The Vow

[sistermagpie]

11 hours ago, SimonSeymour said:

And, as if any decent parent wouldn’t have stopped him from hitting a boy?

IKR? And notice how he's basically suggesting that girls are raised to take whatever they want from boys (or anyone). What a wound. Obviously you're the victim if you're not allowed to hit people. It's not like you can respect anyone with less upper body strength, after all. Women are just so weak physically. (Planking for 3 minutes? Try being in labor for 24 hours, boys!)

11 hours ago, ninjago said:

My reaction was Keith was abused by a woman as a child and that's why he hates women.

Any man who was in that disgusting "fucking" lecture/SOP group should be flagged and monitored.  What a bunch of creepy losers.  This is the kind of shit that ends up with a group of wackos trying to kidnap the governor of Michigan for being a "bitch".

Oh, I don't think he was abused by anyone. I think his "wound" was simply any woman not wanting to fuck him for any reason. Even Mark said he noticed right away the whole focus of the men's weekend was basically why we're entitled to rape and yeah, it was terrible listening to that woman first point out that actually, no, men are not socialized to be 100% protective of women and to always defer to them at all (have we ever even seen any of these guys running to pull out chairs or hold doors for the women more than the women probably do for...anyone else?) and then somehow still conclude that they're being victimized by it.

Also couldn't help but notice in that JNess group immediately how skinny so many of the women already were. All those super bony faces with papery skin. Did the guys ever have to go on diets like that?

I've gotten really into Leah Remini's show since starting this and these stupid misogyny sessions reminded me of some ep of hers, maybe the one where they just interviewed Jehovah's Witnesses, where somebody said something that might have also been very misogynistic and Leah corrected them about it not being true and they shouldn't say it. The person clarified that they were repeating what they believed/what was taught to them and Leah said she knew that, but "you're repeating it." 

Couldn't help but think of that when Keith made a whole program out of repeating misogynistic myths and teachings about women, pretending that repeating them over and over and even having women act them out with them was somehow dealing with them instead of just imprinting them and normalizing them further. 

Nippy was my favorite in this ep. Especially when Mark said Keith had nothing and he deadpanned that excuse me, he won a judo trophy when he was 11.

[AttackTurtle]

As angry as that last episode made me, it was the best episode thus far.  The show would benefit from a lot less Sarah.  I don't hate her, but she does seem to enjoy the attention a lot.   I really like Bonnie and Catherine Oxenberg doesn't bother me at all.  She has led a life completely outside anything in my reality, yet at heart seems like a decent person.  

As a mother of ten year old son, I almost threw something at my t.v. when Keith was discussing how young boys weren't allowed to be loved or shown affection.  I woke up this morning to my son whispering "I love you....I love you....I love you" to me to wake me up.  My husband and I have always said this to him since he was born...one for each of us in our little family.  Like seriously, how the hell did anyone buy his line of crap.  The fact that we haven't really heard about the sex with minors and true indentured servitude yet and I'm this angry doesn't bode well for my reaction to future episodes.  

I was telling my husband about this show last night and he then overheard me watching the latest episode a while ago and he said, "oh...is that your guru.  He's sounds like a real renaissance man.".  

[Proclone]

9 hours ago, VagueDisclaimer said:

 

This was the most genuine reaction I’ve seen from Mark during this series and  I didn’t mind Catherine’s presence only because she brought out the reaction. They’re all working as a team to bring NXIVM down, but Catherine is an outsider, traumatized indirectly, and able to say she was never seduced by these teachings or these people. And she showed that off in her talk with Bonnie, joking about her “dog bed”. And it was obviously not intended to be cruel, but Catherine didn’t recognize that this was painful and this wasn’t just a silly memory.

Mark and Sarah have both told these stories over and over and, imo, that’s why some of their emotions have come off as acting, rather than genuine.  There’s a distance as they recount, because there’d have to be. But Mark’s response to seeing Bonnie have to laugh off her trauma, at remembering this awful detail from their relationship that they have not fully dealt with, at remembering how “stupid” they had to be to believe this stuff, and to have it sparked by an outsider, all felt more genuine than other times Mark has tried  to be emotional. Not as rehearsed and both Catherine and Bonnie’s responses seemed more genuine to the moment as well. 

I agree about Mark's reaction.  And I actually do feel bad for him.  Like I said in another post, I think he's probably a gullible guy, but I also think he's probably a fundamentally decent person too.  I think he loves Bonnie and that he's deeply pained to realize what he was a part of hurt her and hurt other women.  While comparing Jness and SOP to the Stanford Prison experiment isn't wrong, I think it could also be compared to the Milgram experiment too.  Just what are will you do when an authority figure tells you to do something that you think is wrong?  Mark talked about not wanting to belittle women during the co-ed SOP sessions, but he did it anyway.  It's harder than you would think, just to say no to something like that.

I also thought Sarah came off better this episode.  I actually kind of laughed at her "commercial" for the sex cult brand scar removing cream. Though I do agree, I really could have don with less shots of her brand in this documentary as a whole.

I actually enjoyed...that's not the right word because I had to stop the episode a couple time because Keith's rants made me so angry...I found this episode compelling.  I think that getting an inside look into the cult via all this footage is really interesting.  I wish they had cut out the padding that was in the other episodes and focused more on that and the people who were actually effected by the cult.  It also doesn't seem like they are going to touch on the other heinous stuff Keith has done.  I also think it's a little disingenuous to say that they only reason the authorities got involved was because #metoo.  When Sarah and Mark first when to the FBI, if they only talked about Sarah's experience then it absolutely was a consensual thing.  I'm not saying it was right or brainwashing wasn't involved, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was a crime that could actually be prosecuted.  It's not until you get into the trafficking aspects, the assaults' and the sex with underage women, where you get into actual crimes.  If Mark and Sarah didn't or couldn't (because they had no evidence of it) bring them that information when they went to the FBI, I don't blame the FBI for not being able to do much. But the documentary isn't really touching on those things, so it makes it look like the FBI is acting on the same information that Mark and Sarah first gave them.

[Pop Tart]

46 minutes ago, AttackTurtle said:

What a bunch of fucking shit.  This latest episode was honestly the first time that I got angry.  I have met guys that likely think this way (and know to stay the fuck away from them), but that woman literally bought this crap just embarrasses the hell out of me.  

Yeah I finished this episode with my stomach tied in knots as I too could think of guys who are like this and because I know there are just so many more out there than any of us would think. Hearing him repeat those things over and over about women and how deficient we are and how we owe things to men and how men are just so victimized by all our "faults" - which turns out to be every single thing we do in the exercise they undertook? Just sick-making.

And truly does demonstrate how insidiously this whole thing worked and how evilly insidious Keith really is. In those earlier episodes it could almost seem like Keith had this idea for a MLM and money making entity and oh somehow it morphed into this cult thing. But tonight makes very clear that the direction of the group is based in his deep-seated hatred of women and how he weaponized that. 

[kathe5133]

These people:  "I'm wounded", "I'm processing", "I'm at cause", etc......  Shut the fuck up!  Nobody "wounded" you.  Just stop it!  "do unto others as you'd like them to do unto you".  That's all you need to know.  Stop wining and crying! 

See.  None of these people would ever be friends with me!  LOL! 

[DanaK]

For me, I find the series most compelling when it focuses on ex-members telling their stories about how they were treated as well as the footage/audio of Keith, Nancy and various members talking about stuff that makes you go "WTF is this nonsense?". I think the filmmakers could have tightened things up a bit, maybe making it half as long and focusing a lot more on ex-member testimony. But it probably was useful to see Mark and company fighting to get the media and law enforcement to act (I do wonder if someone is looking at Albany authorities in depth to see if any of those folks took bribes to look the other way). It is interesting that Catherine, being mostly the outsider, was the one to force the most attention on the problem as she just kept pushing and pushing to get herself heard

[angelamh66]

I too felt like this series finally got on with it this episode. My jaw was hanging open for most of it.  That was some next level misogyny. And throw in some gaslighting to boot. Wow. I don’t know how any of those women stuck around for one single minute after that mess. Men always yield???? Whaaaat??? Absolutely categorically insane. 

He also hit on what I think to be one of the biggest fallacies we are sold from the time we are young... women are emotional and men are logical. This is the biggest load of crap there is. Yes, women express emotions often more easily than men. But, in my experience women don’t act on those emotions.  Decisions are made after careful thought. I’ve seen more men react and make decisions solely based on ego. Not logic. No, not all men. But many in my professional life. 

[Pop Tart]

5 minutes ago, angelamh66 said:

He also hit on what I think to be one of the biggest fallacies we are sold from the time we are young... women are emotional and men are logical. This is the biggest load of crap there is. Yes, women express emotions often more easily than men. But, in my experience women don’t act on those emotions.  Decisions are made after careful thought. I’ve seen more men react and make decisions solely based on ego. Not logic. No, not all men. But many in my professional life. 

Yeah this one bugged me too. I always think of a lawsuit a woman filed, and this is in the last 5 years or so, after she was fired because of how she looked (too attractive). She was good at her job but was fired because her male boss thought he'd be helpless against her sexiness and do something inappropriate. Never mind that she has free will and could turn him down if he proposed anything, but here was a guy saying it was all right to fire her because he'd not be able to control his emotional response. And somehow women are the ones not in control of our emotions in the workplace? If it were only this one instance, I'd be like okay that's not a trend, but over and over women get blamed for a man's reaction to them and then are called the "too emotional" gender!

And here was Keith gaslighting the women into agreeing with the idea. Gah! Makes me mad all over again.

 

[Proclone]

18 minutes ago, angelamh66 said:

I too felt like this series finally got on with it this episode. My jaw was hanging open for most of it.  That was some next level misogyny. And throw in some gaslighting to boot. Wow. I don’t know how any of those women stuck around for one single minute after that mess. Men always yield???? Whaaaat??? Absolutely categorically insane. 

He also hit on what I think to be one of the biggest fallacies we are sold from the time we are young... women are emotional and men are logical. This is the biggest load of crap there is. Yes, women express emotions often more easily than men. But, in my experience women don’t act on those emotions.  Decisions are made after careful thought. I’ve seen more men react and make decisions solely based on ego. Not logic. No, not all men. But many in my professional life. 

That's the biggest thing with Keith and how I think he got people to follow him, he hit on these tiny kernels of truth and that makes you think all his BS is true.  Yes, there are problems in the way we socialized young men, historically.  Toxic masculinity and patriarchy are just as toxic to men as they are to women. Double standards that exist about violence towards men from women, and are bad (no one should hit anyone). And Keith did sort of point that out.  But his solution to solving that, isn't getting rid of toxic masculinity it's doubling down on it and make women "understand" and just accept it.  Which is just absurd.  The very idea of calling it the Society of Protectors is vaguely patriarchal.  Men shouldn't be expected to be protectors just by virtue of being a man.  It also implies that women inherently need to be protected, which is also not true.  And don't get me started on the concept that women's "wounds" are nothing compared to men's "wounds."  What a load of BS.  I don't know what happened to Keith as a kid to make him have this particular screwed up world view, but he needed some serious therapy.  He's basically an incel that figured out how to manipulate and brainwash women into having sex with him.

Here's a radical idea if we want to stop conflict between men and women, let's stop treating each other like stereotypes.  Stop saying men are X and women are Y.  A person may be X or Y but often their gender is immaterial to that.

[sistermagpie]

26 minutes ago, Proclone said:

That's the biggest thing with Keith and how I think he got people to follow him, he hit on these tiny kernels of truth and that makes you think all his BS is true.  Yes, there are problems in the way we socialized young men, historically.  Toxic masculinity and patriarchy are just as toxic to men as they are to women. Double standards that exist about violence towards men from women, and are bad (no one should hit anyone). And Keith did sort of point that out.  But his solution to solving that, isn't getting rid of toxic masculinity it's doubling down on it and make women "understand" and just accept it.  Which is just absurd.  The very idea of calling it the Society of Protectors is vaguely patriarchal.  Men shouldn't be expected to be protectors just by virtue of being a man.  It also implies that women inherently need to be protected, which is also not true.  And don't get me started on the concept that women's "wounds" are nothing compared to men's "wounds."  What a load of BS.  I don't know what happened to Keith as a kid to make him have this particular screwed up world view, but he needed some serious therapy.  He's basically an incel that figured out how to manipulate and brainwash women into having sex with him.

Here's a radical idea if we want to stop conflict between men and women, let's stop treating each other like stereotypes.  Stop saying men are X and women are Y.  A person may be X or Y but often their gender is immaterial to that.

Yeah, when he was going on and on about how men think even if it's not true it was hard not to want to jump into the TV and say well, if you know it's not true why not just use your allegedly intellectual brain to say hey, you know, these feelings I have are stupid and it's great that I know that. I mean, the guy was even harping on the old "women are always nagging us" crap, as if he's the guy coming home from work and the woman's complaining about him not immediately building her a deck chair or something. Meanwhile we know that in his own house, as we've seen, he lies on a couch while women do all the work and practically feed him grapes while they berate his girlfriend over the phone.

[DearEvette]

My takeaway from this episode is that Keith has a deep and abiding contempt for women.  He blames them for his own inadequacies and he projects that out onto every man. 

I mean, this dude talks about feeling 'unloved' because his parents wouldn't let him...what?   beat up a little girl on a playground.  This asshole.  My husband was cracking up because I was cursing the tv out the entire episode.

And then dude has the nerve to talk to a group of mostly white males who are paying upward of $5,000 a pop for these "classes" about the unfairness of their life.

And then to have these people actually listen to him, and to absorb this shit.  Guh.  I swear I sat there saying over and over "I hate this guy.  I fucking hate this guy."

I do agree that Nippy and Mark's conversation as well as Mark's realization about Bonnie sleeping on a dog bed were the first times I really felt sorry for any of these people. 

So yeah, this episode was probably the most damning one so far int he entire series. And that is because we got to hear Keith in a real unvarnished way.

On a lighter note, man did Mark look like Andy Samberg when he was younger or what?  LOL.

 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

2 hours ago, Pop Tart said:

Yeah I finished this episode with my stomach tied in knots as I too could think of guys who are like this and because I know there are just so many more out there than any of us would think. Hearing him repeat those things over and over about women and how deficient we are and how we owe things to men and how men are just so victimized by all our "faults" - which turns out to be every single thing we do in the exercise they undertook? Just sick-making.

And truly does demonstrate how insidiously this whole thing worked and how evilly insidious Keith really is. In those earlier episodes it could almost seem like Keith had this idea for a MLM and money making entity and oh somehow it morphed into this cult thing. But tonight makes very clear that the direction of the group is based in his deep-seated hatred of women and how he weaponized that. 

 

1 hour ago, Pop Tart said:

Yeah this one bugged me too. I always think of a lawsuit a woman filed, and this is in the last 5 years or so, after she was fired because of how she looked (too attractive). She was good at her job but was fired because her male boss thought he'd be helpless against her sexiness and do something inappropriate. Never mind that she has free will and could turn him down if he proposed anything, but here was a guy saying it was all right to fire her because he'd not be able to control his emotional response. And somehow women are the ones not in control of our emotions in the workplace? If it were only this one instance, I'd be like okay that's not a trend, but over and over women get blamed for a man's reaction to them and then are called the "too emotional" gender!

And here was Keith gaslighting the women into agreeing with the idea. Gah! Makes me mad all over again.

These two posts reminded me of something I'd forgotten to mention in my previous post, which was when Sarah was given a fault by the men during their SOP class because her jeans were too tight. Obviously a woman who looks attractive or doesn't completely hide her body in a shapeless sack is going to tempt the men because they just can't control themselves when they see the female form! But yeah, women are the ones who are emotional and can't make rational decisions. But men like Keith think "see boob, must rape" totally makes sense. Riiiiiiiight.

[ninjago]

10 hours ago, DanaK said:

Mark and Nippy’s conversation at the pier(?) was pretty interesting to watch too. There’s a whole lot of trauma and guilt for these folks to process

Can we talk about this conversation?  

Based on it, and what we've seen so far, it seems like Mark and Nippy had very different relationships to NXVIUM:

Mark was looking for a place to belong.  He was a true believer in Keith, totally bought in, thought he was doing important work with an important person and disregarded his misgivings because he believed in Keith.  His guilt is in being snowed so completely that he contributed to the abuse and aided the building of this cult.

Nippy seemed to think Keith was kind of a clown, but NXVIUM had a role for him where he could continue to be recognized as a "leader" and address this issue that he had with toxic masculinity.   His guilt is that he thought his thoughts/service were so valuable and his moral compass so true that it outweighed whatever BS Keith was pumping out-in other words "I wouldn't get involved in anything immoral so if I'm involved in it, it's not immoral".

Was Nippy at the meeting with the punishments?  I like Nippy but boy it is hard to see any of them who were at that meeting as anything other than total sadistic misogynists, including Mark. 

[FozzyBear]

I want to know more about Catherine’s history with NXIVM. She said she took classes for about 2 years and it seemed like she liked it well enough, but that she didn’t get heavily involved. I want to know why not. Was it just a lack of real interest? Was she too busy at the time to commit to the more intensive retreats? Did she get a bad felling from something and decide to stop? I would think someone like her(rich, beautiful, successful, well connected) would have been very attractive to Keith. I’m a little surprised she wasn’t recruited heavily along with India. Or maybe she was but she hasn’t talked about it yet. 

 

Edited October 16, 2020 by FozzyBear

[pigs-in-space]

I'm re-watching this and Keith just said "There are things that are terribly wrongful."

Of all the offensive shit he says, it's stuff like this that makes me want to scream. This is the guy you're telling me has one of the world's highest IQs?

Also, it seems like the source of his rage (if I understood him correctly) is that his father hit his mother, but then when he went to hit a little girl on the playground, his father stopped him. It's not surprise he came from an abusive family, but he sure took it to another level.

I wonder if one person in his bullshit Jness and SOP trainings said "don't speak to me like that, Keith" or "why should I care that you don't like what I wear?"

[mamadrama]

Keith: I'm unconventional.

No, you're not. You're a manipulative asshole just like the assholes who came before you and the ones who will follow. You clearly have a hatred of women. The only thing that's special about you, other than your ability to fuck with people's heads, is that you were able to find funding.

Watching Mark lose his shit over the dog bed, and then trying to pretend that it was BONNIE he was concerned about, was one of the best parts of the series-followed closely by Mark quietly losing his shit when Nippy was talking about how they were both at fault. It's obvious that Mark still feels above all of this, even though he was literally one of the high ranking officials. At least Nippy can admit it.

 

[pigs-in-space]

1 minute ago, mamadrama said:

Watching Mark lose his shit over the dog bed, and then trying to pretend that it was BONNIE he was concerned about, was one of the best parts of the series-followed closely by Mark quietly losing his shit when Nippy was talking about how they were both at fault. It's obvious that Mark still feels above all of this, even though he was literally one of the high ranking officials. At least Nippy can admit it.

 

Agreed! Clearly Mark needs some assistance grappling with everything that happened. I hope he's getting good therapy.

Also, mamadrama, I love all your contributions to this thread!

[Tachi Rocinante]

So he came up with the name "Vanguard" from the video game?  Or was that a slight jab?  Either way, that game sucked.  I laughed out loud at the old commercial, though.  Why they showed him playing Galaga, I have no idea . . .

Frank looked real uncomfortable on camera.

[mamadrama]

37 minutes ago, FozzyBear said:

I want to know more about Catherine’s history with NXIVM. She said she took classes for about 2 years and it seemed like she liked it well enough, but that she didn’t get heavily involved. I want to know why not. Was it just a lack of real interest? Was she too busy at the time to commit to the more intensive retreats? Did she get a bad felling from something and decide to stop? I would think someone like her(rich, beautiful, successful, well connected) would have been very attractive to Keith. I’m a little surprised she was recruited heavily along with India. Or maybe she was but she hasn’t talked about it yet. 

 

She talks about this at length in her book and it's briefly touched on in the Lifetime movie (if you can get past the superwoman tropes). In the beginning I think it was Catherine that they were recruiting. (Probably not specifically, but they were looking for Hollywood people.) Basically, Catherine remained cynical and questioned a lot of the material even as she sat through the classes. The proctors saw that. They wanted to go after women who were more malleable, hence India.

Also, and I mean this in NO disrespect to Catherine, but she was too old for Keith's harem. She came along during his young waif period. The older women, like Lauren, who were still there had been grandfathered in. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

6 minutes ago, mamadrama said:

Watching Mark lose his shit over the dog bed, and then trying to pretend that it was BONNIE he was concerned about, was one of the best parts of the series-followed closely by Mark quietly losing his shit when Nippy was talking about how they were both at fault. It's obvious that Mark still feels above all of this, even though he was literally one of the high ranking officials. At least Nippy can admit it.

ITA - when Mark was getting visibly upset, I thought wow, way to make YOUR WIFE'S TRAUMA all about you. Instead of trying to comfort her or make her feel better in any way when she was crying about sleeping on the floor in a dog bed, he was going on and on being defensive about how he wasn't stupid for joining a cult and how he thought he was doing something good.

Look, I get that they were all manipulated by Keith and they're all allowed to have feelings about that, but making himself the victim when his wife is crying about something that she's clearly still upset about was not a good look. And yes, you WERE stupid, Mark. You saw your wife sleeping on the floor as penance and you thought this was totally fine? If I told Mr. EB that I wanted to sleep on a dog bed on the floor instead of on our nice comfy mattress, he would think I was insane. And if I told him it was for penance, he would think I was even crazier.

On top of that Mark KNEW why she was doing it. She said it was penance for speaking against him. If Mr. EB told me that he was going to punish himself for arguing with me, I would tell him that was silly and unnecessary. Instead, Mark was totally fine with his wife sleeping on the floor as penance. Even if he told Keith that he was uncomfortable with some of the SOP BS, he knew Bonnie was sleeping on the ground as penance. He saw her doing it. He knew why. And still he stayed. The fact that he knew all of the shit the men put the women through at SOP and then still didn't fully believe Bonnie when she told him about DOS is mind boggling.

Part of me wonders if Bonnie stayed with Mark because they have this shared traumatic experience and it's easier to be with someone who lived through it so you don't have to explain the whole thing than it would be to find someone new and have to (1) disclose it (2) get a lot of follow up questions about it (3) possibly get dumped because they just don't get it.

[mamadrama]

7 minutes ago, pigs-in-space said:

Agreed! Clearly Mark needs some assistance grappling with everything that happened. I hope he's getting good therapy.

Also, mamadrama, I love all your contributions to this thread!

Thanks! I'm enjoying yours, too. ♥️

I hope he's getting good therapy alone and that they're getting couples therapy together. When my husband and I watched this episode together I told him that I most likely wouldn't have stayed with him if I'd been Bonnie and he agreed. Mark has no trouble seeing the problems with DOS, but beyond that I think it gets gray for him. Considering his past, if dude's not getting help then he'll be on the next train to Cultville the minute another shiny one in the name of "self help" rolls by. 

I struggle with some of the people who thought Keith was "helping" them by literally encouraging them to quit whatever it was they wanted help in. So Allison Mack, in the prime of her acting career, in a business that regularly casts out women once they turn a certain age, thought the best way of moving forward in her career was to...stop? In an industry that has thousands of women waiting in line, ready to take someone's place the minute they misstep? Sarah, too. "Here, let me help my acting career by devoting my entire life and all my spare time to taking classes, earning sashes, and mind fucking other people..."

[3girlsforus]

3 hours ago, ninjago said:

 

Mark was looking for a place to belong.  He was a true believer in Keith, totally bought in, thought he was doing important work with an important person and disregarded his misgivings because he believed in Keith.  His guilt is in being snowed so completely that he contributed to the abuse and aided the building of this cult.

 

I don’t know - I mean I agree that he was snowed but I’m not convinced he really paid enough attention in depth to be a ‘true believer’. I think he was into it because he had total access and thought that would be good for his career. He started filming everything and even said that would be great for a movie etc. I think he ignored any part of him that would say ‘uh - this guy is looney tunes’ because it would endanger what he thought was his ticket to a better career. Even when his wife says to him ‘there is something really off here’ he doesn’t take her seriously at all. He just wants to brush it under the rug.  He wanted to be blind to anything that would damage this dream of enhancing his career because of his devotion to Keith. Of course ultimately he has turned his closeness to Keith into this ‘Ode to Mark and Sarah’ HBO movie, so I guess it worked out for him after all. 

Edited October 12, 2020 by 3girlsforus

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, 3girlsforus said:

I don’t know - I mean I agree that he was snowed but I’m not convinced he really paid enough attention in depth to be a ‘true believer’. I think he was into it because he had total access and thought that would be good for his career. He started filming everything and even said that would be great for a movie etc. I think he ignored any part of him that would say ‘uh - this guy is looney tunes’ because it would endanger what he thought was his ticket to a better career. Even when his wife says to him ‘there is something really off here’ he doesn’t take her seriously at all. He just wants to brush it under the rug.  He wanted to be blind to anything that would damage this dream of enhancing his career because of his devotion to Keith. Of course ultimately he has turned his closeness to Keith into this ‘Ode to Mark and Sarah’ HBO movie, so I guess it worked out for him after all. 

It seems hard to believe it was about his filmmaking career to me, though, because he basically stopped that in favor of being in this cult. It seemed to me more like the documentary film made him special within the cult rather than the film was going to make him special as a filmmaker. 

Anybody who was really doing a documentary about this guy and *wasn't* a true believer would surely be making the guy look bad, wouldn't he? Like, searching out stuff about him and talking to people who didn't like him. That's where the documentary is, if you haven't drunk the Kool aid yourself.

[humbleopinion]

Catherine put her foot in her mouth by making fun Bonnie's sleeping on the floor and Mark not stopping it. Her mocking them triggered shame and pain...what an jerk...

KR wishes he was a Nippy...athletic, tall, handsome.

KR avenging his childhood, what an stunted asshole.

Wanting to punch KR in his smug face...especially when he asked the women if they wanted it rough, level 10... federal prison will be your comeuppance, KR....do you want it rough from your fellow inmates?

No tease for the last episode...hope see the police dragging KR out of the walk in closet he was hiding in the luxury condo in Mexico, his trial, with all the principals arrested and brought to justice...

 

[Maysie]

There's a lot to unpack about this episode - I have many strong thoughts about Keith and his misogyny, and a lot of them have been expressed already. After watching the episode and discussing it with my husband, I said he obviously has some real mother issues. His take is that instead of being stopped from, or punished for, hitting a girl, Keith was a bully, probably getting away with picking on the weaker kids until he got called on it. I don't know if I agree with him, but it's a possibility. I guess we'll never know because at this point, Keith would be an unreliable source for this information.

A few things jumped out at me:

• Before Sarah left for New York, they showed a text message she sent to Allison, basically warning her/asking her if she was willing to take the hit for DOS instead of Keith - was that while all this investigating stuff/getting the FBI involved was going on? Because if it was, then WTF???? As I and others have said the past month or so, the timing on this has been very confusing, so I'm not clear when she sent that text. But if it was during this investigation, then it leads me to believe that she's still not really free of NXIVM.
• The whole dog bed/penance thing bothered me on a couple levels. First, I thought it was insensitive, and actually kind of nasty, of Catherine to bring it up and actually laugh about it. It was not funny and somehow, I don't think if that had been India in Bonnie's place that she'd be laughing about it. And if they did it to bring this into the episode, then that sucks too, because it makes me think so much of it is contrived. It was interesting that Bonnie went from laughing to crying in like two minutes and it took Mark losing his shit to make her cry.
• As for Mark, that episode, along with the beach scene with Nippy, made me even more disgusted with him for having to do some double checking on Bonnie's problems with NXIVM, shown early in the series. Mark not only participated in these "trainings," but it sounds like he actively presented/facilitated some and allowed his wife to debase herself by sleeping on the floor next to their bed like their dog. And after all that, he had to do his own investigating before deciding to support her when she elected to walk away?

Nippy and Mark are a real study in contrasts. Nippy is good and done with the organization and appears to be trying to reconcile that he did bad shit in the pursuit to be a better person (although according to Keith, "good people know when they do bad things."). Mark, on the other hand, seems to be still kind of stuck in his brainwashed status and it was telling when he asked Mark if he ever still needs to feel "ready" and admitted to still being in that mindset, as opposed to Nippy who was all "hell no."

And of course, Sarah's brand. I guess the question isn't if we'll see it next week, but when.

I sincerely hope all of these people are in therapy because they need it. They've experienced real trauma and a betrayal of trust on multiple levels and aside from Nippy, they seem to be in a bit of denial in their responses. Keith picked, and exploited, weak and insecure people. We all have those moments, but Keith seems to have a knack for finding the people that are especially vulnerable. It just seems to me that they need to figure out what led them to such extreme measures and how to navigate that in a healthy way.

[sistermagpie]

I can't really hold it against Catherine for laughing about the bed. Fundamentally, the situation was just weird and as an outsider I don't think she could really understand what it would feel like to have it brought up. I don't think Bonnie and Mark had any idea how they'd react until it happened. I could easily imagine myself after the fact when I hear somebody talking about this sort of thing, just blurting out how it was funny that I actually saw that bed on floor and remembering distinctly wondering why they had a dog bed--did they have a Great Dane?

I mean, they obviously had the bed out there in the open and at the time, as Bonnie said, they were proud of what they were doing, and this particular thing wasn't violent like the brand, so I can't say I wouldn't have been as clueless as Catherine in just thinking it was funny that this whole time I'd had this low-key mystery in my mind about a dog bed that was finally solved.

[pigs-in-space]

What I want to know is who owned that beautiful white dog? Mark and Bonnie were friendly with it but the Catherine shooed the dog away. Was it hers but the dog wasn’t allowed underfoot while they were filming?

[Pop Tart]

6 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

These two posts reminded me of something I'd forgotten to mention in my previous post, which was when Sarah was given a fault by the men during their SOP class because her jeans were too tight. Obviously a woman who looks attractive or doesn't completely hide her body in a shapeless sack is going to tempt the men because they just can't control themselves when they see the female form! But yeah, women are the ones who are emotional and can't make rational decisions. But men like Keith think "see boob, must rape" totally makes sense. Riiiiiiiight.

And Keith even brought how women dress as a “fault” in women in one of those lectures they were showing. He used a women in the audience wearing a revealing top as proof of women’s badness, can’t remember what his exact point was but how we dress is a threat to men as well.

20 minutes ago, Maysie said:

Before Sarah left for New York, they showed a text message she sent to Allison, basically warning her/asking her if she was willing to take the hit for DOS instead of Keith - was that while all this investigating stuff/getting the FBI involved was going on? Because if it was, then WTF???? As I and others have said the past month or so, the timing on this has been very confusing, so I'm not clear when she sent that text. But if it was during this investigation, then it leads me to believe that she's still not really free of NXIVM.

She sent the text to Allison before she went to be interviewed by the FBI as a last chance for Allison to get out from under Keith. They filmed her reading the text out loud for purposes of the documentary, but it was sent a bit earlier. I don’t fault her for that. She thought that if Allison turned herself in, so to speak, it would keep Keith from trying to claim he had nothing to do with DOS and laying it all on Allison.

At that point they didn’t know if Keith would or could be charged with anything since he did such a good job of having others take ownership of it all other than his “technology”. He didn’t own any of the companies, he wasn’t employed by ESP, (this according to the Bronfman sister in her deposition), and it was never him who urged the women in DOS. 

So when they’re first talking to the FBI they still aren’t sure they can actually get Keith. And there was a very real chance that Allison would be as high as they’d go. But if Sarah could get her to turn then a much better chance Keith would go down.

[rubyred]

One little factoid that surprised me is that Sarah apparently had the brand “for months” according to Lauren, and Nippy hadn’t seen it?!

One other thing with Mark, he liked having such a high position in ESP but even more he was Keith’s only male friend. So he was, like, cool by association because he hung out with The Fonz.

Bonnie deserves better , particularly to never be called “my boo” again.

[Door County Cherry]

My issue with saying Keith had "mommy issues" is that it blames a man's misogyny on something a woman did.  It's always possible that his mother was abusive but there are tons of other potential factors behind misogyny that have nothing to do with malfeasance by a person's mother.  

5 hours ago, mamadrama said:

Also, and I mean this in NO disrespect to Catherine, but she was too old for Keith's harem. She came along during his young waif period. The older women, like Lauren, who were still there had been grandfathered in. 

She was probably too old for his personal preference but we've already seen that he will seduce women, whether emotionally or physically, if he feels it can get him something.  Wasn't that what Barbara found out about her relationship with him?  He entered into a relationship with her was because of her business skills.  

So had Catherine been more willing, who knows what he would have done to secure her connections?  

2 hours ago, humbleopinion said:

Catherine put her foot in her mouth by making fun Bonnie's sleeping on the floor and Mark not stopping it. Her mocking them triggered shame and pain...what an jerk...

I thought that exchange was interesting but I didn't think anyone came off terribly.  I thought it was pretty clear Catherine was responding to something or someone when she started talking about the time she saw the bed on the floor.  Then Bonnie started laughing about it.  I think that was her attempt at using humor to deal with the shitty thing that happened which is a human reaction. Catherine didn't realize that it was still a sore subject until after the laughter had worn off. When she did, she stopped.

Mark was the one who was traumatized through that whole exchange because I think he recognized the misogynistic power position he let himself be in.  

8 hours ago, ninjago said:

Was Nippy at the meeting with the punishments?  I like Nippy but boy it is hard to see any of them who were at that meeting as anything other than total sadistic misogynists, including Mark. 

I don't know but Nippy was head of ESP-Men's Empowerment Group.  Nippy comes off rather well in this documentary but I do believe he was heavily involved in some of the misogynistic shit.  

Here's an interesting interview with Sarah and Nippy about how they're navigating their post-cult life. It also explains @rubyred why Nippy might have seen the brand for a few months. 

10 hours ago, Pop Tart said:

And truly does demonstrate how insidiously this whole thing worked and how evilly insidious Keith really is. In those earlier episodes it could almost seem like Keith had this idea for a MLM and money making entity and oh somehow it morphed into this cult thing. But tonight makes very clear that the direction of the group is based in his deep-seated hatred of women and how he weaponized that. 

Most of this series has had me going "This guy? Really, this guy?" So I found it interesting that in the episode where Keith and Mark are going "this guy, really, this guy?" (with Nippy talking about his "judo champion" past and Mark mocking his volleyball obsession)  it all clicked for me.  "Oh yeah...this guy."  I could finally see it in his masterful misogyny.  The way he presented it with such ferocity but then added a sly little disclaimer..."this is just what men experience...not that it's right but here's how you, women, here's how YOU can fix it/deal with it/manage it."   So if anyone has a "this man hates women" moment, they can talk themselves out of it because he sorta kinda acknowledges what he's doing. 

And he asks the women how rough they want the lesson to be knowing that people who show up will be pulled along in the groupthink of "give me ALL of it."  And he knows they can't or won't object later because they agreed to it after all.  

This episode laid to rest any doubts that he was 100% in charge of the conception and development of this thing.  No longer do I wonder whether or not Nancy was potentially the main impetus to the kind of organization that developed.  She's guilty as heck and was a facilitator but Keith was definitely the head.  

[DearEvette]

21 minutes ago, Door County Cherry said:

My issue with saying Keith had "mommy issues" is that it blames a man's misogyny on something a woman did.  It's always possible that his mother was abusive but there are tons of other potential factors behind misogyny that have nothing to do with malfeasance by a person's mother.  

See, I don't think he has mommy issues.  I know that there is probably psychological history or case studies that show that men who have a deep seated hatred of women may have had really terrible relationships with a female authority figure.  But honestly, they could just as easily be caused by a male authority figure who is passing on his own hatred of women .  And in Mark's case there were several things he said throughout this that had my spidey senses tingling that it was probably the case.

He said he wanted to model his behavior after his father but when he tried (the anecdote about not being able to be aggressive toward the little girl on the playground) he was stopped from doing it.  And his constant use of what "little boys" couldn't do and how girls had to be princesses and always protected but also had to be grabbed and fucked.  And all his of "men do..." pronouncements.  All of that sounds to me like something he observed and was indoctrinated by a male figure, not a female one.

I also had a thought about something that has been bugging me as I was watching this.  This was these people's primary source of income and their job.  I am so perplexed that they thought this was a healthy work environment?   Like, how do you go to work there everyday and not realize you are in a cult. The whole dynamic comes across like a  frat/sorority house interspersed with the worst sort of group work you'd find in an Org and management class.  But then I realize that most of these people are not-successful actors or in showbiz so they probably never worked in a corporate environment 9-5 job and this feels familiar like one of their drama classes or something.   No wonder every single thing they did was filmed.  Even the most mundane shit was filmed. 

[mamadrama]

1 hour ago, Door County Cherry said:

My issue with saying Keith had "mommy issues" is that it blames a man's misogyny on something a woman did.  It's always possible that his mother was abusive but there are tons of other potential factors behind misogyny that have nothing to do with malfeasance by a person's mother.  

She was probably too old for his personal preference but we've already seen that he will seduce women, whether emotionally or physically, if he feels it can get him something.  Wasn't that what Barbara found out about her relationship with him?  He entered into a relationship with her was because of her business skills.  

So had Catherine been more willing, who knows what he would have done to secure her connections?  

 

In the beginning I think he was fixated on any woman who would benefit him, regardless of age or physical qualities:Nancy, Clare Bronfman, Susan, etc. Many of those women had been with him for years. However, Catherine came along much later in the game. 2012, I think? By then he'd moved on to Lauren, Allison, and other women who haven't been mentioned in the series yet. He was also getting into the underage stuff. He was able to be much choosier than he was in the beginning. I think he weighed risk vs reward with Catherine. Bringing in someone who already had an established career was risky enough.

[luckyroll3]

15 hours ago, ninjago said:

Was Nippy at the meeting with the punishments?  I like Nippy but boy it is hard to see any of them who were at that meeting as anything other than total sadistic misogynists, including Mark. 

 

7 hours ago, Door County Cherry said:

I don't know but Nippy was head of ESP-Men's Empowerment Group.  Nippy comes off rather well in this documentary but I do believe he was heavily involved in some of the misogynistic shit.  

Nippy was the "leader" of SOP, whatever that means, since it seems Keith was facilitating all the classes. So he definitely was aware of all of it. I don't know whether or not believed all that shit, but he certainly allowed those sentiments to be shared and spread. 

[Tachi Rocinante]

A few more thoughts:

Why did this seem like an attempt to downplay Allison Mack's role?  That whole montage in the flowers with tears rolling down was ridiculous. Not only that, but you can see in her earlier videos with Keith how vibrant and healthy she looked.  

The dockside meeting was very telling.  Nippy gets it.  (Just not about his name, I guess . . .)

I like how the one woman misspelled Vanguard on her whiteboard as "Vangod". 

[sadie]

Really good ep after a lot of filler. What can be said about Keith you guys haven’t touched on. The misogyny was off the charts and why no one saw it for what it was blows my mind. I’ve known guys like Keith, you can feel that rage against women just under the surface and you know if given what Keith was given would exploit it in just this way. I remember at one point they were showing a clip of Keith walking and he had this smug smile on his face and I could almost see his wheels turning about how smart he was in getting all these idiots to do what he wanted to turn his life into an endless smorgasbord of humiliating women.

And Mark, sorry, but he’s at the top of my shit list too. He loved being at the head of those meetings and making those women line up and drop and give him 20 or whatever bullshit that was. Then to learn he allowed his wife to sleep on a dog bed as penance? Wtf? He gets no sympathy from me, he would probably still be at it if this whole thing didn’t start to crumble. Bonnie, girl, what are you thinking? 

[Armchair Critic]

India Oxenberg gave an interview on GMA today.

Adding link to an article about her new docuseries: https://variety.com/2020/tv/features/nxivm-cult-india-oxenberg-catherine-oxenberg-seduced-docuseries-1234796912/

Edited October 13, 2020 by Armchair Critic

[tljgator]

Happened to catch the Good Morning America interview with India and Catherine this morning while I was getting ready -- I don't think any of it was particularly new or groundbreaking (given what we've seen here), but at least I now understand why we haven't heard directly from India. She seems to be the "star" of a series about the cult that's about to start on STARZ. They showed some clips -- tons of interview footage with her, on location shots of the places where things happened, etc.

Edited October 13, 2020 by tljgator

[FozzyBear]

15 minutes ago, Armchair Critic said:

India Oxenberg gave an interview on GMA today

 

Has she been charged with anything?

im on the fence about how law enforcement should treat people like her. I’m sure she is a victim of abuse but I’m also sure she committed abuse. I feel that way about all of them actually (with the exception of Bonnie. I think I believe that once she got to the point where she was high enough up to be abusing others she left. I suspect it’s why she left) and I don’t know what is the appropriate end to all of this. In some ways I think Mark, Sara, Bonnie, and Nippy have paid a terrible price for their involvement but in some ways I feel like they have gotten off the hook way too easily. 

I think Mark is still in a very dangerous place mentally. He knows NXIVM was crap and trouble and abusive but also he’s still there mentally. When he blamed Bonnie for his own shame about the dog bed story, then told her she was re-traumatized until she started crying, and then told her he needed to protect her after she started crying because he was yelling at her...I got serious KR vibes. I get a similar vibe from Sarah when she’s talking about the case and how no one has done this before and it’s going to change the world and they’re so brave. They both know they can’t be in NXIVM but they still want to be there.
 

 

[MicheleinPhilly]

Well that took a dark turn. And here I thought Raniere was just trafficking in bullshit Pop/Organizational Psychology 101 word salad spinning. It brought to mind that episode of Fleabag when she and her sister go to that retreat and Fleabag encounters the bank manager at the men's retreat next door.  

It sort of makes me reevaluate everything we've seen up until this point. I was just viewing him as some smarmy, narcissistic, MLM con artist. I felt like I was listening to a recruiting session for mass shooters. 

[kitmerlot1213]

2 hours ago, Tachi Rocinante said:

A few more thoughts:

Why did this seem like an attempt to downplay Allison Mack's role?  That whole montage in the flowers with tears rolling down was ridiculous. Not only that, but you can see in her earlier videos with Keith how vibrant and healthy she looked.  

The dockside meeting was very telling.  Nippy gets it.  (Just not about his name, I guess . . .)

I like how the one woman misspelled Vanguard on her whiteboard as "Vangod". 

I don't think this episode downplayed Allison Mack's role at all, instead it showed just how "in" she was, especially telling Sarah that she had to ask Keith first if she could go to the wedding.  This is an adult woman admitting to needing to ask permission with zero embarrassment.  I also thought that Sarah was very affected by "Allie"'s being so controlled by Keith--Sarah seemed genuinely concerned--while Bonnie seemed very angry towards Allison's role in Jness and towards Allison personally. Did Allison cultivate the Jness young women for her own benefit or for Keith's?    Bonnie thinks that Allison wanted a fan club she could control but it looks like it was all for Keith's benefit but either way Allison still did it, she's a perpetrator but also a victim, just like Lauren, India and countless others.

As always, I loved any scene that featured Sarah and Nippy's truly adorable son and I especially loved the moment when you hear the cry of "Daddy!" and then we see Nippy hugging his son--very sweet and I think Nippy has his head completely on straight regarding Keith and NXIVM.

"Vangod" was probably not a mistake--God forbid 🙂

[sistermagpie]

12 hours ago, DearEvette said:

See, I don't think he has mommy issues.  I know that there is probably psychological history or case studies that show that men who have a deep seated hatred of women may have had really terrible relationships with a female authority figure.  But honestly, they could just as easily be caused by a male authority figure who is passing on his own hatred of women .  And in Mark's case there were several things he said throughout this that had my spidey senses tingling that it was probably the case.

He said he wanted to model his behavior after his father but when he tried (the anecdote about not being able to be aggressive toward the little girl on the playground) he was stopped from doing it.  And his constant use of what "little boys" couldn't do and how girls had to be princesses and always protected but also had to be grabbed and fucked.  And all his of "men do..." pronouncements.  All of that sounds to me like something he observed and was indoctrinated by a male figure, not a female one.

 

Yes, I imagine if he was reacting to an abusive mother his view of the world wouldn't so completely line up with Incel/MRA/rape culture exactly. That's why it was so completely familiar to everyone in the groups, men's and women's.

3 hours ago, FozzyBear said:

I think Mark is still in a very dangerous place mentally. He knows NXIVM was crap and trouble and abusive but also he’s still there mentally. When he blamed Bonnie for his own shame about the dog bed story, then told her she was re-traumatized until she started crying, and then told her he needed to protect her after she started crying because he was yelling at her...I got serious KR vibes. I get a similar vibe from Sarah when she’s talking about the case and how no one has done this before and it’s going to change the world and they’re so brave. They both know they can’t be in NXIVM but they still want to be there.
 

 

Yeah, again this reminds me of stuff I've heard on Leah Remini's show where she's always policing herself and others, wondering what are her own opinions and what is just how Scientology has taught her to think. 

[truebluesmoky]

With regard to Sarah’s brand, even though I definitely agree that she seems a little extra and like the theatre people I went to college with who I couldn’t be around for very long without getting exhausted, I don’t think we can blame her for her brand getting shown in every episode. It’s not like she knew how all the footage they were taking would be used in various episodes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she was frequently asked to show it because the branding is the most sensational aspect of the NXIVM story.

One of the aspects of this whole thing that is funny to me is that the headquarters for all this nonsense was Clifton Park, NY. For those not familiar with New York State, Albany is the capital but it’s not a particularly large or cultured city. It’s a good three hours north of New York City, and aside from the capital buildings and some good colleges, there’s not much to brag about in the downtown area, and the surrounding area is all Targets and Olive Gardens. Clifton Park is about twenty minutes north of downtown Albany. It’s the kind of place you move to if you want to raise your kids in a McMansion with good schools and organic grocery stores nearby. The neighborhood where Keith and Allison and many other members had their houses wasn’t historic homes like Frank’s Parlato’s house across the state in Buffalo or even a neighborhood of aforementioned McMansions. It was a community of attached townhouses. When they weren’t in the townhouses, they were walking around the neighborhood or in the sweaty gymnasium playing volleyball. What was the appeal to everyone who moved there to be at the epicenter of NXIVM? It’s not like the fancy Scientology church in Hollywood or the Scientology centers by the beach in Clearwater. It’s an attached townhouse in a suburban area with terrible weather and near no major cities that their celebrity members would be accustomed to. How he sold them on Clifton Park will remain one of the biggest mysteries to me!

 

 

[MicheleinPhilly]

Just released interview with India in Vanity Fair:

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/10/india-oxenberg-opens-up-about-her-familys-nxivm-nightmare

As much as I dread spending another few weeks with these folks (via the Starz series) I know I'll be glued to my couch, popcorn in hand. 

[DanaK]

13 minutes ago, MicheleinPhilly said:

Just released interview with India in Vanity Fair:

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/10/india-oxenberg-opens-up-about-her-familys-nxivm-nightmare

As much as I dread spending another few weeks with these folks (via the Starz series) I know I'll be glued to my couch, popcorn in hand. 

Keith is just nasty, so nasty. Damn. But to be caught by your own audio/video stuff is a great self-own

[Tachi Rocinante]

Spoiler

So The Vow won't show the reunion or talk to India because they were doing their own show for Starz.  A very tiny part of me is side-eyeing this.

 

[Maysie]

16 hours ago, Pop Tart said:

She sent the text to Allison before she went to be interviewed by the FBI as a last chance for Allison to get out from under Keith. They filmed her reading the text out loud for purposes of the documentary, but it was sent a bit earlier. I don’t fault her for that. She thought that if Allison turned herself in, so to speak, it would keep Keith from trying to claim he had nothing to do with DOS and laying it all on Allison.

The timeline in this series is whacked, so it's really difficult to know who did/said what when. But my feeling is, if Sarah knew that the FBI investigation is pending, she shouldn't have warned Allison. Allison would have her chance to turn on Keith and provide evidence; the only thing warning Allison does is give them an opportunity to destroy evidence, etc. I feel like the FBI had a greater chance of turning Allison, or any of the other participants; as far as NXIVM is concerned, the likes of Sarah, Mark, Bonnie, etc are the equivalent of blasphemers. We saw how they discredited Barbara and Susan so effectively.

 

14 hours ago, Door County Cherry said:

My issue with saying Keith had "mommy issues" is that it blames a man's misogyny on something a woman did.  It's always possible that his mother was abusive but there are tons of other potential factors behind misogyny that have nothing to do with malfeasance by a person's mother.  

When I wrote that I felt he had issues with his mother, I didn't mean it as she is to blame for his misogyny, and I probably was too cavalier with that observation. In the videos they showed, his mother sure seemed to be an engaged, loving mother, but what can we really surmise from a few video clips? And as someone upthread noted, his issues could come from his dad - they could come from anyone. Like, did he have any siblings? What about his teachers and other adult influencers? I guess this is one of the areas that I continue to find fault with the filmmakers; it would shed so much light to learn a little about Keith's history. We know where we end up with him, but how did we get here? What made him into who he is now? But his hatred and disdain of women was unmistakable.

 

5 hours ago, FozzyBear said:

im on the fence about how law enforcement should treat people like her. I’m sure she is a victim of abuse but I’m also sure she committed abuse. I feel that way about all of them actually (with the exception of Bonnie. I think I believe that once she got to the point where she was high enough up to be abusing others she left. I suspect it’s why she left) and I don’t know what is the appropriate end to all of this. In some ways I think Mark, Sara, Bonnie, and Nippy have paid a terrible price for their involvement but in some ways I feel like they have gotten off the hook way too easily. 

Yes! I've been struggling with this. Based on what we've seen, it doesn't appear that Mark, Bonnie and Nippy committed any actual crimes, unless they were somehow tied up in the financial fraud aspect of the organization (promoting a MLM scheme - the legality of those can be pretty dicey), but it sure looks to me that if Sarah hadn't extricated herself when she did, she'd be at risk for some of the sex trafficking stuff. What has Allison done that Sarah hasn't done? I'm not asking to be combative against the people who like Sarah, but I'm genuinely curious. Because if whatever was done to India was a crime, then isn't Sarah bringing her own slaves into this also a crime? Or is it about age of consent? Again, I fault the filmmakers for being so poor at laying this out clearly to us.

 

6 hours ago, sadie said:

And Mark, sorry, but he’s at the top of my shit list too. He loved being at the head of those meetings and making those women line up and drop and give him 20 or whatever bullshit that was. Then to learn he allowed his wife to sleep on a dog bed as penance? Wtf? He gets no sympathy from me, he would probably still be at it if this whole thing didn’t start to crumble. Bonnie, girl, what are you thinking? 

 

5 hours ago, FozzyBear said:

I think Mark is still in a very dangerous place mentally. He knows NXIVM was crap and trouble and abusive but also he’s still there mentally. When he blamed Bonnie for his own shame about the dog bed story, then told her she was re-traumatized until she started crying, and then told her he needed to protect her after she started crying because he was yelling at her...I got serious KR vibes. I get a similar vibe from Sarah when she’s talking about the case and how no one has done this before and it’s going to change the world and they’re so brave. They both know they can’t be in NXIVM but they still want to be there.

I agree with both of these. I can only guess that Mark and Sarah are super insecure and they've lost their mooring without NXIVM. I think that's sad, especially for Sarah who seems to have a really wonderful family at the end of the day.

I will watch the last episode because I'm in it now, but I keep thinking of what a missed opportunity this was. The Scientology documentary, Going Clear (or Getting Clear???) did an excellent job with very similar themes. You could see how the guy that started Scientology became what he was - the history was laid out really well and they took us on a nice, interesting journey of how one individual's life experiences leads to some really bizarre places. It was fascinating. I'm curious about the last episode because I want to see if they bring Barbara and Susan back in, or how they lay out the charges against Keith. But I'm not expecting much, honestly, other than that at some point, I'll see Sarah's brand.

I don't get STARZ, but even if I did, I'd take a pass. I don't need to see any more of Catherine's quest to rescue India. It isn't all that interesting to me. I want to know how Keith became what he is, what the roadmap for NXIVM was (financially and otherwise) and get into how they built the case for his arrest.

[sistermagpie]

17 minutes ago, Maysie said:

Yes! I've been struggling with this. Based on what we've seen, it doesn't appear that Mark, Bonnie and Nippy committed any actual crimes, unless they were somehow tied up in the financial fraud aspect of the organization (promoting a MLM scheme - the legality of those can be pretty dicey), but it sure looks to me that if Sarah hadn't extricated herself when she did, she'd be at risk for some of the sex trafficking stuff. What has Allison done that Sarah hasn't done? I'm not asking to be combative against the people who like Sarah, but I'm genuinely curious. Because if whatever was done to India was a crime, then isn't Sarah bringing her own slaves into this also a crime? Or is it about age of consent? Again, I fault the filmmakers for being so poor at laying this out clearly to us.

 

I could be wrong, but my impression about the difference between the two is that India knows this is all about sex with Keith where Sarah didn't know--she thought she was just recruiting people for this women's group that wasn't about him since Keith hadn't made a pass at Sarah even. And once she found out about that, she left and was warning people. Had she not gotten out Sarah might have been in a situation where she was a woman saying, "I can't believe it--he's never done that to ME and therefore can't be doing it to anybody else."

[Pop Tart]

3 hours ago, truebluesmoky said:

With regard to Sarah’s brand, even though I definitely agree that she seems a little extra and like the theatre people I went to college with who I couldn’t be around for very long without getting exhausted, I don’t think we can blame her for her brand getting shown in every episode. It’s not like she knew how all the footage they were taking would be used in various episodes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she was frequently asked to show it because the branding is the most sensational aspect of the NXIVM story.

After watching the interview with India I think this is exactly right. They made sure to show India's brand in the GMA interview. I think to people making the films/doing the interviews the brand is an easy, shortcut-type shot. It's graphic and as TrueBlueSmoky says, sensational. 

1 hour ago, Maysie said:

The timeline in this series is whacked, so it's really difficult to know who did/said what when. But my feeling is, if Sarah knew that the FBI investigation is pending, she shouldn't have warned Allison. Allison would have her chance to turn on Keith and provide evidence; the only thing warning Allison does is give them an opportunity to destroy evidence, etc. I feel like the FBI had a greater chance of turning Allison, or any of the other participants; as far as NXIVM is concerned, the likes of Sarah, Mark, Bonnie, etc are the equivalent of blasphemers. We saw how they discredited Barbara and Susan so effectively.

Oh I agree that the FBI specializes in turning people to provide evidence. We viewers know that the FBI did get and convict Keith, but at the time that Sarah sent Allison the text asking her to get out, she, Sarah, did not yet know if the FBI would even really pursue Keith or charge him with anything. To her and her little Scooby gang of helpers, it still seemed pretty iffy if there was even anything the FBI could pursue from a legal standpoint in regards to Keith. So if she could convince Allison to join them, she thought their case would be stronger. That and I think she did still care about Allison and didn't think she should take all the blame for what Keith had wrought. 

 

 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Tachi Rocinante said:

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So The Vow won't show the reunion or talk to India because they were doing their own show for Starz.  A very tiny part of me is side-eyeing this.

 

Well, glad I'm not the only one who feels the same way. Very convenient how things worked out. 

[Bitsy]

Everything that went on in that JNESS class (men giving out "faults" to the women, the women being publicly humiliated and being punished) was straightforward BDSM.   I got the impression that Bonnie sleeping on a dog bed as penance was not something directly ordered by Keith, but resulted from something that went on between her and Mark privately.  She mentioned it was because she'd "said something against Mark". And I think Mark's guilt was because he issued her faults and perhaps even issued the penance (with the original idea coming from Keith, of course).

I don't buy that Mark was so upset and filled with shame because he "let" his wife sleep on a dog bed; I think he had a direct hand in it.  Keith tricked them into living out his BDSM fantasies, but Keith was the only one getting off. 

And I think Mark's freakout was also because he's probably aware of how lucky he is that Bonnie hasn't left him yet (even though I think she will eventually). 

Edited October 13, 2020 by Bitsy