Thanks to Taylor Frankie Paul spilling again and again, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives has become Salt Lake City’s second television hit, and for that, I’m team Taylor for life. But after starting season 2, I couldn’t help but wonder, is Taylor’s own family even rooting for her?! It’s pretty obvious Taylor’s had a hectic few years (the whole huge swinging scandal, getting arrested, and an on-again-off-again relationship with Dakota that keeps getting resurrected so many times it needs its own chapter in the Book of Mormon). And she’s taken her family along for the ride, which couldn’t have been easy. But that didn’t stop me from being more than a little surprised at the episode 2 dinner that left the new mom in tears. Taylor Paul’s family dinner scene from season 2 of Secret Lives deserves a second look, like now.
Warning: Spoilers from season 2 of ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ ahead!
Unpacking *That* Family Dinner In SLOMW S2
Taylor Frankie Paul’s family shares their opinion on her relationship with Dakota
Despite the tension between the couple following the explosive discovery of lies (Taylor just found out about Dakota’s side-relationship with a woman named Jenna when they first met), Taylor’s parents, Liann and Jeremy, seem to ambush Taylor by inviting her father’s child/ex-boyfriend to the family dinner. “It’s hard because my parents really want us to give it our all before we say we quit,” Taylor says in a confessional.
Before dinner even starts, Liann makes it clear she wants to be able to fraternize with Taylor’s mutuals, from Dakota to Taylor’s ex-swinging partner Chase (???), saying, “They’re nice to me! Why should I be mean to anybody?” Taylor’s younger sister, Aspyn, fires back, “Because they’ve treated your daughter like shit!”
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About two seconds into the meal, Liann asks Dakota and Taylor about their relationship status since they’re “so exhausting, going back and forth,” making the whole family “tired of it.” “You guys started your relationship on a foundation of shit,” Taylor’s stepdad, Jeremy, helpfully adds. But when Taylor’s brother, Hunter, starts explaining how “a relationship isn’t 50/50, it’s 100% on both ends,” things veer quickly left. Hunter continues, “It feels like there’s a little bit lacking on one end,” meaning Taylor isn’t putting in the work to fix things with her ex.
Taylor tries to explain that she’s still hurt because, during the beginning of their relationship, she was “so sad,” and Dakota chose to “hook up with Jenna” while Taylor was home, “bawling her eyes out.” Dakota pipes up to downplay his then-relationship with Taylor since they’d only “hung out three times.” However, Taylor reminds Dakota that he still explicitly told her he wasn’t seeing anyone else. Finding out that wasn’t true made Taylor feel like “trash to him” since he came over to “fuck” her multiple times in between dates with Jenna.
What Is Taylor Frankie Paul’s Family’s Response To Premarital Sex?
Her dad Jeremy’s “blunt frickin honest” reaction is to point in Taylor’s face and loudly demand, “What does that say about you?!” that she would have sex with Dakota while dating him. He has no similar reaction to Dakota, a grown man sitting right across from him, even though Dakota equally participated in the sex and also admitted to being intimate with a second woman at the same damn time!!
When Taylor emotionally agrees, she “was trash!” Jeremy tries to backpedal so fast that he almost crosses Utah state lines. He suddenly claims he wasn’t “pointing fingers” (when that is quite literally captured on camera) while everyone around the table tries to talk Taylor off a ledge. “I guess what I’m hearing is you deserved what you got because you gave it up so easily,” Taylor later cries in a confessional. Hearing her parents question why she was “expecting to be respected” confirmed negative “insecurities and beliefs” about herself.
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Through tears, Taylor tries to get her point across, saying Dakota knew she was “at her lowest and lied.” She reiterates she “knows” she “didn’t have self-respect,” but “it doesn’t change that when you lie, you go hook up with another girl,” it’s wrong, too. Before Taylor can finish that thought, her brother Hunter cuts her off to mansplain that “you’re supposed to give the other person the benefit of the doubt” when entering a relationship, meaning she should’ve forgiven Dakota for what happened in the past. Tayor claps back: “I just found out, Hunter, that I was fucked over,” so Hunter concedes, “No one is saying get over it right now,” but, IDK, Taylor should “sacrifice it for a little bit” so Dakota can be close to the family and their son Ever True. Wow, that’s supportive, bro!
Taylor, begging for a shred of validation, cries to her family that “[Dakota] was asking [Jenna] to hang out in the day, and I was only nights.” Dakota firmly denies that “lie” but still counters, “And when you’re asking me to come over at night, all the time, what is that telling me as a guy?!” perpetuating the myth that men are incapable of denying their genetic need for sex while women have no natural sexual desires. “You’re forgetting I’m coming from a very broken place too. That matters,” Dakota yells back at Taylor, implying he was just as vulnerable as she was when they met. Taylor acknowledges Dakota’s struggles but says he shouldn’t have come into her life “pretending to be Prince Charming” then. Naturally, good ol’ Hunter jumps in to advise Taylor to “just give fucking two inches of sacrifice, and see what [Dakota] can do” to make things right.
Liann finally steps in to somewhat de-escalate things by encouraging both Taylor and Dakota to “forgive” themselves, though she, yet again, hammers home the party line: “Yes, you” (as in Taylor) “shouldn’t have slept with him” and though “Dakota lied” they technically weren’t together. So, Liann’s solution? Taylor should “Go to therapy” and “give [Dakota] some grace” so they can be a family.
At this point, the writing is in red-flag-colored paint on the wall: apparently, Taylor needs to do all the forgiving — of herself for being sexually promiscuous by their religion’s standards and of Dakota because even though lying is a brand name sin, too, it’s apparently not as bad as a woman having premarital sex. Taylor’s entire family constantly jumping to Dakota’s defense, placing the shame of sex squarely on Taylor’s shoulders, all makes Taylor feel “unheard, judged,” and pushed to “let this go.”
Just saying: Sexism in religious systems isn’t just demoralizing it’s a studied health issue that works against equality between men and women. A 2014 study found that “adhering to the teachings of a religion that promotes family values in general” seems to have as a byproduct “prejudicial attitudes toward specific members of the family” — specifically the women in the family. Luckily for Taylor, she eventually gets support during this dinner from hell.
After seemingly hours of interrogation, an exasperated Aspyn interrupts: “Honestly, I think you guys need to be separated and stay separated. [Dakota], you need to work, focus on you. [Taylor], you need to keep going to therapy, and you need to give yourself grace.” Aspyn gets emotional as she tells Taylor, “You carry so much guilt with your kids and what happened,” the tension isn’t good for a relationship or, more importantly, their son. “If God really did send [Dakota] to you, he’ll bring him back to you.” When Taylor says she thinks God is punishing her with Dakota for mistakes in her past marriage, Aspyn finishes her piece: “God is not like that.” AMEN, Aspyn!!!
