Sins of Our Mother

It's always because of one crazy aspired self proclaimed cult leader that time and time again the poor victims and their families get sucked into these sad real life horrors. How powerful are our beliefs yet we are not ever taught how to safeguard these, to know when we are manipulated and remove ourselves.

This short series is a thorough depiction of how vulnerable humans can be and the awful consequences that are brought about by trusting blindly one source of "truth" without self-reflections and discovering one's own blindspots.

It's the second series that I watched relating to cults that were spin offs from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I begin to wonder what the reasons are behind why some of these LDS followers deviate from their original faith and grow into monsters? Perhaps to active are their imagination and this quote from the series Severance kind of says it all: "The good news is hell is just the product of a morbid human imagination. The bad news is whatever humans can imagine, they can usually create."

Respectfully, Mrs. Janis Cox, I don't think so. The way Lori Daybell's parents give interviews makes me too uncomfortable. Lori killed her children for her selfish reason to make the marriage with Chad work and covered the real motive for religious reasons. Religion surely played a part but it is the coping mechanism for her to justify the horrible deeds she's done and the channel to alleviate her guilt. Her parents are doing the same thing. Barry and Janis blame Satan for her daughter's moral corruption right from the start. No wonder Lori and Alex turned to be fanatics who give spiritual meaning to all of their wrongdoings and take no responsibility for their actions.

A few advisory panels and guest speakers of the series undermine the credibility of the whole series. Julie Rowe - who says the same bs as Chad Daybell does - criticizes him and tells how his belief is different from hers or traditional LDS. Are you for real? What is the role of Justin Lum, an Arizona-based journalist? All the facts and information are clearly organized and delivered from the producer while he says stuff like 'Lori was smiling when the police came.' We can see that with our own eyes and make inferences based on observations. Those are the roles of friends or witnesses. For god's sake, he's the journalist, and the only thing he does is to make assumptions.

Making Colby a main narrator of the story is a hard but wise choice. He is the victim of the case as well but misunderstood as an accomplice by stupid Internet. He is the one who is most affected by the crimes and who can tell the most accurate story in the most convincing way.

True crime documentaries are the new next thing as we seem to be bombarded by them. I'm not going to complain though as I find it very entertaining to watch. Certainly when you see what kind of completely crazy people are surrounding us like Lori Vallow in this case. What is completely crazy is that she is not alone in her fantasy world. This crime drama involves more than one person, all as disillusioned as each other. Of course they're all religious. You have to be a bit of a lunatic to believe in any religion. I'm probably not going to make friends here but in my opinion, for a better peaceful world, they should ban all religions. The documentary is well made, with a lot of interviews from people involved in the story, a lot of them be nice crazies to say it nicely. There are not enough mental institutions to fit all those mentally sick, although lifetime prison is the only good solution for the murderers here. A real drama but certainly entertaining if you like true crime documentaries.

Where to begin with this train wreck? Chad Daybell, a grandiose narcissist mediocre in every way, finds an enabler in Lori Vallow, a covert narcissist who is as unhinged as he is, to help him carry out his fantasies of being god and executioner. These people are narcissistic because they have never cared about anyone else but themselves. They would not otherwise have played those around them like a chessboard and decreed who was worthy of living; note how someone was a light or dark spirit depending on their utility to them.

Ironically, when they accuse other people of being zombies, they are the ones with empty and soulless eyes, hiding behind masterfully crafted disguises as faithful man and dedicated mother to conceal their voracious appetites for admiration and validation that can never be sated, and a deadening void that can never be filled. These people are prime examples of why we should always pay attention to what people do, instead of being beguiled by what they say. In this instance, doing so could have saved a few lives.

In my opinion this documentary came way too early. I'm writing this review as somebody who has been trying to follow the case since 2020. I remember when the kids were still missing and that lady was found just chillen in Hawaii... and then later it was just such a heartbreaking discovery after those poor kids were found in Idaho. The details however have not been made public and most people who are following this case have already known what was put into that documentary. It seemed more focused on the brother's feelings towards his mom (which is fine) but it's shocking that the mom of Lori Vallow had the nerve to be in the documentary. Was she paid after that? Not sure how that works exactly but if so, that's ridiculous cuz she already made a fool of herself doing early interviews defending Lori. That family is twisted. We wanna know what happened exactly to those kids, to Charles, and to chads wife.

Also... Melanie Gibb is a 2-faced liar and I really think she knows waaaaay more about the plans chad and Lori had concerning the children. She tried to look like a naive friend during that recorded phone call but that woman knew what Lori and chad believed spiritually, agreed with them, fed into their conspiracies, and was a member of their little cult! The podcast was made from her too! They trusted her for a reason as a person who "had JJ." Something isn't adding up there so although the documentary shared a lot about the case, it wasn't enough. I guess we'll learn the sad horrific details next year during the trial. It's very, very sad.