Tomorrow on Max, get ready to watch the three-part documentary, How to Create a Sex Scandal, about a sex scandal that never happened.
Margie and John Cantrell took in several foster children throughout their marriage and raised them as their own. The couple started out in California but moved to the small town of Mineola, Texas.
In 2004, that small town was about to be rocked because they found out there was a Swinger’s Club operating in their area. And that was not the worst of what they were going to discover.
The Cantrells took in three siblings whose parents were deemed unfit to raise them. Shortly after they moved in, the Cantrells noticed they were acting odd. So they asked them what was going on.
The children told their foster parents they were being used as sex toys in the Swinger’s Club. So Margie called the authorities, and they investigated the crime known as Kindergarten Sex.
The three children told their story to the Texas Rangers, and their case went to court. By the end of their investigation, seven people, including the kids’ parents, were tried and convicted of the crime.
And that is where the first episode’s story ends. In the next episode, their case seems to unravel, and one of the newspapers is given a tip that this might not have happened at all.
The more the reporter looks into it, the more it seems that their story is made up. But why? That is when we find out that Margie is not as sweet as she said she was in part 1.
She was mentally and physically abusing the children. She brainwashed them to believe that this really happened to them. But it didn’t.
What happens when the Cantrells’ abuse is found out? That is what we find out in the final episode.
They say the truth is stranger than fiction, and this true story is definitely that. If you didn’t see the words coming out of the people involved, you would never believe that a whole town would believe the lies. But they did. And the lack of repercussions will surprise you.
You will hear from the three kids in the case, the Cantrells, the people they accused, the journalists who covered the case, and other children who accused the Cantrells of abuse.
Each episode has its own theme and tells the story as it took place. The first episode deals with scandal, the second shows how the case fell apart, and finally, the consequences for everything that happened in Mineola.
What I liked most about this three-part series is that it didn’t repeat itself every five minutes. Instead, they let the shocking tale play out and did not tell me repeatedly what I watched.
In fact, because it flows so naturally, you feel like you are watching a newscast that is telling the story in real time. And that is why I binged this without stopping. I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next.
How to Create a Sex Scandal will keep you on the edge of your seat because you go from feeling sorry for them, to questioning what happened to those children, to I can’t believe it didn’t happen.
So if you want to watch something that seems too crazy to be true, then you are going to be hooked on this. It is the best docuseries I have seen in a long time.
