mamadrama

I feel like they're going over the same things again and again. There are lots of interesting things that they're not touching. For instance, the main reason Bonnie got fed up is because Keith opened up SOP (the male group) to women, but it wound up being emotionally abusive and misogynistic. The idea was to literally "break" women down. They would actually make the women wear udders as "penance", among other things. And some DOS initiations actually included sexual assault (tying a naked woman down and performing oral sex on her). And Keith convincing women that his sperm gave them special powers. And the underage girls...Why aren't we hearing about these things? Mark and Sarah have fairly uninteresting stories in comparison, yet they're really stretching them out.

One of his "inventions" was for finding lost cellphones. So what system did the 3rd most intelligent man in the world come up with, pray tell? It literally consisted of a GPS system of sorts inside the phone (basically "Find My Phone") and having the ability to remotely turn it off/on. Another one for coming up with a system to determine whether a "Luciferian" can be rehabilitated. So what's a Luciferian? A person who has "enmity toward others but has learned that, for him, pleasure can be had from achieving his selfish desires such as destroy ing material objects or relationships, and causing others pain, distress, or unhappiness. A Luciferian realizes his desires by any means—without consideration for others and without remorse. A Luciferian is a person lacking in conscience and loyalty to others. He commonly employs manipulation and deceit to achieve his desired end and is therefore capable of acts that could be highly destructive to those that interact with him. A Luciferian, therefore, typically experiences pleasure or gratification in situations where “normal” people would be repulsed or disturbed." So basically Keith.

Also the rumor that Clair B. was sleeping with him. So there's that. I don't think any of these people have been completely deprogrammed. Maybe Nippy. Not only do they believe that they were pulled in because of their beauty, success, and minds but Sarah and Mark (and probably Allison) also believe that they were targeted because they were big-time Hollywood people. I'm sure these are ALL things that they were repeatedly told over the years. Nothing wrong with Mark's movie-I liked it at the time. It was fun and entertaining. I think the difference is that most of us enjoyed it BECAUSE it was fun and entertaining; Mark, Sarah, Bonnie, Keith, and Company liked it because they actually bought into the pseudoscience it was hawking. And that would be fine, too, except in this case it left a bunch of these people ripe and open to a cult disguised as a self-help workshop. It's funny that despite them all sitting around slapping themselves on the backs and reassuring each other about what great "ethical" humanitarians they were, they didn't actually seem to DO anything. Much like Keith with the Dalai Lama, my former attorney thought HE had all the answers to world peace. However, when he showed up at the vice president's hotel, waving letter in hand, claiming that he had the skills to change the world, he was arrested for terroristic threatening. (Later released because he was drunk.)

Like a bottomless money pit! I REALLY wish they'd delve more into Keith's patent crap. They've mentioned his "inventions" a few times, and used it as a way to back up his so-called genius, but what they've NOT said is that the default process ALWAYS says "patent pending" and you can keep that crap going forever.

Am I the only one who thinks it's funny that this cult's big celebrities are: a Canadian actress who did some beer commercials in the 90s and was the voice of "Rocksie" in Dinotrux Supercharged; the daughter of a woman who was on a nighttime soap 35 years ago and is related to the princess of a country that no longer exists; a C-list actress who played the friend to a main character whose show went off the air in 2011; the director of a pseudoscience documentary that was hugely popular...in 2004; and a woman who played in a show on the Syfy channel from 2004-2008? Seriously, though, as wealthy as the Seagram sisters are I'm surprised they didn't have more than they did.

They did have a daycare, they talked about it in the first episode. It was Something Something Garden. They supposedly taught several languages there. If you do a search on Kristin Keefe there's information out there on how she felt about what was going on with the kids. Also, some former members who were kids in the cult have done some AMAs. If the cult hadn't imploded then I have no doubt the kids would've been a big part of Phase 2. Since I am lazy, broke, and have no interest in improving myself I feel pretty confident that I'd not get sucked into this one.

She does! I think that's what's throwing me off-she looks like a little smushed down Cate!

My feelings towards Sarah are mixed: I feel bad for the victim part (because she was) while also side eyeing the perpetrator side (because she was that, too). I don't think it has to be either/or.

I don't want to say anything bad about a little kid, but there's something odd going on with her face and head. Maybe it's just a bad angle, but when I first saw this I thought it was one of TLC's Little People. NotCarly is still cute, though.

This reminds me a bit of the Fyre Festival. Billy McFarland may have been the one to go to prison, but he wasn't the only guilty person. Others knew what was going on. Likewise, I feel that something isn't quite translating to the screen. I can't see the charisma nor the greatness that people describe Keith and Billy as having.

I'm having trouble coming to terms with Brandt, too. I know teen boys can run hot and cold and be awkward jerks, but this feels beyond that. He's verging on sociopath.

Honestly, I'd have never made it to the branding. I'd have noped out the moment someone told me that I had to sit up all night watching a middle-aged man playing volleyball in a 1985 sweatband. And the moment I told my husband that things are going REALLY badly and he responded with "I need more data, my boo" that would've been the end of my marriage.

So far what I've come away with is that Sarah's still got a bit of a hard on for some of this shit; Allison, Nancy, and India are getting away with WAY too much shit for their roles in this; the Seagram women either have more money than sense or have been sampling too much of their products; Lauren was running one of the best cons ever (got me wondering if I can start charging my BFF $375 every time we have a convo); Mark's two seconds away from joining the next cult that sashays by him; despite having a stupid nickname Nippy's one of the smartest of the lot, and Bonnie is too good for any of them.

Isn't their "techniques" basically bad hypnotism and brain washing? For such a big "humanitarian" and one of the most "ethical" (I still don't think he understands the meaning of that word) people in the world, he doesn't do jack shit. None of them do!

My mom watched 10 minutes of this and then said, "These women are pissing me off" and flounced out of the room.

Lots of reality stars do this. Amber from TEEN MOM is one. I don't care, some of the stuff's even cute, but it's a stretch to refer to oneself as a "designer" when the clothing in question is already made and ready to ship.

Pretty sure I still have mine from the 90's-also still have this dress in red. Pretty sure it's the same one I wore to my sophomore Christmas dance. In 1996.

Part of me thinks that he liked Allison because she looks younger than she is. And while they all had voids, she may have had much lower self esteem. A lot of those actors do. Keith may have realized that his relationship with Mark was more profitable than risking his anger with adultry of his wife.

I think part of it is that some of them maintained outside interests, like Bonnie and the conventions. Even married to a leader she never completely isolated herself.

Editing shenanigans... Despite the fact that the show made it look like the same day, the scenes of Darcey and Stacey packing and the dad sitting them down and telling them about COVID were filmed at least 2 weeks apart. They're wearing the same clothes and hairstyles, but you can see dark roots in Darcey's hair at the table.

Darcey was pissed about being outvoted on LA. Even after her dad gently spoke of COVID, you could see that she still wanted to go.

I'm sure they do. Mom opened a unit in a neighboring county in 1989. She didn't open the door again until 2012. (Yeah, $35 a month times 23 years...) When she FINALLY let us in there to clean it out more than half of the boxes were either entirely empty, filled with other empty boxes, or mildewed from cat pee. My husband and I took one ton (a literal ton) to the landfill. The ONLY things of value were some old jewelry boxes filled with rings. The stones were fake, but the gold was real. He and I sold them to a pawn shop without telling her. Between that and the cash we were able to put down enough money to buy our house. Sometimes I feel bad for not telling her about the rings, but none were of sentimental value and we figured that if she hadn't missed them in 23 years...(all that money socked away and the amount she was paying in storage fees and yet I didn't have a vacation until I was 18 and the school had to pay for my glasses) But yeah. I'm sure there are boxes full of garbage, too. Depending on the unit water and moisture can get in there if the stuff's been locked away for years.

I can't just have people come in and clean everything out. In addition to hoarding her own stuff, she has been known to steal mine. Amongst other things, somewhere in that mess are photo albums that contain the only pictures of my dead kid. I only got 5 scanned and uploaded before she took them. She's also been known to hoard cash. There's at least $75,000 socked away in there. Maybe more. So far in cleaning out what she's let us we've found $10,000 stuffed in various boxes. Mom's opened units in other people's names and there are at least 2 in other counties. It gets complicated.

Lol I'll tell him to get right on that!

Did they ever explain why Janet didn't help with the clean out? It didn't surprise me that she'd never been inside. Both of my parents are hoarders to different degrees. My mom's the clean hoarder, but she's also the bigger one and Stage 4. My dad's the dirty hoarder. He dated his girlfriend (2 years older than me) for 10 years and she never went inside his house. He always traveled to her (out of town). They can be very sneaky. My mom's house is huge. It's around 4500 sq ft. It's beautifully decorated and one of the nicest nicest houses in our county. You wouldn't see the hoard by going in. But that's because she hides it: a full basement, 3-car garage, 4000sq ft barn, and 7 (that I'm aware of, but she lies) full-size storage units. Some of which haven't been opened in 10-15 years. I know this sounds terrible, but I dread her death because of the clean out.