(Courtesy Michelle Faye | FX) Brenda Lafferty in an undated photograph, left, and Daisy Edgar-Jones, who plays Lafferty in 'Under the Banner of Heaven.' The miniseries is replete with Latter-day Saint references, most of the everyday sort: Baptismal interviews, CTR rings, the Tabernacle Choir, the First Vision, early morning seminary, bishops, stake presidents, “Lamanites,” missionaries, family home evening, and people calling each other “brother” and “sister” in both church and non-church settings. He wrote Episodes 1 and 2 and directed Episode 5.) (Black is the creator/executive producer/showrunner. In “Under the Banner of Heaven,” Black and his team create a world that feels very true to Utah - to Utah County - in the mid-1980s. That, Black said, he learned when he interviewed several of the detectives who investigated the murders. And Pyre questions whether that was on orders from the First Presidency. The portrayal of the 1984 investigation into the brutal murders includes multiple LDS Church officials who, if not actually obstructionist, were less than helpful.
The miniseries dives into not just the murders but what led up to them, all the way back to 19th-century history.
