In the 1960s and 70s, controversial Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh amasses a large number of followers; while many are from India, a growing number are from Europe and the United States. The movement faces increasing legal pressure from the Indian government, so Rajneesh sends his secretary, Ma Anand Sheela, to the United States to procure land for a new commune that will be protected by America's religious freedom laws. The land chosen is the Big Muddy Ranch in rural central Oregon, which soon becomes host to a temporary city named Rajneeshpuram. The residents of nearby Antelope are suspicious and fearful, and they try to stymie the commune's efforts to rapidly grow. The Rajneeshees' solution? Buy out the town until they have a majority and vote in a favorable local government.
As the commune continues to grow rapidly, Ma Anand Sheela (effectively Rajneesh's second in command) begins making internal and external power plays. She oversees a plan to rig the 1984 Wasco County Commissioner elections, first by bussing in thousands of homeless people, then by inducing a salmonella outbreak in several local restaurants to force people to stay home. She also plans, but never carries out, a plot to assassinate federal attorney Charles Turner for leading an immigration fraud investigation into Rajneeshpuram. When she fears that Rajneeshe's doctor Deva Raj is trying to talk him into committing suicide, she attempts to have Deva Raj assassinated.
After her plot's failure and with her influence over Rajneesh slipping, Sheela and her closest allies flee Rajneeshpuram and move to West Germany in early 1985. Rajneesh considers this to be a betrayal of the highest order, and the two launch blistering attacks at one another through interviews and statements to the press. With their investigation into Sheela bringing proof of other crimes that happened under Rajneesh's watch, federal law enforcement begin to close in, and there's a growing sense of fear that it would end with murders or mass suicide a la Jonestown. Rajneesh leaves the ranch and tries to flee to Bermuda, but his plane is detained in North Carolina and he's remanded into federal custody. He strikes a plea bargain with prosecutors and agrees to return to India, where he lives until his death in 1990. After being arrested in West Germany and extradited to America, Sheela serves a sentence in federal prison and moves to Switzerland, where she still lives today.
The series features interviews with people on both sides of the issue, including current and former members of the Rajneeshee movement, residents of Antelope, and attorneys involved in prosecuting Rajneesh. Particularly featured subjects include Ma Anand Sheela herself; Jane Stork (formerly Ma Shanti Bhadra), Sheela's former lieutenant; and Swami Prem Niren, Rajneesh's attorney. Wild Wild Country premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018 and was met with positive critical and audience reception. It was nominated for five Emmy Awards and won Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series.
Not to be confused with the Elvis Presley film Wild in the Country or the 1999 steampunk Western film Wild Wild West.
Wild Wild Country contains examples of:
- Almighty Janitor: Despite having the relatively innocuous title of being Rajneesh's personal secretary, Ma Anand Sheela amasses an incredible amount of power by controlling access to him, especially after he becomes more secluded.
- Apocalypse Cult: Sheela alleges that Rajneesh became fixated on apocalypses, ordered his followers to start building bunkers in Rajneeshpuram, and started contemplating suicide; whether it's something he genuinely ordered or an attempt to portray him as being manipulated by his doctor is unclear.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Philip Toelkes, AKA Swami Prem Niren. He was a fanatically devoted member of the Rajneesh movement, but also is shown to have been a very competent lawyer, even getting the federal government's initial attempt to deport Rajneesh thrown out.
- Citizenship Marriage: The Rajneeshees engage in rampant immigration fraud to swell their numbers in Rajneeshpuram, primarily by ordering an American and a foreign member to go to a different city, fake a long-term relationship, get married, get permanent residency for the foreign spouse, and return to the ranch.
- Clear My Name: Niren says that when Rajneesh/Osho was on his deathbed, he told Niren to write a book that would share his side of the story on Rajneeshpuram and clear the movement's name in America.
- Community-Threatening Construction: Residents of Antelope see the construction of Rajneeshpuram as a threat to their way of life. Their fears are realized when the Rajneeshees take over the town and turn it into a satellite community.
- Conspicuous Consumption: The Rajneesh movement did not reject material wealth, meaning that Rajneesh saw nothing wrong with owning dozens of Rolls Royce luxury cars.
- The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much: To this day, Sheela believes that Rajneesh did not die of natural causes, and that his death was engineered by his personal doctor Deva Raj.
- Crazy Homeless Person: After inviting thousands of homeless men to Rajneeshpuram, the Rajneeshees learn the hard way that some of them are unstable or violent. One of them even attempts to strangle Sheela to death.
- Cult Defector:
- When Sheela fears both the American legal authorities and Rajneesh turning against her, she flees with some of her closest supporters to West Germany. However, she never abandons her beliefs in the Rajneeshee movement.
- Jane Stork, AKA Ma Shanti Bhadra, was one of Sheela's lieutenants who fled to Germany with her. She ends up leaving the Rajneeshee movement entirely and returning to Australia.
- Everybody Has Lots of Sex: Rajneesh's teachings rejected belief in marriage and monogamy, and said there was nothing wrong with embracing one's sexuality; this earned him the nickname "the free love guru" from the press. As a result, public nudity, public sex, and occasional orgies were the norm at Rajneeshpuram.
- Half-Witted Hillbilly: According to the people of Antelope, the Rajneeshees saw them as this and acted like they could easily be duped into doing what they want.
- Horror Hippies: Despite being all about free love and interfaith harmony, the Rajneeshees end up organizing the largest bioterrorism attack in United States history.
- I Have Many Names: Rajneesh is referred to by several different names by different interviewees throughout the series. Outsiders reporting on him tended to use his full name and title (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh), or simply "Rajneesh." Sheela, Jane, and Sunny call him "Bhagwan." Niren, who remained loyal to him up until his death, calls him "Osho," the name he adopted in 1989.
- Murder by Suicide: Sheela plots to kill Deva Raj after she believes he is trying to convince Rajneesh to commit ritual suicide.
- Not Good with Rejection: After his falling out with Sheela, Rajneesh jokes in a lecture that all her murder plots were simply out of anger that he never had sex with her.
- Only Bad Guys Call Their Lawyers: After Sheela and her supporters flee, Rajneesh invites outside police into the commune and investigate her effects. However, once it becomes clear that they're also building a case against him and his followers, Rajneesh quickly retracts support.
- Plea Bargain:
- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, rather than spend years and stress his body fighting the charges against him in prison, strikes a plea bargain with federal prosecutors where he pleas guilty to immigration fraud in exchange for being deported.
- Ma Anand Sheela pleads guilty to several specific cases of poisoning, but not the mass salmonella poisoning, as well as arson against a government office. She is sentenced to twenty years in prison, but is released after four and a half on good behavior.
- Precision F-Strike: Sheela is shown launching one at an opponent during a televised debate. The host laughingly chides her, "You got your one dirty word in! Everybody gets one!"
- Rich Bitch: Francoise Ruddy, AKA Ma Prem Hasya, is portrayed by Sheela as being one. The wealthy ex-wife of Alfred S. Ruddy (producer of The Godfather), she gained influence with Rajneesh by making massive donations and giving him lavish gifts, which Sheela saw as unethical manipulation (and more importantly, reducing her own influence).
- Run for the Border: Rajneesh attempts to do this when the federal government starts closing in on him, planning to flee to Bermuda and escape extradition to America.
- Scam Religion:
- After her split with Rajneesh, Sheela says in an interview that Rajneesh was only manipulating people for money. Whether that's actually true is unclear, seeing how it was a time when both Sheela and Rajneesh were slinging wild claims at each other.
- In the finale, Antelope local John Silvertooth speculates that it had been a con from its beginning in India as a way to fleece wealthy Western tourists.
- Single-Palette Town: The cult famously only dressed in maroon clothes, which extended to the ones that joined the local Sheriff's department, who had maroon deputy uniforms. They even had a clothes store in town only selling clothes in maroon.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: The Rajneeshees carry out several major instances of it.
- In order to influence the county elections, they go to the nearby city of The Dalles and spray cultures of salmonella on local restaurants' salad bars in order to cause a mass outbreak, the largest instance of bioterrorism in American history.
- In order to keep the disorganized and violent population of homeless residents under control, they spike the free beer for the homeless with prescription-grade sedatives.
- In another attempt to cause a disease outbreak in The Dalles, a group of Rajneeshees allegedly tried to poison the water supply by introducing beavers (known for carrying lots of bacteria) into a reservoir. When they couldn't fit the beavers through the fenced enclosure, they instead ground up the beavers and poured the slurry into the reservoir.
- Titled After the Song: The title comes from one of the lyrics to "Drover" by Bill Callahan. The song itself features prominently in the soundtrack of the final episode.
- Unwanted False Faith: After Sheela's defection, Rajneesh denounces the idea that his movement is a religion, and says that any religious trappings (prescribed prayers and rituals, hierarchies, etc.) that did exist were manufactured by Sheela as a way to amass personal power. He describes the removal of Sheela's reforms as "the first time in human history [that] a religion will die."
