Do you know what Hulu is? The streamer exists, but it has become more entwined with Disney+, so much so that you can watch Hulu content through your Disney+ app. Even so, Hulu remains an interesting place to check out the kinds of shows that Disney doesn’t typically produce.
If you’re looking for something great to watch on Hulu, you should start with Under the Banner of Heaven. This series, which is adapted from a nonfiction book of the same name, tells the story of a series of murders in the 1980s in an insular Mormon community. Here are three reasons you should watch it.
It’s an honest depiction of the darker side of religion
Under the Banner of Heaven goes out of its way to say that there are plenty of Mormons who earnestly adhere to their religious beliefs. In large part, though, Under the Banner of Heaven is focused on how the extreme religious beliefs of a single Mormon family ultimately drove them to violence, convincing them that they should act apart from the government and that they were God’s chosen soldiers on a mission to purify the nation and their own families.
Under the Banner of Heaven is a dark series about real crimes. It’s also a reminder that when you claim to be an antenna for God’s will, you can confuse your own messed-up brain for the will of God.
It features a number of hugely compelling performances
Andrew Garfield is the anchor of this show, a Mormon detective who is wrestling with his own faith even as he comes to appreciate the brutal crimes that are so intimately connected to it. Garfield’s performance is not the only excellent one in the series, though.
Daisy Edgar-Jones is tasked with playing a murdered woman but manages to imbue her character with remarkable life, and Wyatt Russell and Sam Worthington are excellent as two men who bring their brothers under their violent, unsettling influence.
It doesn’t have any easy answers
In part because it’s based on a true story, Under the Banner of Heaven feels more like a warning than a fable. The journey at the heart of this show is a detective who slowly recognizes that the wholesome morality of his church is not the force for good that he believed it to be.
When we get to the end of the show, the question of what his relationship will be with the tenets that have defined him is intentionally left unresolved. All we know is that things aren’t nearly as simple as he thought.
You can watch Under the Banner of Heaven on Hulu.
