3 Things We Found Out From The Vow Part 2 On HBO Max
Warning: This article includes spoliers for The Vow Part 2
The Vow Part 2 opens with Nancy Salzman, co-founder of NXIVM in one of her company's videos speaking on how people will try and invalidate a group by calling them a "cult." A clear message to members who might be dealing with family or friends that see NXIVM and its core beliefs as problematic. She refers to those outsiders as "non-critical thinkers" and says if this happens to you ask, "What are they doing that's bad?"
Now, if you've seen Part 1 you know the bad that she's talking about. A lot of it being the indoctrination people receive over time with NXIVM and especially when you see how those same methods of teaching coerced some women to join a secret organization within the company that led to women being enslaved by founder Keith Raniere and other high-ranking women within the organization, like Allison Mack and Lauren Salzman.
Lionsgate Television / Via giphy.com
There were certain unanswered questions from Part 1 that producers wanted to cover in Part 2, primarily the trial, but also sitting down with Nancy Salzman and following up with NXIVM supporters and DOS ( Dominus Obsequious Sororium) members who deny any wrongdoing. With half of the season already streaming, I thought it'd be a good time to break down what we have learned so far from The Vow Part 2.
1.The organized crime angle
We see in Episode 1 how the lead prosecutor, Moira Penza, views NXIVM and how she chose to charge not only Keith Raniere but other members for their involvement in the organization and for supporting Keith throughout his reign of terror. The defense staked their claim that the women in DOS were all there willingly and were all informed on what they were signing up for. We then see multiple members being indicted on charges, along with Mr. Raniere, which included Nancy Salzman, Lauren Salzman, Allison Mack, and Clare Bronfman. Some of these women were not only powerful within the organization but actively recruited other women and played a big role in keeping them quiet with collateral they had given to their "masters" to maintain secrecy.
Moira knew the difficulty in testing the loyalty of Keith's inner circle when it came to finding out more information about the organization. The show quickly depicts why Keith's followers are so enamored with him as any true con artist is able to manipulate and gaslight the people who serve him. Nancy Salzman and others viewed him as one of the smartest people in the world, and someone who was almost a deity with a revolutionary way to live.
This is something that NXIVM was built on, and so when, by the end of Episode 1, you see that all of the women that were being indicted took plea deals and essentially separated themselves from Keith, most likely to save their own hide to a degree, but also because the information that the government had gathered was so damning. We see Nancy finally sitting down to give her side of it all as the screen cuts to black. This is like getting an underboss of a crime family to come in and speak on the inner working of the crime family that they were in charge of for so long.
2.Keith Raniere still has followers
Throughout the first three episodes, we meet multiple people who are defending and still following Keith Raniere. These are people, like those who defected, have been with the organization for a number of years, and some who were members of DOS as well. You see in Episode 1, men and women dancing outside the detention center where Keith was being held, in support of him and showing their "vanguard" who was still loyal to him. We then see various followers of Keith sit down with producers and share their experience of NXIVM and DOS and how the curriculum and methods that the organization used, benefited their life.
It's easy to see why these men and women became such big believers in not only Keith but Nancy when you hear how they gained confidence, work ethic, and a sense of place that they didn't have before. The danger in this, though, is when the vulnerabilities that you have shared with people you trust and view as a higher being is then used to shake any and all doubt on issues that you would normally think are wrong or questionable.
It's this sort of rhetoric that has been a foundation for these groups to cling onto as we've also seen in other groups who have been deemed cults. There are nuggets of truth within some of the teachings that I truly believe do help people, but the majority of what we hear in the docu-series seems like the perfect formula to make people isolate themselves only for the group and diminish any sort of debate within the organization, whether it be its teachings or ethics. It is said by a former NXIVM member that the only way a person who is still in it will ever make their exit is if they are willing to accept what's being told to them is the truth. From the way these men and women speak about Keith, they would need to catch him red-handed before ever turning on their leader, and even then they might be convinced it's all a part of the NXIVM methodology.
3.Nancy Salzman and others still have a blindfold on when it comes to bad results due to NXIVM
Episodes 2 and 3 focus primarily on Nancy and the belief she had in the curriculum that she and Keith were building to not only help people but the world. This is then where we see Nancy's infatuation with Keith and her viewing him as this innovator who was going to revolutionize people's lives for the better. At one point she says, "17,000 people got good results, where are they?" in regards to members coming out in support of her organization. This showcases further that Nancy maybe still hasn't, at this point in the series, come to the realization that it wasn't all good results for members.
In Part 1, we saw how former members spoke about the good that NXIVM provided for their lives. Even though the good didn't end up being sustainable, a lot of times it was due to the treatment in which some members suffered, like being considered a bad person if you questioned any authority or had tics because you suffered from Tourette syndrome.
It's this indoctrination of believing everything is a choice so that when you choose to question authority it is because you aren't a "critical thinker" and you're a "parasite" looking to devalue people. This teaching is something that Nancy and Keith both hammered into members, essentially making them rid of any instincts or doubts that they might have, in order to make them more loyal to the cause and be fearful of being viewed as a parasite.
This is further shown in Episode 3 when we see how NXIVM was tackling Tourette syndrome. We first meet Marc, who has long suffered from Tourette syndrome and directly attributes NXIVM's teachings as the reason for his being cured. He, along with Nancy and others, started experiments that had helped long-time sufferers of TS. Though none of them are licensed clinical professionals with expertise in TS, and they did not undergo a peer review, they somehow got results. Now to what degree were those results successful when you have one particular woman, Isabella, who had seemed to be cured of her tics but felt she'd lost other aspects of herself? You see Isabella packing up and leaving Albany, New York where many NXIVM reside after DOS had been exposed, and finally connecting the dots on the teachings that she had learned and the treatment she's received as someone still battling Tourettes.
Imagine having someone tell you that any time you had a tic it was you choosing to do so. Even though they show that this helped some control their tics it also built a foundation for members to be so self-critical of themselves, that if they did have a tic, they were considered weak and attention-seeking. It is why you see these people become so engrained into the tech of NXIVM because they see certain results and devote themselves to this new way of thinking without seeing what the downfall of it all could be.
