The Vow

[AAEBoiler]

Allison Mack has been released from prison.

[luckyroll3]

1 hour ago, AAEBoiler said:

Allison Mack has been released from prison.

I'm still pissed she only got 3 years!

[DanaK]

3 hours ago, luckyroll3 said:

I'm still pissed she only got 3 years!

Well, she did turn state's witness (or was it Federal?) so she probably bargained down to 3 years

[Rlb8031]

I thought you didn't get time off in Federal prison and you had to serve at least 85% of your time? How is she out in 2 years?

[DanaK]

2 hours ago, Rlb8031 said:

I thought you didn't get time off in Federal prison and you had to serve at least 85% of your time? How is she out in 2 years?

Maybe final sentencing doesn’t preclude a pre-sentencing agreement?

[kathe5133]

Oh boy!  There are going to be some juicy stories/podcasts/documentaries/interviews!

[Rlb8031]

19 hours ago, DanaK said:

Maybe final sentencing doesn’t preclude a pre-sentencing agreement?

It looks like she was able to take advantage of a Trump-era program that reduces sentences for "good conduct". I guess this program might be a pipeline for former Bravo stars...

[pasdetrois]

On 9/1/2020 at 9:53 AM, Pop Tart said:

How intelligent, sensible people spend 12 years! (Mark) of their life enmeshed in it without even realizing they are.

I'm late to the party, watching this documentary. I've watched several similar others recently.

My theory is that some seemingly intelligent people comprehend what's going on, but they need the experience so much they talk themselves in to staying. This applies to those who receive decent income from the cult and those who have nowhere else to go. Mark only left because a person smarter and stronger than he told him to do it. He simply moved his attachment and dependence from Keith to Bonnie.

Also, my siblings and I were immersed - in various degrees - in charismatic Christian youth groups when we were teenagers and young adults. We see some similarities with these cults. Lots of love-bombing, affirmations, attention, belonging to a group, extremely charismatic attractive pastors, being assigned an important role, a specific belief system that appears to be positive...

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she was basically telling me Catholicism was bad and that her church was the only one with the right answer.

There's a Christian denomination, well-established in the South and Midwest, that the American Psychiatric Association has labeled a cult because of its practices. Although not publicized, it is the church that a certain reality TV family belongs to (not the Duggars). My in-laws were raised in it, left it, denounced it passionately for decades, then returned to one of its biggest and worst congregations in their last years because they were afraid "they were going to Hell for leaving it."

Turning to corporations, quite a few have integrated questionable cult-adjacent practices into their recruiting and training programs. They query on emotional and psychological indicators and require new employees to enthusiastically participate in "mission" training that felt like group-think and coercion to me. Big messages of "do as we say or else."

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this one is attempting to be too one-sided in the favor of the cult itself.

Interesting comment, because I've only watched three episodes and 1) there's too much benign explanation about the cult and 2) that explanation sounds like a friendly tutorial that will appeal to some viewers. They take too long to get to the bad stuff.

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And I don't know why, but Sarah and Mark especially bug me. I just don't find them really sincere, or something - I can't put my finger on it, but they both seem off to me.

They are both treating the production as a sizzle reel + a narrative re-write, and in addition Mark appears to adore the drama. He's an ass.

Pam Cafritz, Keith's earlier partner who died, was the daughter of one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Washington, DC. No wonder Keith stayed with her.

Edited January 7 by pasdetrois