Original subtitles

(Gentle electronic m

♪

Female voice: BNT.

Your Network.

(Reel rattles)

♪♪♪

♪♪♪

♪♪♪

- Let Gaion spirit move through your bodies!

- (Cheering) - This is a feeling--

(Screaming)

(Laughing)

- Let me go!

(Laughing)

Woo-hoo!

(Gunshot pops) (Man shouts)

Grace: No one has ever gotten our story quite right.

(Shouting)

No one's ever really understood... us.

Katherine: I mean, that's-that's always been

part of the problem. You know, how-

how we came to be perceived

was so far from how we wanted to be seen.

Interviewer: And how do you want to be seen?

Grace: Huh... that depends?

Who else are gonna be talking to for this little thing?

(Gate buzzer sounds)

(Chanting)

Sharon: The 70s were a complicated time.

We are all looking for the answers

to life's big questions. Who are we?

Man: And these are the best years of our lives.

Sharon: Why are we here? What is this anyways?

And do I have to do it?

Amy: At first, it felt so liberating

to be told exactly what to do and exactly what to believe

in order to feel free.

(Reel rattles)

Max: Bull shit, for women free love wasn't free.

We watched the new age patriarchy

get more stoned and less employed,

while we were told to just stuff our mouths

with birth control and chill.

If that's enlightenment...

then I'd rather slice out my own uterus

and feed it into the waiting jaws of systemic misogyny.

Amy: Our leaders taught us that we could live together

without men, following our own set of believes.

Sharon: The very concept of New Eden

was enough to shock people.

Mainstream culture had never seen women do

what we were doing.

It was conscious community living.

It was spiritual enlightenment.

It was everything we wanted from that era.

New Eden truly was like a paradise for women.

Until it wasn't.

- What the fuck are we supposed to do now?!

- I am sick and tired of you pathetic freaks!

(Crying)

(Chanting)

- I'm so sorry. (Screaming)

- Hell outta here!

(Gunshot pops) (Screaming)

Grace: I do this all for you!

Why can't you see that?!

- You run around like some deranged Messiah?

(Chanting)

- You're almost there! - (Pained grunts, baby cries)

Breathe. Breathe.

- What do we-- - I'm listening---

(Overlapping panicked yelling)

Newsreel: Hours of leaked home video footage.

- All the leaked footage. - ...an undercover journalist.

- Unlike any other case in Canadian history.

- The life in the secretive women's cult

have now come to light. - What I wanna know is...

Both: Who are these women?

- The question remains; who are these women?

Interviewer: What do you think went wrong?

- What do you mean by that? - Did you say wrong?

Oh.

♪♪♪

- Breaking news... - The leaders of a women's only

alternative living community

have been arrested for the alleged kidnapping

and drugging of a minor.

- According to leading officer, Staff Sergeant Hank Neston,

quote, "if people knew what was really going on up there.

It's enough to make your flesh crawl".

- It was awful.

All these people calling us criminals.

- Ladies cult takes predictable turn towards disaster.

- And in Canada,

a self-governing women's group, self implodes.

- Does New Eden prove that women can be dangerous?

- It really did feel like Gaion had abandoned us.

Interviewer: Sorry. Did you say Gai-on?

- (Smirks) Of course?

♪♪♪

(Shouting)

- (Exhales)

- I think I'm gonna sit-- - Yeah.

That makes sense to me.

- Better side. - Yeah.

- They tried to corrupt my innocent baby girl.

- They are sick.

- Hello. That's nice.

- They are perverts. - Oh!

- No, I don't need anything, thank you.

Actually, I'll take.

(Objects crash)

- What the hell is in this?

- More. More.

- Testing one, two, three, four...

...19. 19. Oh sorry.

Oh, no. Don't do that? Don't do that.

Okay. Yeah. Don't do that.

- Thousands of dead and dying bees

have been discovered in the properties illegal apiary

creating more questions around this already bizarre story.

Who are these women,

and what do these dead bees have to do with it?

- Look okay...

there's always gonna be a visceral reaction

to a salacious story.

And so the more people started using words like;

women, cult, sex, teen.

Well, the perceived titillation is self-perpetuating.

Interviewer: And do you think Grace and Katherine

had anything to do with perpetuating that?

- Well, (chuckles) God.

That's the million dollar question.

Wyatt: See when the story finally broke. It-it was huge.

The whole thing was overblown and sensationalized,

just like everybody lost sight of the truth.

Interviewer: And what truth is that?

- (Small chuckle) Tell me,

are you gonna sit down with them;

Grace and Katherine?

Well, you just remember?

(In unison) AHHHHHHHH!

- They had eight whole years to get their facts straight.

Interviewer: Okay. Um...

are you ready?

- Yes. Sorry. I won't. I...

I won't do that again.

Interviewer: Why don't you start

by introducing yourselves?

- I'm Katherine Wryfield,

and I am the founder,

uh, the co-founder of New Eden.

- And I am Grace Lee Hardware.

- No, your name is Grace Lee.

Your family owned a hardware store called Lee Hardware.

- See, I have no memory of that.

- You told me that.

- Well, she got a mind like a steel trap, this one.

Interviewer: Tell me where we are now?

- We are in Kelowna, British Columbia

at the Red Cedar Woman's Correctional Center.

Interviewer: Why?

- Jesus, man.

Why don't you buy us a drink before you fuck us, huh?

You know, what I'm saying. - (Chuckles)

I-I-I mean, I wouldn't put it like that

because it's rude.

I think for a lot of people our real crime

was daring to empower women

in a male dominated space.

- Exactly. That's it. Exactly.

Not technically or legally,

but in a theoretical sense that is our only crime.

Well, we're getting out soon.

So uh, we figured from the mouth of babes.

here's a straight chip, baby.

- Well, I think what Grace means by that

is that we have spent so long

listening to other people's version of our story

and now it is time to tell the real truth -

our truth.

- Straight from the whores mouth, baby.

- Stop saying baby.

- Okay, did I say it again. -Yep, but that kind of that.

Grace: Slips out.

Interviewer: Okay. Well, why don't you start

with how your journey together began?

- Oh, it's hard to imagine that I was once

a bright eyed young thing,

knew so little of the world.

All that international media attention

was a real eye opener,

especially after such humble beginnings.

And of course, my childhood was very complicated.

My mother could be very nurturing...

to my brothers.

But, you know, I always sensed

that I didn't quite fit in with my family's values

and I, you know, wasn't gonna just do

what everyone expected of me.

You know, be married off to some handsome society boy.

No.

I wanted to write.

I wanted to open myself up to new ideas.

So I went out west

to the University of Calgary,

and it was there that I had my mind expanded.

- And then she met me.

- That I did.

Interviewer: And how did you end up in western Canada?

- Me? Well, you know,

there is a saying where I'm from.

"You can't get where you're going,

if you don't have a map

because that means you ain't been nowhere yet." So.

- G-Grace-Grace has just oh,

such a-a way with words, doesn't she?

But-but not really a mind for detail.

I would-I would move on. - Ah-huh.

Interviewer: Okay, so then where did you two actually meet?

- Oh, boy.

Both: Valhalla ranch.

♪♪♪

- Sure there's a million guys out there on the heist,

that'll tell you that they're the second coming of Christ.

There's only one second coming of Odin.

And I've got the ruins to prove it.

(Blowing)

Katherine: In retrospect,

it wasn't the healthiest place. - It was fucking dumb.

Katherine: But we all had reasons to fall

under Odin's spell.

And for me, I had just had this ah,

very dramatic affair

with my poetry professor.

It was incredibly complicated

and erotic,

and I was heartbroken,

vulnerable.

You know, easy to prey on. - Exactly.

And that's when you wake up one morning buck nude,

the taste, a leader's toe still in your mouth

and you go, oh, shit.

Yeah, this is definitely a cult.

Might be I joined a cult.

- It happens all the time. - It happens all the time.

- There were plenty of them at the time.

Before New Eden I was with the Aquarian People's Temple

of Third eye clairvoyance.

I thought I was getting my masseuse certification.

- Brotherhood of yesterday's tomorrow now.

- The Roshman's right.

Yeah. Sort of a soft doomsday sort of thing.

- The utopian fist.

- The Father Daddy's children of milk

and its offshoot,

the Milk Me Mother Traveling Band.

We didn't travel we were on foot,

but we still moved.

Interviewer: And Grace,

how did you end up at Valhalla ranch?

- Pretty much the same as most people, I guess.

I, too, had a heavy heart.

I'd come out west with a girlfriend of mine

and oof, thought we were gonna be best friends forever.

We had a lot of good times,

but you know, when we inevitably did part ways,

I was feeling lost, literally,

just in a field high as sin

covered in what I think was some kind of toxic sap.

And then suddenly I'm being told I've made it to Valhalla.

(Scoffs)

Which I was later told was just in Canada.

But that's when I met Katherine.

And that-that was really the moment that changed my life.

You know, it was like, wow,

this is the kind of friendship,

the kind of closeness that I had been waiting for

for my whole life.

This was someone that could teach a backwoods bumpkin

like me about the world, you know.

I knew right away that Katherine was someone

who could really care about me

and who I could really care about, you know?

I knew then I'd follow her just about anywhere.

- Yeah, we bonded very quickly.

I mean, Grace was one of the first people

to ever really listen to me, you know,

to-to my ideas and to my dreams.

- Man, are we gonna talk about her dreams.

They are some juicy stuff. - No.

- She had one the other night

where she was like this famous shampoo model, right.

But get this - she was completely bald.

- I didn't mean that kind of dream.

- It's crap. Where does she come up with this stuff?

- Well, not how dreams work.

But anyway, once we had made that, that connection,

I really felt that I had to protect Grace

because she seemed so...

- Just a complete-- not a hair on her head.

(Laughs)

- Ah well, you know.

And as it became more clear that Odin's doctrine

was just to satisfy his male needs,

I knew that I had to save her.

Interviewer: So, Katherine, you didn't participate

in any of the sexual activities?

- Uh, yeah... no.

I-I really found myself drawn to more

of the administrative tasks,

all of which were being grossly overlooked.

Interviewer: Is that why you decided to leave?

- Yeah, I think it was I think was just that. So.

- No, no, no-no-no-no-no.

That's when Katherine decided to give Odin

a piece of her mind. - Well...

- She came and told me what happened.

She had taken him aside to give him what for?

Tell him no more touchy-touchy.

Mhmm. That's when he tried to kiss her...

on the breast.

Obviously, she said no.

That's when he got aggressive,

pointed to his penis and said,

bow down to my ancient thunder, you bitch.

Interviewer: Is that what happened, Katherine?

- Ahm oh um, yes.

That that sounds like what I told Grace. Yes.

- He was intimidated by her um...

(snaps fingers) what did you call it?

- Mature sexuality. - Mature sexuality.

That's right.

He was intimidated by her mature sexuality.

And ah, you know,

when she told me this...

well, you know me... I did saw red.

(Laughing) Bring that over here.

Look at his-- - No, no, no.

Get that camera out of here.

(Overlapping chatter, laughing)

Katherine: Ultimately, it really wasn't about just me.

It was a symbolic act.

It was a rallying call to our sisters.

- (Snorts, laughs)

I forget that he also pissed himself.

- Yeah, people-people may think that what we did

was ah... petty...

or, or, or um,

or, or mildly cruel,

but there was no malice in us.

We simply wanted to live our lives

free of oppression and fear.

So we left men like Odin behind us.

All men, so that we could create a space

where women could be in control.

We wanted to create a New Eden,

one that the proverbial Adam couldn't destroy.

Right? - Yep. - Yes.

- We realized all we needed to create paradise

was to eliminate Adam

and his snake.

That was pretty good.

- Penis. - Penis.

Interviewer: What did New Eden represent to you at first?

- A "fuck you" to the patriarchy.

Sharon: It was the synthesis of what we had been

collectively striving for throughout the late 60s.

Amy: An earthly conduit through which Gaion's message

of the true seed could be realized.

Also, just a great group of women.

(Cheering, wild calls)

- First New Eden was a real oasis for me.

I mean, it definitely evolved into a full on shit storm.

But at the outset,

I really believed I'd found a home.

- Raz, I'm gonna have you on firewood duty, okay?

Max, you can help her out. Chop, chop.

Ah, Amber. - It's Amy.

- Okay. You're gonna be sweeping.

All right? Good.

Muscle-y girl and tall one.

You're on laundry so.

♪ We open our hearts and minds ♪

♪ To the spirit of sisterhood ♪

♪ That welcome all without judgment or shame ♪

♪ No shame ♪

♪ New Eden is our space of learning ♪

♪ That every empowers every woman ♪

♪ Because our time is now ♪

♪ And we should rise ♪

Really good, that sounds great.

Interviewer: How did you first acquire the New Eden property?

- Oh, well,

I remembered that I had this Aunt... Agnes,

and that she had a beautiful farmhouse

right here in British Columbia.

A stunning property.

- It was a bit of a shit heap when we found it,

but a it was nothing compared to Agnes herself.

- Agnes was a different

from the other women in my family.

I had never met her,

but she was another rebel in our clan.

So I always felt that we had a bond

and the connection was instant.

I mean, she welcomed us with open arms.

- Agnes was a difficult woman, okay?

She was, to some old ideas,

ancient ideas.

- Yes. And I will be needing a volunteer

for Agnes bath time.

No one?

- You're a fucking cunt. Agnes: You're a cunt.

- I think it's very clear here that I am not the cunt.

- She was a cunt.

- She was our first mother, Eve,

and we all understood that she was the sacred carrier

for all the pain the ancient Adams had inflicted upon us.

She spat in my mouth once.

Interviewer: So what exactly did happened to Agnes?

- Hm?

- Um, define happened to?

Newscasters: Breaking news...

- a disturbing development in the ongoing--

- A dead body discovered on the property--

- Human remains. - The body has been identified--

- ...as the leaders aunt.

Sergeant Neston: Evidence of feathers, candle wax and...

multiple samples of urine found in the gravesite

would suggest that the body of Agnes Wryfield

was disposed of in a manner

which was deliberately ritualistic.

- There is a lot of factors. - A-a, you know what?

We are not going to talk about those charges

in this interview. - Huh?

Hm. Hm.

I can't talk about it.

Because I-- - I hate when you mime.

- Today is day one of the highly anticipated

New Eden trials.

Accused cult leaders,

Katherine Wryfield and Grace Lee,

will face charges for an extensive list of crimes.

- This fight isn't merely about these two courageous women.

This is about justice for all women.

And I will not rest until we get the rights

and freedoms that we all deserve.

- Yeah!

- The key to this case was to always look

at the biggest picture possible.

How were those two causing this much chaos?

This much of a stir?

In other words, who the hell are these women?

It was the question everyone was asking.

And it turns out simply answering it

was the best defense.

Society had rejected them.

So they said, I don't know.

Maybe there is some ancient space goddess

who wants us all to live together.

I mean, really?

Can we blame them?

- I know I wouldn't.

Would you? (Audience applauds)

- Katherine Wryfield and Grace Lee

are cold, calculated criminals.

But it wasn't long until their story was reduced

to just a bad punchline about hysterical women

feeling generally.

Which was a lot easier for the public to understand.

- The question remains...

- Are these women killers, serial killers?

- Or just plain stupid?

(Playing notes on the harmonica)

♪♪♪

Woman: You shut the hell up!

Max: People fear dangerous women,

so they try to make them seem less threatening

by making them seem more pathetic.

And then they turn around and they say,

ah, stop showing me these pathetic women.

- Mmm. Those are good beans.

Those are some of the best beans we've ever had.

Sharon: In retrospect,

I think the hard part about it was that

we all really thought we believed in something.

And then you hear the details out loud and you go "oh".

This sounds like an obvious joke.

- This guy-he tried on but the hat is too big

because she a cat so it covers her-

just covers her literally.

- I mean, the way our story got twisted doesn't surprise me.

That's just what happens when a female narrative

is portrayed through the phallic lens

of the toxic male gaze.

And you know what I'm doing, right?

I'm talking about you.

Interviewer: Yeah. I-I've picked up on it.

- Just checking.

Interviewer: Have you visited them since the trial?

- Oh, fuck, no.

Fuck no.

- Before they went away, Star mother, Eve, told me

my task was to prepare the seed redeemer

for the Gaionic ascension that would save Eve kind

through binary transformation.

Interviewer: So...?

- They told me to stop coming.

- At least we still have each other, you know.

We always will, ain't that right, Katherine?

- Yeah.

Interviewer: And you're getting out soon?

- That's right. Hard to believe.

Interviewer: Do you think Grace and Katherine

got what they deserved? - No.

If we were up to me,

they'd never be getting out.

(Phone rings)

- Noseworthy.

- Yeah. It's Sergeant Neston and we uh, found another body

in the New Eden property.

- My God. Another one?

What the hell is going on up there?

Can you have an I.D.?

Neston: Um, it's hard to tell

the way it's been disposed of...

it's clear whoever did this, knew what they were doing.

♪♪♪

♪ I like the way you smile at me ♪

♪ I felt the heat that enveloped me ♪

♪ I never knew ♪

♪ Where evil grew ♪