Why hello there Beauties,

Before I get started on my review/summary of this episode I have to mention a few things. I thought that these episodes were available on Hulu on Wednesdays. I don’t don’t know if they have it available on Freeform on the day of or before/after they come on Hulu. I thought maybe for this episode they extended it for another day…I am not sure. Maybe I am just overthinking this whole thing or I am not paying attention closely enough.

Another thing I want to say is that during this episode there was so much information being said. There was so much where I had to pause the show to keep up with what was going on. I think I wrote enough notes, but it is possible I missed a few points in terms of information.

Alright moving on to episode 3!

Episode 3

“The Carousel”

This episode starts off with another spirit/consciousness ritual taking over people’s bodies. I don’t know the exact terminology, but I will call it “Spirit Take Over Ritual.” (STOR) I can’t express how much I don’t like it when rituals like this take place. I understand that it is a way to show a suffering person tangible things for a sense of closure, but I can’t stand behind when they give permission for spirits to take over their bodies. it is a very dangerous process. It is a process where you can invite something in your body that you can’t get out or opening a gateway for harmful spirits like demons in, and then in the end cause more harm than good.

Anyway. It starts with this follower (follower 1), and having three other followers going through this ritual. It was to show this follower how life was when she was younger. One of followers had the consciousness of (Follower 1’s) youth, another follower had the consciousness of (follower 1’s) mom, and the last follower was the consciousness of (follower 1’s) dad at the time. (If this at all makes sense). I have to admit I was very freaked out by this whole process. My guess is this is one of Teal’s methods to show her followers how badly they have been suffering starting as early as childhood. This process seemed to overstep the lines of respecting people and their bodies. It is way too much. Too overwhelming that I can’t even describe in the written word about it. I just know in a spiritual sense I find this disrespectful.

The continuation of Juliana’s journey of finding her place is in deep affect. Her journey is really shown more during this episode. Juliana talks more of what is happening. You get little glimpses here and there in the previous episodes about where she stands. She pretty much is seen as a threat without having Teal meet her in the first place. Juliana was talking to her mom about visiting Germany with her family and friends. Juliana wants to visit, but not sure when.

It is creepy to me how Teal hides in the background of things when Blake and Juliana are having pleasant memories with each other being a married couple. You can cut the tension with a knife. Even with this moment you can tell just how much Teal is jealous of their relationship. She is still justifying the aspect of the community is always together. It is a said over and over narrative that defends her actions for being upset.

This particular episode talks about childhoods for the most part or at least childhood references. Like I mentioned before the episode starts of with a STOR with a follower looking over their childhood. Then the next segment was about this other follower “Graci” explaining what she went through in her childhood. She goes into depth about her abuse when she was younger. She mentions that she got punishment by her dad by him raping her. Graci doesn’t remember some of the things, and she remembered a few things by what Teal uncovered from her.

Right around this time they were reintroducing the former follower Jared talking about more about the Teal Swan tribe, about Teal influencing her followers to see things that didn’t happen. So it made me wonder if Graci was talking about her abuse, and couldn’t remember some of it that she went through the process to “remember” what else that happened. What I am trying to say is that the stuff that Graci couldn’t remember, and mentioned that Teal helped her see the other abuses… are those other abuses actually real or are they exaggerated or “stretched truth?” That is what I wonder.

It made me wonder as well that when Teal has her rituals to get people to exaggerate the truth I wonder what “healing medicines” does she use? I know certain medicines out there causes hallucinations and such. Maybe she mixes that in her sage or something? I wonder.. I mean I also found it weird that when she has the healing type of ritual with Graci she mentions that she is using “frog poison.” So what is that exactly? What is that used for? Is it dangerous for humans? I have all these questions that helps me defend my case with this.

So as I said Jared came back to the picture talking to the PI still. Jared expresses something that I had to take note of:

“Inner Circle”= cult

“Outer Circle”= self help 

It is pretty self explanatory to what he is saying when you are in the outer circle compared to the inner circle. The belief that I am getting from that is that once you as an individual get involved into the tribe more closely as the inner circle things switch and become more “cult” like.

Jared also goes in detail about what Teal does to isolate her followers. She convinces her followers to not be around their family or friends, because this lifestyle isn’t normal. I mean that is pretty much expressed in the past episodes, but I do like having it explained. Jared was so convinced in following Teal that instead of paying child support he would give all of his money in the retreats and believing Teal’s teachings.

There was another intervention kind of situation with Juliana. Teal is trying her hardest to manipulate Juliana by not visiting her family in Germany. Teal mentions how this lifestyle isn’t normal so therefore she can’t go away. Even when they are not on tour they don’t have a “leisure” minute to visit families. This explanation of how things are run in this inner circle is obvious to me that she is trying her hardest to manipulate to get her way,

An interesting part of the episode is the part about Sabrina. I am confused by her segment, because one minute she adores Teal and the next minute she is giving her a hard time. It could be the interior struggle that she is going through that is making her go back and forth??? She mentioned that she started coming to Teal in 2015, because she needed serious help since she was depressed. She had a therapist, but he therapist didn’t work for her. She adored that Teal was a medium, and just her methods in general. Her face glowed majorly when talking about Teal.

The next minute when there is a conference with the followers and workers Sabrina has this attitude against Teal. She comes of majorly defiant. So that is what confuses me, because when they recorded the different scenes of Sabrina… was it roughly the same time.. or was it many months later? I wish there was a time stamp of some sort, because it makes Sabrina look bad… bad as in that she might be bi-polar or something…. (or if there was a time stamp…. I didn’t catch it.)

Anyway Sabrina felt like within these six years of following Teal her life didn’t get any better. She feels like her life got worse. She got rather aggressive, and said that her life is “bullshit.” She ranted about the whole aspect, and ended up running away from the room. Juliana ended up finding her and talking to her. What was discussed within the meeting with everyone was that Sabrina was thinking of committing suicide. The thing that upset me… maybe it was because it was phrased wrong, but it looked like Teal wanted to help Sabrina to make sure her reputation wasn’t ruined. She said she wanted to help her, but Teal put together that if Sabrina goes back home to New York and commits suicide it will be discovered that the last place that she was at was Teal’s workshop. That is a little too sketchy for me.

When they came back to the main retreat location you get a more specific scene to what Sabrina is feeling about learning the teachings from Teal. She feels like all she is doing is having an never ending cycle of learning, and learning, and learning from the teachings. She mentions that it is like a carousel of going to retreat after retreat etc. She isn’t ready to share her pain with everyone. Plainly she isn’t ready to share, but with how Teal is taking it is that Sabrina is being complicated for not sharing. Initially she is trying to force her to be vulnerable, when she isn’t ready to do so.

So later on without having Sabrina around they talk about the whole situation with Sabrina. I can tell that Juliana is getting frustrated with Teal. Teal goes into this whole rant about how she should be vulnerable and such, and finally Juliana speaks up, and tells Teal that she can’t force people to open up. She is plainly not ready to open up. By standing up to Teal it didn’t end well with her and Juliana. Teal pretty much stated that Juliana “crossed the line.” I say if that isn’t proof that Teal isn’t controlling I don’t know what is.

With the show so far the most interesting part is watching the scenes with the PI. I feel like I have a good enough outlook when it comes to Teal’s tribe. The thing I want to know is the inner workings of this tribe. With that being said finally the PI scene that I was waiting for came into place! The PI was talking to other ex followers of the tribe, and one of them sent a document about the Non-Negotiables new followers have to sign if they want to be part of the tribe. The PI went over a few, and ended up talking to Blake saying that what was in this document is illegal and cult like. Knowing that it puts this PI in a difficult position.

I managed to write these down… maybe you can decide what you think….

“You can’t put your own family first. Teal has to come first.”

“If she wants you there, she gets you.”

“The priority of the entire community is whatever’s in the best interests of Teal. Everything else is second to that.”

“You can’t have personal boundaries that have in any way an effect on Teal.”

“You will now be in the world of fame. This makes relationships very, very complicated and often painful. Your associations are in fact your potential biggest liability. Anyone you introduce the community could turn on Teal, blackmail her, rip the community apart, put extra pressure on Teal or other members of the community.”

“When fame and money is involved people simply cannot be trusted.”

“Your life is not going to even remotely resemble normal.”

“If you want to have a normal life do not choose to be part of the inner circle.”

We finally see Juliana open up a lot of the inner workings with being around Teal. Originally she thought that Teal was this caring person that wants to do the right thing Just over time her vision of things has changed majorly. It is really hard to see Juliana break down like this. She seems really emotional. She is a person that will commit her whole soul to something. Something tells me that when committing to this lifestyle backfired on her, and possibly feels betrayed. I have to say that as each episode goes by I am always cheering for Juliana. (#teamJuliana) She has a good head on her shoulders.

So at the end they do their cleansing thing with Sabrina. They call this cleansing thing “water breath.” This whole scene was SUPER uncomfortable for me to watch. In this scene it looks like they were trying to drown Sabrina. I wanted to jump through the screen and save Sabrina. It seemed like Sabrina was fighting through forcing her her body and face into the pool of water. Until finally she was let out being carried out with a limp body. I couldn’t tell if she was killed or not until they laid her down on a flat surface whispering “I love you,” to Teal. That was so WEIRD! I didn’t know how to take that. It made me think of that 90’s movie where these people nearly killed themselves to get this weird sensation to make them fly in another dimension. Very dangerous stuff. Stuff like that shouldn’t be done to people. What if Sabrina actually died from that? How would they save themselves from a garnished reputation?

I am interested in what’s to come. My guess is that Juliana influences Blake to leave the inner circle to visit her family. Teal is shown so upset and talk about that Blake was her falling place since teenage years. It was the first person she trusted, and now Blake has “ruined” that. I am curious.

This show in general is interesting to me like watching a binge worthy tv show. I am really intrigued by the drama. I am just so amazed just how much control has over a lot of people and for as long as she has. Yeah people have broke away, but that doesn’t stop that Teal influenced them in some way. I am already ready for the next episode.

Until the next time!

Peace Out!

Sandra M. Dorazil

P.S. Here are my notes… (I was multi-tasking with eating lunch… and it got on my notes a bit.. Oops! Sorry!)