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Seduced: Inside The NXIVM Cult (Starz)


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The interviews here sound a bit rehearsed compared to The Vow, which of course I can't help but compare this to. I'll still watch, of course, as I'm fascinated by this whole story.

I'm glad they're getting some new faces to interview. I look forward to hearing from them.

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"Welcome to the first women's movement started by a man..." Yeah. That right there made me side eye it.

I already like this one episode better than all of THE VOW. And after Catherine's mom called Nancy Salzman an "idiot" and said JNESS was "complete rubbish" I may actually start calling her "Princess Elizabeth".

 

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2 hours ago, mamadrama said:

I already like this one episode better than all of THE VOW. And after Catherine's mom called Nancy Salzman an "idiot" and said JNESS was "complete rubbish" I may actually start calling her "Princess Elizabeth".

That's exactly what I said to myself.  I learned more in this about the cult and its people in just one episode compared to weeks of nothing but seeing Sarah's brand shown over and over again.  Can't believe that I actually saw Nancy Saltzman's daughter, Lauren who she made a sex slave for Keith.  I like that there are many former members that talk about their experiences than HBO used.  It's a good start to a documentary that I think will really show how life really was Inside the NXIVM cult. 

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3 minutes ago, dbklmt said:

That's exactly what I said to myself.  I learned more in this about the cult and its people in just one episode compared to weeks of nothing but seeing Sarah's brand shown over and over again.  Can't believe that I actually saw Nancy Saltzman's daughter, Lauren who she made a sex slave for Keith.  I like that there are many former members that talk about their experiences than HBO used.  It's a good start to a documentary that I think will really show how life really was Inside the NXIVM cult. 

It was really interesting to see Mark and Sarah as background characters. 

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Tabby was Allison's assistant as well as the administrator and builder of her personal website but before that, she ran an Allison Mack fansite. Allison broke a cardinal celebrity rule by making a fan an employee because that's how much adulation she needed.

Weird how The Vow and this doc had their main participants walk through the setting for V Week in the winter as if to exorcise themselves of the ghosts V Weeks Past.

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I liked it. I don’t mind a little rehearsed, I prefer it to be practiced and clear then unrehearsed and meandering. I liked that even with the shots of India at the YMCA they didn’t just have her sit there and explain, they put quite a bit of the real footage in.  

Overall it was good. I wondered if Catherine’s dog bed story was about Bonnie? 

Catherine is more relatable in this compared to the vow.

Give Keith a chance...YIKES!!!

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Much much better than the Vow.  I like Bonnie and Mark, but I couldn’t help but feel that the Vow was also damage control.  Seduced shows how prominent they were in the cult. I’m happy they got out and did the right thing, but I think this show is going to underscore the real damage inflicted.

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Thanks to whoever brought this show up in the thread for The Vow. I already vastly prefer it because it’s more linear and direct. How did people not run for the hills when Keith is talking about raping babies and child molestation. Yikes. 

Also Catherine’s mother was dead on... rubbish is exactly right. I hate the “men think and women feel” horseshit.  It’s so pervasive in our society and also objectively false. Ugh. 

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Much much better than the Vow.  I like Bonnie and Mark, but I couldn’t help but feel that the Vow was also damage control.  Seduced shows how prominent they were in the cult. I’m happy they got out and did the right thing, but I think this show is going to underscore the real damage inflicted.

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3 hours ago, fountain said:

I liked it. I don’t mind a little rehearsed, I prefer it to be practiced and clear then unrehearsed and meandering. I liked that even with the shots of India at the YMCA they didn’t just have her sit there and explain, they put quite a bit of the real footage in.  

Overall it was good. I wondered if Catherine’s dog bed story was about Bonnie? 

Catherine is more relatable in this compared to the vow.

Give Keith a chance...YIKES!!!

It was definitely about Bonnie. It was the exact same story she told in The Vow, right down to the same word choice. 

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Yeah! So glad to have found this thread. I agree that this is a much more detailed look at the cult than The Vow was. And it totally shows that this thing was crap from the start. I loved all of the Princesses' comments about the Jness lecture she attended and how she thought Nancy was an idiot. 


I could not get over Keith's discussion about how incest isn't bad, it's society's reaction to incest that's bad. WHAT?! How on earth can anyone sit in that room and listen to that and not think "NOPE!" and get up and walk right out. That's disgusting and weird and so wrong. 

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Anyone else feel the Oxenbergs are kind of cashing in on this? I know its been said India wasn’t ready to talk but after watching this episode she seems very ready, almost mugging for the camera. Gives me a weird vibe so soon after the big India-free desperate rescue situation just watched in the Vow. 

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5 hours ago, truebluesmoky said:

Are these being released once a week? Which day? Trying to see if I can watch them all during free trials. 😂

Once a week and a new episode will debut on Sunday evening.

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I finally caught up with this and yeah, I agree that in one episode, this is already more compelling than all of The Vow.  In the first half hour alone I got the sorta of glimpse into the inner workings of NXIVM that I had been wanting to see in the other show. 

I love the one talking head expert guy calling Keith an idiot with a string of failed businesses and how he basically cribbed all his psychobabble from other sources and outright called NXIVM a pyramid scheme and drew the parallels to Consumer's Buyline. 

I adore charts and title cards. So when they brought out the charts to show the roadmap to recruiting into ESP and the 'cult' terminology as explained by the cult deprogrammer, I found that so fascinating.  Nancy Salzman and Keith come off as super extra creepy and predatory in this one right off the bat.

But the MVP was Catherine's mother.  I think I cackled out loud when she said "I should have been more rude."  I barely remembered her one scene on The Vow, but here she had a total 'I will cut a bitch' vibe going on and I was all for it!!

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I've gone from refusing to refer to Elizabeth as "Princess" to calling her "Queen."

IMO this series has really highlighted The Vow's shortcomings. It's also actively making me dislike Mark. In hindsight I don't think The Vow presented India or Catherine in the light they deserved. Catherine is far more sympathetic in this one. I wonder if there was some contention from the people involved in The Vow since they knew the Oxenbergs were doing their own series. 

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This is a way better show, but India does sound like she is very scripted and rehearsed in her talking heads. 

Catherine was much more involved than I got from the other series. The Vow made it sound like she attended a class or two, but in this one she admits she did all of level 1 and 2 and paid for India to go further. 

@EdnasEdibles, I also can't get over that huge auditorium full of people with adoring smiles on their faces as KR described sexual abuse of a father to a daughter as something "the daughter likes and is fun for her" until society judges dad so, "who is the real victim here?" For fucks sake, people!

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FINALLY got to see this and within 10 minutes could see that it was miles ahead of The Vow in terms of quality. I have a new level of loathing for every single person featured in The Vow after hearing Keith talk about "rapeable babies" and girls "enjoying" being abused by their fathers. GTFO with your pedophilia, you absolutely sick, disgusting little troll. I'm looking forward to his sentencing oh so much. 

Princess Elizabeth is my new favorite person. 

Agree with you @TVbitch that The Vow made it seem like Catherine simply attended that first, introductory session and then peaced out. And it makes me really question the veracity of everything else that was presented as that's a fairly large detail to be "fuzzy" on. 

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9 hours ago, MicheleinPhilly said:

FINALLY got to see this and within 10 minutes could see that it was miles ahead of The Vow in terms of quality. I have a new level of loathing for every single person featured in The Vow after hearing Keith talk about "rapeable babies" and girls "enjoying" being abused by their fathers. GTFO with your pedophilia, you absolutely sick, disgusting little troll. I'm looking forward to his sentencing oh so much. 

 

And that's where I am with The Vow people...You listened to him lecturing about rapeable babies but drew the line on the branding? (NOT that the branding wasn't bad, but...)

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Lol at Keith's highest IQ score evah! only existing in the Australian version of The Guinness Book of World Records.  Oh, and his 3 degrees....that he barely graduated with a C-average. But how could they forget his Judo championship???

What was up with all that fingertip nuzzling and lip grazing in the animation depicting India learning about DOS from Allison?

India comes across as very disingenuous to me. I'm not sure what it is. It could be because, as many of you have pointed out, that her segments seem to be very scripted. But I don't know...She couldn't even come up with tears during her "crying scene".

I wanted to hear more from the woman who talked about being uncomfortable with all the rape grooming because of what happened to her as a child.  I'm interested in how much longer she stayed after participating in the JNESS/SOP, since her chyron said she was in the program through 2016 or 2017. And if she stayed, why and how did she rationalize it.  But they jumped so quickly onto something else.  

 

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21 hours ago, mamadrama said:

Well, after episode 2 Mark Vicente is back on my shit list. 

Same. The Vow definitely skirted over his heinous behavior. After just 2 episodes of this, none of the featured people in The Vow are remotely sympathetic. Except perhaps Bonnie. 

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I mean... I mean...

Keith:  You are not a rape victim unless you believe you are a rape victim.  You victimize yourself.

Also Keith: Whatever happened to you wasn’t so bad cuz you are still alive. 

So basically you didn't suffer trauma you only told yourself you did and even if you did suffer trauma, unless you died from it, it was  no big!

I mean....

They did hit upon the humiliation and the SOP stuff in the other doc, but here it is layed out so clearly that it is horrifying. Also, WTF with showing women horrific scenes of murder, mutilation and violence just to record their reaction?  That is some next level Victorian era quackery right there..!

I mean...

But I LOL'd my ass off at Keith's 'High IQ' info in one never again produced Australian edition of The Guiness Book of World records based on some IQ test from some guy nobody every heard of. 

Also I have to wonder what people like Mark feel after touting Keith's creds as a Philosopher and Scientist when he graduated with an undergraduate degree barely over the state mandated gpa minimum? 

I also wonder how Mark feels watching this since it paints him in a much harsher light than his doc does?  He just comes off as Smithers to Keith's Monty Burns.

 

Edited by DearEvette
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So they touch upon a little bit of Keith's childhood. Parents divorced when he was young and he ended up having to take care of his mother until he was an adult. 

So that's why he hates women and thinks himself so much of a victim of horrible women.

Eeeshh.

 I cannot believe these people spend thousand upon thousands on this tripe. 

On 10/20/2020 at 2:09 PM, EdnasEdibles said:

I could not get over Keith's discussion about how incest isn't bad, it's society's reaction to incest that's bad. WHAT?! How on earth can anyone sit in that room and listen to that and not think "NOPE!" and get up and walk right out. That's disgusting and weird and so wrong.

If I would have been stuck in that ridiculous session with Keith and he asked who is to blame in that incest relationship, I would have screamed "the pedophile rapist father" and then pointed at Keith and said "and you sicko creep."

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India DOES sound scripted and rehearsed but the information is so crazy (and interesting) that I can overlook that. I still have mixed feelings about HER, but I'm enjoying (if that's the right word) the series.

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Keith is so pathetic. That whole "official/fish hole" joke was both offensive yet deeply unfunny.

I also loved the bit about him being in literally one edition of the Australian version of the Guiness book of world records in 1989.

4 hours ago, mamadrama said:

Keith: There's no such thing as a victim!

Also Keith (requesting a new trial): I'm a victim of unethical prosecution!

🙄

Www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1244604

Ah yes, the old "good for me but not for thee" defense! I hope he gets locked up for a long time.

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3 hours ago, pigs-in-space said:

Keith is so pathetic. That whole "official/fish hole" joke was both offensive yet deeply unfunny.

I also loved the bit about him being in literally one edition of the Australian version of the Guiness book of world records in 1989.

Ah yes, the old "good for me but not for thee" defense! I hope he gets locked up for a long time.

That's the best "joke" that the world's greatest philosopher and smartest man could come up with? 

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6 hours ago, mamadrama said:

India DOES sound scripted and rehearsed but the information is so crazy (and interesting) that I can overlook that. I still have mixed feelings about HER, but I'm enjoying (if that's the right word) the series.

Yeah, not sure if enjoying is the right term because so much of this is just so sick and twisted, but I'm with you. It's been discussed about how even though these are documentaries, there's still always a point of view. With The Vow it was Mark, Sarah, Bonnie and here it's India. As she was describing all her feelings about being drawn in and the unease she felt at various times, I kept thinking about the women who ended up becoming her slaves. Did they have all those same feelings about India 'seducing' them into this thing that India had about Allison? What processes did they have to go through to be "good" slaves?  I'll be curious if this doc touches on them at all.

They did say last night that of all the 150 or so slaves only one agreed to talk - and I wish we would have had a lot more from her point of view. This is not to say that India wasn't victimized, she was, but I'd like to see more from the women who weren't performers by profession or adjacent to that. India is giving a performance of her feelings - just as Sarah, Mark and Bonnie did - as someone said, there were no tears in that breakdown. 

And though I may sound like I'm skeptical about India, I'm not. I believe her. I believe that things happened the way she's describing. I just wish these documentaries didn't both hinge on the "name" people. Give me more of the woman who grew up in a cult and then found herself in one as an adult. 

I am appreciating that they have the experts interjecting facts about how psychological manipulation works and how cults, and other control groups, work. 

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2 hours ago, mamadrama said:

That's the best "joke" that the world's greatest philosopher and smartest man could come up with? 

The whole official/fish joke was so gross and so 12 year old that I couldn't even handle it and that's doing a disservice to 12 year olds. And the Smithers/Burns comparison is right on, because you can hear Mark being a Billy Bush and giggling politely in the background unable to tell his True Hero Keith that the joke is gross. Good lord, Mark. I pity him too much to hate him fully. But good lord. 

I used to watch Intervention a ton and it would be really interesting to see what people went through that led to them being able to break down or fall into addiction. For example, sometimes you'd see an addict and they'd been through hell. Like absolute hell. Beaten and molested and just treated like garbage and you watch and say "Oh man, I totally get why you needed something to soften the world around you." and then you'd meet someone and their story was like "My parents got divorced when I was 15. They had an amicable divorce but my mom started playing tennis a lot and wasn't home that often." and you're like "OK, and that's why you decided to shoot heroin into your toes?"  That's how I feel about Keith's story. OK, so your parent's divorced. You were gifted and your mom got sick . . . therefore, you hate women and started an abusive cult? Wha? What else happened there? There has to be something. Because this is honestly just enough for you to see a therapist weekly in adulthood and maybe have avoidant attachment issues. 

The story about the woman in Alaska is heartbreaking and I never thought about that aspects of cult life. Like they scramble your brain and if you don't go full hog into it like India or Sarah or Mark, you're just left with this deeply scary situation and no safe place to go. That poor woman. 

 

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1 hour ago, EdnasEdibles said:

The story about the woman in Alaska is heartbreaking and I never thought about that aspects of cult life. Like they scramble your brain and if you don't go full hog into it like India or Sarah or Mark, you're just left with this deeply scary situation and no safe place to go. That poor woman. 

 

I watched "The Lost Women of NXIVM" from the ID channel last week, and it followed Frank Whats-his-face investigating the death of the woman in Alaska.  Interesting that this show didn't touch on that many people think she was actually murdered because she may have been impregnated by Keith! And that the "suicide in the bay" was a set up to throw people off the trail.  

2 hours ago, Pop Tart said:

They did say last night that of all the 150 or so slaves only one agreed to talk - and I wish we would have had a lot more from her point of view. This is not to say that India wasn't victimized, she was, but I'd like to see more from the women who weren't performers by profession or adjacent to that. India is giving a performance of her feelings - just as Sarah, Mark and Bonnie did - as someone said, there were no tears in that breakdown. 

And though I may sound like I'm skeptical about India, I'm not. I believe her. I believe that things happened the way she's describing. I just wish these documentaries didn't both hinge on the "name" people. Give me more of the woman who grew up in a cult and then found herself in one as an adult. 

That's how I feel as well.  They're only giving us short bits of the folks with actually interesting stories and who didn't have lots of power in the organizations. And as much as I am not a fan of Mark, I give India side-eye every time she talks about him because I keep wondering if the women she recruited and/or made her slave feel the same way about her. And she is very performative.

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Wow...Mark Vicente sure didn’t give full disclosure of his bad behavior in the Vow.  He is not getting a good edit in this show....which is also far better than the Vow.  I’m wondering just how much money Mark and Sarah we’re making before they bailed.

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1 hour ago, EdnasEdibles said:

The story about the woman in Alaska is heartbreaking and I never thought about that aspects of cult life. Like they scramble your brain and if you don't go full hog into it like India or Sarah or Mark, you're just left with this deeply scary situation and no safe place to go. That poor woman. 

Yeah, I found that so sad.  Also the one woman who had the psychotic break after only six months to go crying and running away while half naked.

I never paid much attention to the psychology of cults.  But this doc is doing a good job, imo, of showing all the different methods of indoctrinating people.  There is the guise of a benign looking set of self help and professional development courses that work as a gateway and then from there you get persuasion and isolation.  They create a system of reward and merit that is wholly arbitrary.  They get you on the hook financially and not only make you dependent on them financially but frighten you with financial reprisal, they deprive you of sleep and surround you with people who are already indoctrinated so you are forced to question your own perspective. And then they create a false aura of exclusivity and access that is to be attained by any cost.    It was so sad the way India would say how jealous she was of anyone who got the Orange sash.  But I could totally see it. They make a whole big thing and production of it.  I remember Bonnie making a similar comment about how they kept moving the goalposts and really wanting to get that next sash.  Primarily because it meant money, but also because there was a status level attached to it.  I could easily see how all of that -- especially coupled with the exhaustion and lack of money -- would re-wire your brain and work hadn in hand to modify your behavior and really fuck up your judgement.

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This documentary is so much more detailed, it makes the Vow unnecessary. The Vow comes off more and more as trying to portray its main four characters in a good light. This one does the same for India, but less egregiously. At least she is not running down the street yelling "we did it!" like a superhero who took down a villain. 

India still needs a lot of counseling. The only time she "cried" and couldn't continue with her script was when she talked about how much Alison lied to her. She is not over that Alison did not really care about her, just like Mark cannot get over that Keith did not really care about him.  

What can even be said about KR at this point. He convinces the men that rape is okay and should be enjoyed. Convinces the women that there is really no such thing as rape, and that they might even actually like it if they stopped playing the victim. ...sounds like a guy who is really into rape. He even mentnioned raping a cat. ~Please get a life sentence!

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7 hours ago, EdnasEdibles said:

I used to watch Intervention a ton and it would be really interesting to see what people went through that led to them being able to break down or fall into addiction. For example, sometimes you'd see an addict and they'd been through hell. Like absolute hell. Beaten and molested and just treated like garbage and you watch and say "Oh man, I totally get why you needed something to soften the world around you." and then you'd meet someone and their story was like "My parents got divorced when I was 15. They had an amicable divorce but my mom started playing tennis a lot and wasn't home that often." and you're like "OK, and that's why you decided to shoot heroin into your toes?"  That's how I feel about Keith's story. OK, so your parent's divorced. You were gifted and your mom got sick . . . therefore, you hate women and started an abusive cult? Wha? What else happened there? There has to be something. Because this is honestly just enough for you to see a therapist weekly in adulthood and maybe have avoidant attachment issues. 

A lot of gifted kids fall off later in life when they reach the age where their talents are no longer unusual. Clearly Keith fell off in college where he barely maintained a C average. It could be that he had high expectations for himself and upon realizing that he was no longer special, his entitlement led him to resent other successful people and caused him to curdle.

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On 10/25/2020 at 12:46 AM, mamadrama said:

Well, after episode 2 Mark Vicente is back on my shit list. 

Me too! Giggling along to the fish hole joke - blech. So poor Mark went from being bullied as a kid to laughing along with the bullies at other people’s pain. Also, how much money did he make off of the poor people he lured in? When they mentioned that NXIVM discouraged monogamy, was I the only one who suspected shenanigans with Mark, Sarah, Nippy, and Bonnie? 

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Are you "READY"?   I'm "READY" for Keith to be sentenced to life imprisonment.  His sentencing is scheduled for October 27th.  I'm eagerly awaiting waking up to good news that he's going away for the rest of his life!

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I admit I was more forgiving of Nippy (although that name is unforgivable) because I saw him with his son and he has the all American boyish good looks, but he acted like a real asshole as leader of that He-Man Woman-Haters group. That was some real bullshit and he should feel guilty about it (as he claimed to in The Vow).

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On 10/25/2020 at 10:38 PM, DearEvette said:

Also I have to wonder what people like Mark feel after touting Keith's creds as a Philosopher and Scientist when he graduated with an undergraduate degree barely over the state mandated gpa minimum? 

Every time someone says "curriculum" or "science" or "technology" in relation to NXIVM, I have the same visceral reaction to hearing Scientology described as a "church" and its adherents as "parishioners." Just, no. 

I was also getting Scientology 2.0 vibes from the woman that talked about going into 80-100K of debt because they would approach her with "new" materials and courses. Leah Remini talks all the time about how they kept milking you for money when they "discovered" new L. Ron Hubbard writings. 🙄

10 minutes into this and my SO and I were discussing how annoyed we are at having wasted 9 hours of our life on The Vow. I mean, you have hundreds if not thousands of hours of footage to draw from and not once did you think to include any clips of "Justifying Rape 101"??? Oh that's right, you didn't. Because then you wouldn't be able to paint yourself as a victim of Keith's charisma and compelling "teachings." 🤬These people are gross. 

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4 hours ago, Armchair Critic said:

I admit I was more forgiving of Nippy (although that name is unforgivable) because I saw him with his son and he has the all American boyish good looks, but he acted like a real asshole as leader of that He-Man Woman-Haters group. That was some real bullshit and he should feel guilty about it (as he claimed to in The Vow).

I think this was the first time I learned that his given name is Anthony. How does one get from that to Nippy? Tony, sure. Ant, I can see it, maybe. But Nippy? 

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4 hours ago, Armchair Critic said:

I admit I was more forgiving of Nippy (although that name is unforgivable) because I saw him with his son and he has the all American boyish good looks, but he acted like a real asshole as leader of that He-Man Woman-Haters group. That was some real bullshit and he should feel guilty about it (as he claimed to in The Vow).

I think this is why I don't feel as strongly about Nippy as I do Mark. Nippy seems willing to admit that he was an asshole. There seems to be some, even if minor, part of him willing to accept responsibility for at least a part of it. Mark is still clinging to the "good guy taken advantage of" schlock.

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19 hours ago, TVbitch said:

This documentary is so much more detailed, it makes the Vow unnecessary. The Vow comes off more and more as trying to portray its main four characters in a good light. This one does the same for India, but less egregiously. At least she is not running down the street yelling "we did it!" like a superhero who took down a villain. 

To be fair, she was still deep in the cult at that point. Who's to say she wouldn't have behaved the same if she had left before Keith was arrested.

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