Jen Was Never The Villain of ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’
So, here’s the breakdown–the villain of season two is not who you think it is.
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This season on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, the drama was high, the extensions were sewn, and there was a constant battle about which titular Mormon wife was the villain of the show.
The Secret Lives started after cast member Taylor Frankie Paul’s “soft swinging scandal” went viral online. As viewers learned this season, the extent of the swinging consisted of Paul making out with her friend Miranda McWhorter’s husband several times and vice versa, leading to McWhorter’s ex-husband Chase “catching feelings” for her and the ultimate end of both of their marriages.
This in turn sparked a division within the circle of friends that had been making viral TikTok content together, resulting in large scale brand deals.
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The group, known as MomTok, continue to tout their goal as “uplifting women” and promoting “sisterhood.” Season one insinuated that Paul’s actions were at first the shroud of shame hanging over the group, causing fractures amid the friendships. No circle of friends is without its disagreements and schisms, but how strong is a sisterhood rooted in a patriarchal religion based entirely on the womens’ relationships to their husbands and at times performative sexuality?
According to Brigham Young University (the quintessential Mormon higher education institution), sexual immorality is insinuated to bear greater consequence than other sins. Whereas in Catholicism greed is considered a cardinal sin, leading the late Pope Francis and a number of members of the clergy to dedicate humble lives in the service of the poor and to educate the young, at a glance, the teachings of the Book of Mormon hone in on sex and sexuality under a microscope.
It only makes sense that television’s favorite mormon wives can’t stop talking about male strippers and what it means to be a wife, while seldom having conversations that broach much else.
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Rodney Turner’s introduction to The Book of Mormon: Jacob through Words of Mormon, To Learn with Joy Unchastity only offers further insight into why a woman like Taylor continues to earn the ire of the community.
Turner writes, “sexual immorality tampers with the very fountain of life, the celestial principle which sets the gods apart from all other resurrected beings: the power of endless lives. In one respect, this power makes God, God.”
He continues, “Thus sexual immorality strikes at his very nature and glory. The power of procreation is a talent (in the sense of Christ’s parable), a stewardship temporarily and conditionally granted mortals to provide physical bodies for the spirit children of our divine Parents. If this ‘talent’ is abused or repudiated, the offenders, having ‘buried’ it, may well forfeit it forever. Indeed, of the entire human race, comparatively few will possess this most precious of exalting talents in the life to come.”
Which brings us to this season of the popular reality show, in which Jen Affleck, a 25-year-old wife and mom of two with a baby on the way, quickly found herself in the hot seat. Season one ended with Affleck’s husband Zac berating her over text and on the phone for attending a male stripper Chippendales show in Las Vegas with her MomTok friends.
Following the public backlash Zac received for his actions, the couple separated. Season two picks up with Zac attempting to win her back–and also making a vain attempt to win back viewers, by way of turning everyone onscreen and off against his wife.
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Affleck previously told Jen onscreen that he was a second cousin once removed from Oscar winner Ben Affleck, and that he had met him once as a child. Zac later claimed that he never said that, and pinned the lie on Jen, despite the show rolling a tape from the previous season that makes it clear that his family claimed relation to Ben Affleck long before Jen did.
After Jen confided in cast members Demi Engemann and Jessi Ngatikaura about her husband’s “narcissistic tendencies,” Zac then spoke to the women and claimed that Jen lied to them about his behavior and expressed a desire to “clear his name.” Both women, also raised in the church, immediately began to question Jen, instead of questioning the husband with documented emotionally abusive tendencies.
In reality, Zac appears to have a gambling problem, wishes to control his wife’s every move, and allows the conservative values he inherited from the church to bleed into his modern relationship, in which Jen, an influencer, is the sole breadwinner.
As a result, some online circles began turning on Jen, after a number of confrontational moments were showcased throughout season two between Jen and the other cast members.
But the story goes far deeper. In season one, Jen revealed that her mother is an immigrant from Ecuador, and that she grew up in a humble working class household. She also said that her mother worked as a janitor in the hospital in which Zac’s parents worked as surgeons.
The conservative patriarchal culture of the Mormon church has long been the subject of critique from outsiders. The show, in part designed to show the reality of Mormon wives, has also managed to explore how the church preys on susceptible people in need of community and stability.
In some Latine cultures, early marriage is strongly encouraged as a way to gain mobility in life, due to the generational trauma of countless women feeling pushed to do the same. In the United States, Latina women remain the most under-educated demographic, with only 20% obtaining a bachelor’s degree as of 2021. This is largely due to a lack of opportunities and now the Trump administration’s crackdown on international students attending private and public higher educational institutions.
Machismo, or, toxic masculinity, also continues to permeate these communities. Jen, who is also a second generation immigrant, is clearly facing an internal battle between maintaining a link to her own culture while also feeling the pressure to assimilate not only into American culture, but the hyper conservative nature of the Mormon church.
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As a result, season two explores her feeling torn between her own desires and the expectation that she stays with Zac. At the same time, Zac, a white-blonde soon to be medical student, posted a recent TikTok captioned “My ancestors looking down knowing I’m going to end my pure white bloodline.” Below, he wrote “Live, Laugh, Love, Latinas, #loca #couple.”
In the comments, he wrote “I came home from my mission with ‘Latina fever’ for sure. And feel like I found the most beautiful girl in the world @jenaffleck.” This comment alone summarizes the true nature of the dynamic viewers have seen onscreen – that Jen is an idea and a commodity to him, and a canvas onto which he projects a fantasy that is not aligned with who she is. Who Jen is remains an evolving question, as she entered marriage and motherhood on the brink of adulthood.
This dynamic makes Jen feel far more misunderstood than villainous when compared with the other women on Secret Lives this season. She is not clamoring for power like Demi or Jessi, but rather trying desperately to find a way back to herself.