Revisiting ‘The Vow’: Season 2 Recap with Ayla Fitzpatrick

[00:00:00] This winter, take your icon pass north. North to abundant access. To powder skiing legacy. To independent spirit. North where easy to get to. Meets worlds away. Go north to snow basin. Now on the icon pass.

[00:00:26] The views and opinions expressed by a little bit cultier, those are the hosts. And don't reflect the official policy or position of the podcast, right Sarah?

[00:00:35] Correct. Any of the quote fire content, I prefer lava content provided by our guest blogger sponsors or authors of the opinion and are not intended to malign a religion, a group, a club, an organization, business individual, anyone or anything unless Sarah? You're a douchebag.

[00:00:52] Yeah, I mean pretty much. Also we're not doctors, psychologists or wizards. We're just two non experts trying to make you a friendly informative podcast based on our experience that we've turned into wisdom. Good talk.

[00:01:05] Hey everybody, Sarah Edmondson here and I'm Anthony Ames aka Nippy, Sarah's husband and you're listening to A Little Bit Culty aka ALBC, a podcast about what happens when devotion goes to the dark side.

[00:01:27] We've been there and back again. A little about us, true story we met and fell in love in a cult and then we woke up and got the hell out of dodge. The whole thing was captured in HBO docu-series The Vow now in its second season.

[00:01:42] I also wrote about our experience in my memoir, Scarred, the true story of how I escaped Nexium, the cult that bound my life.

[00:01:48] Look at us, couple of married podcasters who just happened to have a weekly date night where we interview experts and advocates and things like cult awareness and mind control. Wait, wait, this does not count toward date night babe. We got to schedule that that's separate.

[00:02:02] So it's two days? We gotta hang out? We do this podcast thing because we learned a lot on our exit ramp out of Nexium. Still on that journey and we want to pay the lessons forward with the help of other cult survivors and whistleblowers.

[00:02:13] We know all too well that culty things happen. It happens to people every day across every walk of life. So join us each week to tackle these culty dynamics everywhere from online dating to mega churches and multi-level market.

[00:02:25] This stuff really is everywhere. The Cultiverse just keeps on expanding and so are we. Welcome to season five of A Little Bit Cultie, serving cult content and word salads weekly on your favorite podcast platforms. Learn more at alittlebitculti.com

[00:02:43] And we're Action Live Sarah. Three, two, one, you're on girl. Hey everybody, welcome back. Everybody. How many people is that Sarah? Over a hundred thousand for episode. Thank you very much. Listeners.

[00:03:11] Thank you for sharing this podcast and for getting it out there. We are growing and we appreciate you. Let's do some basic math here. 17,000 people went through the... Okay and now we're up to 120... Okay, he's checking. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Change in the world. Anyway, how did you work?

[00:03:28] Okay guys. So as promised, we are going to do today for you very special a season two, the VOW, aka the Vow Recap. This was difficult. We've been promising this for a while but we had to recover.

[00:03:41] We had to recover. It was a holiday but also we had to recover. It's been a while just taking the time to percolate on all the things that have transpired, things that we learned in the Vow season two and literally just to let it all settle.

[00:03:55] Move into a new place. We also moved into a new place. It's great being in the same room with you. Now people aren't going to complain about me cutting you off anymore. Don't cut me off. I know if that's true but we'll see. We'll see what happens.

[00:04:07] So what happened here was that Nipi and I were planning this episode and then we were kind of like, I don't want to say bored with each other but we just didn't really want to do it just by ourselves.

[00:04:18] Bored is a strong word however, sometimes appropriate. I don't know if it's bored, it's just, I need my space.

[00:04:24] Sometimes... Also sometimes it's nice to have a third perspective so we thought it would be fun to have a very special guest interview us about what we thought about season two of the VOW and we chose somebody who's kind of a perfect expert, what do you think?

[00:04:41] Yeah. And just a great personality and person to kick things around with and ultimately ended up being a supporter of us. Yeah. And somebody that we met through this whole debacle. Actually I haven't met her in person. Nipi has met her in person.

[00:04:53] Yeah. So Aila Fitzpatrick worked in Albany, New York at News 10 ABC covering Nexium. She reported on the arrest and the trial of Keith Reneary and has continued to follow daily updates on the case.

[00:05:06] And she's also been working with N-Works in South Carolina although she's no longer a working journalist. She keeps up to date with what's going on in the cult of us.

[00:05:13] You might recognize here, I think there's footage of her in the VOW doing a mad dash sprint to the courthouse. Yes. You've definitely seen her in both seasons of the VOW with a microphone in hand and long brown hair and looking very professional.

[00:05:26] And she's become a virtual friend as it happens in this day and age. Yeah. She's one state over. Yeah. One state over. So let us introduce you to Aila that runs with Kayla. We were calling her Aila for a long time until we...

[00:05:39] Actually, I wasn't. She corrected me. Enjoy this episode and there will be lots more debrief. If you haven't seen it already, there's our reactions after every episode as you probably all know by now on our Patreon. You can see those... Patreon.

[00:05:56] We are post episode debrief lives. We are going to start more lives and on our Patreon this week if you want to continue this conversation, we got lots of questions and commentary that we asked our audience there about what's your favorite moment?

[00:06:11] What do you want to see more of? What did you want to see less of? And so we'll be having part two of this discussion. More interface. Yeah.

[00:06:18] And to hear that, you only have to do the what level is that? The $10 a month, which includes an extra episode every week and after listening, which I think is a pretty amazing price. That being said, here you go. Aila. Fitzpatrick. Hi, Aila. Hi.

[00:06:52] Thank you for jumping on and being our first special guest getting to interview us. I can't believe we've never met in person, which sucks, but we're going to change that now that we're all in the south. Isn't that crazy? We're all in the south?

[00:07:00] Yeah, I'm really nippy and I have met. Oh, that's great. At the courthouse. In the overflow room. I'll never forget. I was always trying to figure out who you were because I didn't know who you were.

[00:07:10] I was trying to figure out like which side you were on what was okay to say to you and like what wasn't okay to say to you? To be frank, I was still kind of in the embarrassment shame mode.

[00:07:19] I didn't really want to talk to anyone and but I also was there because I wanted to see that guy burn. Big a lot of us were in that same boat.

[00:07:26] And also I didn't know who was who like former friends and they were in the overflow room and I just didn't care about getting into it with anyone. I missed out. Yeah, for sure. I have FOMO from three years whatever that was three years ago, four years ago.

[00:07:40] You had a newborn. I was nursing a newborn. What a weird like FOMO thing to have about such a strange topic, but it is kind of you know something that is a big part of y'all's story. So I get it totally.

[00:07:53] It was a mixture of like I'm so glad I'm not there and also I really wanted to be there.

[00:07:58] I'm glad we weren't a part of it and I'm glad that our story was at the central focal point and what we had done and handed it off to the powers that be to go in really find the crimes that put them away.

[00:08:10] I mean ours were peripheral, peripheral not only that but also like I wasn't confident. Our story was enough to put him away and then once we started finding out what was really going on, ours seemed kind of superficial in terms of how abusive and how bad it was.

[00:08:27] Yeah, we got off lightly in comparison. Yeah. Well, Sarah I know how you love segues and that feels like a great segue kind of into the season two of the vow because it's kind of a similar thing.

[00:08:38] You know your stories set up season one but then season two really got into all that stuff that if he was just talking about.

[00:08:46] Yes, and that was kind of a relief like a lot of people asked us, you know how do you feel about it and like you're not in it as much is that okay and I'm like this is the amount that we were in it overall was just perfect for

[00:08:58] you know the fact that we were in a new city and we were moving and like the onslaught of response just even based on how little we were focused on was almost too much to handle.

[00:09:10] So I can't even imagine if we were this, you know the center point as much as we were in season one that I may have not survived that emotionally. Do you think it was re-traumatizing enough? Yeah, and also I think way more people saw season one. That's true.

[00:09:29] Season two was fine for me putting this in the rear view mirror has been my MO from the get.

[00:09:35] But also don't you find like season two like every episode was it like with the Tretz episode the Lauren episode the Daniela episode we'll break those down later but generally like we you know our presence was sort of there throughout but the focus was more on these other people and we knew what had happened because we followed the

[00:09:52] trial but like many people didn't know what happened to Daniela and didn't know what Keith promised Lauren so to kind of relive those terrible things with the rest of the world.

[00:10:04] I mean it's like I'm not watching things that happen to me and watching things that people like cared about and even though I knew it it was still like another wave of holy fuck.

[00:10:14] It's definitely strange when you have that knowledge and it's kind of one of those things where you feel like well this is such a big part of the situation that this must just be knowledge that everyone has and then to go back and realize that some of those things like the room and everything with Lauren is brand new information for a lot of people who like you said weren't there for the trial and don't already know that those things happened.

[00:10:40] Totally, you were there for most of the trial right?

[00:10:42] For a big chunk of the first part and most of the last part of the trial so because I was working you know for a new station the ABC affiliate up in Albany at the time obviously there was news to go back and do in Albany during this trial as well and that's kind of something where as a local new station you struggle with a little bit kind of figuring out when to cover and what to cover.

[00:11:06] So we were really looking at you know who is going to be taking the stand and what what we thought was going to be important to be there for but also with a federal trial it's so it's so close to the chest they don't give a lot of information ahead of time you know ahead of the day of so you kind of have to guess and hope that you're right and that you're there for for this stuff that's important.

[00:11:27] Had you heard of the next few stuff before it blew up?

[00:11:29] So the first time I heard of it was actually when I saw the New York Times article Sarah that you know you obviously kind of gained some notoriety from and opened the floodgates and I've written this down in a few different forms because it almost feels like a memory that would be a scene out of a movie for me you know I was sitting in my bed 10 minutes away from Clifton Park reading this article about all of this stuff and I was like this can't be Albany, New York.

[00:11:59] This has to be Albany, Georgia, Albany not heard of before. Like there's no way this is happening literally 10 minutes from where I'm sitting right now.

[00:12:10] And after that for me my journalism brain just kind of kicked on and I was like I am gonna dig and I'm going to find people to talk to and I'm going to figure out everything I can figure out about this because even then I felt behind there was so much that had already happened.

[00:12:26] And I already felt behind and I wanted to know everything I just have a very curious mind like that.

[00:12:32] And it took some time to be able to do the story on a local news level because you have to wait for a lot of things to come out to be able to support your reporting, but once that happened was very behind me on you know pushing those stories doing daily updates and doing whatever we could do to kind of do our part in all of it which seems so small

[00:12:55] compared to the part that you know you all had to play in it but I think it was still important for sure. Well ironically the word we would have used back in the day would have been interdependence.

[00:13:05] It was an interdependent project of shining light wouldn't you say Nipi? Sure Sarah.

[00:13:11] Overknown that this like vocab word pops up into my mind and I'm like it's a word you know it's a word that people use in reality but it was also a word that was like you know abused to get people to do things like oh well if you work interdependent

[00:13:24] then you will be okay with scrubbing toilets for free you know for example. But yeah so since you covered it so extensively what did you think of the vow season two because so much of it was legal reenactment or trial reenactment overall?

[00:13:40] Did you feel like it captured the essence? It was so different than what I was expecting it to be but not necessarily in a bad way or a good way just a lot different.

[00:13:51] I thought the reenactments of the core transcripts were a good way to kind of get across you know their exact words that happened in the trial and really kind of just kept it.

[00:14:02] It's hard to take what someone said in such an emotional time in their life and something that really impacted them so much and then paraphrase it and try to get across the same emotion in the same meaning.

[00:14:16] So I was glad that they didn't try to do that for the most part that mostly they just did the core reenactment transcripts which I thought was a good move on their part. I don't know how you guys feel about that. I totally agree.

[00:14:28] Also without cameras in there you have to have something that's the next best thing I guess to put it because I think paraphrasing it's you don't get toned.

[00:14:36] I mean so much is lost in translation so I mean unless there's something that could be better than that audio or something like that I don't think you could convey it any better than that.

[00:14:44] And that was something that a lot of us journalists who were there did you know in real time as well we would get the full transcript after the day was over.

[00:14:54] We would get an email to us and I would go back through in my hotel room and I would just read the whole transcript again because even sitting there when you're used to being able to have a recording system and then you're not able to.

[00:15:06] I mean your hand can only move so fast and only take so many notes.

[00:15:10] So that was something that you know at least I did I sat there and I would go through the transcripts and I would I would live tweet the transcripts as I was reading back through them again.

[00:15:22] So those were a big part of my reporting so it was interesting that they pulled from that too. What of all the days you covered left the strongest impression on you of what was going on and how you understood what was going on.

[00:15:35] Better than the verdict obviously right because that was I think probably the most impactful day for I think anyone who had any stake in the game but I was there for and this didn't get a lot it got some coverage in the second season but Sylvia's testimony because

[00:15:51] I think it really showed kind of the longevity of the abuse and kind of the slow burn and the convincing and you know well if you just put in the work to be an elite runner you can be an elite runner if you just put in the work and give up these things to, you know, do these horseback riding expeditions.

[00:16:12] So you'll be able to do it if you just make sure you're only eating 500 calories a day then you'll be faster. And I think it really showed that slow burn of how Keith really got these people under his thumb. And he did it through Claire.

[00:16:28] So he leveraged Claire's influence over Sylvia.

[00:16:31] She was a smart person to start with even at the time I was like, Oh, I don't know how this is going to come off. You will notice the people that are still loyal never bring that one up and that's a married woman right.

[00:16:43] She was also someone I had personally never heard of before the trial so I thought that was interesting as well and obviously you know you guys are key players and know everyone else who is key players just from being inside at the time but she was someone who of all the people I had talked to she was

[00:16:59] brought up to me.

[00:17:00] Obviously I think you know we were cornered into a situation where forced to say something as quasi leaders of what we thought we were building but for her she was never someone in that and for her to step out of her comfort zone and really an international

[00:17:16] stage and do what she did to me was, I'm not going to say braver than what we did but I can imagine it because she had overcome so much of her own personal. It was harder probably.

[00:17:27] Harder for her to do that and to be the first person and to deliver in the way that she delivered speaks volumes about her and who she is and and her husband who is a good friend of mine as well. We're so proud of both of them. Yeah.

[00:17:41] She seemed like a person who could have very easily chosen to not speak up and no one would have expected her to speak up so I think, and that's just my interpretation. No you're right. Absolutely.

[00:17:51] Not knowing her on a personal level, but that's how it came off I think in her testimony. It was surprising for her.

[00:17:57] I mean, I knew her well enough and I knew her character well enough to know that she checks out my box in spades but to want to go out and be in a position to expose your deepest embarrassment you know was I didn't know that she had that into her even though I'm not surprised it was also just a wow.

[00:18:19] Wow. I can't believe she did that. But yeah, that was out of the gates pretty.

[00:18:24] I also think just my last point on her testimony and Sarah I don't know if this is something that you can relate to but I'm a person who if I have a goal I work really hard to get to that goal and if you tell me I can't do it you better believe I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it two times

[00:18:41] I'm a person who's better than you thought I was going to do it in the first place and with her testimony you know with her running or horseback riding. I felt like I could kind of connect with that a little bit, like I could kind of been her necessarily but it's kind of that moment where

[00:18:55] you're like okay, again, these are not weak people who are being brought into this these are strong and determined people who keep us targeted in these things and I think for me there was at least a little bit of a personal connection there where I was like okay like I get this.

[00:19:10] I think your impression is accurate Sylvia is that person. So what did you guys think overall about season two?

[00:19:17] You know, I've had some time to think about it we as you both know we we broke down each episode right after we watched it in real time live on Vimeo for our Patreon listeners and at first like my mother and people close to us were like maybe that's not a good idea that's going to be re traumatizing it was actually helpful because we got to watch and then process

[00:19:37] and you would like 150 people but we got to process before I don't like it being able to sleep because I would just been lying in bed processing so being able to talk about it with people after the fact was was really helpful.

[00:19:50] I thought the filmmakers did a great job. I was very proud to be a part of it.

[00:19:55] I think they got it. It's really rare in the cult series space of which there are many these days to have access to the footage that they had the archival footage and I thought they did a really brilliant job of pulling the key points of a six week trial and putting it into a six hour docuseries.

[00:20:15] That being said there's a lot missing we can get to later and I don't feel like upset with them that they didn't include it. I know that they were limited time wise and they had constraints from the network.

[00:20:24] There's a term in filmmaking it's awful called kill your babies and they had to cut out a lot and I know that it's terrible. I wish there was another way to say it is a term in need. Can we just call it editing?

[00:20:36] They had to edit out a lot of things.

[00:20:38] A lot of things I know they wanted to keep some people have asked like what would season three be which I know there won't be but if there was you could do a whole season just on what happened in Mexico for example.

[00:20:47] And we're hoping to have some of the key leaders in Mexico come on as future guests FYI to our listeners get excited about that fingers crossed. But overall I mean there's like my personal journey with it.

[00:20:59] It did bring up a lot of things that I didn't like I kind of thought I was over but also was meaningful to see for example like what was happening behind the scenes which we had heard about or we could speculate you know I had heard that Nancy for example was playing my voicemail to people.

[00:21:17] As proof of why I had like you know proof of my craziness so to see her play it for the filmmakers and then like hear it.

[00:21:26] I haven't heard it since I left it you know I left that message in June of 2017 like the week I left when I hadn't heard from her or whatever that was like I'm pretty sure it was June.

[00:21:35] So to hear it again you know kind of put me back into that spot of like what the fuck Nancy you're supposed to be my bonus mom and you're not even calling me to see if I'm okay or not like what is happening here.

[00:21:46] And so like I didn't realize that would like trigger such a response in my body that I had thought I'd kind of work through and I was also you know the whole arc of season episode one to six is very different which is why I'm glad we're kind of recapping this in one episode because if you'd interviewed me after episode one you would have found me quite.

[00:22:07] Yeah riled up like you know we hear Nancy saying things and he was episode two like that she's more mad at me than Keith and like that's just crazy knowing what we know now and I remember talking to Jehan the director and being like I feel like you guys kind of got swept up in Nancy's

[00:22:24] shtick like you see Nancy doing her shtick you know her her her introduction of herself and her story and her who she is we've heard that a bazillion times and then that's not hyperbolic it was for sure bazillion times that we heard her story of how she got into next

[00:22:40] same how she met Keith and I feel like she was doing that to the filmmakers and like my gosh they like she she conned them to you know but she's like she reminded me that there's a story arc and there's a you know she's like wait till the end and I'm glad I waited till the end because I think that we all had you know went on that emotional journey with Nancy

[00:22:57] as she starts to reconcile which is kind of my main key thing that I gleaned from this series and I think it's really important as you see somebody unwinding, deprogramming, unbrainwashing whatever you want to call it in real time and I don't think you I've never seen that in a series and Nipi and I have watched again a bazillion cult documentary so that I think is a real gift

[00:23:17] and I overall and I've got lots of other little things to say but to answer your overarching question. I really felt like the filmmakers brought dignity to everybody to all the survivors all the victims even those who are still loyal, you know if anything I feel like I wanted to hear more pushback I wanted to hear the filmmakers say, I know that you think that the women agreed to this but we have this audio of Keith saying otherwise like how do you reconcile that

[00:23:42] like there's things I want to if I was in the room I would have been like but what about this and I don't know if that was happening because we weren't there. So yeah it was it was it was an emotional journey overall I'm really really happy with it I wish there was a season three to cover all the things that were missed but that's my rough sketch.

[00:23:58] I'm totally fine with no season three. I do think there's a little bit of context to add to that just because in speaking with the directors producers as they were going through the editing process and we didn't shoot anything past

[00:24:13] 2019, except maybe a couple b-rolls of stuff at home finding out news or whatever. They had a lot to deal with and they could have easily been I think nine to 10 episodes and I think they were they were pressured to get it down to six they had to delete Mexico stuff they had people drop out the last minute.

[00:24:29] So I think for them from what I've ascertained is the best course of action was to focus on Nancy because I think it showed someone who is right next to the villain and how did that person make it okay and I think in seeing how someone who

[00:24:44] depending on what you think of Nancy she's smart to a certain extent and how does someone someone fall for that and that seemed to be the best course of action from dealing with people who are constantly in trauma people who are still reconciling their delusion and people who had been sexually abused.

[00:24:59] I know from talking to producers directors is like I spoke to cream he's like he doesn't want to touch anything was with sexual trauma ever again. It was really difficult and Sarah and I weren't targeted in that way, and we were able to talk about it because we were more peripheral

[00:25:14] because we had less trauma going on and so the season to was chock full of people that were going through that I think it was challenging for them and I think having Nancy emerge as the person to kind of demonstrate the arc of unwinding and then maybe with some of the people that hadn't reconciled who had

[00:25:33] found out was the best course of action I think to Sarah's point I would have like to see a little bit more pushback, but I also feel like the people that would have been pushed back on would have just bailed because I think they need to feel safe and they have their conditions of what they think is ethical and what

[00:25:49] and your process is always flawed if you're going to challenge them so they had to do something to ingratiate themselves to them to get the story in the story I think it's hard to capture because you have everyone who's in trauma and the people who are in the less trauma were no longer

[00:26:04] the focal point of the doc so I think they did the best they could and doing it am I happy with it. It kind of came and went quickly for me for a lot of reasons we were in our own apartment that wasn't ours I was middle of long days with our kids driving and football season so it was really just a Monday

[00:26:21] night we were going to do this and I was going to do it and then do it in a way that you know I didn't want it to take too much of my Ram and my bandwidth and all that said it was triggering to find out all the things that were going on.

[00:26:32] This goes for season one and season two to see his persona caught offstage right because we're peripheral we would see him come to town didn't know I didn't know what a dick he was like what a real fucking asshole that guy was where the cameras were rolling but offstage to everyone like I was like this is fucking

[00:26:49] it's how he fucking was like laying around on the couch laying around getting what is what the fuck's going on here was my like was this going on the whole time you know so I had a little bit of that and you know a little bit of

[00:27:02] re traumatizing and my embarrassment for following and being you know hook line and sinker with this guy and then I really got in tune when I first heard his voice in an episode and it was that I wish that people the soft foe compassion.

[00:27:18] It was really interesting to see how quickly that I felt the disarmament that I would feel towards any sort of like this guy's fine you know like because he spoke softly.

[00:27:28] I really got in tune with shit that's what got me like if I did have doubt, I would see the soft persona and I would project innocence into it.

[00:27:38] I wouldn't think that you know that he was offstage doing hot stuff and I found for me I didn't realize this till I saw season two it's like that's where I got disarmed.

[00:27:48] Like that's where I like I really got to like when I see any sort of like what I perceive as compassion or softness my doubts are immediately kind of put on hold or and like I'm not going to punch down or I'm not going to be mean to something like that and I think he understood that.

[00:28:05] Totally he did. I think he understood how to disarm people. It's so interesting that those feelings still come up for you too even though you know everything you know now and to see him through this lens that that still kind of comes up.

[00:28:18] I got enraged when I heard I was like that motherfucker that's what he was doing the whole time. Do you remember in the source which the document doesn't cover the sources the whole acting program. He taught us that there's the alphabet of the constellation.

[00:28:33] Yeah a constellation of the physical mannerisms that one puts together to express a certain thing for example if somebody wanted to convey and leave an impression of compassion that would one would speak in a certain way and tilt their head in a certain way

[00:28:53] and use their hands in a certain way and look at you people can't see us right now.

[00:28:57] And now looking back like even his whole shtick around how he spoke and how he pontificated in the forums which Nippy nailed in his impression of him which is a bonus content over on Patreon by the way just to get people over there to watch it is amazing

[00:29:11] and it'd be so good because he basically mimics the physical things that now I know Keith is doing to give the impression of somebody who is wise who is humble who is down to earth and can share life's deepest most important values and lessons like those are things he studied people doing in the world

[00:29:32] and then copied right including that voice that's why I bring it up.

[00:29:35] And all of those things too you know I feel like in every podcast episode you guys kind of reveal a little bit more about Keith and a little bit more of these little nuggets and when you talk about them you know one at a time they might not seem like they build this mastermind but then when you take them all and you put them together you can see how he

[00:29:56] affiliated smart people like Nancy to kind of do his bidding like he knows what he's doing the entire time. Because you don't have that in your psychology I'm assuming you don't.

[00:30:08] You're not going to project that this guy's the that's the last thing I think someone would be doing this particularly when they built an organization that seeks to build that into the world.

[00:30:19] The element of surprise and getting people asleep at the wheel around his abuse I think was his his skill set you know and I think he studied it you know I had pictures of athletes and leaders on my wall growing up I think he studied psychopaths because he figured out that he was one and he

[00:30:37] figured out he I'm not going to function as deciding until I figure out how human beings work so I can manipulate him. I think that's the psychology you're dealing with and I think there's a lot more of them out there.

[00:30:46] I mean just between myself and some other journalists who I'm friends with who covered it. I mean just evil is the word that consistently comes up. It's manipulative but it's intentional and it's evil.

[00:30:59] There's a John Lennon quote yeah I think he was on Dick Cavett show like back in the late 70s and he said something to the effect of I believe the world is run by maniacal people with maniacal intent and I was like 28 or 29 when I read that and I was like what a fucking cynical way to look at it from a guy who wrote imagine.

[00:31:15] I just thought those two belief systems living within yourself was I remember thinking it was cynical at the time but if you look at some of the adversity that John Lennon had to face you know he had FBI had a file on him because he put out the message of peace.

[00:31:29] I think that was dangerous to people that wanted to squash that and I think he probably had a crash course on what that looks like and that was his conclusion so until you've had an experience of those dark forces that you don't think are there and you put a lot of faith into our systems and our systems.

[00:31:45] You know you're not going to be in a society until you get some pushback and you recognize holy shit that's a pretty dark force that's going on.

[00:31:53] It starts to make sense how that can be and just look at what's going on right now in the world you can see that there's some there's some of those things in the background pulling levers and it's hard to figure out who and what because it comes in the package of someone like Keith.

[00:32:08] I think that might be abusing you and that's what I think this podcast I hope to achieve is just informing people that this I can say is always out there but it could be and the thing that you put your faith in or you trust into might have some maniacal people behind it.

[00:32:23] Not necessarily a maniacal intent you know I think a lot of things at the grass root level are altruistic and higher up the food chain you get if you don't have checks and balances at the highest level kind of end up being that way after time.

[00:32:37] You know you have this knowledge in your arm with it you know what it looks like and sounds like you know we collectively who aren't maniacal because it doesn't take a lot of maniacal minds to abuse the system can hold those forces and check best we can.

[00:32:50] You know until we come up with a better modality to do that our podcast hopefully can contribute to that.

[00:32:57] This is the golden age of cult recovery. The more we speak up and share our stories the more we realize we are not alone your voice and your story can empower others.

[00:33:08] This is Sarah and I'm proud to be a founding collaborator of the hashtag I got out movement learn more at I got out.org. The Frankies were a picture perfect influencer family but everything wasn't as it seemed.

[00:33:30] I just had a 12 year old boy so up here asking for help he's emaciated he's got tape around his legs Ruby Frankie is his mom's name infamous is covering Ruby Frankie the world of Mormonism and a secret therapy group that ruined lives.

[00:33:49] Listen to infamous wherever you get your podcasts. Meals bring people together but for many families providing their next meal can be a challenge.

[00:34:00] You can help by participating in Macy's annual feeding the hungry food drive all proceeds go toward local food banks and families now through January 31st you can purchase an icon in store or online or watch out for the blue feeding the hungry shelf tags where a portion of your purchase will be donated to local pantries.

[00:34:19] Together we can combat hunger in our local communities at Macy's. Did you guys want to talk about episode. Sure.

[00:34:27] Let's go episode by episode I have I have notes that we took at the time again if people want like a more detailed response it's on Patreon people sign up at the flying monkey level so episode one that moment when kind of Nancy comes into the frame and sits down for me when I saw that I was kind of like okay like here we go like my bullsh**t.

[00:34:49] Radar is going off like I'm taking everything that she's going to say in this moment with a grain of salt so there's that and then you also see a lot of you know mark agnico preparing for the case and going to talk to Keith and talking about what Keith is saying to him and all these things so I mean I feel like that obviously I don't want to speak for you guys

[00:35:07] I feel like that was triggering for me to see knowing what I know and it must have been even more so for you guys. So what are your thoughts on that.

[00:35:15] I think if you put yourself into the mind of those people it makes sense to a lesser extent because I didn't do any crimes.

[00:35:22] I wasn't not forthright with people that enrolled I didn't do anything really per se bad except just make a bad decision and from my perspective just looked a little stupid for 1012 years.

[00:35:35] So that's kind of was my thing and in sharing my story the impulse to not look stupid of self preservation is always something I'm trying to keep in check right because I think that compromise the authenticity of my message so I'm on this journey now being a slave to the story

[00:35:53] and I'm doing so I'm happy to be stupid looking you know the con that I look for and that's difficult now hers is 2030 plus years so I knew first things at her mouth aren't going to be I did this thing and taking the responsibility I think her reconciliation is still going on in prison

[00:36:10] and the impulse to preserve yourself image is always going to be there because you don't want to go yeah I did this yeah I did this yeah I did this and I was like cuz it was this and I wanted to preserve the company I was making money like that.

[00:36:22] That's not going to be the first thing that our mouth so I understood that that said when she came in was talking a more mad at Sarah to me that is indicative of her character and everything that was driving her like in the face of abuse.

[00:36:34] I don't care there's still what I'm getting out of this this organization still serves me I'm not serving it the way I'm pretending it is and those all things just revered.

[00:36:43] Her character to me as I saw it at that time as for a nificat low he's a lawyer in a lot of ways he's a businessman and he understands that if I have an ankle here to get my client off that's going to help me down the road and.

[00:36:57] If I can get someone off who may even look totally guilty that speaks to my acumen what I'm good and that's the way the system design and it set up for his success.

[00:37:06] So in the same way that you know he may pretend he's a lawyer for humanity he's just it's there's a system that serves him and what he's going to do and that's the way the system set up and this always gonna be someone who's gonna go in and be like hey I'll do this for this amount of money and if I can do it and then unfortunately.

[00:37:21] Evidence came out where he was in a bind with like okay now I'm defending a guy who's a pedophile and a rapist and that kind of comes with the territory.

[00:37:30] Yeah, and I mean like someone's got to be a defense attorney you know a lot of people have to be a defense attorneys when it comes down to that I think people especially kind of in the heat of a lot of it forgot that you know he's just there doing his job I don't know him personally I only know him in that job so it's tough to remember that

[00:37:47] though when there's a motion attached to it.

[00:37:49] I didn't remember it when it was going on like I can watch it three or four years later and with that hindsight and I'm out of it and have that perspective but when it was going on like you know he was gunning for Sarah and I at first until he recognized he was dealing with a lot of way more egregious acts so you know I don't like the system right

[00:38:07] right but it's the best when we have like it or not and he's the guy that's going to be in it and it doesn't make it right but you know that's how the lens I had had to watch it and I hate that that exists and

[00:38:18] and all that stuff but I'm not changing it right now I'm changing things in the way that I can change it with through informing that's kind of my take on it for sure Sarah.

[00:38:26] We saw a lot of Ignifolo take a lot of shit social like on our Patreon like people just being like you know forgetting that that is his job and actually heard Moira Penza speak about him in another podcast about how you know and I didn't actually know this that even after the fact you can't disparage your client

[00:38:43] even when the trial's over you can't you know say oh I was wrong and he's a shithead or whatever. Well that's bad for business too.

[00:38:49] It is bad for business but there's a code of ethics around that which I didn't know I mean I'm not a lawyer obviously but she did say even though there's that that's in place she was surprised with and this is more sort of in the arc of the whole series

[00:39:02] I'm surprised with how much it seemed as though he had bought in you know a fully bought in and fully like was on board and seemed to have been hit fucked by Keith for lack of a better word and bought into the narrative and you know another great example of how anyone can fall for it.

[00:39:21] But we don't know we don't know how much he fell for it or he's just really doing his job as as lawyer we don't that's not we can't say I think it's a ladder really just doing his job yeah I do I think by the end he's just

[00:39:32] he came to terms with it but I think there was a time in the middle where he was like no it was consensual and you know these women chose and but then I think when you get the underage stuff in that's where he was like yeah I can't really do much about that for you

[00:39:44] but you saved. Supporting that's bad for business. Yeah remember he was like he saved his text messages he saved his text messages he downloaded his whatsapp messages to his computer right that comes later.

[00:39:56] When he's talking about those downloads of text messages I feel like that is like a moment that from some other defense attorneys who I do know on you know separate cases it's kind of like that are you kidding me

[00:40:08] moment where you kind of have to go back to your client be like what am I supposed to do with this.

[00:40:14] You saved this evidence that is damning to you and then just backing up a little bit I don't think it would be surprising to anyone if Keith did try to manipulate his own lawyer as well I mean that's what he does.

[00:40:24] He does it with everyone so why would he stop there you know whether it worked or not I don't know if we'll ever know that but I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that he didn't try to do that.

[00:40:34] That's true and I would love to I don't think we'll be allowed to but I'd love to interview him one day that would be fun to put that on the list. Agnifilo what do we used to call him when I couldn't remember his name. Snuffle off I guess.

[00:40:46] Snuffle off I guess yeah. Snuffle off I'll if I go yeah anyway my other thoughts about episode one.

[00:40:53] And I think this was episode one I'm pretty sure and but also throughout the whole series it was how I think it was Nancy who is like looking at him and gazing at him and I remember being like oh my gosh she was so in love with him.

[00:41:07] And there were so many behind the scenes clips that I thought like if I had seen that I knew that she respected him in the way that she edified him and like would pump his tires before he came on stage or whatever but I never saw her looking at him like that and to see that behind

[00:41:21] the scenes footage was like I mean it was nauseating and also filled in some gaps and not just her.

[00:41:27] There was some Karen was looking at him like that Lauren was looking at him like that the way you did that I know I know your listeners can't see it but the way you put your head in your or your chin in your hand like that and she would sit there like that just staring at him it looks

[00:41:41] like almost like what you would imagine like a schoolgirl crush to be absolutely there was also some really incredible editing and audio with Keith and Allison Mack pushing and

[00:41:50] on her fears around being like rejected and being like ousted from society and then intercut with her arrest that was episode one right? Yeah and intercutting with the worst thing happening in her real life.

[00:42:04] Yeah and this is something that like the audience wouldn't know unless you were in the training like a lot of the EM's or the explorations were like what's the worst thing like if you had a fear you really push on like what is the

[00:42:16] worst possible thing and the idea would be that like if you really thought about it A would be very unlikely that that worst thing would happen and B even if the worst thing happened that you'd be okay that like your essence

[00:42:28] like even if you were in jail for the rest of your life you could survive like Nelson Mandela you know like it was that kind of like principle based thought exploration in your head but to see him talk about the

[00:42:41] worst possible thing and then that happening to her and then wondering how much did he set her up for that you know because he talked about and has talked about and says there's lots of evidence of this he wanted to break her

[00:42:52] he wanted to break her pride and he did that. I don't think anything he did was unintentional I don't think any of the people he picked to bring around him were unintentional you know he built this close circle

[00:43:04] intentionally and I think each person this is obviously just my perspective from the outside each person had a very specific role and he was manipulating them in a way so he could fit them in those slots and you know get his overall evil pretty

[00:43:19] even more totally agree more thing just on episode one and as a more a penza stand but she is just to see her in action again and kind of the behind the scenes in action it brought me back to be

[00:43:33] in the courtroom and seeing her do that work and I think I wish there had been a way to video record that so people could see it because she was really just a force in that courtroom.

[00:43:45] I wish I'd seen that I mean I know how I felt in the I think I spent two and a half days with her and the team back in the first round of witness interviewing and you know I rolled in and like jeans and a sweater she was in head to toe

[00:43:56] power suit Prada heels like every day and I was like wow I didn't know that that people like in this space would dress so great and be so hot like in addition to being such a powerhouse like the combination of those things irony is not lost on me that this is a Keith type of woman petite

[00:44:17] petite brunette coming in and just destroying him daily just the poise she had in the courtroom to I mean she was never flustered she was never rushing everything was fascinating to watch an action.

[00:44:34] I wish there was more of that but I'm glad that they kind of had her talk through it and some of those interviews because I still think you get the sense of just the poise she carries herself with.

[00:44:44] Could not agree more. I think this line was also episode one back to Agnephelu for a second. He said something about KR didn't need a cult to get action.

[00:44:54] Yeah that's exactly what he needed. I don't know if we've mentioned this on the pub before but somebody reached out to us when the news broke who he dated for not a long time but this is before an XTM and she shared with me that he tried to get her to sign a contract saying that she wouldn't date anybody

[00:45:13] else and like here's the deal with dating him and that he was going to be with other people and she couldn't date anybody else and it was a contract and she was like I'm not signing that contract this is before an XTM.

[00:45:23] So he's been trying to do shit like this trying to lock down loyalty locked down his harem locked down you know having access to multiple women. That's the argument you make when you're pretending all it's about a sex. Right.

[00:45:37] It wasn't about that for him. It was about dominating them. It was about owning them. It was about having them be submissive to him and those are all the things that are the coercive control aspect from it so a response of like well it was about sex I could pay for it and there's certain people that could pay for it.

[00:45:55] Well that's him deflecting because if he actually explains what it's really about you know we can just roll the tape if you want to know what it's really about and that's a hard thing for most people to project into another person that they would go to those lengths to dominate and humiliate another person.

[00:46:13] So his modus operandi whatever you want to call it is the chameleon dominate and own. That's a pretty hard thing to prove unless you have footage of him actually saying I think I heard Robert Gavin say Keith's worst enemy was Keith in the straw.

[00:46:28] I think to a certain extent you know people like that just lose touch because the emperor has no clothes they lose so much touch with the morality of the world because they've bent it so much that when the morality of the world kind of crashes in on them.

[00:46:44] They don't recognize it as that anymore. They don't recognize that their behaviors are reprehensible to most of the world. And for good reason. It's like he created this alternate reality where everything that he ever wanted was okay in his kind of fucked up view of the world.

[00:47:00] And nobody held him accountable and nobody and that was actually like a bone that we've heard needs to be picked and I feel the same way that the series didn't cover any of the times union coverage or like hold it up to Nancy's face saying how could you like you didn't know but like there was a whole expose in the times union.

[00:47:15] That being said I remember when that happened and that would have already been preempted by a bunch of bullshit curriculum talking about when you're noble and you're changing the world they're going to push back and call you the worst thing what's the worst things someone could call you a pedophile.

[00:47:29] Then this news thing comes out well there it is they're trying to destroy us.

[00:47:34] It's a smear campaign so I remember when that happened and I understand how she dismissed it but I also feel like that needs to be in the series or needed to be in the series.

[00:47:43] Yeah just one question about you know you mentioned the times union previous coverage do you happen to remember when that was coming out and did the knife already exist.

[00:47:53] No 2012 is when it came out and the knife started to be developed what would that be like 2014 1314 yeah 14 maybe you're pregnant okay I was pregnant with Troy when Altima was being developed that's a good point which is why you couldn't be yeah I think so you couldn't be near.

[00:48:10] I think that saved me I was supposed to be in the Altima acting development group and I was but like remotely because I had to get back to Vancouver to give birth which was being pushed to me to stay in the US to give birth.

[00:48:21] It makes sense why I wasn't chosen for those developmental teams too. Nipi was so pissed. Keith didn't want me around.

[00:48:28] No he did not want you I remember could just close a quick tangent a little nugget for our audience when they developed Altima a bunch of people came to Albany to like start these new companies and we knew there was going to be an acting one.

[00:48:39] An immediate one that was the knife man like a fitness one that'd be XOS so and then we were like we filled out this intake formula like what interests you and what's your background Nipi played college football okay he is the strongest athlete in the whole organization okay I could pump your tires for a second.

[00:48:56] All right yeah. Yeah. Pumple I know add more context. Well the point is is that you had a lot of skill sets to be in a number of different groups not just that one.

[00:49:04] It was obvious that'd be in the acting group is that have a bachelor fuck all in theater performance you know and all those the BFA.

[00:49:10] So anyway then when people were chosen for the groups and like Nipi wasn't chosen to be a develop in the development group for any of them none of them none of them and we were like what the fuck.

[00:49:21] It isn't even like I was such a good athlete it like that's not really like what it was there was no one else to there that competed like anything so it would be it's a glaring omission.

[00:49:33] Like it's not so much like yeah my skill it was like there was no one else who did there was no one else who like trained in the off season only Keith.

[00:49:41] Could be the East Coast judo and have a high I do and he's the only one who could be good at all the thing right it makes total sense why I wasn't now it makes sense but even like the group that was supposed to be looking at media or like the some of the people that were chosen.

[00:49:59] Were like super low ranking level like if the if the ranking system had any merit that Nipi a proctor first of all so orange sash would have been in charge of relieving one of those groups they had all these like whatever now it makes it just makes sense yeah it makes sense now.

[00:50:14] Of course you don't want me around. I'm gonna brand your wife and put them in my hair and you better get the fuck out of town Anthony. Well also like we spoke to some people who are around during the developmental stuff.

[00:50:23] It's hard to hide your behavior from like 20 developmental groups of five to 10 people and I think who Keith was was starting to seep out into the people that weren't as indoctrinated as in a circle because remember we would hear some stuff Sarah like he's keeping him up late at night we thought we saw all the stuff that was going on those developmental groups was really weird and Sarah and I finally were like God thank God we're not fucking doing any of that you know because they were they were meeting at midnight shit like that.

[00:50:49] He didn't put people in those who are gonna question that was probably and all the women for example that were chosen to do X o s o.

[00:50:57] We're all women he was trying to have sex with or you know fuck with mentally anyway back to the season to debrief.

[00:51:04] Yeah so episode two kind of gives us more of an inside scoop from Nancy I think we're really kind of getting into the interviews with her there but she's still very much in the mode there where she's defending his work and.

[00:51:18] She's saying you know there's however many thousand people out there who thought this was good like where are they and she's still very much in that mindset and Sarah I think we were texting a little bit during this night was like I don't know if I can watch this like it is just all still peddling these ideas that we already have convicted Keith up so why are we hearing this and I think you know it goes back to that arc that you mentioned earlier but were you still feeling that way during episode two.

[00:51:48] Absolutely and I think that's that's probably one of the things that was most challenging at the time is knowing what I know now and you know she's knowing even even as that was airing I know that she's in prison.

[00:51:59] Like if she wasn't in prison it would be different like if she was running free and still the emming people and whatever I would have been probably more pissed off but it was hard to watch you know especially when she's talking shit about me and this is somebody who I've never reconciled with like there's people that have laughed who are out who stayed way longer than they should have.

[00:52:18] And I've apologized a lot of this would be different if I had had that with her like I had had with with Lauren you know Lauren how I feel towards Lauren was very different.

[00:52:26] But at this stage episode two I mean I wrote my notes say fucking liar you know so like she's saying that it was a separate company and DOS was a separate thing like by episode six we know that she knows that that's not true because like DOS was basically the same thing as what was happening in the harem of Keith's harem before either DOS was even a thing.

[00:52:47] It's the same they were just more like codified. Yeah she's still in self preservation mode. That's hard to watch.

[00:52:52] I think it's hard and this is you know I think only something that I came to think about recently and after watching you know the entire season it's got to be and I'm not being a Nancy apologist by any way shape or form so I hope it doesn't come off that way.

[00:53:09] It's got to be really difficult to come to terms with all of the bad things that she let happen and helped happen and did to her daughter and that's got to be something really hard to within like your own heart and mind.

[00:53:25] This is where I think the filmmakers had a hard task and did they achieve it I think in part and I think I saw in an interview with Shahan it's like it's easy to pile on someone like that.

[00:53:35] And that's the natural impulse but can you show how someone gets to the point they get to and do we have a society where she can redeem herself.

[00:53:46] You know and if she wants to and you know the way you redeem yourself is I think you have to own your participation in whatever it was and then do the best to build back what was potentially destroyed in her case you know it's time for a lot of people because a lot of people made major life decisions to do that.

[00:54:05] You know you have to go spend their time you can't bring people's time back it's the one commodity and I think the biggest crime that Keith committed to people is taking their time based on a lie.

[00:54:14] You know I think there's certain trauma you can come back from maybe not entirely but time is something that you just you just got you got to eat that if I let myself go to a place you know the time that I gave up valuable years where people are building themselves and building what they want to what kind of person they want to build

[00:54:31] and what's building their lives he took that away from a lot of people me less so than most of them but still I get a little pissed when I let myself go there. So, and she was a perpetrator of that.

[00:54:41] So I don't know how you come back from that to add another level of that I think that subset of that worst crime specifically is taking away women's time of their years inclusive. Yeah, yeah, just to really punch that point.

[00:54:54] And that comes in the later episodes and her own daughters. Like when people ask like overall what I think of season two.

[00:55:00] I also have a huge amount of grief for people like Lauren who lost her childbearing years to this fuck nugget that's a weight that I feel heavily as as a friend and as a as a participant in this community.

[00:55:14] And especially the fact you know that Nancy her mother was those childbearing years away from her, no matter what angle you look at it from it's got to be hard for Nancy to reconcile with it.

[00:55:26] It's got to be hard for Lauren to forgive her mom for you as someone who is kind of on this journey of maybe moving towards forgiveness with Lauren.

[00:55:35] It's got to be hard for you to do the same for Nancy because she's taken away she's helped take away this thing from someone who was your best friend. Yeah, that was hard.

[00:55:44] Also an episode two was kind of when we started to see witnesses come to the stand. Nippy we already talked about it a little bit but Sylvie was the first witness and then Mark was on the stand after and I think his testimony.

[00:55:58] And I can't remember if they got into this in that episode but his testimony really helped with the fact you know that those tapes were tampered with and I feel like that was a big point that they that they made during that.

[00:56:09] And I was the first time I had heard that and I didn't know any of that was going on so it kind of brace me for what else is going on that I didn't and then it made me think that like if he was doing that, what were other people closer to Keith and just more blind than Mark was doing you know because

[00:56:26] I don't think it's just something you do once. It's kind of like when you catch someone stealing from the till. If you have a business. It's not the first time they did it. Right so I think that's just kind of a pattern of that behavior convenience ethics.

[00:56:39] Hey there listener hope you're enjoying this episode and that you're taking deep breaths when we cover the enraging stuff that cult jerks are up to.

[00:56:47] Let it out is in the yoga practice. Inhale positivity exhale negativity. That's for you Sarah. We got this no hulking it out all you will hulksters and if you need some helpful resources on the topic of cult recovery check out our website at a little bit culty dot com

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[00:57:36] This episode is sponsored by better help. What are your self care non negotiables maybe you never skip leg day or never miss yoga. Maybe it's getting eight hours of sleep.

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[00:59:01] So episode three was really interesting and maybe because I knew about kind of the Tourette's experiment and I knew about Mark Elliott, but I didn't know about Isabella and her story.

[00:59:12] And so the fact that they really delve deep into that I thought was fascinating and I'd love to hear from you guys how big was this kind of experiment on curing Tourette's and again your audience can't see me but that's an air quotes the cure of Tourette's.

[00:59:30] Was that a really big part of next year at the time it was towards the end yeah we actually thought that the movie would vindicate us like oh just like we thought Richard Branson endorsing Maxime.

[00:59:41] Which he didn't really but they said that he did we thought this video of how we quote unquote cured Tourette's would really change the public perception because it's proof like if we can cure Tourette's and we can cure anything really because Tourette's was just the bigger manifestation of what everybody struggles with is how they were pitching it.

[00:59:59] That's not what I believe but to watch it I mean the only criticism and I've heard this from some experts as well there was a little caveat in the tiny print saying this study was not peer reviewed and was not like a proper study or whatever.

[01:00:10] I think there may be some people that would watch it going oh my god but they did cure Tourette's like no they helped a handful of people.

[01:00:16] There was a lot of people that didn't get helped and also like people like Isabella who by the way our audience is want to know how she doing we're hoping to get around the podcast soon as soon as we have legal permission.

[01:00:25] But it was really hard for her because a lot of people when they realized what was actually going on they went backwards like Mark is still apparently cured and you can't tell that he has or had Tourette's but like a lot of people's tics came back when they weren't under the watch.

[01:00:39] And I think that's one of the things that I really like about the next year in leadership and the feedback that we've gotten is that they were basically like threatened into not ticking and had for lack of a better word fear of god in them that they were going to ruin the study if they ticked.

[01:00:52] So like that to me wasn't really shown properly but I think it's also like one of the things I love about season one and season two of The Vow is it's a nuanced not beating you over the head with the facts and experts and like yes they could have had experts into explain this

[01:01:09] and watching can go through the experience with us of going oh wow like this is why we thought it was good. You know what I mean? So to have like a more of an experiential. I have a somewhat different perspective on that. Sure.

[01:01:23] I think they could have showed what we thought it was and then hammered the delusion of what was going on. That's a good point. Because it still leaves wiggle room for people who are delusional to cling to something and cling to some sort of hope.

[01:01:35] I did a Google search of Tourette's studies and stuff like that. And it's a superficial Google search. If you're serious about thinking you have something that can help Tourette's you take what you did to appear review or you take it somewhere.

[01:01:50] And if you have something experts will ascertain that there's no interest in that. So it just tells me that really the Tourette's mission is self serving more so than it is about helping people Tourette's but you can always say it's about helping people Tourette's

[01:02:05] to maintain your belief that Keith Reneary is the mastermind behind this, which is the delusion. And I think that episode could have really just brought in some experts done a superficial Google search.

[01:02:15] So this has been done before and laid that to rest because what it allows is someone like Mark and I listen I worked with Mark.

[01:02:22] I thought I didn't have any problem with Mark but the behaviors that are coming out right now in order to maintain your belief are borderline mean and people are becoming vitriolic and antagonistic towards other people. That don't agree with their narrative and are obedient to it.

[01:02:39] And I think experts objectively could have come in and just hammered it put it to rest and sent them on their way. That's how I think it should have done.

[01:02:46] I think that's where the filmmakers in trying to extend dignity to everyone, which they do but at a certain point when they're not getting the dignified behavior in return you need to hold a line and a boundary and that the boundary and line is in upholdence of the human team so to speak.

[01:03:02] So I wasn't there. I agree with the decisions. I just think sometimes you just got to treat stupid people as though they're stupid. No, I mean really. The thing is Mark's not stupid but he's acting stupid and we got our reality.

[01:03:15] The universe treats you how you are not how you're pretending to be. And I think universe is always right and we got ours and we're turning it into something positive and Mark needs to start doing that himself.

[01:03:26] And someone needs to get in his ear and tell him that. He needs to be an expert. It can't be us. It's a little bit mean and harsh. I think that's what that Tourette's episode is missing. No, I agree with you on that.

[01:03:37] I want to remember when people are watching the bow, you know, again this isn't like your local news station or even your national news station.

[01:03:43] Like they also have a story to tell so they and they can kind of choose to show the other side or not choose to show the other side depending on kind of where they're directed to go.

[01:03:54] So I think that's important to remember when people are watching it as well and something that I also had to keep reminding myself when I was watching it. And I was like, well what about this, this, this and this that shows the other side of it?

[01:04:06] And then I had to remember, you know, well there's no journalistic law that says they have to show these things. So I have to be okay with the story that they've decided to tell, I guess.

[01:04:16] Yeah, you know that as a journalist so I'm not telling you anything but yeah, that's a good point. You have a journalistic point of view but then you also have, they're telling a documentary point of view.

[01:04:23] And then the whole like other side thing, you know, there was no time for me ever in this showing the other side that I thought that people would go, oh, you're right, branding would be a good way to have female empowerment.

[01:04:36] You know Keith had a good point there. Like there was no other side-ness to this except for with the Tourette's that could give people an impression that Tourette's was cured which I think was dangerous. I guess because I know that it didn't, I didn't have that impression.

[01:04:50] Well I think the thing that was the strongest with that interaction was watching Mark Elliott clearly gaslight Isabella and that was like not only did he sound like Keith but it was so upsetting and also cheering for Isabella being so fucking strong and being like, yeah, no, this is why I'm leaving and there's moments where Mark's like, well if that was true that would be assault.

[01:05:10] I'm like, no shit Mark. That's what it was. Similarly to Nippy, I cared for Mark. I still do care for Mark if he called me and said hey shit, I'm sorry.

[01:05:19] I'd welcome him back with open arms but the fact that he's still touting the party line is upset. It's still upsetting.

[01:05:28] Yeah, I also love the story of Isabella in there because I feel like it almost creates this Tourette's episode almost creates this smaller version of Nexium as a whole.

[01:05:40] You kind of get this like little piece of it that shows everything, everything that was going on in this little piece of it was going on in the bigger scheme of it as well.

[01:05:50] And I thought that that was and I don't know if you know the average viewer got that or just if you know enough about it. I don't know how that comes across to other people but that's how I felt about it.

[01:06:01] I was like this is this little nucleus and it's showing exactly what happens and you know all these other parts of Nexium then also Nexium as a whole. Yeah. In the world. For sure.

[01:06:12] One quick thing about episode three, this is when we're first introduced to Diane Benskotter who will be...

[01:06:18] I believe if I got the timeline right our next guest and we interviewed Diane Benskotter and it's the moment that I gleaned from that was as clear from the beginning and I think this may have changed but Nancy doesn't respect her.

[01:06:31] It seems like it looks like anyway that she's like okay I'll do this for the vow or like for whatever but like because we'd all been trained that therapy was bullshit right. Only path was Nexium and I felt like watching her that she was like okay episode four.

[01:06:43] This was kind of the moment where I was seeing Nancy maybe start to wake up a little bit and kind of start to maybe take a little bit more responsibility and I think she has a long way to go obviously but would you guys agree that that was kind of the start of what we began to see?

[01:07:00] I for sure did. I think what Lauren did may have been a pretty important step or precursor into facilitating that.

[01:07:09] Yeah the only note that I have from episode four was Lauren and the comment about rough housing and I know we've already talked about just the tragedy of what Keith did to people like Lauren but and holding back the promise of the baby and how cruel that was but also just the double standard of it not being okay for Lauren to rough house.

[01:07:28] And I don't know if we've ever talked about this Nipi but like Keith was doing that with people all the time physically like you know even like how they showed in one of the episodes where Keith was like videotape me doing my tumbling.

[01:07:42] You know like he was doing stuff like that and like getting physical sort of like wrestling with people and it's inappropriate like I shared with Nipi before we got on with you.

[01:07:51] I remember when I was going over my notes he used to do that thing where you come up from somebody from behind and like hold them and then crack their back. Have you ever done that? Has anyone ever done that for you?

[01:08:00] First of all that's not like a safe chiropractic move you should never let somebody other than a chiropractor crack your back so that's bad Keith.

[01:08:08] Secondly I remember him doing that to me and feeling like that's not appropriate because when you do that depending on your height your like your junk rubs up against your butt.

[01:08:18] Sorry I'm laughing because the idea of Keith like bare hugging me from behind is making me very uncomfortable.

[01:08:25] And that happened. I think that probably happened in my 12 years there maybe two or three times and I remember being very uncomfortable but he was doing that to like all the women around me so I was like okay this is just something that he does.

[01:08:36] He's also a chiropractor on the side as well as being a chirochem at a concert pianist. The world renowned chiropractor. With the highest IQ.

[01:08:45] When you were talking about the tumbling when I watched that all I could think of was that episode from the office where Michael Scott is like rolling around and yelling parkour. Absolutely yeah can we move to five real quick.

[01:09:03] Episode five was you know I think for most people who I know who watched it was the one where people would text me and ask me things because I think the whole story of Daniela being in that room was just the most impactful story for a lot of people that came out of season two.

[01:09:21] Would you agree.

[01:09:23] Yeah that's when we got the most like WTF because a lot of our friends who knew our story didn't read the trial transcripts that particular part of the story wasn't necessarily is out there and yeah I thought they were able to do the reenact the what's it called the animated reenactments really well.

[01:09:42] I think it dispels a lot of the well she could have walked out any time response which is when people say that I'm like well clearly you don't know anything about course of control you moron came in an axiom and the next day she was put in this room.

[01:09:57] She had been conditioned over however much time to listen to these commands more or less so again it was breaking her down over time to lead her to this point.

[01:10:08] And her family had buy in so her family bought in so she had a lot of forces pulling at her to be obedient compliant at a young age when your individuation is starting to happen anyway right so it can always be dismissed as defiant teenager stuff so it was just it was a shit show for her you know that was tough.

[01:10:29] If there's one episode people watch from season two I think that's the episode.

[01:10:33] Yeah I mean I'd hope that watch all of them and see it in context. I think one thing I haven't shared here and I've shared it many times publicly is another experience I had throughout the whole episode was thinking oh wow oh wow anyone who's still on the fence or has any loyalty to Keith this will wake them up this will cause them to go oh shit I was wrong I was wrong.

[01:10:57] I was wrong every episode was met with more gaslighting more deflection more denial and specifically around Daniela and how she chose to be there and could have been there anytime actually one of our listeners said something really funny just to break the tension of the particular tragedy of Daniela was like oh Keith was really so smart he could have learned a spaniel in an hour and had a conversation with the mother in Spanish good point good point why doesn't he know Spanish.

[01:11:25] Hopefully that episode is just one of those things that people you know if it didn't wake them up it's something that they've added to their shelves and maybe made it a little bit heavier for them.

[01:11:35] And that's my segue to episode six the shelf also should have from episode six Nancy sharing that Keith left Pam sitting in her own feces for hours while they had breakfast. Well Keith and Nancy had breakfast together. That was hard to listen to. I couldn't believe that.

[01:11:52] Me neither that was new information. One of the things that I thought was great about episode six was that the filmmakers really captured the feeling outside of the courthouse when the verdict was read.

[01:12:05] I mean I've covered many court cases over my years and this was outside of the courthouse like journalists you know people who were there to watch the trial when Moira and the prosecutors came out just the cheer and everywhere.

[01:12:23] The court was hugging and there was just like this feeling of lightness and it was like something I had never experienced at the end of any other trial.

[01:12:32] And I thought that they captured that really well in the episode and I was really happy about that because it was very deep. Did we see you sprinting especially out of the federal courthouse for verdict.

[01:12:44] Because you don't have your phone or anything you had your wheels my but I got some wheels there my photographer Chris bulky he had my phone outside and he always knew when he saw me running.

[01:12:53] He gets my phone ready for me and opens flitter and gets a tweet ready for me to go. And I think even I think even we had drafted two tweets so he could just open my phone and pick the one that was right and get it out.

[01:13:06] So he and I worked together for a lot of my years at that station so we had a pretty down pat at that point.

[01:13:12] I love that back to one thing with Nancy and knowing that Keith treated Pam like that she knew that he treated Pam like that in 2016 because that's when Pam died.

[01:13:22] So the fact that it took her to episode six or whatever to remember that and reconcile that you know there's a lot of things that had to be a problem for Nancy that she let go.

[01:13:32] That's one that I think most people had they seen but had a problem with particularly if you're following someone who's willing to treat someone who's quote their life partner for 20 plus years like that.

[01:13:42] And so to ignore that at the time speaks volumes about what her level of indoctrination was but to continue to ignore it just speaks to the level of indoctrination and how do you justify that. That's a good point.

[01:13:58] Do you think maybe she thinks about it in a different way now that she said she has to I think the universe forced her to reconcile her delusion because so many people were stacking up the evidence against them.

[01:14:09] Now she had to in order in order to save face and you know now that her daughter there's so many things around her that are encouraging her to do that.

[01:14:17] Jail is one of those things I think those people that are still loyal faced with some jail time aren't going to talk so tough and then they have that they're not they're saying that's the reason those people gave because they didn't want to go to jail.

[01:14:30] Maybe but jail sober you up pretty quickly and I'll have you whistle in the right tune and those people they don't have to face that so they're acting brave on Twitter or whatever but they're not facing real life consequences except for the fact that they're just shilling someone's delusion now and

[01:14:45] for made up reasons of social justice so you know talk is cheap when it's on Twitter.

[01:14:51] But when you're faced with real life decisions with family members and other life decisions you're going to make decisions differently and it'll sober you up to the facts of the world and they're not living in the real world. So Nancy's finally living in the real world.

[01:15:03] Yeah, do you remember there was a I think the day I don't I'm going to get this wrong but the day that she got sentenced or the.

[01:15:10] It was some day at court like she was given the instruction that she couldn't talk to or have interactions with anybody from next year and then somebody from you know team take down from our side saw her in the lobby having two former coaches for two

[01:15:23] for two former coaches and she's it's like she just still wasn't like in reality like it's like they're just it was always above there about I mean there's a difference Lauren got on there and sat on the proverbial sword and I don't know that Lauren could have done anything different to vindicate herself

[01:15:40] and free herself from whatever was going on with her in her own mind in her own conscience and her own character she did it there's nothing else that she could have done like the humiliation she went through the emotional honesty that she demonstrated the emotional bravery that she did to

[01:15:55] her on a stage on a transcript like she went through the door and got slayed and Nancy didn't have to do that. I think Lauren is closer to healing and maybe healed and Nancy, I think is whatever degree of that journey she's on.

[01:16:09] She's got a long way to go I think I think so I think so she has to reconcile a lot of things that she did just in her own life and her own family, let alone lying to thousands of people about who Keith was knowingly that has its own karma.

[01:16:23] That being said, by the end of the season, I did feel like I wanted to reconcile with her like everybody knows that I want that for Lauren when we have legal permission and I haven't wanted that with Nancy but now I do.

[01:16:35] And Nipi and I don't have the same feeling about it and that's fine that's we could don't have to agree and it's a different journey.

[01:16:42] I'm there with Lauren. I would talk to Lauren again and I said something in our very first podcast about what we're doing and I said Sarah was throughout this whole journey was is the person I married the person I suspected she was and it was tested by a set of circumstances

[01:16:57] and her character was what I perceived it to be when Lauren got on there and did what she did you know I was close with Lauren and I suspected she had a character as well.

[01:17:06] And it wasn't until that moment that she demonstrated to me that that's the person that she wanted to be and it forced that set of circumstances for her to step up and be the person I suspected Lauren to be and it wasn't until then that she came through as the person that I suspected sure to be Nancy isn't demonstrated that and I won't talk to that until I see that.

[01:17:27] Just from my own self preservation not to be a deck. But it's just for me I can't interface with someone who's operating on a set of assumptions that aren't reality based as far as I see them I'm just not having a conversation that worth it. You know, so.

[01:17:39] Yeah, I totally get that because you deserve to get something out of it too it's not like just a forgiveness thing I mean this was something you guys went through for a very long time and are still going through and I think you guys have the right to deal with it and whatever way works for you and I don't think anyone else really gets to judge.

[01:17:57] They weren't in it, you know, just some people, you know, mostly in Vancouver who had a problem with certain behaviors and I said listen you don't get to tell me how I protect my family and handle my trauma. I don't care. I don't care.

[01:18:10] Well this is so great and so fun to do with you. I feel like we covered the key points. Aila thank you so much. Yeah, thank you guys.

[01:18:18] You're not far so if we're in Greenville which could happen in the next couple months and you're in Atlanta please let us know. I'd love to have a glass of wine with you. Fellow Southerners. Yeah absolutely. Northerners turned Southerners. Awesome.

[01:18:32] Big hugs, thanks for taking the time to do this with us. This is so much better than Nippy and I asking each other questions. This was great. Thanks so much for thinking of me. It's awesome. Okay, we kind of outsourced some of our salad.

[01:18:58] Yes well just to also let you know we asked Aila if she had a favorite kathronary word salad. She said any of the source videos that are still on YouTube with Allison, the original consumers byline infomercials are amazing. Oh my god.

[01:19:12] The video with Susan Dones that she has of the group trying to leave. Instead of transcribing those for you we thought you can give you that assignment and you can go Google those. The key is playing Pac-Man. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Which is amazing. Okay.

[01:19:25] But instead we thought we'd make one up for you. It's a hodgepodge. I like the short hitters. You know I think those are the ones that like you can get the sense of it so. But these are from notes. I found these right? I got it. From 2012.

[01:19:36] I got it. These are like from a note pad. In essence we remove hate. You are either training for living or training for dying. Certain acts you would not do regardless of feelings. So why not suffering and blame? I wonder if he's suffering and blaming in prison.

[01:19:56] It feels like he might be. I think he might be. So that means he's training for dying. Yeah. And those are from notes from a head trainer forum with Keith October 30th, 2012. Word salad put together. So you guys training for living or training for dying?

[01:20:13] I believe that was stolen from that guy who invented the juicer. Jack Lelaine? Yeah. I think that's a Jack Lelaine quote. I know. Well I hope he's getting his walking in. Anyway, marinate on that.

[01:20:25] Let us know what you thought of the Vow Season 2 in the comments on Instagram or join us over on the Patreon for a deeper discussion. Do you do voiceover work? I do. Sounds like it. Bye. Bye. Hope you liked this episode.

[01:20:55] Let's keep the conversation going and come hang out with us on Patreon where we keep the tape rolling each week with special episodes just for Patreon subscribers and where we get deep into the weeds of unpacking every episode of the Vow.

[01:21:07] And if you're looking for our show notes or some sweet, sweet swag or official ALBC podcast merch or a list of our most recommended cult recovery resources, visit our website at alittlebitculti.com. And for more background on what brought us here, check out Sarah's page-turning memoir.

[01:21:22] It's called Scarred. It's a story of how I escaped Maxim, the cult that found my life. It's available on Amazon, Audible, Narrated by My Life and at most bookstores. A Little Bit Culty is a talkhouse podcast and a Trace 120 production.

[01:21:35] We're executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and Anthony Nipy Ames with writing, research and additional production support by senior producer Jess Tardy. We're edited, mixed and mastered by our rocking producer Will Rutherford of Citizens

[01:21:48] of Sound and our amazing theme song, Cultivated, is by John Bryant and co-written by Nigel Asselin. Thank you for listening.