Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey

A slow and methodical look at the FLDS, the rise and teachings and finally the scandals. It's hard to understand how people went along with this and even harder to understand how one man has reign over so many people. Wild that people still follow WJ today. Much respect to the women who were willing to speak of their experience.

Ever since the smash hit success of 'making a murderer ' , Netflix is seemingly on a mission to make the multi episode docu series the way we get our documentary thrills.leave the feature lengths versions to the multiplexes and give the public the truth in bite size chunks they seem to be saying. Whilst this format seems to have worked for the aforementioned 'making a murderer ', tiger Kong' etc, the subscription channel has fallen short in this approach when the subject matter hasn't the legs to sustain our interest over multiple hours of viewing. Take the interminably dull 'bad vegan', a story so stretched, it should have been sponsored by spandex or the completely unnecessary 'tiger king ' sequels. 'keep sweet' bucks this trend and if anything is too short. It's tale of a corrupt sect leader and the power he wielded over his followers is too brief. With a scant 46 minutes or one episode devoted to the punishment of his crimes and the subsequent affect it had on congregation. That's not to say the preceding three episodes are over burdened with extraneous detail, on the contary, they are nicely paced and just the right side of informative. Pity the final episode is in too much of a rush to get to the finish line because 'be sweet' had the potential to be one of the most compelling documentary series of the yeah.

As someone who's a millennial, I was too young when Jeffs was arrested, and as a European this story hasn't crossed my path before. The build up in this docu series is done in a smart way. It starts of absurd, as any religious fanaticism is to me. But you really get to understand how this happens to children born into this. It just gets more maddening and sickening, with the worst at the end. I was left shedding tears in anger of how this suffering exists in this world.

I am also convinced that this is still going on under Jeffs following to this day, which is mind boggling and disgusting to think of. Would have been better if they had ended the show with discussions on how to help end this.. and how to help survivors of this specific problematic sect type cultures. Also, I wonder with the records they found; have they prosecuted more of the men who married the underaged kids?

Other than that; well done Netflix, for showing the bravery of these victims in speaking up.

This docuseries is disturbing because it contains tactics of influence used maliciously that we still see today. These events were not 50 or 100 years ago... but in the 2000s! It rings true that any good thing can be twisted by evil and in the FLDS church, it's rampant.

Elissa and the other men and women who have had the tenacity to come forward should know that they truly are saving lives abd families. My heart goes out to all the families who have been separated due to the Jeff men's twisted evil minds.

This mini series is very well documented, and a great but shocking watch. If you are interested in a series about cults, you should definitely check this one out. The overall storyline of this documentary is well put together; nothing feels rushed, or stretched out.