Interesting story and the government should not interfere unless they are a danger to others. The young boy would have been dead and so be it. We don’t need to waste money time or effort. This is a learning lesson for many. Let them go and definitely don’t give money

There seems to be a lot of dislike for the boys and their family in these reviews but I really appreciated the amount of empathy Sam Mullins showed for everyone involved. Yes, the family is a bit woo-woo and believes in a lot of far out conspiracy theories. But they were also a family very worried about their son/brother not getting the help he needed. I battled an eating disorder while in high school in the mid-1990s in the U.S. and my (wonderful) therapist worked very hard to keep me out of the hospital for the very same reasons Roan ran away in the first place. I really empathized with him as he described the treatment he received in the U.S. hospital as opposed to the one in Canada. I’m glad he finally received the help he needed and was able to recover.

What an interesting story!! Awesome writing. Twists and turns with a fantastic ending.

NOT PAYING - to hear the rest. Paywall/subscription fatigue🙄

The second half was frustrating to listen to the family encourage the delusions of one another. While Roen got the treatment he needed, his health anxiety has spiraled into other avenues, and unfortunately is spreading his atrocious ideas online.

My thoughts ran the gamut throughout the series, being informed by my own beliefs, discriminations, the perilous world we’re now in. I almost skipped the “post-script” episodes, not because I was no longer interested, but because I figured I “got the gist”. I’m so glad to have followed this tale to the end. I get it now! Conspiracy theorists are existentially afraid! And then I realized I, too, have had an existential fear from a very young age. I, however, have responded in the opposite manner, flaunting safety, leaping into the abyss. Anyway! Thank you, Sam Mullins. This was extraordinary storytelling.

What really turned me off - almost as much as the boys and their parents - was Mullin’s attempt at making this sound like two rogue boys, through their odd behavior and worldviews, became heroic icons of freedom, resistance of “the establishment” and kicking societal norms to the curb. No. This is not a dreamy fairy tale. It’s instead a sad story about family dysfunction and mental illness. In fact, it’s a classic case-in-point depiction of it. I am a licensed clinical psychologist who has worked with similar adolescents and adults in both inpatient and outpatient settings for nearly 20 years. There are personality disorders, clinical syndromes, probably thought disorders, and likely substance abuse happening here. So PLEASE DO NOT romanticize the Wild Boys saga. I stopped listening to this series several times because of how disgusted I was by it, but I kept going back to it until the end because I wanted to know how this train wreck ended. I would not have wasted my time on it if I had I known in advance.

While Sam is an incredible storyteller, and the personal connection he has to this tale makes him a very worthy narrator, there is nothing he can do about the fact that this story ends in the gutter, with not a single redeemable character left, outside of everyone in Vernon. I’m not a conspiracy theorist per se, but I’m definitely not one to blindly accept what the American government is telling me. I can appreciate independent thinking that is critical of authority. Nonetheless, it is evident that we were listening to something quite different: very extreme generational trauma, definite signs of abuse, and deep mental illness beyond an eating disorder. And I’m not just talking about the boys. I wish I would have known ahead of time that this was actually a podcast dragging me down the rabbit hole of someone else’s deranged thinking and not a suspenseful story about a scam. Poor Sam got stuck with just the facts. And they aren’t good. Probably a story that shouldn’t be told without a thousand warnings.

Wow this family has to be the biggest bunch of uneducated morons ever. Imagine thinking you’re healthy when everything you’re doing is actually the opposite of that. This is what happens when you come from a cult and are a cult in and of yourself. Stupid people. Can’t feel sorry for any of them since they choose to live in a world of ignorance and make believe. Bunch of entitled brats raised by subpar, low intelligence humans. Some stories don’t need to be made.

These poor kids wow their parents sure did a number on them! It’s so obvious that Row cannot face any kind of reality, it’s sad. Great work on the podcast though. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️