(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)
***
With his kind permission, though somewhat belatedly, I share this response by Jim Bennett to the last installment of the Andrew Garfield FX/Hulu miniseries Under the Banner of Heaven, with which, I’m told, I’m utterly obsessed, and which, I’m told, has reduced me to an impotent twitching rage. Please note that it opens by twice using a word that has, to the best of my recollection, never sullied my chaste lips nor marred my dainty and refined prose. You have been warned.
I begin my review of this final turd with a bit of housekeeping from the last turd. It’s important that you all know that “Capitalism is part of Heavenly Father’s plan to help the church prosper in the latter days.” A full-time missionary solemnly proclaimed this bit of nonsense in Episode 6 as if it were the 14th Article of Faith. Brenda Lafferty, the recipient of this doctrinal offal, replies that the missionaries need to go to her sisters-in-law and “maybe just remind them that they’re facing eternal separation from their families. But don’t be a downer about it.”
The downer thing would be just another silly smattering of dialogue on par with the Capitalism dippiness, except for the crucial difference that the missionary is fictional, and there really was a Brenda Lafferty who very much was not. This exchange encapsulates the inherent vileness of this show regardless of where you situate re: Mormonism. Because for six hours or so, a real-life murder victim has been reduced to a caricature who spouts wooden-sounding agitprop she would never have said, all in the service of a story that ultimately has nothing to do with her. But who cares, right? Anything to make the Mormons look like idiots.
And hoo boy, are they idiots in this episode. True, they’ve been idiots in every episode, but they sink to new lows in the finale.
We start with a repeat visit to the dream mine of Yukon Cornelius Onias, who rebukes Detective Talba for dropping an F bomb. And in Brother Burl’s defense, Talba’s F bomb was completely unnecessary, unlike the one Andrew Garfield screams in the final act just to prove he’s not a good little boy anymore. Anyway, we find out about Ron’s removal revelation and that there’s a list of names, but I thought we already knew that? It’s kind of hard to keep up with the hodgepodge of procedural elements, as they’re largely incoherent. Pyre is not sure if he should go to Florida to protect Diana Lafferty, who is on the run with her kids, or if he should go to Nevada, where Ron is supposed to be, or maybe go to both? I think Wyoming comes up, too. The police chief doesn’t care where they go so long as nobody makes the Church look bad. The writer doesn’t much care, either, because this isn’t the story he’s interested in telling.
No, the primary storyline of Jeb Pyre’s creeping atheism asserts itself as Pyre confides in Talba that his wife wants him to bear his testimony “in front of our congregation on Sunday.”
“Is public speaking a problem?” Talba asks.
“It is when I don’t believe the words coming out of my mouth,” Pyre replies. “And if the Brethren smell any doubt, I’ll be single, maybe by Fall.”
Yikes! Who are these Brethren who monitor testimony meetings for doubters? Is Pyre in an arranged marriage? Otherwise, why would his wife have to wait for a doubt nostril verdict before deciding to leave? Also, how come I’ve never seen any such Brethrenic Doubt Sniffers mandating divorces in my almost 54 years as a member of this Church?
Keep in mind, too, that the term “the Brethren” is tossed around to refer to anyone sinister, Mormon, and male, which is pretty much every white person with testicles in this series. It encompasses apostles, bishops, generic General Authorities, stake presidents, and ward librarians. They’re all interchangeable.
In fact, lots of terms in this episode are used without any reference to what they mean in the real world. There’s the moment where Dan shrieks at young missionaries to “stop fornicating” as the fully-clothed innocents stand there, actively not fornicating. There’s also the weird moment near the end of this episode where Diana Lafferty shouts at her fictional sister-in-law at a gas station to try to convince her to leave her husband. “Bear your testimony!” she screams. This high-decibel counsel comes as the fake sister-in-law is sitting in a car about to drive away and be lost forever. Were Fake-Lafferty-Wife to bear her testimony at that precise moment, it might have created a faith-promoting moment for the fake couple, but I don’t think that was what Diana was aiming for. I’m confident that “bear your testimony” does not appear in any thesaurus as a synonym for “get out of the damn car.”
But let us go back to the Brethren. For it comes to pass that an unnamed Brether [sic] is featured prominently in both this episode and the last. He/it is a 726-year-old malfunctioning Billy Graham robot who gave Brenda a blessing last week and does the Holy Hokey Pokey this week.
Literally. The Holy Hokey Pokey. It has to be seen to be believed.
In fact, if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to take a few moments to recreate this particular train wreck, because it made me laugh harder than anything else in this dumpster fire of a series.
This guy has no name and no assigned office. He is only referred to as a “General Authority,” and once by Pyre’s wife as “MY General Authority, too!” She takes ownership of him after she calls him to complain about Pyre doing his job to prevent lunatics from killing people and postponing an easily-postponed child’s baptism for a couple of weeks.
So Sister Pyre’s General Authority, who I will refer to hereafter as Mr. Brethren, shows up at the station and speaks with faux solemnity about… well, no paraphrase can do it justice. Here’s the dialogue, verbatim:
MR. BRETHREN
Brother Pyre, let us come together for the sake of our church – and for the sake of your eternal family.
JEB PYRE
Sorry, what does my family have to do with this visit?
MR. BRETHREN
In the past, you have bent man’s law for the sake of the Church. When your ward considered elevating a member to Boy Scout Master [seriously? BOY SCOUT MASTER? You don’t trust the audience to know what a scoutmaster is?], you volunteered investigative details from that member’s past, despite the fact that you never charged the man with anything. That’s not how justice operates.
JEB PYRE
He would have been charged with child abuse if the Church hadn’t encouraged his wife to stop sharing evidence with me.
MR. BRETHREN
We were grateful, brother.
ALAN LAFFERTY
So now you want to sweep my wife and child’s blood under the rug for the sake of the church’s reputation? Have I got that right?
MR. BRETHREN
(ignoring ALAN completely)
BROTHER Pyre, would you please ask MISTER Lafferty to mind his tongue?
[Dramatic pause.]
I see.
[They pause even harder.]
And that is all.
[Bonus pause]
Gentlemen.
[MR. BRETHREN turns and walks out the door. He then stops, awkwardly raises his left leg, and slaps his shoe like a fat flamingo with gout.]
ALAN LAFFERTY
(quoting the Doctrine and Covenants)
“Shake off the dust of your feet as a testimony against them, and know that in the day of judgment you shall be judges of that house and condemn them.”
JEB PYRE
He just condemned us both.
[Indeed he did. And… scene.]
____
For that scene to have happened on screen, something like the following would have had to have happened off screen.
Join me as we watch SISTER PYRE and MR. BRETHREN in…
UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN EPISODE 6.5: MY FAVORITE BRETHREN
SISTER PYRE
(on telephone)
Hello. Is this my General Authority?
MR. BRETHREN
I’m sorry, who’s calling?
SISTER PYRE
I’m Jeb Pyre’s wife.
MR. BRETHREN
Oh, right. The detective who brazenly doesn’t let us elevate pedophiles to be Master of Boy Scouts. Man, were we grateful that he didn’t prosecute.
SISTER PYRE
I’d have had to divorce him if he did, right?
MR. BRETHREN
That goes without saying.
SISTER PYRE
Oh, I know. Anyway, there’s a new problem.
MR. BRETHREN
Remind me of your first name again?
SISTER PYRE
I don’t think I have a first name.
MR. BRETHREN
What’s the new problem, Sister?
SISTER PYRE
Well, my husband is busy investigating a murder committed by two excommunicated members of the Church, and he’s asked me to postpone my eight-year-old daughter’s baptism by a couple of weeks.
MR. BRETHREN
No! NO! Everyone will think your daughter is a fornicator!
SISTER PYRE
Yes, they will! So I’ve ordered him to bear his testimony this Sunday…
MR. BRETHREN
Is he going to be in a car?
SISTER PYRE
What?
MR. BRETHREN
Oh, sorry. Are you calling to ask me to come doubt sniff for you?
SISTER PYRE
No, all I want is for you to come order him to ignore the murders completely and threaten him and his family with eternal damnation if he tries to do his job.
MR. BRETHREN
Of course. Consider it done. I’ll also eternally damn the victim’s husband for some reason. No extra charge.
SISTER PYRE
Sweet! Could you bring your dustiest shoes, too?
[And… scene.]
___
What else is there to say, really? I could recount the details of how they go to Circus Circus because of a revelation that cryptically says “Circus Circus” and chase Dan and Ron through secret casino tunnels after Dan and Ron kneel in prayer at blackjack tables and publicly perform temple ceremonies for security cameras and then try to kill each other in the men’s room before Andrew Garfield comes bursting through the ceiling…
Honestly, what’s the point? Basically, it’s all a sprawling mess. Brenda’s murder happens somewhere in the middle of all that, and it’s as much of an afterthought as it is in the previous six episodes. It’s repugnant if you think about it, but the filmmakers don’t want you to think about it. You’re supposed to spend all your time thinking how much Mormonism sucks.
Two more observations, and then I’m through with this thing.
The first is this week’s PowerPoint presentation, given by Detective Talba this time, which tells “what really happened” at the Mountain Meadows Massacre because Mormons are “impervious to facts.” Ironically, the “facts” Talba provides state that Brigham Young ordered the massacre as a deliberate act of war, a thesis which is rejected by credible historians in and out of the Church, given that the evidence for it is virtually non-existent and the documentary evidence that Brigham tried to stop the massacre before it happened is irrefutable. It’s just really weird that this show trying to expose the evils of Mormon history punts the ball to the fringiest conspiracy theories at every available opportunity.
Of course, history isn’t the real focus of this series, which is Jeb Pyre’s dwindling faith. In the finale, Jeb panics in a car with Talba, wondering how Talba can go through life “without a compass.” Talba punches him in the gut to get him to trust it. Apparently, true faith is largely gastrointestinal.
With last week’s setup about the secret red book and the coming testimony bearing, I expected – h/t to Nathan Scoll for first predicting this – Pyre to stand before his congregation and lay into them, offering indictment after indictment of their sham of a religion, losing his wife, his community, and everything in the process. It would have been ridiculous, but no more ridiculous than everything pointing in that direction from the moment this series began.
But no! This stupid, asinine show doesn’t have the cojones to follow through on its own bile!
Pyre has a pleasant chat with Talba, who does some Paiute chanting that he thinks is meaningless, but it makes him feel better. And just like that, Pyre realizes that even though his faith is gone, he has a pretty wife and sweet kids, and he goes home to them, and they ignore the fact that Mr. Brethren has condemned them all to hell. All is well. The final scene is Pyre standing at a river with his anti-Semitic mother who mentions Heavenly Father one last time, and Pyre just sort of brushes it off, and they smile as they watch the sunset.
Look, I get it that people who have left the Church feel very protective of this show, and I have no problem with anyone who wants to find value or resonance here. If you’re one of those people, more power to you. Just know that that validation comes at the expense of Brenda Lafferty and her surviving family, whose wounds have been torn open afresh to give you something fun to watch.
Thank Heavenly Father there will be no season 2.
On a related theme, this article was recently published in the Deseret News by Hanna Seariac. I expect that it, too, somehow illustrates my obsessive and angry fixation on Under the Banner of Heaven:
Posted from Munich, Germany
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