What TV shows are you watching?

[Lisnaholic]

Oh, yeah ...that. It was a bit of a surprise. A dismal surprise.

I sat there watching in disbelief, thinking "This is allowed on Netflix ?!?"

[Hope]

I sat there watching in disbelief, thinking "This is allowed on Netflix ?!?"

 

Not only that, but it seemed out of place with the overall tone of the show up until that point. Makes me wonder what else they have up their sleeve.

[Lisnaholic]

Yes, that's a good point, Mona. That episode just doesn't fit in well with the style or story: it's like the director/writer had this one fetish that he/she wanted to explore, and they finally got the chance to do it. Another possibility is this:

I read once how money sometimes runs short while making a series, and the producers are obliged to put in a real low-budget episode. It happens in the excellent series, Breaking Bad, where in one episode there are just two actors chasing a fly around in a lab. It has "filler episode" written all over it: reduced cast, no set changes, and no advancement to the actual story. That is perhaps true of the Outlander gaol-cell episode - but I won't be watching it again to check out my theory ! 

[Guybrush]

Gods, I hated the Breaking Bad fly episode. Why are you wasting my time with this dumbass fly-catching slapstick? Yuck.

[Lisnaholic]

Yes, "slap-stick" is the exact, well-chosen word, Guybrush! Even on a low budget it's perfectly possible to write a gripping episode: it's the kind of thing playwrights have been doing for centuries. I ended up being angry at the producers, and also annoyed with myself for having watched the episode all  the way through, in the dwindling hope that it would improve at some point.   

[Guybrush]

Anyone else watching The Fall of the House of Usher?

It's very well made, but sorely lacking in characters likeable enough to make me care about the horrors that might happen.

Stil fairly entertaining, though.

[Hope]

Yes, that's a good point, Mona. That episode just doesn't fit in well with the style or story: it's like the director/writer had this one fetish that he/she wanted to explore, and they finally got the chance to do it.

I made it through season 2 in Paris and there was quite the interesting turn at the end. I've been very invested in watching since then.

It was a bit sad before because you knew how it was supposed to end, but it's different now.

[Guybrush]

I watched the HBO documentary on the Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God.

It's about a small cult built around mother god, a middle aged woman with a severe drinking problem. She has a cult of enablers who think she's god and I assume the cult also became her prison, in certain ways hindering her access to care that might have helped her. As she slowly dies from alcoholism, the cult spins a story about how her failing health is actually from carrying humanity's pain or something? Nutjobs. Oh, and they're taking lots of messages from the ghost of Robin Williams who certainly had quite a bit to say after his death and not always funny things either.

I already knew a bit about the cult and this Mother God as I caught the news of the discovery of her dead body kept by cult members from a podcast around the time it happened. Something that intrigued me back then was the corpse was supposedly blue and somewhat mummified due to all the colloidal silver she'd been drinking. They thought it would help her. Newsflash: drinking silver is not healthy.

The documentary was pretty good. One thing which is great is there's tons of footage from life inside the cult because they filmed so much to either livestream or upload to YouTube. Also, most of the talking heads are the actual cult members giving their stories.

I find cults and their dedicated LARPing fascinating and this doc was pretty good.

[Guybrush]

I'm fascinated by cults, so I also watched the Twin Flames doc on Netflix while sick and working from home. I just had it on in the background while working on other stuff.

This started out as a matchmaking service, sort of, but quickly turned into a full-on cult with its own belief system and the usual trappings, like people being told their parents are demon infested people who must be avoided. The point of this cult was matching people up with their "twin flames" (destined romantic partners) and the cult leaders, a couple, are the only ones who know who people's twin flames are. Twin flames should be pursued at any cost, even the unwilling ones, essentially turning some of the members with twin flames outside of the cult into stalkers. One of the people interviewed ends up doing prison time for months due to this.

Then it just gets crazier. The leaders make a food company and make their members buy their meal plans or whatever so a lot of them put on weight. And the cult has so few guys in it, the leaders are kinda forced to matchmake female same sex unions. Because most of them are not lesbian, they get around this problem by announcing one of them as being divine masculine and the other as being divine feminine. Some of those designated something they physically don't align with end up doing surgery, like having breasts removed.

Among all this grief they're causing, the leaders are of course also sucking their members fiscally dry.

It's the sort of thing I hope more people see so that hopefully people are reminded to not be so gullible and that these leaders get thrown in jail where they belong.

[Psy-Fi]

Who loves ya, baby?

[DJChameleon]

I'm fascinated by cults, so I also watched the Twin Flames doc on Netflix while sick and working from home. I just had it on in the background while working on other stuff.

This started out as a matchmaking service, sort of, but quickly turned into a full-on cult with its own belief system and the usual trappings, like people being told their parents are demon infested people who must be avoided. The point of this cult was matching people up with their "twin flames" (destined romantic partners) and the cult leaders, a couple, are the only ones who know who people's twin flames are. Twin flames should be pursued at any cost, even the unwilling ones, essentially turning some of the members with twin flames outside of the cult into stalkers. One of the people interviewed ends up doing prison time for months due to this.

Then it just gets crazier. The leaders make a food company and make their members buy their meal plans or whatever so a lot of them put on weight. And the cult has so few guys in it, the leaders are kinda forced to matchmake female same sex unions. Because most of them are not lesbian, they get around this problem by announcing one of them as being divine masculine and the other as being divine feminine. Some of those designated something they physically don't align with end up doing surgery, like having breasts removed.

Among all this grief they're causing, the leaders are of course also sucking their members fiscally dry.

It's the sort of thing I hope more people see so that hopefully people are reminded to not be so gullible and that these leaders get thrown in jail where they belong.

Yeah I watched that and it just reminded me of how new age religions start out and just major culty vibes.

One thing that kept bothering me is that the head guy was not even attractive like normal cult leaders, he didn't even have the right amount of charisma either. It's just that he took advantage of severely lonely people and it worked. He needs to get thrown under the jail.

[Guybrush]

Yeah I watched that and it just reminded me of how new age religions start out and just major culty vibes.

One thing that kept bothering me is that the head guy was not even attractive like normal cult leaders, he didn't even have the right amount of charisma either. It's just that he took advantage of severely lonely people and it worked. He needs to get thrown under the jail.

Yes, it's baffling. How does this absolute phoney douchebag and his weird wife manage to have such control over these people? His tantrums etc. I wonder if some people just find psychopathic behaviour enthralling.

[DJChameleon]

Yes, it's baffling. How does this absolute phoney douchebag and his weird wife manage to have such control over these people? His tantrums etc. I wonder if some people just find psychopathic behaviour enthralling.

It definitely has to do with the fact that they are lonely and I feel like they just ignore that behavior and it doesn't stand out to them as something out of the ordinary until later on.

The longing to find someone in life and not be alone is a strong feeling to tap into. I will give him credit for recognizing that in the first place to set up his con system.

[Guybrush]

It definitely has to do with the fact that they are lonely and I feel like they just ignore that behavior and it doesn't stand out to them as something out of the ordinary until later on.

The longing to find someone in life and not be alone is a strong feeling to tap into. I will give him credit for recognizing that in the first place to set up his con system.

Yup and it does seem like quite a few people did wake up and smelled his bullshit, but ofc at the end of the doc, it says the cult is still expanding. I hope that's not true anymore and that this doc essentially kills it.

Watching it also reminded me I should see The Vow. The Twin Flames leader guy makes his followers watch it to convince them that he's not a cult leader like Keith Raniere (which seems to not have the intended effect on them).

So now I'm watching The Vow on HBO which is about NXIVM, Keith Raniere's large cult. Most have probably read about Allison Mack's involvement in trapping young women in a secret society where they got hot iron branded with Keith Raniere's initials and made to have sex with him.

The Vow is quite long, spanning a lot of episodes and two seasons, so I'm not quite at the juiciest crimes yet, but it's still fascinating.

[DJChameleon]

Yup and it does seem like quite a few people did wake up and smelled his bullshit, but ofc at the end of the doc, it says the cult is still expanding. I hope that's not true anymore and that this doc essentially kills it.

Watching it also reminded me I should see The Vow. The Twin Flames leader guy makes his followers watch it to convince them that he's not a cult leader like Keith Raniere (which seems to not have the intended effect on them).

So now I'm watching The Vow on HBI which is about NXIVM, Keith Raniere's large cult. Most have probably read about Allison Mack's involvement in trapping young women in a secret society where they got hot iron branded with Keith Raniere's initials and made to have sex with him.

The Vow is quite long, spanning a lot of episodes and two seasons, so I'm not quite at the juiciest crimes yet, but it's still fascinating.

I need to watch The Vow, I think the cult was located kind of close to me in upstate NY. IIRC, but I was sadden to hear that Allison Mack was involved in it because I had such a huge crush on her during the Smallville days. She also tried to get her Smallville co-star to join NXIVM.

Yes the cult is very much alive and kicking. Twin Flames, I went on their website to like look for more information. I was thinking about applying to try to join just so I could troll the shit out of it the entire time but I didn't follow through. Also they might be wary of new applicants but I'm sure this documentary has given them potential new members. You know how the saying goes, any press/exposure is good press.

Keith was also another one of those like "ew I can't believe he's a cult leader he's not that charming looking but he's definitely more charismatic than the dude leading Twin Flames.