The Way Down: God, Greed, and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin (2021)

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.