UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN
Your next binge watch, this first-rate seven-part drama is based on a real-life murder in Utah’s Mormon community. Starring British actor Andrew Garfield in a rare foray into TV, it focuses on the investigation into the brutal 1984 killing of Brenda Lafferty and her infant daughter, both of whom belonged to a respected family of Mormons. Garfield plays the (fictional) detective Jeb Pyre, a devout but naïve Mormon who finds his
faith tested to its limits during the long investigation, as his eyes are opened to Mormonism’s darker factions and often destructive patriarchy. Garfield is terrific in the lead and contrasts well with Gil Birmingham as his salty non-lds deputy, Bill Taba.
Creator and writer Dustin Lance Black, whose 2008 film Milk won him an Oscar, has done an excellent job adapting Jon Krakauer’s 2003 book and packed the
cast with transatlantic talent. It trips between several timelines beyond the 1984 investigation, during which Brenda (Normal People’s Daisy Edgar-jones) meets and marries into the Lafferty family. A stilted sub-plot set 200 years ago about Mormonism’s founding father, Joseph Smith, feels superfluous. Otherwise, it’s a gripping mystery. See page 11 of Features for our full review of the series.