Now this was a lot to take in, and I'm having a difficult time deciding where to even start from. The 5-episode series was definitely packed.
I was confused a lot, as this series assumes the viewer knows how churches work. I didn't get a clear picture of how exactly this community interacts and how it spreads it's message; glimpses of footage was shown off from some gatherings, but I had no idea what most of them were about . It would've helped to have longer screentime for Weigh Down and other church activities.
I feel like this could've been pushed to be 3 episodes instead with a little more comprehensive timeline and portrayal of both the leaders and their closest people. It was a bit inconsistent and hard to follow, and I was struggling to keep up with all the people involved. Having babysitters and hairstylists to pitch in was a little much, since the evident gaslighting done by Gwen was clearly stated many times in all of the episodes. It felt like the same loop was done a few times with the interviews.
I try not to bring my personal views up in reviews, but this was something that bothered me the entire time: Some of the ex-members described, how efficiently they were stripped from their own consciousness, critical thinking skills and values... so much that they beat their own children for the sake of the church. Cultists are told to have good manipulation tactics, but I still can't even begin to fathom, how do you not stop yourself at the suggestion of abusing your own?
This series felt like a mix of documentation and a way for the cult's old members to send out a message. As a documentary series it needed to be more cohesive, but I guess I got enough information to form a picture of what goes inside this cult. Despite all my confusion, the interviewees made it very clear: steer away from Remnant.
