Everyone Else Burns and 8 more cult classics

British comedy drama series Everyone Else Burns centres on the Lewis family, led by incompetent papa and patriarch David Lewis (Simon Bird), who is determined that his family – including his tradwife and home drudge, Fiona (Kate O’Flynn), teenaged daughter Rachel (Amy James-Kelly) and artistic young son Aaron (Harry Connor) – get to heaven by following the exceedingly strict path laid out for them by their fundamentalist church and doomsday cult, the Order of the Divine Rod. 

But with the homophobic new Elder Samson (Arsher Ali) in charge, there are dire fire and brimstone warnings from all sides. Shunning is a mere slip into sin away. And by sin, we mean Rachel daring to think she could go to university to study to be a doctor in Season 1. It seems The Order’s insistence that “women have no place in the agora,” extends to all ambitions and attempts at fulfilment outside the home. 

Now that Rachel has served her 400 hours of penance and community shunning, though, she’s ready to start Everyone Else Burns Season 2 with a clean slate … until she finds out that Elder Samson is bringing back The Order’s tradition of arranged marriages. And who’s that handing out bibles at the church door? It’s Josh (Ali Khan), the boy who tattled about their first kiss to his dad, Elder Samson, and got Rachel on penance while he just got praised for confessing. 

Never mind, Rachel. As Fiona points out, nobody’s forcing her. She’s welcome to resist for a bit. Rachel should just look at her parents. They had an arranged marriage and they’re perfect for one another, right, Fiona? Fiona? Ah well, we’ll catch up later. Fiona is beating up a combat dummy next door with her new lesbian neighbour, Melissa (Morgana Robinson). They’ve named the dummy David.

For now, pull up a pew and press play on this irresistible comedy about all the obstacles and roadblocks that pop up when you’re walking a righteous path. Binge Everyone Else Burns Season 2 now.

Looking for more cult chaos? Try these eight series

1. The Righteous Gemstones Season 1-4

Under the (disputed) leadership of family patriarch Dr Eli Gemstone (John Goodman), the Gemstone family run their megachurch as if they’re the Mafia …or a mega corporation. Who needs treasure in heaven when the family that worships together generates generational wealth? Preaching comes with performance appraisals, quarterly profit reports, and a growth mindset, and if the Gemstones could instal pickpocket pews to automatically fleece the faithful, they would!

But until then, prayer means product development, like biblically accurate Covid cures, or Jesse Gemstone’s (Danny McBride) deluxe prayer pods with pay-to-pray features. And Uncle Baby Billy’s (Walton Goggins) showmanship gets bums in seats, whether he’s singing at their Zion’s Landing timeshake resort, hosting his Bible Bonkers game show on the Gemstones’ TV network, or pitching a series about Jesus in his teen years. 

Total cult vibes: In Season 3, episode 2, Eli meets with Peter (Steve Zahn), the leader of the fundamentalist apocalypse cult/militia, Brothers of Tomorrow’s Fires, at his compound before they’re raided by the FBI. But even Peter thinks the Gemstones’ greed has gone too far!

2. Big Love Season 1-5

This dramedy centres on patriarch Bill Hendricks (Bill Paxton) and his three wives Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn), Nicki (Chloë Sevigny) and Marge (Ginnifer Goodwin), who’re part of a secret (and illegal) Mormon polygamist sect. While Bill comfortably accepts his gender-assigned role as the head of the family who can do as he pleases, the much harder role of keeping sweet, praying and obeying falls to his wives, along with all the labour of raising their seven children. The three Mrs Hendricks are not temperamentally suited to being submissive and setting aside their jealousies, either. Shopaholic Nikki, particularly, is used to more of the spotlight, after growing up in Juniper Creek compound, which was led by her father, self-proclaimed prophet Roman Grant (Harry Dean Stanton) – who still holds sway over Bill’s violently bickering parents, Lois (Grace Zabriske) and Frank (Bruce Dern). And now that Bill and Barb’s teenaged daughter Sarah (Amanda Seyfried) is growing up, she’s starting to question the gulf between what they preach, and how they live.

Total cult vibes: Roman is your classic cult leader with delusions of grandeur, and an eye for arranged marriages to underaged brides. And while Bill snaps up new wives every time he feels lust stirring, his son Ben (Douglas Smith) is urged to curb his urges with pamphlets that have titles like Satan’s Thrust.

3. The Handmaid’s Tale Season 1-6

After worldwide fertility rates collapse, an authoritarian terrorist group stages a coup and takes over much of the United States. Naming their territory Gilead, and using scripture to justify their actions, they immediately strip women of their civil rights, including the right to bodily autonomy, choice of partner, an education, chosen careers, property, financial freedom, and a fair trial. In Gilead’s rigid new dictatorship, women are assigned roles as trophy wives, breeding partners or household servants. And institutes are set up to train them for their new places in society, by any means necessary. 

The change happens practically overnight, and while Wives like Serena (Yvonne Strahovski) revel in their limited powers at first, Handmaids (breeding slaves) like June (Elisabeth Moss) desperately try to resist the new regime. Season 2’s revelation that the fertility crisis that launched Gilead hinges on pollution-induced male (not female) infertility, spotlights the first casualty of all fascist societies – the truth. 

Total cult vibes: From “Blessed be the fruit” to “Under his eye”, every greeting in Gilead is meant to reinforce the power structure of this horrific new world order where if you don’t obey, your corpse will hang from The Wall as a warning to others.

4. Six Feet Under Season 1-5

It’s not a cult, but growing up in the local funeral home certainly has a way of setting you apart. Even though the Fisher family live cheek-to-cheek with death, they’re not prepared for the upheaval in the business and at home after the family patriarch Nathaniel Sr (Richard Jenkins) dies. His widow Ruth (Frances Conroy) and their oldest son Nate (Peter Krause), closeted middle brother David (Michael C Hall) and rebellious youngest daughter Claire (Lauren Ambrose) have to pull together and take over Nate Sr’s previous roles – to save the business and their home – whether or not they’re interested or emotionally ready. 

Under pressure to maintain poise, dignity and professionalism at all times, the Fishers all need escape routes – and generally these lead to someone’s bed in this dark comedy-drama series. So it’s a match made in weird heaven when Nate meets the brilliant, complex Brenda (Rachel Griffiths) whose psychologist mother allowed her to become the subject of a controversial book, Charlotte: Light and Dark.

Total cult vibes: Brenda and her brother Billy (Jeremy Sisto) end up giving cult vibes after growing up in isolation together. Billy (who’s battling with poorly treated mental illness combined with poor parenting) is obsessed with Brenda and even breaks into Nate and Brenda’s hotel room and takes photos of them while they are sleeping at one point. 

5. The Last Of Us Season 1-2

In 2003, society collapsed after the rapid-spreading Cordyceps Brain Infection (CBI) global pandemic took hold. To date, there is only one person who’s proven immune to the contagion: Ellie Williams (Game of Thrones star Bella Ramsey). Rebel group the Fireflies hires smuggler Joel Warren (Pedro Pascal) to escort 14-year-old Elllie across the post-apocalyptic wastelands of the modern US, all the way to the Fireflies’ CBI research team, who were hoping to study Eillie’s immunity to engineer a vaccine for CBI. Along the way, they have to dodge all the different ways that the survivors have tried adjusting to the collapse of civilisation, including forming cults like paramilitary group the Washington Liberation Front (WLF), and the Seraphites, a fanatical cult that see CBI as punishment for humanity taking over the world.

Total cult vibes: The Seraphites have adopted rituals in which they expose themselves and others to the possibility of infection in the name of faith. And even small personal acts of rebellion are labelled blasphemy and treason. 

6. The Leftovers Season 1-3

Over three seasons, this HBO sci-fi drama series explores how we deal with confusion and grief, and who we turn to in the face of loss, as 2% of the world’s population vanishes overnight without trace and without explanation. For some of those left behind who prefer having easy answers to living with unanswerable questions, the answer is The Guilty Remnant. Those in this cult name themselves Living Reminders, and follow rigid protocols like always wearing white, eating tasteless gruel, and chain smoking to hint at their lack of faith in the future, as well as never speaking out loud. Their belief is that the whole world ended when the 2% left, and that therefore any attempts to carry on with normal life are absurd, pointless, and even offensive to the memory of those they’ve lost. And they make their point by pulling emotionally damaging stunts on people. But they’re not the only people claiming to have solutions for your pain. 

Total cult vibes: In Season 1, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Explosives, and Cults attack the compound of a cult leader calling himself Holy Wayne (Paterson Joseph). The ultimate “where’s my hug” creep, Wayne claims to be able to hug away people’s pain – a power he “recharges” by sexually assaulting teenaged Asian girls. 

7. Yellowjackets Season 1-3

After surviving a horrific plane crash followed by years surviving in the wilderness, the grownup Charlotte “Lottie” Matthews (Simone Kessell) founds a wellness centre that mimics some of her and her fellow crash survivors’ “safer” coping mechanisms from their time in the wild. But safety is relative.

Lottie’s retreat, Camp Green Pine, is not a cult. It’s an “intentional community” of love and healing. Promise. Yes, everyone dresses in the same purple outfits because you surrender all your worldly possessions and financial records to the community. Treatment is centred around a charismatic leader, whose enigmatic orders you must obey. And life revolves around a mysterious symbol and rituals (including burying someone alive while wearing masks) that are supposed to give the wilderness what it wants … but if you’re here, was your life really going that well on the outside?

Total cult vibes: Nothing says cult quite like a masked teenager wearing a crown of deer antlers presiding over a cannibal feast involving the corpse of one of her former companions following a successful group hunt.

8. Lovecraft Country

Lovecraft Country is a horror story on two fronts. As well as delivering an eerie supernatural horror, it explores real-life race-based abuse in the 1955 timeline. Based on Matt Ruff’s novel, the series sends a Black war veteran named Atticus Freeman (Jonathan Majors), his cousin and his uncle on a road trip from more liberal Chicago, through Southern Sundown Towns. Everywhere the characters turn, they face laws made with the goal of deliberately dehumanising, debasing and harassing Black people, who were forced to prepare for death and horror on the road. 

As they reach their destination, we get taken inside The Order of The Ancient Dawn (based on the real-life secret society, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn), a white supremacist, patriarchal cult dedicated to achieving immortality by opening the lost gate to the Garden of Eden. Atticus, as the last blood-descendant of the cult’s founder, Titus Braithwhite (Michael Rose), ironically becomes the key to opening that gate – according to the Book of Names, a collection of spells that Titus discovered, which caused a rift in The Order.

Total cult vibes: We have a secret book of scriptures that only one leader can interpret, a creepy old mansion that only members of the cult can access, spells, magical ceremonies, hints of human sacrifice, and a trail of mysterious deaths. It’s perfect! Bring on the stupid haircuts and matching robes.

Binge Everyone Else Burns Season 2 now.