Season 2 – The Devil You Know

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stephen c @Bertaut 10/12/2022 An excellent examination of a wrongful conviction, a virtual cult, and the insanity that connects them Are you at all concerned about the alien reptiles who can take on human form and have infiltrated the highest levels of world government on the orders of Satan? What about that family member who is almost certainly a clone? Surely you're worried about your colleague, the one who is a witch with a vampire demon inside her. What about the giants? Or the zombies in Miami? And let's not forget the fact that the CIA is a cover for a global paedophile ring, the children of which are sacrificed to Satan after they're raped, and then eaten (usually during lunch break). If you worry about any of these issues, care about your fellow man, or love the lord, then Sherry Shriner is the person you need. The earthly manifestation of God's actual literal daughter (yep, Jesus had a sibling. In fact, he had thirteen of them. Apparently), Shriner wants you to join her movement today and help fight the war for the very fate of humanity (first though, make sure you subscribe to her Patreon. And contribute to her GoFundMe. And buy some merchandise. And sign up for a recurring donation on her website). Okay, as flippant an introduction as this is, it does serve to make a point regarding the utter absurdity, unworkability, and thoroughly incoherent nature of Shriner's core beliefs; mankind is engaged in a millennia-old war with Satan and an army of aliens, reptiles, clones, vampires, witches, vampire witches, demons, giants, zombies, genetically engineered super soldiers, paedophiles, Meg Ryan, Lady Gaga, and Taylor Swift (don't ask). As cults go, her unnamed movement (they were informally known as the Orgone Warriors) certainly isn't one of the better-known ones, but as The Devil You Know illustrates, you don't need thousands of followers living together on a compound to make an impact. In fact, you don't even need to leave your house. July 15, 2017; Tobyhanna Township, Monroe County, Pennsylvania. A woman makes a frantic 911 call to report her boyfriend has been shot. Police arrive on the scene and find that the man, Steve Mineo, is dead, a single gunshot wound to his forehead. Confused and distraught, his girlfriend, Barbara Rogers, isn't making much sense, so police bring her in for a formal interview, during which she tells them that although she was holding the gun, Steve knowingly pulled her trigger finger to fire it. Finding this explanation hard to believe, over the next seven hours, police press her, and eventually she says she killed Steve by accident. And ignoring her obvious mental health issues and her state of shock, this admission is all the DA needs to charge her with murder. As directed by Lana Gorlitz and Zebediah Smith, the second season of The Devil You Know initially seems to be setting up for an investigation into a case of someone wrongly accused, but it instead uses Steve's death to probe the Orgone Warriors, of which both Steve and Barbara were members, before running afoul of Shriner. Active on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Patreon, GoFundMe, Blog Radio (her twice-a-week show ran for 14 years, totalling over 500 hours of content), her own websites (all 19 of them), and with three self-published books (one of which is an actual literal interview with Satan and Lilith), Shriner output a massive amount of material in which she outlined her wild theories. And because of the vast reach of social media, those theories were disseminated to a fair larger audience than they ever would have been pre-internet. And, aside from Steve's death, that's the real theme of the show – much as the first season used the Pazuzu Algarad case to probe disaffected youth, drug addiction, and a broken mental health system, here, Steve's death is used as a springboard to examine the power of social media and how easily it can be used to manipulate and indoctrinate. Ultimately, the show asks the question of how could a lone middle-aged woman who barely left her house and who met almost none of her followers in person amass thousands of blind adherents all over the globe and raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations. And we see many instances of how adept Shriner was at using the virtual tools available to her. For example, after Steve's death, Shriner posted to her Facebook that she knew the real story of what happened, and she would reveal it in her radio show. Which she did; Steve saw Barbara manifest as a vampire after becoming aroused by seeing blood in a movie they were watching, and when he tried to escape, she killed him. And by repeating multiple times that she had warned Steve that Barbara was dangerous, Shriner managed to attract even more followers. The other major theme, of course, is Steve's death and the subsequent investigation, with the show very much taking the stance that Barbara's conviction for murder in the third was the wrong decision.Things are also pretty impressive from an aesthetic perspective. This is best seen during scenes set in Shriner's home. Only two known pictures exist of Shriner, and no video, but the show features her a lot in voice-over. To get around this, during the lengthy extracts from her radio show, the camera moves around her empty house as various images related to what she's talking about are rear-projected onto the walls, giving the whole thing a haunted house vibe. All in all, the second season of The Devil You Know isn't as good as the first, however, it's still an impressive documentary. The third episode in particular is brilliantly done, really making you feel just how badly manipulated Kelly Pingilley was and how much her friends miss her. Tightly paced, very well edited, with an excellent selection of Shriner's voice-overs and Steve's video clips, the season is definitely worth your time. See more 07/04/2022 The first season was a little meandering but still told a depressing and intriguing story of true crime in a small town. The second season goes nowhere and seems like it used the story as a way to talk about misinformation and disinformation. I'm still not sure exactly how at fault the cult leader was or if I was watching a story about a murder or a suicide. I'd recommend rewatching the first season and leaving this alone. See more Read all reviews

The Devil You Know — Season 2

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