It goes back to that duality theme being pushing this season, Ani obviously takes interests into cases that involve women that could be tied to vice, abuse of sexual nature or human trafficking. Which is obviously out of some sense of justice, she's making up for what happened with "The Good People" by stoping these types of crimes.

At the same time we get her in the first episode freaking out the "boyfriend" in the bedroom, he's taken back by the fact that she wanted to have anal intercourse when they were in bed on the morning of the raid. Episode two sees Ani in the hotel room starting off by searching for possible fronts for prostitution/human trafficking/Child Abuse and then it turns to her seeking out extreme instances of porn (anal intercourse, DPs) and deriving pleasure from watching.

So that's her duality, she's a crusader against abuse of that nature, but still derives some form of pleasure from what could be considered sexual deviancy.

I think you're right about the molestation under the guise of free love and what not. She was victim like the other 5 children that were there, with two in jail, one committing suicide, and her becoming a police officer. I'm curious about her mother though, when she went to see her father he mentioned her "flair for the dramatic" which lead to her death (probably by suicide).

The cult angle I'm not seeing, but I think it was more of a Source Family, New Age kinda deal that went south for a period and then turned into some kind of profit based healing center or retreat.

Rick Springfield probably hung with them for a time while doing his early psych work and was kinda into it. He's doing some other shit, with the plastic surgery and what not. I think he's just another weird LA character and not some kind of connection to a cult. I would hope that Pizzo doesn't go with that angle in back to back seasons, this one has too many connections to shit that actually went on with Vernon (Vinci) being a corrupt city.