- Some of the girls are terribly troubled, and some of the things you have them do are so wrong that you can't help but feel sorry for them.
- In order to get Robin's "good ending," you basically have to lead her straight to a dangerous animal.
- Ginger is a thirteen-year-old Tomboy who is most likely having to deal with the pressures of girls her age. All she wants is to keep being a kid...
- Ruby has shades of being a Broken Bird, perhaps due to whatever event that resulted in her having to wear a leg brace.
- Carmen's comments seem to imply that she doesn't have a high opinion of herself, and the only way people will love her is through her physical appearance. This makes all the implications from her encounter with her Wolf and her subsequent walk through Grandma's house both sad and really, really creepy.
- Scarlet is having to deal with the pressure of caring for her five sisters, and seems to be suppressing her feelings of loneliness. In her version of Grandma's house after meeting her wolf, everything is either completely organized, or covered in a blank white sheet. It's just so bare...
The following pertain to the television series:
- The framing and expulsion of Shelby, the nurse practitioner. It's unclear why Det. Gaines chose her, but she is heartbroken. Orphaned as a young teen, she came to New York looking for a job and was picked up by a predator ring, arrested for prostitution, and on her release headed straight for the Meyerists — perhaps there was a Meyer missionary or literature in the jail — and her medical training came from the late Dr. Kemp. Like Richard, the community was her entire life. Thankfully, Gaines finds her — homeless and destitute — apologizes to her, and brings her to Eddie's place.
- The shunning and death of Richard. A disabled gay orphan dedicates himself to what his actor Clark Middleton has called "A need for family and community. A place where he is loved and valued. An escape hatch from his tortured loneliness." And when he did something he thought would preserve Meyerism and help the Garden to flourish, he's branded a denier and thrown out, homeless and friendless. His suicide by fire — with the tapes of member confessions, so no one could ever use them for Blackmail again — was his personal redemption.Hank. The Movement was everything to Richard, and vice versa. He was Meyerism's favorite uncle, and hearing him described as this monster is —
- Cal's entire life. Raised by two violent, neglectful alcoholics. Adopted/Abducted into a cult at the age of 5. Whose pedophile leader abused him for, probably, his entire childhood, emotionally and sexually crippled him and ruined any chance at an adolescent relationship with the girl he was in love with. He was raised in isolation, never went to school and has an alcohol and anger problem that would ensure certain failure if he tried to make a life for himself outside the movement. His only reason for living was to become Steve's successor only to discover that Steve chose Eddie instead. Meaning Cal was not special or different, as he was told, but was only being used. Now he's stuck leading a movement he doesn't believe in, which is also the only thing currently standing between him and the abyss. What is more he's constantly surrounded by giant posters of the man who abused him. Good Times.
- The Tree Scene: Cal has a flashback based on Vera speaking about a "moment of bliss" from her childhood. "A boy and girl who rarely laughed" playing tag around a tree. Into which the boy has carved a heart with his pocket knife. The boy is him, the girl is Vera, his sister, by adoption the memory of whom who he had totally suppressed due to the extreme trauma of his childhood. "Doomed" by Moses Sumney plays on the soundtrack during the scene, perfectly underscoring the sorrow of a stolen childhood. Toward the end of the scene little Vera is called away by their pedophile father Steve. The smile falls from little Cal's face as he watches them walk away together.
- The death of Vera. Had Eddie not been in A God Am I mode, if he'd had the humility and realism to tell the people that Lilith was a forerunner, like John the Baptist, included her in the spiritual foundations of the faith, she'd never have pulled the trigger, missed Eddie and hit her daughter.
