Research shows sexual violence is more likely where women are isolated, unsupported, undereducated, unmarried, and surrounded by addiction.
Discarded boundaries do not produce freedom when children, marriage, and human dignity are treated as content.
Do bias charts capture real distortions? Absolutely; they also miss framing, sourcing, scale, and beat inexperience
Summary – Pyre is interrogating Sam, who shouts scripture at him about the “one mighty and strong.” Pyre uses false details about the murder to trick Sam into revealing that he isn’t the murderer. The police chief is getting ready to release the brothers, so Taba stalls him while Pyre talks to Robin about his brothers’ involvement in the “School of the Prophets” and gets him to reveal two names: Bernard Brady, a Provo businessman, and Prophet Onias. The detectives follow up with Bishop Low and his wife, located at the end of the last episode, asking them about the excommunication of Dan and Ron. The bishop is reluctant to reveal details because of clergy confidentiality but eventually reveals that Dan was excommunicated based on the testimony of his daughters that he attempted to forcibly take them as polygamous wives. We get a flashback to a heartbreaking scene where Matilda has sex with Dan to distract him as her daughters escape out a window in the middle of the night. Dan was excommunicated, and the girls were placed with a family in the ward (as the bishop refused to call CPS) but later ran away, and now they and their brother are missing. At his daughter’s baby blessing, Ron confronts the bishop about his brother’s excommunication, not knowing about Dan’s attempted polygamy and thinking that it’s about his political beliefs. Brenda has a conversation with Sister Low and Diana, indicating that both know that Ron is abusing her but only Brenda is willing to do anything about it. In fact, Sister Low feeds Diana a line about how her only duty is “creating a home and environment to sustain and support our Priesthood holder.” To Detective Pyre, the bishop claims to have followed church procedure but eventually encouraged Diana to leave and gave her money to do so. The detectives follow up on Robin’s lead about Bernard Brady by arriving at his house in the foothills of Provo with a warrant. We find out that the Bradys sheltered Ron when he was having a hard time. In a flashback, Ron receives a summons to a church disciplinary court and blames Diana for it. He punches her in the face and begins throwing the food she’s preparing on the floor, saying he’ll starve her into obedience. Diana grabs a kitchen knife and drives Ron from the house, telling him not to come back. Back in the present, Bernard admits to being in the School of the Prophets study group and driving miles to pick up Prophet Onias and the Laffertys but denies being further into the group than that. But when he sends his wife out of the room to make lemonade, he produces a notarized letter he sent to himself with details of the Laffertys’ hit list, including that Diana is on the list because she wrote a letter that got Ron excommunicated. The detectives rightly chastise him for not taking this information to the police earlier. Brady reveals that he knows the location of “the farm,” a Lafferty compound. With Allen’s help in drawing a map, the detectives plan to stake out the property in the morning. Detective Pyre returns home for FHE and finds that his wife and kids have been invited to the bishop’s house for the evening and are spending the night there. Pyre believes this is an attempt to keep an eye on his family and control the narrative about the case. The next morning on the way to the raid of the farm, Pyre questions Brady about the details of Ron’s excommunication, which we see in flashback. He is indeed excommunicated after lashing out at the church leaders about them not following the “correct” doctrines of the church. When Ron returns home, he finds that his teenage daughter has cut the markings out of his garments, which he puts on anyway with only a sports coat and jeans over the top. He says goodbye to his kids and leaves the home. When the farm is raided, the only people inside are three teenage girls, who we learn are from a polygamous compound in British Columbia and were brought down by Prophet Onias to be Ron’s wives. The girls show the detectives a cupboard they had been forbidden to touch, which the detectives open to reveal a single shirt belonging to Ron with some papers in the pocket, a hit list, and a revelation directed at Diana commanding her to repent and return to him. Allen is in disbelief that Ron could have written these things, but Brady confirms that Ron is a violent man. He explains that Ron fled to his parents’ home after his excommunication, where his mother confirms his calling as “the one mighty and strong” and says he’s only a heartbeat away from his rightful place. His father is lying sick in bed and asks Ron to call a doctor, but Ron recalls his cruelty to them as children and refuses. It’s implied that he indirectly caused his father’s death in order to take over the leadership of the family. Church History—This episode contains the most fabricated piece of church history in the show. When Bernard Brady reveals that Diana’s information led to Ron’s excommunication, he makes an analogy to Joseph Smith’s martyrdom. He claims that while Joseph was in hiding after destroying the press of the Nauvoo Expositor, Emma wrote a letter to Joseph encouraging him. John Taylor intercepts this letter and adds a line meant to make Joseph turn himself in, thus indirectly causing the prophet’s death. Taylor’s motive is to put Brigham Young at the head of the church, instead of Emma’s young son, in order to continue the doctrine of polygamy, which he and Brigham are already heavily involved in. Reputable historians both in and out of the church say there is no evidence to support this interpretation of events, though the succession crisis between Brigham Young and the ten-year-old Joseph Smith III is real and
I can’t wait to watch Dune: Part Two with my kids. Dune: Part Two is so good it lodges itself (and retroactively lifts its predecessor) into the pantheon of great epic movie trilogies. Depending on whether or not the third and final installment can stick the landing, I suspect it will be spoken of in the same breath as Lord of The Rings, The Dark Knight, and Star Wars. Like the first two of those trilogies, however, the film is not right for young children. Dune deals with serious themes such as drug use, religion, violence, colonialism, gender, and terrorism. It does so in a way that avoids the overly simplistic explanations appropriate for younger kids, but that is honest and thought-provoking. The film provides easy access to difficult conversations with teens while telling a thrilling story, and adults will leave feeling satisfied and contemplative about some of the film’s broader implications. The film picks up in the aftermath of the Harkonnen’s capture of Arrakis from House Atreides, and Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) taking a place among the local Freman. For a part two, the film is remarkably well contained with a clear beginning, middle, and end. I wouldn’t recommend coming into this film without watching the first, but if you did, you would certainly enjoy the story on its own merits. For Latter-day Saints, the film’s most poignant themes revolve around the nature and abuse of power. Among the Fremen, Paul is believed to be the Mahdi, a Messianic figure they expect will return them to control of their lands. Paul is torn between seeking vengeance for the defeat of his family and moving on by integrating into the Fremen society. The faction of Fremen who view Paul as the Mahdi complicates this by holding out the opportunity for the power he needs to seek out revenge. The ethics of how Paul wields that potential power are among the most potent themes of the film, one sure to be further explored in the trilogy’s final installment. The director, Denis Villeneuve, is in top form here. His shots are each expertly crafted art pieces on their own merits. They lend weight to the themes he’s exploring, and he weaves them together like a composer weaving together the themes of a symphony. He even includes an extended black-and-white motif that just works. You don’t even question it. The script is well paced. It never lags like sometimes happened in the first installment, but also gives plenty of space for its beats to breathe. It’s never confusing, but also doesn’t feel the need to over explain to its audience. Just as in the first film, the sci-fi is absurd—dragonfly-like helicopters, giant worms, and magic yelling. But the imagination here makes them feel completely authentic. You can’t help but buy in. Perhaps the most fun new element—riding the sandworms—is so thoughtfully considered it feels obvious, quite a feet for a film that wants you to buy the reality of riding a worm. Chalamet leads a stellar cast here that has added Florence Pugh, Christopher Walken, and Austen Butler. Butler in particular inhabits the grotesque Harkonnens in a way that feels both terrifying and authentic. As for the returning cast, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Ferguson, and Stellan Skarsgård are standouts. A lot of weight is put on Zendaya in this film and she is substantially up to the task. Dune: Part Two is a great story wrapped in a world class sensory experience executed by artisans at the top of their craft. It is certainly not a film for kids, but I imagine many parents connecting to their teens over it, and I would heartily endorse it to them. Five out of five stars.
Across the country, and within Utah, there’s been a great deal of fear and frustration directed at Critical Race Theory. For a faith community dedicated to “seeking truth no matter where it comes from,” are we open to doing that even with CRT?
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