De vraag is natuurlijk in hoeverre deze fictieve sekte met haar charismatische leider Edward North, overeenstemt met "the real thing". Mark Vrankovich, oprichter van Cultwatch bekeek alle afleveringen tot dusverre en schreef hierrrr zijn commentaren erop.
Over de eerste aflevering schreef hij:
"In this first episode a few cult traits are revealed: The cult's compound is isolated deep in New Zealand bush. Isolation from the outside world is important if the cult leader is to unanchor his follower's minds from reality and tow their minds into the shoals of his own warped world view. The Heaven's Gate cult leader Marshall Applewhite would have found it much harder to convince his followers that suicide was the path to a spaceship hovering behind the comet Hale-Bopp, had it not been for the physical isolation afforded by their three acre rented mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California.
After a scene when Michael's cult member son Ryan Lewis (played by Gareth Reeves) emerges from three weeks isolation in a floatation tank where glowing light balls snow around him, the cult's leader Edward North (played by Lathan Gaines) takes him aside. He compliments him on renouncing his relationship with his Father, and then informs Ryan that to move to the next level he must renounce his relationship with his brother Nathan too. His reward for doing this is the prospect of advancement and a "Sanctioned Relationship".
This is typical cult practice, and is called "Relationship Control". More important than isolating members physically is isolating them socially. We are relational beings, most of what we do and say is influenced by other people. It follows that if you can control the people that your target interacts with, then you can control your target. This is one of a cult's defining characteristics, and something you should remember to watch out for.
Several times we hear the cult's leader tell their members that blood and DNA doesn't make a family, and that those in the cult are their new family now. Here Edward North is laying the groundwork to prepare his followers to give up their actual family, by knocking out from under them the normal notion of what a family is."
Margot
Interessante serie! Inderdaad zijn er meteen al in de eerste aflevering veel parallellen te vinden met de transformanten en andere nare sektes. Ook daar word je van je familie en geliefden gescheiden, geïsoleerd van de buitenwereld (matrix) en worden relaties in sterke mate gecontroleerd.