SPOILERS AHEAD
Yes, you read that correctly. “MILF Manor” is an actual TV show! Before I get into what the actual show entails, I want to get some of the mundane details out of the way. The first season consists of nine episodes and is part of the well-known television network, The Learning Channel (TLC). Episode One aired on January 15, 2023, and the season finale aired on March 19, 2023. The show received a 14 percent on Rotten Tomatoes’ “Tomatometer” and a 32 percent audience score. After reading this, that rating will most likely make sense.
For starters, if you have yet to hear the term “MILF,” here is a quick definition. MILF is an acronym which stands for “mother I’d like to fuck.” Essentially, it is a way to describe a hot mom. The perfect example of this is the song “Stacy’s Mom” by Fountains of Wayne. In this context, Stacy’s mom would be considered a MILF.
The show starts with eight single moms between the ages of 40 and 60. These moms are on the show to hopefully find love with a younger man who was between the ages of 20 and 30. After each mom is introduced, the men and women line up on each side of a divider of sorts. The divider is opened, and it is revealed that the younger men at the villa are actually the moms’ sons. I can’t even make this up! From the moment the divider opens, the show is for the most part all kinds of messed up.
Moving forward, it is important to keep in mind the term “emotional incest.” Although this term includes the word “incest,” emotional incest has nothing to do with sexual activities or intimacy. This is a term that describes when a parent or primary-caregiver turns to their child for the emotional intimacy a partner would provide. One of the more prominent examples is the relationship between some mothers and sons. Emotional incest will often show itself when the son begins to date. The mother may demonstrate jealous tendencies towards her son’s partner. She will typically do things to sabotage his relationship. This allows her to remain the only woman in her son’s life, and she will once again have his full attention. This emotional incest dynamic is present in one way or another with each mother-son duo — some more extreme than others.
This article will contain spoilers! If you’ve already seen the show, this will be a nice way to see what other people thought. If you haven’t seen the show and choose to spare yourself the burden, feel free to read this as a substitute. Finally, if you haven’t seen it and the previous paragraphs sparked your interest, come back to this article after you’ve watched it to avoid any spoilers.
Now that we’ve got those things out of the way, let the “fun” begin!
The challenges
Throughout season one, the mother-son duos are given different activities/challenges to seemingly help connections develop. The winners of each challenge would often be rewarded with a date outside of the villa. This is common in almost all dating shows; however, the challenges in this show rely heavily on the emotional incest between the mothers and sons. I can’t even begin to express how gross these challenges are. Fortunately for me, these challenges really speak for themselves and don’t need any help from me to highlight how gross they are. Here are just three of the challenges that stuck out to me, but by no means are they the only twisted challenges within the show.
The very first challenge was to determine which mother-son duos would get to stay in the two master suites in the villa. Oh yeah, did I mention each mother-son duo had to share a room? This challenged involved the sons taking their shirts off and forming a line facing the moms. From there, each mom would be blindfolded and have to feel each son’s shirtless body. The two moms who were able to correctly determine which shirtless son was their son the fastest would win a master suite.
Another challenge required the sons to give a sensual, blindfolded back massage to each mom — including their own mother. The mothers were topless and laid on their stomachs. Thankfully, the show drew the line at not making the sons massage their moms boobs. After each massage, the moms ranked them on a scale of one to five. The son who received the highest score was rewarded with a date outside the villa.
This next challenge is the “Wall of Secrets.” For this challenge, each member wrote down their craziest sexual story. The secrets were then pinned to a wall anonymously and each mother and son would have to attempt to guess which story belonged to each other. If the mother and son stumped each other, they would each win another date outside the villa. Let me just tell you, a lot of these secrets were FUCKED UP! The perfect example of this is the fact that one of the mom’s secrets is that she slept with her son’s best friend. This secret was a surprisingly a great way to get to know which MILFs had some form of boundaries they wouldn’t cross. When approaching the wall, some moms would just kind of chuckle. Whereas, other moms adamantly expressed their disapproval.
The cast
The Show starts off with eight mother-son duos. However, in episode four, one duo is sent packing. Just in time for a new duo to arrive in episode five. Although there was never more than eight duos in the villa at one time, overall, these nine duos are all extremely interesting in their own way. It is also important to note that with a show like this there is bound to be some awkwardness. Even though it was challenging at first, I really tried to put the situation aside and just look at how the duos may be outside of the show. Here is a brief introduction to each duo and what their dynamic is.
The notable duos
The first duo is Kelle and Joey. Kelle has six kids, and Joey is her youngest. At the time of filming, Kelle was 50 years old and her son, Joey, was 20 years old. I really don’t have any huge problems with their mother-son relationship. Sure this show puts duos in a strange position, but throughout the whole show, there is never any glaring red flags with their dynamic. The only times we really see them interact is during their confessionals and occasionally in other random scenes. Kelle is very outgoing with a somewhat loud personality. Whereas, Joey is more so a goofball and slightly awkward — which is expected since he is the youngest participant. As the show progressed, I found myself almost admiring the type of mother Kelle is. Hear me out: Kelle did a great job of distancing herself from Joey. This allowed them both to have separate experiences and keep their bond strictly familial.
April Jayne is the oldest mom on the show and was 59 years old while filming. Her son, Gabriel, is 23 years old. For the most part, I think April was the most well-rounded of the mothers. She has her “childish” moments, but they are never too often or over the top. Truthfully, Gabriel demonstrates more red flags than his mother. He is definitely one of the more immature/childish of the guys on the show. He gets very possessive of his love interest and occasionally his mom. In one scene he is talking about how April’s love interest isn’t mature enough for her. Then in another scene he’s throwing edible crickets at April’s love interest from across the restaurant. Rather than enjoying his date’s company, he is frequently trying to get his mom’s attention. I can’t remember the specifics, but Gabriel said/did a multitude of things that were just very off-putting.
Pola is 48 years old and her son, Jose, is 28 years old. Their relationship is perhaps the most unsettling — no fault to Jose. Pola displays the most emotional incest I have most likely ever seen. Throughout the show, Pola is mostly talking about Jose. She even told her date straight up that she would rather be spending time with Jose than any other person. When Jose begins to find some romantic connections, Pola has extreme disapproval towards each one. She would often refer to him as “my Jose,” as opposed to the other mothers just using their son’s name. As I mentioned perviously, a major tactic in emotional incest is when a mother will disapprove and sabotage their son’s relationships. This is very prominent in the way Pola acts. For her, no woman is good enough for her Jose. Although Jose has been conditioned to the emotional incest, there are times where you can kind of see he is uncomfortable.
Notable individuals
Ryan is 30 years old and attended the show with his mom, Shannan, who is 51 years old. Shannan is really not that relevant to the dating scene on the show. She more so just provides commentary. Eventually, she is sent home in episode eight. However, her son, Ryan, was involved in multiple love-triangles. Throughout the show, more of Ryan’s red flags begin to be revealed. I would describe him as being the typical “nice guy.” This is not the same thing as being a guy who is nice. Essentially he gives off the vibes that by being nice, the bare minimum, he feels he is entitled to the woman of his choosing. He is also very cringey in my opinion. He leans way too hard into the way movies portray love. He wrote one woman a song, and when he sang it to her he told her it wasn’t finished because their relationship wasn’t over. Maybe it’s just me, but everything about that was just so cringey to me — the song, the execution, his explanation and he tone of voice while explaining.
Stefany is 47 years old, and her son, Billy, is 28 years old. Billy has a brief involvement with Kelle, but that is very short lived. He is another person sent home in episode eight. Stefany on the other hand was involved in a love-triangle, sort of. She seemed to like the attention and strung one of the guys along until he shifted his focus else where. Stefany seems like a good mom on the surface, but we aren’t given enough opportunities to see the whole picture.
The not-so-notable duos
For these next duos I am only going to give the bare minimum information. They may have had notable moments, but they were more so just background characters.
Soyoung is 51 years old, and her son, Jimmy, is 26 years old. Soyoung’s most notable moment was when the group finds out she is the mom who slept with her son’s best friend. Other than that, she doesn’t end up matching with one of the guys and is eventually sent packing as part of episode eight’s big elimination round. Jimmy was briefly part of a love-triangle, but just like his mother, gets sent home in episode eight.
Charlene is 46 years old, and her son, Harrison, is 23 years old. Harrison never clicks with any of the moms. After realizing this is not something he was interested in, he decides to voluntarily leave the show in episode seven. Charlene constantly walks the line of being straightforward and pushy. She was almost always talking about sex or intimacy in some way or another. Despite her best efforts, she is sent home in episode eight.
In addition to April Jayne, there was a second mom named April in the show. She is 44 years old, and her son, Ricky, is 26 years old. Neither of them have much screen time. They were sent home in episode four, making them the first mother-son duo sent home.
Lisa and, the second, Ryan join the cast in episode five after April and Ricky left. Neither of them are very prominent. They were both part of the episode eight elimination.
The good, the bad and the ugly
I want to highlight a few other things that definitely need to be mentioned. For starters, Kelle has a major freak out when Pola and Stefany are speaking to each other in their first language, Spanish. Kelle starts throwing a tantrum. She basically is saying how it’s unfair to everyone else, and Pola and Stefany are making everyone uncomfortable. In other words, Kelle started a fight because she let her racism show. She also came off as very insecure by accusing them of talking negatively about her. Stefany did however have a killer comeback to that comment. Stefany said, “If I wanted to talk shit about you, I’d do it to your face, not behind your back.” This was problem one of the most unrated, iconic moments in the show.
As far as the couples go, only four make it to the season finale. The only other relevant bonds were part of the love-triangles, which didn’t last all that long. Stefany was in a love-triangle with, the original, Ryan and Gabriel. She ultimately chooses Gabriel, and they make it to the finale. After Ryan left Stefany, Pola was briefly in a love-triangle with Jimmy and Ryan. This love-triangle was even more short-lived than the last one. Pola ends up choosing Ryan, and they make it to the finale. April and Joey hit it off early on and also stay until the season finale. The only other couple worth mentioning is the fourth couple in the finale. This couple was Jose and Kelle. They were going strong until Kelle’s racist stint, which led to him turning his attention elsewhere. Despite all that, they reconnect after a few episodes.
For the finale, the four remaining couples spend the night apart and write a letter to each other. This letter will be read in front of everyone and explains if they want to continue their relationship outside of the villa. Almost every couple says they want to stay together, just worded slightly differently. The only departure from this is that April told Joey that she wanted to just be friends. However, she does say that she really likes him but wants him to not be tied down and still experience a life of his own.
Overall opinion
Now, that was a lot of information, but I think it was needed to really demonstrate the kind of show this was. I really feel this show was pretty disgusting in more ways than one. However, I do think it is important to keep in mind it did have some redeeming qualities. The concept of the show and the producers were for the most parts the ones who were making it disgusting. It was very apparent that they wanted this show to be weird and relied on that emotional incest in hopes of gaining a lot of attention. If you take out the gross, fucked up challenges the show isn’t all that different from a regular dating show. Without the challenges, the main thing making this show gross was the mothers who very clearly enforced the emotional incest.
Even though each duo had their weird moments, I think they were mostly healthy relationships outside the villa. I think the initial awkwardness was to blame for most of the occasional weird moments. It is also important to remember that producers and directors were essentially forcing the awkwardness. It’s easy to watch their confessionals and think they were awful people for talking about intimate things in front of each other. The hard part is to keep in mind there are producers trying to make the show as eye-catching as possible.