Review: The Turning, River Road
Cult is an old word. It derives from the Latin cultus. At one point it meant a specific set of religious devotional practices for a particular place and time. It was a simple definition. If you look at Greek history “Cult of” is common to see.
It wasn’t until the 1930s that the term became negative, taking on the connotation we are familiar with today. Cult means something, shrouded in mystery, horror, and is often accompanied by yellow-ish and grainy photos or fuzzy video. The word feels heavy, despite getting watered down with pop culture “cult followings” becoming part of the norm.
Groups of people, wholly devoted to an idea or figure, to the detriment and further danger of their members, still exist. Thinking of cult members hiding tablets from their group feels like an anachronism, but it’s something that happened, and most likely still happens.
The Turning is one of my favorite podcast series. Each season takes on a topic that is personal to the sister duo hosts and producers, Erika Lantz and Elin Lantz Lesser. They take a fiber of personal connection and spin it up to a bigger, more encompassing story that takes on preconceived notions.
The Turning: River Road has a smaller link to the hosts- much of the story occurs near where they grew up. Despite this shadow of a connection, this is one that still spins up into something that feels more personal and somehow bigger than the stories they explored before. I admit, it could be distance on my part, but what this podcast is - is a hard-hitter. This is one of those where I’m glad that the story is told, but absolutely gutted that it had to be.
Nestled in the rural backroads of Minnesota once sat a religious community. It popped up sometime in the mid-1990s and was a mostly self-sustaining commune. For some, it seemed idyllic, and maybe it was at first. Members sang songs, cared for animals, and lived the way they wanted to live - by God and for God. For some parts, it was beautiful. On the other side of this coin of religious freedom, was also emotional and sexual abuse stemming from the hands of their leader, Victor Bernard.
This podcast follows the story of young women living as a part of the River Road Fellowship through their adolescence and into adulthood. Focusing mostly on the story of Lindsay Tornambe, who was 13 when her family joined, this docuseries tells a story from beginning to now. A story of how being chosen by Victor led to years of abuse, and as these girls grew into women, their lives turned into years of fighting for justice and truth. In 2014 Bernard was convicted of his crimes, but the edges of trauma won’t ever fully heal.
The beauty of this podcast is how it churns itself from a story of growing up to the horror that these women experienced as children. You can feel the push and pull of knowing that their childhoods weren’t normal while not knowing anything else. The tension of reality, of time, and space leans into this podcast in every way imaginable. You don’t imagine cults reaching into the 21st century, but they do.
This isn’t a podcast about what to do, but a story of what did happen – and how it happens. None of this starts big. There was a decentralization of an organization and then a drastic recentralization around a person, instead of a belief system. What's more is that the podcast highlights so well the different points of realization for different individuals. Or lack thereof. The comfort of shared belief creates connection, community, and still strife when the unthinkable happens. This podcast takes each of these emotions and bends them back into each other. Moments of beauty and tension are elevated with tact in music, tone of narration, and the particular empathy that these two producers bring to their work.
The Turning: River Road is hard to listen to when it comes to content. Listener discretion is definitely advised due to sexual assault. The contrast to the horror is that the production sucks a listener in with how well it is woven across its hour or so long episodes. I suggest not giving this one a deep marathon, but it is well worth the listen. As of this review, there are eight episodes released.
Listen to The Turning: River Road from iHeart Media and Rococo Punch below.
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