Devil in the Family is a documentary that was recently released about the cruel treatment of the kids who starred in the once-popular YouTube channel 8 Passengers. The first episode, “Abundance”, introduces the family and shows the clips of them that were once viewed by millions on YouTube. The episode reveals that the clips that were cut out of the posted videos, which included Ruby, the mom, yelling and aggressively placing her hands on her kids. It also showed how Jodi Hilderbrant entered their lives. Jodi ran the business ConneXions, a therapy service for people suffering from “distortion.” Throughout the episode, Kevin, Ruby’s former husband, and her two oldest kids, Shari and Chad, explain their points of view on different experiences throughout the film.

Episode two, “Distortion,” shows how the Franke family starts to move their way up through the ConneXions ranks rapidly. The oldest daughter, Shari, speaks about how she felt uneasy about this and started to wonder if there was something more going on between Jodi and Ruby. Episode three shows the true downfall of the family channel and tells how some of the kids are dealing with the trauma now. It also talks about the arrest of Ruby and Jodi. 

Kevin wasn't arrested because he was “invited” out of the house and not in contact with any of the children during the most severe times of the abuse. Many argue that he knew what was going on, and being “brainwashed” is no excuse for child abuse. Another observation is that Shari called both her parents by their first names while Chad still called them Mom and Dad. 

Overall, the short series was very thought-provoking and, in a way, gave  a sense of closure to longtime viewers of the channel.