THE WASHINGTON POST: The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is essential viewing. Seriously.

In 1827, a farm boy from rural New York named Joseph Smith claimed to have dug up some golden plates inscribed with an ancient text, which he then translated into English, which he then published as a tome called the Book of Mormon, which then became a religion, and two centuries passed, and because of all this we may now listen to a group of beachy-waved ding-dongs on television explain that their faith prohibits them from drinking alcohol, which is why they instead do ketamine.

It’s time to talk about the third season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which is to say, let’s chat about America.

To preview episodes in advance, Hulu required me to sign more official documents than the hospital made me sign before it permitted me to take home a newborn. There were a whole list of embargoed things I am not allowed to share with you, but all of them involve the activities of a conceptual consortium of women known as MomTok.

Who is MomTok? They are Mormon TikTok stars, and that is apparently all I can say because one of the official documents I signed stipulated that I could not reveal “who is back in MomTok and the new leader”.

Luckily I cannot keep most of them straight anyway, but their names are all something like Bonnet, McKenzla, Christmas and Breeee. (If I accidentally revealed one correctly and turn up dead, Hulu’s parent company is in Burbank; send the police there first).

In this season, Bonnet, Chastely, Moronika, and Breeeee all contemplate the statuses of their marriages to the men of, yes, DadTok. They all talk about how family is the most important thing while appearing to spend most of their time trying to get away from their families via an endless treadmill of girls’ retreats.

You have never seen so much organza worn by women over legal voting age. You have never experienced so many incidents of adults needing to “clear up the drama”. Bonnet, Organza, Citronella and Breeeeee are always needing to clear up the drama, and then plan more parties so that more drama can blork itself onto the screen.

“The vibe is slutty,” Bonnet explains to a fellow MomTok on the occasion of one such party.

“But not when you’re pregnant,” Gangreen protests.

“You can be slutty and pregnant!” Bonnet assures her with confidence.

Now though, is when I confess something: I asked to write about this show. This was not a forced assignment, this was a deeply felt request. I would watch Mormon Wives even if I weren’t a columnist paid to do so. And it’s not because it’s a good show, but it’s also not because it’s a bad show.

I asked to write about Mormon Wives, because this is a show where it is not only possible but practically mandatory to be both slutty and pregnant. Where taking the Lord’s name in vain is seen as problematic, but slander, lying and underhandedness are not. Where the stars say things like “All my prayers have been answered, and the church is true,” but they are usually praying for fame and money rather than, say, Gaza.

Better than almost anything I’ve seen, this show illustrates the strange political and cultural era that our country has found itself in. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is the perfect prosperity-gospel, purity-culture, Project 2025 distillation of femininity in the current bull market era of evangelical America.

To understand what we’re talking about, we first need to place The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives in its proper place in the reality television universe.

On one end of the spectrum, you have the Real Housewives franchise, in which rich women delight in spending audaciously, dressing skimpily and behaving badly.

At the other end of spectrum you have Welcome to Plathville or Sister Wives, in which modest women share how their faith encourages them to cover their shoulders, submit to traditional gender roles and birth families the size of platoons.

The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives takes the spectrum, bends it and hog-ties it into a bow. These are modest women who behave badly and dress skimpily but also submit to traditional gender roles and repeatedly announce their devotion to their faith.

Their piousness is the show’s entire hook, but in this world, declarations of faith are divorced thoroughly from acts of goodness.

Whereas the Plathville crew might argue that religious devotion should impact real-world behaviour, the Mormon Wives see no issue with talking about temple recommends — the pass that deems them in good standing with the church — while concurrently eavesdropping on one another’s phone calls.

The perception of purity is paramount, but the most telling scenes in the series are the ones where Bonnet, K8lin, Papaya and Breeeeeee discuss their sex lives.

Many of them have experience with godly men who want to marry virgins but who then try their best to deflower their girlfriends.

“Has anyone tried (a sex act I am not sure I am allowed to print in a family newspaper)?” Chablenzie asks the group in one episode, and the silence is its own answer. We are dealing with a crew who was taught that as long as there is no P-in-V intercourse, everything else still counts as chastity.

The women of MomTok have learned that paying lip service to female independence is the right branding and business move — snort ketamine every time someone claims to be “empowered” — while meanwhile planting themselves firmly under the male gaze.

You’ll notice that empowerment, in this world, always looks like wearing sexy clothes and keeping their bodies toned and tanned for their husbands or prospective suitors. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that of course, but it’s noteworthy that, in this show, nobody is finding empowerment via taking an accounting course or reading The Feminine Mystique.

It’s Girls Gone Wild meets The Surrendered Wife, it’s the veneer of piety over a foundation of mould; it’s a worldview based on the concept that women are allowed to be a lot of things, so long as those things involve pursuing heterosexual marriage, having babies and looking hot.

To be clear, this isn’t specific to the tight circle of MomTok. The TikTok world at large is rife with fecund tradwife smokeshows who extol the dual virtues of subservience and beauty. And many Mormon women have talked about how lectures on physical appearance were a cornerstone of the church’s Young Women program.

But it’s broader than that: The ethos of Mormon Wives will remind you of the ethos of Fox News anchors, or the White House press office, or a whole manner of female icons beloved by conservatives (Brett Cooper, Alex Clark), many of whom have built careers around looking spectacular while extolling traditional values and defending lawmakers whose behaviours are anything but traditional.

“The pageant world rules for success are similar to the Trumpworld rules of success,” Kimberly Hamlin, a professor of women’s history at Miami University of Ohio, told the Wall Street Journal in an article about the pageant-to-podium pipeline prevalent in the Trump administration.

Always look your best, always be ready for the bikini contest. Be charming. And always do what the boss wants.

It’s also not uncommon for women in these types of roles to use their positions of power to argue that women shouldn’t have positions of power, as in Mormon Wives Season 1, during which one star admits she is the breadwinner of her family but also accepts that she has to take a back seat in an important baby-blessing ceremony, because only men can hold the priesthood.

Better for them to tend to their houses and spouses. Phyllis Schlafly walked so they could run (the vacuum).

The most noteworthy thing to me about The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is that the titular religion, Joseph Smith’s, is so uniquely American. It was founded well after the Constitution. Harvard was already two centuries old by the time Smith allegedly unearthed his golden plates. The United States had cotton gins, fire hydrants and graham crackers before it had the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Someone once told me that the Mormon faith was the last religion it was socially acceptable to mock. And that might be true — Trey Parker and Matt Stone have certainly made bank from doing so — but part of the reason is because the faith’s growing pains have been so visible, happening so publicly and so recently, through many of our lifetimes.

After more than a century of prohibiting “hot drinks,” widely understood to refer to all caffeinated beverages, the church announced in 2012 that, actually, it turns out sodas are fine. For generations, practicing Mormons had been told that their garments — the sacred vestments worn under clothing — were doctrinally required to cover shoulders.

This year, the church announced that a sleeveless version would now be available. Some women found that liberating and some found it hurtful. For years they had been slut-shamed if they wore shoulder-baring tops, several women told the Cut, but now they were suddenly informed it was fine because some elderly men said so.

One of the more affecting moments in this season of Mormon Wives comes about when the only starring cast member of colour — a biracial woman who converted to the faith for a boyfriend — seeks out a Black hairstylist for the first time in her life.

She explained to the stylist that, yes, it was hurtful that the church’s official position was that non-White members of the church could not be full-fledged members at all. They would always hold less-than status, and never be allowed to enter the priesthood. However, she said, she was pleased that the church had finally disavowed their racist beliefs. Ten years ago.

Ten. Years.

None of this is to pick on a particular religion, all of which have their own, uh, oddities. But because of this particular religion’s unique American history, it also becomes a lens through which to observe America. What is happening in our politics? Our culture? Our shifting concepts of modesty, empowerment, devotion and caffeine? Where did Stanley cups come from, why are MLM schemes so popular among stay-at-home moms, how did curiosity about health become a fear of science, what makes some markers of femininity so immediately readable as conservative or liberal?

“Y’all can’t import this culture from somewhere else. We grew it right here.

I feel like we’re really starting to lose sight of what MomTok is,” Bonnet complains to Keltiniya, Tractor, (Dolphin noises) and Breeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I beg to differ. If MomTok was, all along, a crass moneymaking scheme perpetuated by unfulfilled wives whose culture did not want them to seek traditional employment outside of the home — fear not, Bonnet, your vision is still 20/20.

But if what she means is that she’s not exactly sure what she’s supposed to be doing anymore, well that makes total sense. More than one character shares that she is now working on herself, attending therapy, trying to attain a more peaceful life.

But their shared vocation, MomTok, now relies on conflict and scroll-worthy shenanigans. Their husbands are supportive of their careers — at least they’re supportive of the income it generates — but at the same time talk about how having their private lives shared on television feels “emasculating”.

If this were the tightrope I was expected to walk, I wouldn’t know what to do either. I truly wouldn’t.

The most I could think of to do is to lean in close, hold her hand and whisper comfortingly.

Don’t worry. You can be slutty and pregnant. You can have it all.