The Whole Allison Mack, NXIVM Thing Still Bothers Me

When I look back at 2021, I really only think of a few things. Obviously, COVID19 was one of them. It’s still affecting everything and now it’s 2022 and it’s still here and all of that. I think about this blog, too, and how behind on it I got while I was in grad school. I don’t know why I struggled with keeping up with the blog in 2021; I started grad school in August of 2020 and blogged like heck the second half of that year. But, whatever. I’ll try to do better this year. I think about my attempts at getting something of a YouTube channel going. (Plot twist, it didn’t really work but I’m still gonna try I guess.) Then, after thinking about what new stuff I got, what TV shows I watched, what books I read, something else comes to mind. This something else really still messes me up. It’s the whole Allison Mack, NXIVM, Keith Raneire thing.

Smallville Is My Favorite TV Show

I grew up watching Smallville. I was a freshman in high school, I think, when it premiered. Or maybe I was in the 8th grade. I can’t remember. But, I caught it the night it premiered on The WB. It took me until the end of the episode to figure out what it was. (Clark Kent? Lana Lang? Lex Luthor? These names sound familiar. Oh well.) Yeah, I know, duh. Anyway, then there was this Chloe Sullivan character. She’s one of my favorite characters from any show ever.

I’ve liked a few other shows since Smallville. LOST comes to mind. I loved LOST. But, I didn’t aspire to be like anyone on LOST. When you watch something like Smallville growing up, you learn things, life things. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to like another show as much as Smallville, because I’m just going to be wondering if anyone is going to get caught up in anything super awful. After the show, I tried to keep up with the cast. I checked in on which projects they were doing next. I checked out Tom Welling in Cheaper By the Dozen. I watched Michael Rosenbaum in that weird Internet spoof of Peanuts. I listen to John Schneider talk about being a republican or whatever on YouTube. Occasionally, I’d catch wind of this weird thing Allison Mack (the actor who plays Chloe Sullivan in Smallville) was doing. Then one day, holly crap. A cult? Weird branding stuff? Was she tricked? Was she not tricked at all? I don’t know what to think about it anymore.

All of that weird cult stuff happened over the course of many years I think. So did all of the court stuff. Delays. Confusion. Stress levels. I know, real people were affected by actual awful things and will have to live with things for the rest of their lives and here I am just ranting about how much it bothers me because I just liked a tv show.

It Still Just Bothers Me

Allison Mack’s sentencing was in September 2021. She got 3 years of prison, I think. And, no, I wasn’t affected physically by any of it, but it still really bothers for some reason. Like, it messes me up when it pops in my head, which it does all the time, because I still really like Smallville.

So, I don’t know. I just want whatever can possibly still work itself out to work itself out and for everyone to be as okay as they possibly can.

Anyway, that’s my reflection on 2021. No one from any TV shows I like join a cult this year, please. Thanks.

Okay, so about this photo real quick – yes that’s me wearing an Express t-shirt, Express shorts, Sperry shoes (with socks!) and a red cape, because you know what? I don’t have to explain myself to you, just let me be.

By Eric Shay Howard

Eric Shay Howard lives in Indianapolis. He's a teacher, a literary editor, and writer. He's a graduate student in the Bluegrass Writers Studio MFA in Creative Writing program at Eastern Kentucky University. He also has MBA and BA degrees.

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