Under the Banner of Heaven (2022)

Watchseries; Reading through the bad reviews it appears they are all from mormons. Speaking as someone who grew up in the LDS faith I can say the portrayal of mormom culture is very accurately shown in this series. Only two episodes have been released, but I am intrigued. Both the true crime and religious aspect of this show have caught my attention, and I'm excited for more episodes to come.

Reading through the bad reviews it appears they are all from mormons. Speaking as someone who grew up in the LDS faith I can say the portrayal of mormom culture is very accurately shown in this series. Only two episodes have been released, but I am intrigued. Both the true crime and religious aspect of this show have caught my attention, and I'm excited for more episodes to come.

Under the Banner of Heaven watchseries. Bad reviews do seem to be coming from the Mormons because they don't want to confront the difficult aspects of the church's history. This is so far a very well made, well acted, unbiased telling of a thrilling and dark story in Mormon history.

A good historical drama that sheds light on troubling Mormon history. Mormons will give this series a poor rating as they like to obfuscate their history as they attempt to become more of a "Christian" faith.

Excellent acting, storyline in a series that takes a deep dive into some of the darker secrets regarding Mormon history. Current members are going to take offense to the series, but fail to acknowledge a non white washed early Mormon history that wasn't taught with full transparency. To say the early Mormons aren't a violent people, is to forget the mountain meadows massacre, the danites, Porter Rockwell. Additionally, minimizing the church's history of mistreatment of the marginalized including women with polygamy practices (as well as polyandry by Joseph Smith while keeping it from his wife) the fight against the ERA movement in the 1950s, withholding the priesthood and subsequently eternal families/marriages from the black race until 1978 (not too far off from this time setting of the show) and now the LGBTQ community. Mormon members are generally kind, loving and hard working, educated individuals. The problem is the institution and the lack of acknowledgment of it's dark past and controlling this information by keeping it from its members. Glad this series sheds some light on a difficult past for most members to face.

I've done multiple deep dives into historical writings and books. Jon Krakauer's book is well reflected in the first two episodes released. From what I have found the book is accurate to an acceptable degree of what actually occurred in the Lafferty case, and the show appears to be on the same course. Please don't let the negative reviews of jumpy religious zealots deter you from an intricate true crime show, based on an intricate true crime book.

Well, I will make this short. I was with someone who was a part of a family similar to the Lafferty family. I got out. Yes..Yes... I know most LDS members are not connected to the fundamentalist realm and YES I know this type of story isn't common. But the way I was treated, the looks, the things that are said in the story? I had to take a break before I kept watching. It was just too real for me. I'm so glad I left that family. So glad. The church is amazing, but some families...not so much.