TV Review: "The Cult of NatureBoy" Is the Rare True Crime Doc That Delivers Justice

True crime has become such a dominant genre that it has started to eat itself — another grisly murder, another trafficker brought to justice, another case you've already heard about. The Cult of NatureBoy sidesteps that fatigue almost entirely. The four-part ABC News docuseries, premiering today on Hulu, focuses not on a body count but on something more insidious: the social and emotional conditions that make someone walk away from their life and hand control of it to someone else.

In 2016, Eligio Bishop — known online as "NatureBoy" — began recruiting followers to a group he called Carbon Nation, promising them a self-proclaimed Black utopia away from the violence and racial trauma that defined that moment in America. What follows is not a mystery. The audience understands from the outset how this ends. What The Cult of NatureBoy does well is make you understand, step by step, how it began.

The series draws on a mix of talking-head interviews with former members, social media footage, and cellphone video captured by the group itself — the latter being among the most effective tools in the doc's arsenal. Because Carbon Nation existed so openly online, the evidence of its escalation is abundant and damning. Director Ben Zand and showrunner Lucie Ridout are smart about pacing it out across four episodes, building a clear portrait of Bishop's manipulation before turning to the abuse and its consequences.

The former members interviewed — among them Aaron (Tru), Velvet (Eliana), Kendra (EJ), and Janaé (Neytiri) — are candid in ways that feel genuinely hard-won rather than performative. The documentary is careful to contextualize why each person was drawn in: the isolation, the unmet need for community, the specific appeal of Carbon Nation's message during a period of intense racial violence and political upheaval. That social commentary elevates the series above the typical cult doc, which tends to treat its subjects as cautionary tales rather than fully realized people navigating real circumstances.

If there's a limitation, it's one common to the format: at four episodes, the middle stretch occasionally stalls as the series cycles through new recruits and new locations. Bishop's pattern of abuse is established early, and subsequent revelations sometimes retread familiar territory before the final episode refocuses on accountability.

But the payoff is real. It's something of a rarity in true crime to watch a doc that builds genuinely toward justice — not just exposure, but legal consequence. That sense of resolution gives The Cult of NatureBoy a shape that the genre often lacks.

I give The Cult of NatureBoy 4 out of 5 stars.

The Cult of NatureBoy is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers in the U.S. The series is rated TV-MA.