Q: Into the storm

Gives you a peek into the Rabbit hole of QAnon and exposes the players, and even "Qanon" himself. It traces it's origins, it's precursors and the behind-the-scenes players both public and private who struggle with each other to control the narrative and the movement that they have created. Just watch it to find out the real truth for yourself. Definitely worth your time if you are even remotely interested in this movement.

In seeing all of the six episode documentary mini-series by filmmaker Cullen Hoback, what I got was a search for trying to explain what Q is, was, could have been, and ultimately fizzled out to leave thousands disillusioned and confused while others hold onto the hope it is something bigger that never really was.

What this mini-series sets out to do was start at an origin of "Q", follow the lines, expose the players and put it all out there for the audience to decide.

At first, it came across as a slow moving digital 'who done it' and there were plenty of whos that might have been it, and the whos that wanted to take credit for it and had nothing to do with it. Who wanted to be big man Q. It was like the "Anonymous" craze, but this was through the internet with a bunch of...Gamers?!?! Well, the documentary starts there and lays what they found out for your thoughts.

That's where the mini-series got bogged down in the beginning in tracing its origins and introducing the characters. This is because the filmmaker Cullen Hoback took 3 years in finding and gathering info. But towards the end of this documentary mini-series, in tying the evidence gathered a picture emerges. Q may be who you think -- or not -- as you may have been deliberately led astray.

Based on the information presented, it draws a conclusion as to who has been swirling around in the Q origins, but it's up to the viewer to decide. And this makes me want to suggest to turn all this over to the DOJ/FBI to take a look at it too. But this viewer decides in seeing Ron Watkins blink rapidly every time he lies, put him into the suspicious column for me. Quite the cat and mouse game this turned out to be, Cullen Hoback deserves kudos in chasing it down and presenting what he found, and it becomes quite enlightening to watch.

Everyone needs to watch this to understand how these kind of conspiratorial thinkers live. The followers are very much serious about it because they are craving some way to make sense of the ever increasing corrupted world, and find a community of like minded cynics. But the leaders (codemonkey et al) are not serious people. They treat the real world as if it were a game because that is how they have lived their entire lives. Behind a computer screen, devoid of real human connection, and detached from reality.

I also really applaud the filmmaker. It cannot be easy to follow a story like this for so long through so many twists and turns, many of them dead ends, through the lies and drama and intentional deceit, and stay neutral and bipartisan enough to earn your subjects' trust. Brilliant work.

The first two episodes jump around a lot and don't really lay out details in a way anything like a normal documentary would. This appears to be because the are intentionally letting Q people themselves lay out the story, which is a smart way to avoid death threats but is reliant on the narratives of people with disjointed and irrational thinking. They succeed in establishing that there are lot of the core Q people that are outright nut jobs and often of seriously compromised intellectual capacity and judgement.

It gives the impression we are witnessing the birth of a new religious cult along a similar line to scientology, but potentially much bigger. Even when the 'facts' underlying their beliefs are being torn apart the Q believers are capable of of some pretty impressive mental gymnastics to avoid acknowledging they have been sucked into a cult.

Episode 3 opens up the fascinating and key subject of the Luther Blissett group and the novel "Q" first published in Italian in 1999 which is obviously the origin and template for Q'Anon and makes the whole story take an L'ron Hubbard twist.

Very interesting subject matter with some very colourful characters. Scary to think that so few can influence/manipulate the world/politics so easily.

It is quite long and has a lot of filler that could be trimmed, I found myself getting lost in some of the tedious details at times, try to keep track of who did what and why is challenging at times but maybe that is a reflection of the subject matter.

And hang in there till the end they do basically reveal who Q is - I think, unless that was a deliberate slip up - you never know with these guys!