Sometimes a story is so heinous that it seems incomprehensible that it could happen twice. This was at the heart of Netflix’s 2022 limited series, Keep Sweet, Pray, and Obey. The show was a deep dive into convicted sex offender Warren Jeffs, who was the former cult leader of The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Jeffs used his clout as the Prophet of FLDS to commit sex crimes against minors. It was a relief when the leader of the Church was sent to prison, but as it turned out, that wasn’t the end of the story.
Netflix’s newest bingeable series details the fallout of the Jeffs story and, heartbreakingly, reveals that this vulnerable community could be targeted again. The four-part series, Trust Me: The False Prophet, shows the circumstances that led another monster to power in the FLDS and the tireless effort of one woman to reveal his crimes.
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‘Trust Me: The False Prophet’ is Part Two of a Horrifying Story
In many circles, Warren Jeffs is a recognizable name. The same cannot be said for the new villain plaguing the FLDS community, but that doesn’t make him any less dangerous. The genesis of Trust Me: The False Prophet begins with Christine Marie and her husband, Togas Katas, who start filming a documentary because she wanted to help a society in shambles. A former Mormon herself like so many in pop culture, Christine saw that the remains of the FLDS church needed help. Without Jeffs in the picture, families were being evicted from their homes, and their way of life was crumbling.
Christine has immense empathy for these people, but when she and her cinematographer husband start filming their experience, they have no idea what truth they will discover. After gaining the trust of the community that was famously wary of outsiders, Christine comes to know Sam Bateman, an unassuming member of the Church who starts making waves. Even though Jeffs mandates from prison that no one should be getting married, Sam starts amassing a collection of wives, many of them underage.
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Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
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🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
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01
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You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
02
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You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
03
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You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
04
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The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
05
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How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
06
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Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
07
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Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
08
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What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
09
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Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
10
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It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
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Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
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James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
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Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
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Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
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Though Sam was affable on the surface, Christine became privy to the disturbing facts about the new self-appointed Prophet. Claiming that he had “impressions from God,” he declares that many of the girls should be given to other men in the Church. Christine starts gathering evidence and discovers that she was only scratching the surface in the disturbing documentary.
The four episodes follow her attempts to get the attention of the authorities and save women and young girls who were being groomed. Bateman seemed to be picking up right where Jeffs left off, and somehow, it is even more brazen. Because the former Prophet wasn’t giving commands anymore, Bateman saw an opportunity to take advantage of women who were compelled not to question their husbands and obey them without complaint.
Sam amasses power by cultivating a close group of male friends who could coerce their wives into doing the unthinkable. Part of the fascination of The False Prophet is the delicate dance Christine and her husband have to do to discreetly save these women. In the tight-knit community, the wives are in a tricky situation where even questioning their husbands is tantamount to heresy. Christine offers her help while also not alerting Sam to what she is doing.
The False Prophet is also an examination of the authorities’ failure to act when it comes to crimes against women. Even though Christine had hard evidence in the form of a confession on tape, it took months for the police to inform the FBI. This is, unfortunately, a running theme for many true crime stories, and the reason that Bateman got away with it for so long and had so many victims. The Netflix series is a fascinating look at a vulnerable group of people whom no one wanted to help.
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