Full disclaimer: I didn’t watch the whole season 5 of Secrets Lives of Mormon Wives. In fact, I didn’t even watch the first episode, which is probably why this can’t even be considered a full review.
I started watching it in the way that someone wants to watcha car crash or accident on the highway, only to quickly turn away when they realize that actually it’s pretty terrible and not something you want to see.
The season starts off ok and the regular drama. We know that they will shut down production, and the episode is framed with the show barreling towards closure. There is the regular drama with Miranda, Chase, and Shania. It’s all pretty tawdry reality TV.
And then… Taylor comes home from the bachelorette engaged to Doug.
Everyone hates Doug, and she doesn’t seem particularly happy or excited to be engaged.
She chats with her mom, dropping red flags all over the place (says she would probably first have a baby with Doug before marrying him… what?!) and then Dakota comes over.
At this point, the show turns from tawdry reality disaster into a horrifying, toxic watch that made me shut it off.
The conversation between them was so toxic and controlling, and with the backdrop of what we now know- that Taylor has had her kids taken away and Dakota currently has full custody of Ever, their shared son, since videos and allegations of her abuse came out- the conversation wasn’t funny or even interesting.
It was gross and made me sick.
There are real kids who are being forced to live this and watch their parents behave like this on screen.
Reality TV has never had morals, and the whole industry is questionable.
Frankly, all reality TV shows that prey on humans’ emotions and create situations where we watch people spiral and hurt each other are disgusting, and one would think that perhaps we’ve grown above this.
It’s one thing to show a game or challenge where people compete, but when we watch real people’s lives play out on screen, and now that there are extremely concerning violent situations going on behind the scenes, it rises above mindless entertainment, and we have to ask ourselves if this is still something that we should be giving our attention and our money to in this day and age?
The answer to me was no, so I shut it off at the beginning of the first episode and have no plans to watch further.
What did you think? Will you still be watching?
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