Season 1 introduces the main characters and revolves around the family’s struggles to live their polygamous lifestyle while keeping it a secret from the outside world. While Bill goes about expanding his chain of home improvement stores (“Henrickson’s Home Plus”), he struggles to balance his three wives and his strained relationship with Nicki’s father, Church prophet Roman Grant. From his compound on Juniper Creek, Roman seeks to gain a greater share of the profits from Bill’s business ventures. Bill, who is resentful towards Roman for expelling him from Juniper Creek as a teenager, opposes this, and joins with his brother Joey, a former NFL player who returned to Juniper Creek after drug addiction to gain a seat on the Church’s board of directors in order to undercut Roman’s considerable influence and to maintain a level of autonomy from his controlling grasp.

Bill’s first wife, Barb, is shown to be the anchor for the plural Henrickson family, but as the show progresses, it is revealed that Barb has mixed feelings about the concept of polygamy, and only her love for Bill makes her stay. Meanwhile, second wife Nicki (daughter of Roman) struggles to fit in with modern life outside the compound and her own desire for power within the family dynamic. Nicki compensates for her isolation by developing an addiction to shopping, leading her to accumulate $60,000 of debt in credit card charges. Third wife Margene, 23 years old, struggles to find her place within the family, as both Barb and Nicki look down upon her due to her youth and fertility.

Most of season one focuses on the family’s struggle to keep their secret from their friends, neighbors, and coworkers. However, things come to a head when Barb is nominated for a “Mother of the Year” Award, resulting in her and Bill being outed as a polygamist couple. Meanwhile, Joey’s mentally unstable wife, Wanda, poisons Alby Grant (Roman’s son and chief minion) when Alby discovers that Bill is using Joey as a pawn in his scheme to undermine Roman’s power within the Church, and threatens the two.

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