores the contradictions of being a young, modern woman in a religious culture that prizes tradition. —Meredith Blake

Who stars in the show? The cast includes eight women, all of whom are moms, most of whom are married, some of whom have been divorced. There is Paul, 30, a divorced mother of two who is pregnant on the show; Whitney Leavitt, 31, a married mother of two who is currently expecting her third child; Layla Taylor, 23, a divorced mother of two; Demi Engemann, 30, who is married to her (much older) second husband and has a blended family with three kids; Jessi Ngatikaura, 32, a mother of two married to her second husband; Mikayla Matthews, 24, a married mother of three who had her first child when she was 17; Mayci Neeley, 29, a married mother of two; and Jen Affleck, 25, a married mother of two.

Be warned: You will probably struggle to remember anyone’s name, because the women look indistinguishable from one another, with similarly plumped features and gently wavy, center-parted hair.

Are they Mormons? All of the women purport to be members of the Mormon Church, but they vary dramatically in their approaches to the faith (and even in their use of the term “Mormon”). Two factions emerge over the course of the series: the devout “saints,” including Leavitt and Affleck, and the more debauched “sinners,” led by Paul (who faces assault charges and is having a baby out of wedlock). The series looks at the pressure young LDS women face to be model wives and mothers, while in many cases serving as their family’s breadwinners and opening up about their lives on social media. (Leavitt worries about offending her family with a sponsored post promoting a vibrator.) The series delves into unique aspects of LDS culture, including soda shops and temple garments, while also depicting the usual reality TV hijinks (Botox injections and hot tub arguments).

Is anyone in the show actually a swinger? The answer may depend on your definition of “swinger,” but the answer is … not really. Paul claims that she and her ex-husband participated in soft swinging, allowing each other to do everything but sex with other people, at events when they were both present. (Paul violated the agreement, leading to their split.) The rest of the women in the show deny being non-monogamous in any way, though Leavitt’s husband, Conner, has admitted to creating a Tinder profile.

What does this have to do with Ben Affleck? Not to be confused with anyone else named Jen, Jen Affleck is a devout LDS member married to medical student Zac Affleck, who happens to be a second cousin of a certain well-known Dunkin’ Donuts enthusiast (though, if we’re being honest, this Affleck actually looks more like a Targaryen). The state of the Affleck marriage in “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” became a major talking point in the series.