Not many shows have lived up to the incredible first season of “True Detective” — and that includes the later seasons of the hit HBO series. Some of those seasons were good enough, but they just couldn’t quite capture what made the first so special. One of the closest shows to nail down the vibe of “True Detective” Season 1, however, is the 2022 FX on Hulu crime drama “Under the Banner of Heaven.” And, unlike “True Detective,” it’s based on a true story.
Based on a nonfiction book of the same name by Jon Krakauer (the author behind Mount Everest disaster book “Into Thin Air”) “Under the Banner of Heaven” is about the 1984 murder of a woman and her daughter by Mormon fundamentalists. Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Brenda Lafferty, the victim, while Wyatt Russell and Sam Worthington play her brothers-in-law. As with “True Detective,” the show follows a couple of different timelines. There’s a thread about how Brenda’s husband and his family become increasingly involved in a dangerous branch of the LDS Church, while another follows Andrew Garfield’s Detective Jeb Pyre, a Mormon family man whose investigation of the murder leaves him shaken. A third thread explores the history of Mormonism and its founder, Joseph Smith.
While not quite the eldritch mystery that the first “True Detective” season was, “Under the Banner of Heaven” is complex, dark, and filled with incredible performances. That it’s based on real events only makes it more compelling.
Under the Banner of Heaven received some criticism for historical inaccuracies
It’s worth remembering that, while “Under the Banner of Heaven” is about a real murder and based on a true crime book by a respected author and journalist, the series is not a documentary. Daisy Edgar-Jones and Wyatt Russell’s characters are based on real people, as are the rest of the Lafferty family, but Andrew Garfield’s character, Jeb Pyre, is a fictional composite character. Some Mormon viewers criticized the show for what they saw was an unfair depiction of their faith, which highlighted one horrific incident and painted the entire religion with a bad brush. Notably, Dustin Lance Black, the creator of the series, grew up in a Mormon household.
Regardless, if you can go into “Under the Banner of Heaven” with an understanding of what it is — perhaps even viewing it as a starting point to read the book or learn more about the story that inspired it — you’ll appreciate it as one of the strongest crime dramas to follow in the lineage of “True Detective” Season 1. Arguably, “Under the Banner of Heaven” might just be one of Hulu’s best original series.
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