The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Recap: Fake Friends

The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives
The Book of Coveting
Season 4 Episode 9
Editor’s Rating ★★★★
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All of MomTok’s careful strategizing about how and when and if to tell Taylor about Dakota was for naught, because Dakota just went ahead and told Taylor himself that he slept with Shinia. Not coincidentally, surely, his confession included the fact that all of MomTok knew about the relationship but didn’t tell her, leading to Taylor’s furious, phone-based rampage. Once Taylor sees red, there’s no stopping her, observes Miranda. 

Right now, Taylor is pacing furiously up and down her house, calling everyone in MomTok and demanding to know why they didn’t tell her about Dakota and Shinia sooner, which she views as a grave betrayal. “I cannot believe that MomTok would protect Shinia, a snake, over me,” she says in a confessional, which is a gross misunderstanding of everyone’s intentions. According to rumor, Shinia was planning to tell Taylor about Dakota at Mayci’s Sunday Sinners event tonight, but Taylor is no longer going to that. At least she knows herself well enough to know that she is not in her best decision-making state. 

On the phone, Miranda admits she’s known for a week, but agrees that what Shinia did was disgusting. Jessi and Mayci are getting glam when Taylor calls. Jessi attempts a deflection and rushes to tell her the latest update: Dakota also nearly had sex with Jenna this week. Mayci adds that Taylor’s feelings are valid. Taylor doesn’t want to hear any of it. She wants war against those (add your expletive of choice here) bitches, and anyone who remains friends with them. When she’s not texting or calling her MomTok friends, Taylor is posting through it, at least once calling out Shinia specifically. This, MomTok agrees, is not a good look for the Bachelorette. 

Shinia does attend the Sunday Sinners party, conveniently arriving just as Mikayla picks up a call from Taylor. (Wisely, Mikayla says she has to call her back.) The women want to know what, exactly, Shinia was thinking when she decided to sleep with Dakota. Does she not realize he has already been lying to her about sleeping with other people? Does she seriously think she has a future with this guy? “Well, with him as a person? Yes,” she responds to the latter, leaving the table baffled. Hold on, they have to go call Taylor back to be yelled at some more. But if Taylor forces Miranda to choose between her and Shinia, well, Shinia has been a better friend to Miranda than Taylor ever was. 

I’m impressed with the level of patience the women can have for Taylor throughout this freakout, perhaps because they can see manipulation behind it. Miranda has said from the beginning that Dakota planned this. Mayci thinks it could be an isolation tactic — Dakota sleeps with Taylor’s friends, she loses those friends, then needs him more than she did before. Taylor herself thinks Dakota calculated all of this to induce a breakdown and stop her from going on The Bachelorette. Dakota himself doesn’t say what he was thinking.

There is also a MomTok outside of Taylor, believe it or not. Things have come to a breaking point in Mikayla’s marriage, as she and Jace find themselves at an impasse with their intimacy issues. Sometimes, Mikayla tells Mayci, she wants to tell him to just go have sex with somebody already if he needs it that badly. Jace, confiding in Conner over FaceTime, says that more than sex, he just wants to feel loved by his wife again. Both feeling stuck, they decide to separate temporarily. Mikayla needs time away from Jace to focus on her own healing. Jace thinks they shouldn’t get back together until Mikayla is ready to commit to their relationship. It’s sad, says Mikayla, because other than intimacy, she feels like they have such a strong marriage. But sex is his No. 1 need, and it’s her No. 1 wound. They embrace as Mikayla gets in the car with Mayci, who has come to pick her up. 

Mikayla says she doesn’t want to dwell on the sadness, so the day of the main title shoot will be a welcome distraction. It is the first time all of MomTok will be together in months, at least, and even without Demi, tensions are high. No one is sure how Taylor, who has a later call time than everyone else, will behave when she finally arrives. Blessedly, Taylor has reached the point in her cycle when she has cooled down and realized she behaved badly. She issues a blanket apology, which everyone gladly accepts. Miranda, however, will be proceeding with caution when it comes to her friendship with Taylor. 

Then, there is the undercurrent of hostility between Whitney and Jen. Whitney has been complaining to Conner that Jen has been weirdly unfriendly at the Dancing With the Stars studio. Jen has been complaining to Zac that Whitney only pretends to be her friend on camera. At the title shoot, Whitney pulls Jen aside to tell her about getting Chicago, but Jen reveals that Zac told her this a week ago. This is odd, Whitney thinks, and the more she considers it, it is hurtful. She and Jen see each other every day, so why would Jen not take a moment to say anything to Whitney about it?

Well, Jen says to Whitney coolly, they aren’t actually friends. Whitney’s continued friendship with Demi, the woman who bullied her, is proof. This is news to Whitney, whose first response is a very understandable, “What the fuck?” 

“Whitney only cares about Whitney, and you can’t tell me otherwise,” Jen says in a confessional, but Whitney does try to tell her otherwise. She tries to tell her how she stood up for her back when everyone else was talking shit (true). She says she checked in when Jen was sick (true). And she says Jen doesn’t get to own the dream of winning Dancing With the Stars (also true). Whitney says Jen has all these expectations of everyone else but not herself. But Jen remains utterly unmoved, staring impassively as Whitney, who seems truly blindsided, starts to lose her mind a little bit. “Do you see how you’re screaming?” drawls Jen, to which Whitney responds, “Yes!” Jen says they can’t have a healthy conversation if … and Whitney interrupts, “This isn’t a healthy conversation!” Eventually, Whitney has to walk away, leaving the rest of MomTok to process the fight that just happened. I’m not sure why Jen distrusts Whitney’s friendship so much, but I’d speculate it’s not entirely about Demi.