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Do you love cults, true crime, forgotten history, local news reports, elaborate conspiracies, small town politics, the color maroon, take-charge women, or all of the above? Then Netflix’s latest docuseries Wild Wild Country is 100% for you because it has all of that and then some.
The six-part documentary, which is now streaming on Netflix, could have added a third “wild” to its title to accurately convey the intensity of the events therein. The series does what every great doc does: it introduces you to a topic you previously knew little or nothing about, and then takes root in your brain to the point where you can think about nothing else and talk about nothing else. Wild Wild Country will take over your brain the way the Rajneeshees took over Antelope, Oregon! But if Netflix is suggesting this show to you and you have no idea what it’s about, I’m here to blow your mind while remaining spoiler-free.
So, what is Netflix’s Wild Wild Country about?
Wild Wild Country is a six-part docuseries about the spiritual leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his legion of followers who migrated from India to the United States in 1981 after relations between the ashram and local government became dangerously tense. The religion (which is kind of a cult, depending on who you ask and when you ask them) relocated to Wasco County in Oregon, hoping to find shelter in the United States’ laws protecting freedom of religion. But in hoping to be protected by those laws, they ignored the zoning regulations that prevented them from building a legit metropolis (with shopping centers and hotels and an airport all built by this one religious group!) on the ranch land they bought. And the influx of thousands, people believed at the time to be members of a violent sex cult, did not sit well with the sleepy retirement town of Antelope, the closest city to the burgeoning Rajneeshee empire.
What started with zoning issues, though, quickly escalated into madness, a full-blown war not only for the soul of Antelope, but the entirety of Wasco County and potentially all of Oregon. The maroon-clad followers of Rajneesh took up arms and exploited every legal loophole their indoctrinated lawyers could find in order to enact a borderline-hostile takeover of Antelope. The story unfolds via a library’s worth of VHS tapes, including footage from inside the expanding Rajneesh compound and hours and hours of news footage from the era.
At the forefront of the documentary is not the Baghwan himself, though. Just as Scientology’s L. Ron Hubbard slipped out of public life only to have his mission statement carried out by the relentless David Miscavige, the aggressors in Wild Wild Country are more or less led by the Baghwan’s riveting, charismatic, and at times terrifying young secretary-turned-general Ma Anand Sheela. The series juxtaposes footage of the media hungry and politically cutthroat young Sheela appearing on every news show and talk show of the era (shout out to Donahue!) with a modern day interview. How many cult documentaries actually get to talk to the brain behind the mayhem? Wild Wild Country is one of the few. Oh–and she is seriously compared to Hitler by one of the interviewees.
What makes Wild Wild Country worth my time?
If you’re as into the dark, forgotten corners of history as I am, this is a must watch. Every twist and turn in this docuseries, and there are plenty, is made even more shocking because all of this really happened–and we aren’t all talking about it all the time. You will be riveted, especially by episode 3, an installment that turns Wild Wild Country into a heavily-armed mash-up of a Scientiology expose and a Jonestown massacre news report filtered through a Watergate-era political thriller. It’s all levels of messed up, and it’s a must-watch if any of those key words fire up a synapse in your brain.
Wild Wild Country is your WTF weekend binge, and get ready to convert your friends into followers.
