The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives Season 2: Why Taylor and Miranda’s Friendship Really Ended

The long-awaited second season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives has finally graced our TV screens. Hulu's breakout reality TV show took audiences by storm last year, and this time around we're still following the same group of young Mormon influencers, collectively known as MomTok, as they navigate marital issues and tensions within their friend group.

Viewers of the show will recall that the whole conceit of the show originally stemmed from a swinging scandal that made international headlines after group member Taylor Frankie Paul spilled their secrets on social media. In the fallout of the drama, it seems that Taylor and her former best friend, Miranda, experienced a huge rift in their friendship. Now that Miranda has joined the cast for Season 2, fans finally get to learn what really drove the two best friends apart.

Miranda Joins Season 2 To Set The Record Straight

When it was first announced that Miranda would be joining the cast for the second season, fan reactions appeared to be divided: on one hand, some were excited that she would finally be able to share her side of the story, giving eager viewers a fuller picture of what really went down with the swinging scandal. On the other hand, some were skeptical that Miranda was only joining the series after seeing the success of the first season. Many were critical that Miranda, who also makes her living off of social media, was only joining the cast for the clout and for the potential financial benefit.

That said, Miranda was adamant in telling the cameras that her goal in joining the show was to officially set the record straight and only secondarily to see if she even had an interest in rejoining MomTok. Even some of the other MomTok members seem to doubt her intentions at the outset of the new season. One of the group members, Mayci Neely, admitted to the cameras that she doubted Miranda's sincerity in coming back:

Miranda, she was a swinger. She was very much involved in the whole situation, but Miranda and Chase, her husband, during the time denied everything and tried to make Taylor look like a villain. And so that’s why I feel like we all have a hard time with Miranda. I definitely think Miranda sees how well MomTok is doing, and now she’s just coming on back, even though she doesn’t talk to any of us for, like, two and a half years. It doesn’t feel like the intention’s pure.

Much like fellow cast member Whitney Leavitt, Miranda also returned to the group after taking some time away with her family, making the others skeptical of her true motivations for returning at the time she did. (For her part, Whitney, who was largely considered the villain of Season 1, is still trying to work her way back into the good graces of the other women. At one point in the season, they even hold a vote to see whether Whitney should be allowed back into MomTok after rubbing so many people the wrong way, and she's denied reentry by a landslide.)

Miranda Admits She Wasn't Ready To "Own" The Truth

In her appearance on the show, Miranda has finally owned up to her part in the swinging scandal and her friend breakup with Taylor. She admitted to the other women, including Taylor, that she herself was in denial about everything, which is why she'd decided to take time away from the group:

I wasn’t ready to own anything. Like, the reason I never even brought up the whole, like, kissing thing and initially, like, wanted to deny that ’cause it’s still freaking weird. That wasn’t something I wanted to continue doing, right? This is, like, awkward to talk about, like, with the church and, like, family and everything. Like, it still was shameful and uncomfortable to bring up.

For her part, Taylor understood Miranda's perspective, but shared that her actions left her feeling abandoned by her best friend. She regretted that Miranda's then-husband, Chase, admitted he had feelings for Taylor that she didn't reciprocate, only making things even messier between the two women. “We were like sisters. I feel like you thought maybe I was leading Chase on when I’ve never liked Chase a day in my life, and he knows that and that’s why he hates me and is obsessed," she explained.

Taylor explained she had what she believed to be an innocuous sex dream about Chase that she told him about, a move which then made Chase admit he was in love with Taylor. "[Chase] told me that he had feelings for me, and basically, that was him, like, trying to open a door,” she told Miranda, emphasizing the feelings were not reciprocated.

Miranda was honest in explaining why this was so painful to her. "It just felt very hurtful that, like, you were telling everyone in our friend group, but you never told me," she shared. "It was the hardest ’cause it was also, I mean, I was like four months postpartum. And then I was also, like, I lost my best friend, dude," Miranda admitted through tears.

Taylor understood her hurt, and she even went on to apologize for being "a bad friend" at the time, saying she could relate to what Miranda was going through now that she and Dakota were on the outs, struggling to figure out the state of their relationship while also co-parenting their new son, Ever True.

The women ended the conversation with a mutual understanding that they wanted to work towards repairing their friendship, acknowledging the pain they'd caused one another and vowing now to let another man come between them ever again. "There will be a conversation between Miranda and I, without everyone. I would love that, just me and her," Taylor shared.