Continuations, sequels, follow-ups … no matter what you call them … are tough to pull off. With any luck, a first season garners some success.
But when a second season is promised, fan expectations are a tough hurdle to clear. All the more reason to consider this summer’s Season 2 of Extremely American a pretty big success.
“Yeah, a lot of people listening is nice,” said journalist and co-host Heath Druzin. “We’re getting a pretty big audience now; and it’s quickly starting to eclipse Season 1.”
Season one was a deep dive into militias and far-right groups “trying to remake America in their absolutist image,” and before it wrapped in 2022, Druzin was already huddling with journalist/co-host James Dawson about what could come next.
“Jimmy had been looking into this for a long time,” Druzin recalled. So, when he came to me with this, we started looking into the Chris Church story.”
The faith leader of the Moscow-based Christ Church wants to claim the north central Idaho college town for Jesus; and as Season 2 of Extremely American rolled out, we learned that those same faith leaders “want to make the whole country an explicitly Christian nation.”
“And as this current season continued to drop, there have been a lot of conversations on a number of platforms – Facebook, The Lewiston Tribune, Moscow Daily News,” said Dawson. “It is something that is always in the back of people’s minds, especially in Moscow, because it’s been around for almost 50 years.”
Dawson and Druzin visited with Morning Edition host George Prentice to talk about the current season of Extremely American, Christ Church’s power over its followers and its potential influence in the democratic process.
Find reporter George Prentice @georgepren
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