Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Following up on his 2007 documentary, The Most Hated Family in America, Louis Theroux returns to Topeka, Kansas, for a week-long visit with the Westboro Baptist Church. He again joins the Phelps family on their controversial pickets where they try to antagonise communities with offensive slogans and anti-gay placards. But four years on from Louis's last visit, there are signs of disarray in the Phelps clan. A series of defections of family members has shaken up the church.
A worthy follow-up to Theroux's original WBC documentary, this sequel benefits from genuine dramatic development — the defections and internal fractures give it real narrative momentum that the first film lacked. Theroux's disarming, empathetic interview style remains compelling, drawing out contradictions and quiet anguish from family members. As a documentary TV film, cinematography is functional rather than artful, and the 'acting' dimension (subject behaviour on camera) is largely performative and guarded. Novelty is moderate — it revisits familiar territory with the same subjects, though the added dimension of collapse and doubt gives it a distinct emotional register from the original. The ending, hinting at the church's slow unravelling, feels resonant without being conclusive.