- Awesome Music: Will Bates' extraordinarily eerie, minimalist, sci-fi inflected score sells the madness of Scientology quite well. The Xenu segment is probably the best example of this.
- Harsher in Hindsight: When Paul Haggis visited the War of the Worlds (2005) set, Steven Spielberg commented to Haggis that Scientologists were "the nicest people". Haggis jokingly replied that it was because "we keep all the evil ones in the closet." Telling this joke got him in trouble with the church. It was not until much later that Haggis learned why.
- Time has not fared much better Mike Rinder, Marc Headley and Claire Headley and their current estrangement from fellow ex-Scieno Aaron Smith-Levin, if years of fair gaming on them are any indication. A falling out with Smith-Levin over their own personal grievances, coupled with them believing he spoke for them pushed them to instigate a coup to seize control of the Aftermath Foundation from Smith-Levin and removing him from the board that he had founded in a massive Took a Level in Jerkass for all three, decrying everyone who called them out on their horrendous actions as haters, keyboard warriors or in an extreme case, dogs and fleas. The only reason Aaron Smith-Levin was saved the first time? Leah Remini called them out on their first attempted coup. Unfortunately, a new incident between all three of them involving Mirriam Francis is proving that all three are two-faced and in Rinder's case, clearly unapologetic about his own past while trying to play hero, while Marc essentially told his critics to go fuck themselves. As of late March 2024, Smith-Levin founded the SPTV Foundation to help former ex-Scientologists.
- Leah Remini is swiftly proving a rather sad case of this with being True Companions to Mike Rinder regarding her own falling out with Smith-Levin. She had cut off Aaron over the recent issues with Mirriam Francis and later bashed ex-Scieno Mike Brown regarding this, as well. It does not help that she or the other ex-Scienos like Liz Gale don't speak towards each other at this point, full stop.
- No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: The head of HBO Documentary Films Sheila Nevins didn't think the doc would do well at all. Then the Church of Scientology launched an ad campaign against it. It later became the second-most-watched HBO documentary of the decade."When I saw my name in a full-page ad in The New York Times, I knew. Docs don’t get full-page ads, and when they do, they do really well."
- Spiritual Successor: Before Going Clear, the best known critiques of Scientology were The Scandal of Scientology by Paulette Cooper, A Piece of Blue Sky by John Atack, Bare-faced Messiah by Russell Miller, and L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman? by Bent Corydon. Not surprisingly, Going Clear draws heavily from these books.
- Tear Jerker: The end of the film, where ex-members look back with regret on their actions as Scientologists, definitely qualifies.
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