‘The Vow Part II’ Exposes NXIVM Sex Cult’s House of Horrors—and Keith Raniere’s Brainwashed Defenders
HBO’s The Vow spent nine hours detailing the horrific abuses perpetrated by Keith Raniere via his NXIVM sex cult, as well as the efforts of key members—in particular Mark Vicente, Bonnie Piesse, Sarah Edmondson and Anthony “Nippy” Ames—to escape the organization and bring his crimes to light. There were horrors aplenty in that prolonged 2020 non-fiction affair, highlighted by Raniere convincing women to brand their pubic areas with his initials. Yet those who can’t get enough of the predator’s wretchedness will discover a whole new batch of atrocities committed by the manipulative self-help guru in The Vow Part II, a six-part follow-up (Oct. 17, HBO) that revisits his trial through a variety of prisms, none more revealing than that of NXIVM co-founder and “prefect” Nancy Salzman, who participates at length in the production. Prepare to be shocked, disgusted, and infuriated all over again.
The Vow Part II’s main throughline is the prosecution of Raniere, Salzman, her daughter Lauren, and Smallville actress Allison Mack by Eastern District of New York Assistant Attorney Moira Penza on a wealth of charges that included racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, attempted sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, and wire fraud conspiracy. Despite the best efforts of his defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo (whose commentary here grows less confident as the verdict nears), those crimes netted Raniere a 120-year sentence.
The real hook of Jehane Noujaim’s docuseries—helmed, unlike its predecessor, without her partner/husband Karim Amer—is Salzman’s commentary, during which she attempts to justify her motives, investigates the manipulation she and Lauren suffered at the hands of Raniere, and grapples with her own culpability in this monstrous endeavor. Salzman is far from blameless in the creation and operation of Raniere’s systems of coercion and abuse, and she doesn’t shy away from her role in NXIVM, defending herself as someone who sought to better students’ lives while also wrestling with the idea that what she built was, ultimately, devised by Raniere to satisfy his demented desires.