‘Shiny Happy People’ Season 2 Is Coming to Prime Video, But Don’t Expect More Duggar Family Revelations
More episodes of Shiny Happy People are coming to Prime Video. But don’t expect new revelations about the Duggar family in the sophomore season of the docuseries.
Shiny Happy People Season 1, subtitled Duggar Family Secrets, premiered in 2023. It focused on TLC’s controversial Duggar family and their ties to the Institute in Basic Life Principles, or IBLP.
Season 2, known as Shiny Happy People: A Teenage Holy War, moves on from the Duggar drama to explore the Evangelical teen pop culture that exploded across the U.S. in the ’90s and ’00s, and the larger forces focused on harnessing that earnest faith for far-reaching influence.
Shiny Happy People Season 2 premieres July 23 on Prime Video. The series comes from executive producers Blye Faust and Cori Shepherd, the same team behind Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets. Shepherd and Nicole Newham direct.
What is ‘Shiny Happy People’ Season 2 about?
The new Shiny Happy People turns its lens on Teen Mania, which was once the country’s largest youth ministry. The organization drew millions to their massive stadium shows, dubbed “Acquire the Fire.” Teens who attended the events were often inspired to “swear purity oaths.” They then “embark[ed] by the thousands on culturally questionable global missions,” according to Amazon’s synopsis of the series.
“But beneath the wholesome youth group illusion lies a darker undercurrent,” the description continues. “A high-pressure pipeline of brutal spiritual bootcamps, surreal role-playing scenarios, and relentless psychological control – all under the command of a charismatic leader with endlessly expanding ambitions.”
The first season of Shiny Happy People featured explosive interviews with people associated with the IBLP, a fundamentalist organization that encouraged homeschooling families to embrace a strict and hierarchical approach to life, where women and children were subservient to authoritarian father figures. It was an approach that invited abuse, several interviewees said.
The Duggars of TLC’s Counting On and 19 Kids and Counting were IBLP’s most prominent adherents. But many who were raised in the group have since walked away, including Jill Duggar. In the series, she recalled feeling pressure to participate in an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly where she defended her brother Josh Duggar, even though she was one of the victims of his abuse.
“I felt like I was in a place again of, like, bearing the burden,” she said. “And the weight of just — even though you volunteer, it’s like you feel obligated to help.”
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