Hulu

Anyone with a Hulu subscription can now watch Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke

After not posting for four years, both a therapist, Jodi Hildebrant, and the mother and owner of the popular 8 Passengers YouTube channel, were arrested in 2023 for aggravated child abuse. The two were charged and convicted and now face up to thirty years in prison. Hulu’s new docuseries, Devil in the Family, is a chilling revelation of how the seemingly wholesome world of family vlogging can mask deeply disturbing realities.

8 Passengers was a YouTube channel that grew in popularity in 2016. The channel, run by Ruby Franke, was a family channel that showed the lives of Ruby, her husband Kevin, and their six children. Over the past few years, however, people have realized that there was something off about this family. They stopped posting online in 2020 after receiving harsh criticism for taking away their child, Chad’s, room for 7 months. In the years after, Ruby started getting hostile, kicking out her husband and two of her kids, teaming up with psychologist Jodi Hildebrant, and starting a wellness program. She weaponized her Mormon faith to justify her actions. Thinking her children were possessed, she refused to give them any food, and both mentally and physically abused them.

I used to watch the 8 Passengers channel in 2019, so hearing about this was shocking. The documentary was thought-provoking, and it was heartbreaking to see that the kids I used to watch and admire had gone through so much right under everyone’s noses.

The series was broken up strategically into three parts: how Ruby Franke exploited her children on YouTube, how she began to isolate loved ones along with Jodi Hildebrant, what the family had to go through, and how they are learning to cope. All of the episodes highlighted the different forms of abuse the kids had gone through, from mental to physical. The breaking up of the stories showed everything they had been through, part by part. It made it easier to follow and created a more in-depth story. The documentary included footage that had not been seen before, showing what the kids went through behind the scenes.

Overall, the series was incredibly interesting but deeply disturbing. Hearing the family’s stories and what they’d gone through made me reflect on all of the YouTube families I had watched as a child. If you are interested in true crime or even used to watching 8 Passengers, Devil in the Family would be fascinating to watch, and I would recommend it.