The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Recap: Having It All

The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives
The Book of Conceit
Season 4 Episode 6
Editor’s Rating ★★★
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It’s been a big year for MomTok in general, but no one has remained more booked and busy than Whitney Leavitt (and we haven’t even gotten to her Broadway debut yet). While the rest of the moms have reserved time for group activities like Mayci’s book launch and keeping Taylor away from Dakota, Whitney is finding herself farther and farther away — in both the spiritual and the literal sense — from all things Utah. Where once Whitney drove all the MomTok conflicts on this show, in season four, she’s been making only sporadic appearances between dance practices and brand partnerships. But perhaps we should have always known that Whitney was destined for more than Salt Lake City by the way she has always been the one to resist the pull of Utah curls. 

Episode six, “The Book of Conceit,” is the most we’ve seen of Whitney in a while, and she shares only one of her scenes with another MomToker. Other than that, Whitney is either celebrating a new job or crying because she’s stretched herself too thin. She is in the kitchen with Conner, practicing her samba, truly looking like a woman without a care in the world, when she gets a call from her agent. Whitney has booked the lead role in a Hallmark Christmas movie! Which she will also be executive producing! “I told you L.A. looks good on you,” says the agent. This, Whitney assures us, is yet another lifelong dream come true. Next she’ll be telling us she’s the new face of Calvin Klein, she’s got a record deal, and that she’s up for a Nobel Peace Prize. Whitney is careful to acknowledge that none of this would be possible without MomTok, but, realistically, how is she supposed to juggle living the dream while also living up to her MomTok obligations? 

For one thing, she is making a real effort to nurture her newly repaired relationship with Mikayla, who is dealing with a health flare-up and marital discord. Mikayla just breaks my heart a little bit every time she opens up about her personal life. She and Jace have not made progress with their intimacy issues, partly because she is so focused on her health, and it’s hard to be around him right now. So, instead of her husband, she asked Whitney to hold her hand through her specialized stem-cell treatment. I have to give Whitney credit for coming through for Mikayla here, especially if it involved as many logistical headache and last-minute flights back and forth as she says. Mikayla needs somebody to sit by her side and rub her little head while she gets a bunch of needles in her face, and right now that person is Whitney. 

It’s a real pity, therefore, that Whitney is about to blow it all up because she touched the third rail of MomTok: missing a fellow MomToker’s event. This fatal error is foreshadowed at the pumpkin patch where Whitney is enjoying some family time until, suddenly, she looks at baby Billy strapped to Conner’s chest and begins to cry. She’s done nothing for Billy, she says. She hasn’t been present enough for her kids lately. Even though Conner tells her not to worry about the kids because he has that part covered (a line so perfectly in contrast to the rest of the dads lately that I can’t help but believe it was rehearsed), Whitney still just wants it all. But that’s the big picture. On a micro level, Whitney doesn’t want to go to Mayci’s book-launch event. Living the dream and doing it all is exhausting, and Mayci’s event will require more plane-hopping than she feels she has the energy for. Conner says what any good husband would and tells Whitney that her mental health has to take priority, but the rest of us know how this is going to end. The other women have only just forgiven Whitney for missing Mayci’s BabyMama event three years ago. And wasn’t Whitney leading the charge against Jessi when she tried to bail on this very book launch? Things have been going so well for Whitney within MomTok that I frankly cannot believe she’s even entertaining the idea of sabotaging herself in this way. If nothing else, think of all the DWTS votes she’s going to lose to Jen.

While Whitney is wrestling with all this in California, the rest of MomTok has returned to their usual lives in Salt Lake City. For Taylor, this means dealing with her mother, who is in fine form today. Taylor is reluctant to tell Liann that she and Dakota slept together in Los Angeles because she knows exactly how she will respond. “It’s no secret that my mom is judgmental,” Taylor says, politely. Precisely as Taylor feared, Liann reacts first with anger and disgust, then becomes defensive and downright cruel when Taylor tries to call her on it. Apparently, in Liann’s opinion, it is her God-given right as a mother to call her daughter “stupid” and a “bitch” and to ask if the men on The Bachelorette are going to want somebody “like that.” The Bible says honor thy father and mother, not honor thy children, says Liann. It’s all pretty ugly and I’d rather not linger on it, but Taylor wants to address her family issues head on. To that end, perhaps a professional can help mend the breach between mother and daughter. The session with the family relationships specialist Taylor hired does not begin on a promising note. Liann’s first question is how to parent an adult daughter who makes the same terrible decisions over and over again, then plays the victim and won’t let their long-suffering mother help them. However, by the end, Liann acknowledges that she doesn’t really know how to express empathy, but she loves her children more than anything. Taylor views this as progress. The other family issue that has been weighing on Taylor is her absent biological father. This man is now deceased, but Taylor hires a genealogist to see if he had any other relatives who are still living. We learn that he does: two children who are Taylor’s half-siblings.

Now, we come to the day of Mayci’s book launch. MomTok is gathering for a pre-event brunch, but two women are very notably absent. Jen is sick (the women actually FaceTime her to confirm), so she is excused. But why is Whitney not there? “I don’t see how that’s acceptable,” says Taylor firmly. Mikayla looks nearly as betrayed and disappointed as Mayci. Miranda cannot help but notice the hypocrisy. “People made sure that I knew that I only came back to MomTok for clout,” she says in confessional. “Which is wrong. It was for money.” Jessi is particularly harsh, declaring, “Whitney is clearly over this, which means she’s also over the friendship.” So much for those good vibes, I guess.