The Hunting Wives, as most erotic thrillers do, starts with a dead body. But by the end of the first season, several more dead bodies are heading to the morgue as the eponymous wives scramble for survival in their treacherous social circle. Before the bullets start flying, The Hunting Wives introduces Boston –– sorry, Cambridge –– transplant Sophie (Brittany Snow) to East Texas via an NRA fundraiser thrown by her husband Graham’s (Evan Jonigkeit) boss, Jed (Dermot Mulroney), and his stunning wife Margo (Malin Åkerman). 

Sophie is a fish out of water in the conservative socialite scene. Still, Margo welcomes her into the circle with open (and seductive) arms. It’s not long before Sophie starts hunting and drinking with Margo, markswoman and sheriff’s wife Callie (Jaime Ray Newman), and basketball tiger mom Jill (Katie Lowes). Sophie is desperate to fit in and bury the demons of her past when she discovers that every family in Maple Brook has skeletons in their closet. Her feelings about this two-faced friend group only become more complicated when she and Margo start an affair on the same night that teenager Abby (Madison Wolfe) is murdered in the woods by Margo’s lake house. 

As the murder investigation gets underway, Margo and the friend group start pointing fingers. Sophie pivots to detective mode to protect herself from going down for a crime she’s pretty sure (with all that vodka and Xanax in her system, who is to be sure?) she didn’t commit. Unfortunately for Sophie, Abby isn’t the only person in a body bag before she gets to the truth. Here’s how everything went down in the first season of The Hunting Wives. 

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Who killed Abby?

There are multiple suspects in the murder investigation, but it’s Margo who pulls the trigger. Abby was always suspicious of Margo’s relationship with her boyfriend (and Jill’s son) Brad (George Ferrier). Her suspicions are confirmed when Pastor Pete (Paul Teal) tells Abby that Brad confessed that she got an abortion. But Abby didn’t, which means that Brad must have gotten Margo pregnant. 

Abby goes to the lake house on the night of July 18 when Margo, Brad, Sophie, and Jamie (Chosen Jacobs) are having their spin-the-bottle party. Brad and Jamie leave before Abby arrives, but that doesn’t stop her from confronting Margo about the abortion. She threatens to tell everyone and ruin Margo’s life, which prompts the socialite to grab Sophie’s gun and start shooting. She kills Abby to protect her lifestyle and the secret that she got an abortion. 

Who else dies before the finale? 

Abby’s murder naturally causes a stir within the Maple Brook community. Allegations start flying before Abby can be buried, and Sophie becomes the prime suspect when her gun is connected to the crime. However, the accusations continue to swirl, which leads to angry outbursts —  and everyone involved has a gun. 

By the end of the season finale, Abby’s mother Starr (Chrissy Metz), Jill, and Margo’s brother Kyle (Michael Aaron Milligan) are also dead, and each of them has a different killer. 

Who killed Starr?

Sophie starts her own investigation when she realizes the police aren’t looking into anyone but her for Abby’s murder. She finds out from Pastor Pete that Abby allegedly had an abortion and tells Starr the heartbreaking news. That prompts Starr to get her own rifle and head straight to Jill’s house. 

As Starr sees it, Jill must have killed Abby because she thought Abby wasn’t good enough for Brad, and their family’s reputation would’ve been ruined if the abortion story ever got out. Now Starr wants justice for her daughter. We don’t actually see the confrontation, so we’re not sure exactly what happens after Starr approaches the house with her gun. We just know that Jill manages to get the upper hand and shoot Starr before Starr has a chance to kill her. 

Who killed Jill?

Margo and Callie discover Starr’s body when they go to confront Jill about her potential involvement in Abby’s murder. Jill was Abby’s last incoming call, and Jill acted very suspiciously when Margo requested that her friends delete all of their pictures of her to protect Jed’s campaign for governor. The women push their way into Jill’s kitchen, even when she feigns to be sick, and find Starr bleeding out on the floor. 

Margo and Callie vote to call the police, but Jill doesn’t want to go to jail for the crime. She pulls a gun on Margo in the heat of the moment, but Callie is the better shot. She shoots Jill in the chest before Jill can pull fire. Jill also dies on the kitchen floor. A revised statement from Brad convinces the police that Jill was behind Abby and Starr’s murder, and the case is closed. Everyone could have moved on if it weren’t for Sophie. 

Who killed Kyle?

Sophie is also convinced that Jill is Abby’s killer until she and Margo have their last tryst. Sophie discovers a box of tampons in Margo’s bathroom, which immediately contradicts Margo saying she couldn’t use those when they first met at the fundraiser. Margo denies ever saying she couldn’t use them, you know, like a liar. Sophie looks up why a woman couldn’t use tampons and discovers that women who have recently had an abortion are cautioned against using them, and all of the puzzle pieces click into place. Sophie realizes that Margo is the woman Brad was talking about to Pastor Pete and, more importantly, must have killed Abby. 

However, Sophie makes the mistake of confronting Margo with her findings before going to the police. That puts Margo on high alert, and she turns to her brother Kyle for help. Kyle gives her a pep talk about not going down without a fight, and Margo comes up with a plan to save herself, but not before Kyle decides to handle Sophie on his own. He tries to run her off the road, but then calms down and stands outside her car, trying to get her to talk. Sophie panics and runs him over instead. 

She can’t go to the police because she already has a vehicular homicide on her record –– that’s why she doesn’t drink or drive anymore –– and knows that no one will believe that Kyle was threatening her life before she killed him. She drags his body to the woods and dumps him there before the credits roll at the end of Season 1. 

What happened to Pastor Pete?

Pastor Pete doesn’t end up on the police radar until the latter episodes of the season, but he was a little too fond of the teenage girls in his youth group. Abby’s best friend Nina (Abigail Rhyne) gets too close for comfort when Pete takes a shine to her after Abby’s death. He takes her to a carnival and drugs her before strapping her into his car. 

Luckily for Nina, the Maple Brook police department gets Abby’s phone records, which show Pete was Abby’s last outgoing call. Detective Salazar (Karen Rodriguez) begins to investigate their relationship and discovers that Pete had a troubling history at his previous assignment in Louisiana. She goes to question Pete, only to find him packing up a U-Haul to get out of town. The scent of vodka and cinnamon gun on his breath helps her realize that he’s the suspect in a kidnapping case she was investigating six months prior. 

Pete takes off in the U-Haul when he realizes that Salazar is piecing together who he is and she follows in pursuit. She and her backup officers manage to corner Pete eventually, but he shoots himself in the head before they can arrest him. Thankfully, they open his U-Haul trailer and discover Nina and Kaycee (Emilia Torello), the girl Salazar was looking for half a year ago. Both girls are traumatized, but thankfully still alive. 

The Hunting Wives is now streaming on Netflix.