The Hunting Wives on Netflix is an extremely literal title. Filled with guns, marital drama and extramarital affairs, and plenty of murder, the series adapted from May Cobb’s book is an addictive soap set in an affluent circle of Texas. Sophie (Brittany Snow) and her husband Graham (Evan Jonigkeit) arrive in the heartland from their east coast liberal bubble for Graham’s new job, and Sophie is immediately swept up by the town’s Queen Bee Margo (Malin Akerman). Margo initiates Sophie into their way of life by introducing her to other locals, including the Reverend’s wife Jill (Katie Lowes) and the Sheriff’s wife Callie (Jaime Ray Newman), and encouraging the previously anti-NRA Sophie to buy a couple of guns.
But when a young high school girl, Abby (Madison Wolfe), who was dating Jill’s son Brad (George Ferrier), turns up dead, Sophie’s gun is identified as the murder weapon and she becomes the prime suspect. Her past transgressions are unraveled, as are the many secrets of the wives in town, who are all driven by jealousy, lust, and revenge.
Luckily, by the end of the murder-mystery, we have a few answers (even though creator Rebecca Cutter sets up a few more questions for a potential second season). Here’s what to know about the ending of The Hunting Wives season 1, including who killed Abby and why.
Margo (Malin Akerman) and Sophie (Brittany Snow) become fast friends in The Hunting Wives.
Who killed Abby Jackson on 'The Hunting Wives?'
In the finale “Sophie’s Choice,” Sophie realizes that the perpetrator has been under her nose all along. Her new best friend and occasional lover, Margo, killed Abby after the high schooler found out that Margo was having an affair with her boyfriend Brad. When Sophie finally pieces this all together, Margo comes clean and blames the heavy drinking they did that day for her actions, but begs Sophie to keep the truth a secret.
As with all good mysteries, there were a few red herrings throughout the season. First, there was pedophilic Pastor Pete (Paul Teal), a youth pastor who got criminally close to the young women in the church. While he was the culprit for another missing girl mentioned early in the season, he did not kill Abby. The other false lead was Brad’s mom Jill, who openly disliked her son’s girlfriend. She was eager to provide Brad with an alibi for the night of the murder (that also covered her whereabouts), but became a suspect when police found she was one of Abby’s last outgoing calls and when they discovered she had Abby’s phone.
Sophie ultimately pieces together how and why Margo killed Abby.
How did Sophie find out that Margo killed Abby in 'The Hunting Wives?'
An offhand remark between the central women in the pilot episode ultimately holds the answer to the mystery. When Sophie first walks in on Margo in the bathroom, Margo asks the newcomer for a menstrual pad. Sophie fishes around in her purse but can only produce a tampon, which Margo says she can’t wear.
But in the finale, after a lustful hookup, Sophie ventures into Margo’s bathroom and asks to use one of her creams. She opens drawer after drawer, examining her lover’s collection, when she happens upon a box of tampons. Margo denies having ever said she didn’t use tampons, but Sophie’s memory of the day is crystal clear. She leaves abruptly and searches reasons why someone might not use a tampon, finding her answer in a listicle: “after having an abortion.”
From there, Sophie realizes that the abortion that Pastor Pete believed Abby had was actually Margo’s—a fact that Brad corroborates. Sophie confronts Margo at her home, who admits that Abby was furious after finding out about her boyfriend’s affair, which is why she was in the woods near the lake house. In her drunken haze, Margo grabbed the nearest gun—Sophie’s—and killed Abby.
Throughout the series, Margo and her husband Jed (Dermot Mulroney) have an open marriage—with certain strings attached.
Does Margo go to jail at the end of 'The Hunting Wives?'
No. By the end of the eight-episode first season of The Hunting Wives, only Sophie and Margo’s erratic brother Kyle (Michael Aaron Milligan) knows the full truth about what happened. Margo tries telling her husband Jed (Dermot Mulroney) to get ahead of any potential political fallout for his campaign, but he’s so furious about her breaking their “no other men” rule that he slaps her and kicks her out before she’s able to confess. Sophie seems ready to come forward to Detective Salazar (Karen Rodriguez) and the private investigator connected to the one-eyed man, but her altercation with Kyle in the finale postpones those conversations.
Who else is murdered at the end of 'The Hunting Wives?'
The first season of The Hunting Wives doesn’t end with only Abby’s cold body—there are at least three other murders in the show’s final episodes. With some evidence pointing to Brad’s mother Jill, Abby’s mom Starr (Chrissy Metz) takes it upon herself to confront the woman she thinks murdered her daughter. Starr arrives at her home, rifle in hand, but we only see the aftermath of their meeting when Margo and Callie appear at Jill’s home to check on her. When they arrive, Starr is unconscious in a pool of blood.
Jill turns the gun on her friends, too, but before she can pull the trigger, Callie shoots her dead. Margo and Callie don’t hide this from law enforcement and manage to play off what happened as self-defense. (Callie’s husband being the county sheriff sure helps as well.)
The other potential suspect, Pastor Pete, also doesn’t make it out of season 1 alive. Detective Salazar connects his cinnamon gun and vodka to the other missing girl in town, thinking that he was also responsible for Abby’s death. But instead of cooperating with police, he turns the gun on himself and dies by suicide. When the police can get into his car trailer, they find two kidnapped women in the back—including the one Salazar was investigating.
The final murder of the series is Margo’s drug-addled brother Kyle, who stalks Sophie on behalf of his sister after Margo confesses that her new friend knows the truth about who killed Abby. He tries to run Sophie off the road late at night, menacingly thumping the hood of her car and eventually threatening her with his gun. Her survival instinct kicks in and she hits the accelerator straight into his body, killing him instantly.
But Sophie doesn’t just hit and run. Setting up a potential second season, season 1 ends with Sophie rolling Kyle’s body to the edge of a cliff and pushing it over to drown in the water below. Before she does, though, she answers a call from Margo on his phone. Sophie doesn’t say anything and instead just breathes heavily on the line, letting Margo know that something nefarious happened to her brother.
If The Hunting Wives returns for season 2, Sophie will be in a very complicated position.
Do Sophie and Graham stay together in 'The Hunting Wives?'
Though Sophie is no saint, her husband Graham might deserve the Worst Husband of the Year Award. While she’s being investigated and eventually arrested by the police for her alleged involvement in Abby’s murder, Graham fails to stick by his wife’s side. He asks her to stay elsewhere (a.k.a. the seedy motel she’s forced to live out of) and only apologizes after her name is cleared and she comes home. But when she does return, she admits that she hasn’t been the same since her hysterectomy and that she’s not sure if she can find herself with him. He suggests counseling and offers to move their family back to Boston, both of which she refuses while she figures out what she wants.
Seemingly in the spirit of wanting to work things out with Graham, she later admits her affair with Margo. He’s appropriately angry (cheating is cheating after all) and goes to Boston for a few days to clear his head. While it seems like their marriage is only hanging on by a thread, the worst part is that Sophie was ready to give it all up for the woman who framed her for murder.
