{"id":95157,"date":"2022-05-21T11:43:05","date_gmt":"2022-05-21T17:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=95157"},"modified":"2022-06-05T00:40:14","modified_gmt":"2022-06-05T06:40:14","slug":"under-the-banner-of-heaven-episode-5-one-mighty-and-strong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/05\/under-the-banner-of-heaven-episode-5-one-mighty-and-strong.html","title":{"rendered":"“Under the Banner of Heaven,” Episode 5: “One Mighty and Strong”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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\"sl;jlsjh;lsd\"<\/a>
A photograph by David Shankbone of the apartment building at 55 Central Park West in New York City that is also known as the \u201cGhostbusters Building.\u201d It seems relevant.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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I recently read online that I\u2019m burning with incandescent rage about the Hulu\/FX miniseries Under the Banner of Heaven<\/em>.\u00a0 Among other things, I learned that I\u2019m beside myself with furious envy at its success.\u00a0 With that in mind \u2014 and scarcely able to see the keys on my computer for sheer blinding anger \u2014 I share Jim Bennett\u2019s latest episode summary of Under the Banner.\u00a0 Probably sensing my desperately urgent need, he kindly granted me permission to share it here:<\/p>\n

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We open on a barren moonscape that is likely the non-existent town of East Rockwell, Utah, or Utah courtesy of Siberia. We then see a statue of Brigham Young, as Macaulay Culkin\u2019s younger brother\u2019s voiceover intones about ruin and devastation. The bearded Culkin, playing a fake Lafferty brother, attributes the quote to \u201cJohn Taylor, President, Prophet, Seer, and Revelator, 1876.\u201d Andrew Garfield is quick to correct him: \u201cit\u2019s \u201879, actually.\u201d Take that!<\/span><\/div>\n
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Golly, Garfield\u2019s Jeb Pyre is a walking encyclopedia of Church history, unless knowing something about Church history gets in the way of the plot. In a previous episode, he spoke of blood atonement as something that was \u201conly heard in whispers\u201d and is shocked to learn of its existence, but he talks about it ad nauseam in this episode in full voice, even using it as a verb: i.e. \u201cblood-atoning\u201d and \u201cblood-atoned.\u201d Curiously, everyone he mentions it to, even mainstream Mormons<\/a> with no fundamentalist ties, knows exactly what he\u2019s talking about.<\/span><\/div>\n
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So which is it? Is blood atonement a deep secret Mormon horcrux, or is it the subject of everyday Family Home Evening lessons where the bishop kidnaps your family? More on that later \u2014 I just employed a technique called \u201cforeshadowing,\u201d which is a storytelling device that hints of things to come. There are many methods of foreshadowing, but the filmmakers in this show only know one: droning, monotone bass notes that tell you everything that is coming is going to be bad.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Pyre does actual detective work and catches Culkin in a lie, proving he didn\u2019t murder Brenda but instead is doing unspeakable things to squirrels. Were 1984 forensics capable of differentiating human blood from squirrel blood? And how many acorns do you get if you blood-atone rodents?<\/span><\/div>\n
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But the poor squirrels are quickly forgotten as Home Alone Jr. speaks a phrase that Pyre and his partner have never heard before \u2013 one that could blow this whole case wide open!<\/span><\/div>\n
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The phrase?<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cSchool of the Prophets.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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At this utterance, everyone gasps, and the bass notes drone even harder than before. No one has ever heard this phrase! \u201cIs it LDS?\u201d asks Pyre\u2019s Paiute partner. \u201cNo, it\u2019s very specific,\u201d Pyre answers, as if that\u2019s somehow a logical reply to the question. (Pyre\u2019s Paiute partner is named Lt. Talba, by the way, but I couldn\u2019t resist the alliteration.) Throughout this episode, we learn that the idea of a \u201cSchool of the Prophets\u201d is nigh unto unthinkable! How can there be a School of the Prophets, plural? Prophets are like Sith Lords, Highlanders, and seasons of Firefly: there can be only one.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Now correct me if I\u2019m wrong, but a guy who corrects someone when they\u2019re wrong about the date of an obscure 19th Century John Taylor rant would surely know about the original School of the Prophets, formed in 1833 in Kirtland, Ohio. This was not something only spoken about in whispers during squirrel sacrifices. Several prominent sections of the Doctrine and Covenants describe its founding, its procedures, and, yes, its plural name. In the first episode, Pyre used the Doctrine and Covenants as an interrogation manual, quoting lengthy passages from memory. But now we are to assume he only memorized the beginning and stopped reading it altogether when he got about halfway through.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The stake president from the previous episode is still negotiating the release of murder suspects, which still makes as much sense as it did in the last episode, which is less than none. We later discover this is all part of an overarching plot by the Church to harass the police to cover up for murderers that they excommunicated. Because that makes sense, too, but only if you\u2019re a mollusk.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Pyre brings the explosive non-bombshell of the School of the Prophets to the other fictional Lafferty in custody, worried that this abominable school will \u201cunseat\u201d the \u201cOne True Prophet, Spencer W. Kimball.\u201d Because such a thing is an offense worse than murder in East Rockwell, punishable by listening to an endless loop of Jenny Oaks Baker CDs. Fake Lafferty II insists it\u2019s just a study group where they doodle on PeeChee folders, but Pyre threatens to excommunicate him, which seems par for the course in a universe where stake presidents run the legal system. We then hear about \u201ca man named Brady\u201d who set the whole school up because of a \u201cdream mine\u201d and \u201cMormon gold\u201d and a bearded guy named \u201cProphet Onias.\u201d Oh, and he was busy with three boys of his own.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Alas, both fake Laffertys are still released into the SP\u2019s custody, but before we can worry, we discover that the officer from the end of the last episode found Bishop Lowe and his wife, so the cops bolt out the door to stock footage of the real Utah Valley, which has undergone a massive construction boom in the time since the shot of the moonscape from the start of the episode.<\/span><\/div>\n
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As Pyre and Talba arrive at the Lowe home, the cop who found the Lowes inappropriately bears his testimony to Pyre on the way in, attributing all success to Heavenly Father. This earns a pained losing-my-religion smile from Pyre, who dares to remind this zealot that he deserves the credit for finding the Lowes, not Heavenly Father, because he \u201cfollowed the evidence, like a good cop does.\u201d Officer Zealot visibly flinches in the presence of Pyre\u2019s vile blasphemy. Or maybe he\u2019s just passing gas.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The interrogation of the animatronic bishop\/wife team begins, and these robots glumly spew Church jargon and, after stiffly invoking the \u201cconfidence between a bishop and his fold\u201d as a \u201csacred trust,\u201d violate that confidence at the earliest possible opportunity, unloading all the details of why both Lafferty brothers are excommunicated. (The real Laffertys were excommunicated two years before the murders, but in this universe, nobody notices until now.) We then cut to Matilda Lafferty milking her cow, which naturally leads to a moment of butter churning, because Mormons are Amish and stuff.<\/span><\/div>\n
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May I say, however, that this next scene is likely the best scene in the entire series to this point.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Matilda walks in on her husband in bed with Matilda\u2019s teenage daughter, and Dan calmly and quietly explains that they are now going to be polygamists, which causes Matilda to recoil in horror. He does this without ranting like a lunatic, and she responds with credible and heartbreaking emotional honesty. And for one brief, shining moment, this show achieves a verisimilitude that it has been aiming for since Episode One and has missed by a mile until now. It\u2019s genuinely unsettling, and it feels like something that could have really happened and continues to happen whenever polygamy is practiced. Although I could have done without the line where Dan says that \u201cGod has given me a vigorous sexual spirit.\u201d Um, ick.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Matilda, who is possibly the most fully realized female role in the series, sends her children away to escape in the dead of night, and she seduces her husband to keep him from going to investigate. And just like that, the interesting part is over. We\u2019re back to the bishop android, who tells Detective Pyre that the kids ran right to him, so he took it upon himself to put them in a \u201cvery good home\u201d without involving anyone with the legal authority to put kids in other people\u2019s homes. And then the kids \u201cran away\u201d from their new home and are missing, so Pyre and Talba arrest the reckless bishop for child endangerment and kidnapping. Ha ha! If only! No, they just wring their hands and give him a good scolding so he\u2019ll think twice about misplacing children in the future.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Pyre then asks about Ron\u2019s excommunication, and Bishop Roboto stiffly exposits that \u201cthese issues came to a head at the naming ceremony of Baby Erica.\u201d Real people call such things \u201cblessings,\u201d but \u201cnaming ceremony\u201d sounds significantly culty-er, so we\u2019re going to run with that. After the Ceremonial Naming\u2122, Ron confronts the bishop in the front of the chapel and asks him about his brother\u2019s ex-ing, and the bishop feigns fealty to confidentiality before once again violating it. He confirms that Dan was excommunicated for his \u201cstudies\u201d and tells Ron that there is \u201cnothing of value to be learned\u201d in reviewing Church history, which really puts the billions of dollars the Church spends on education in perspective. See, we are apparently supposed to be \u201chumble in the face of confusion\u201d as we inevitably discover that everything the Church teaches is laughable nonsense. The only good Mormon is a stupid Mormon.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Ron shoves the bishop and says \u201cYou think that he was going to get closer to the Eternal Father than you?\u201d (That\u2019s how you say \u201cYou think you\u2019re better than me?\u201d in Utah Kennedese.) This happens in clear view of a large chunk of the congregation milling about in the chapel, and nobody cares. We get a quick scene with Brenda, the ostensible subject of this series, who was all but absent from the last episode and gets less than a minute of screen time in this one. She shows up to repeat today\u2019s secret word: \u201cEXCOMMUNICATE.\u201d This word is spoken in this episode 87,433 times, give or take.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The bishop\u2019s wife then stepfordly counsels Brenda that when she\u2019s in a man\u2019s presence, she is to \u201csit down and shut up.\u201d Or, in UTBOH-speak, \u201cThese solutions are not our role. Our job is to dedicate ourselves to . . .\u201d and then she trails off to allow Diana Lafferty to finish the Mormon Mother\u2019s Mantra: \u201c. . . to creating a home and environment to sustain and support our priesthood holder.\u201d She rattles this off as if it\u2019s some warped version of the Handmaid\u2019s Pledge of Allegiance that all Mormon girls memorize when they are six years old. The bishop\u2019s creepy wife nods approvingly as she gets every word right.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Back in the present, Detective Talba says that this mantra may not be the best advice to give someone living in a home with a threat of violence, which is outrageously and offensively reasonable. The indignant bishop therefore refuses to respond to him directly and speaks to Andrew Garfield instead. \u201cI did as the Church instructed us to do, Brother Pyre,\u201d he says, pretending the uppity Lamanite isn\u2019t even in the room.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The detectives discover the location of the man named Brady, who lives in a house up in the hills, which is \u201ccloser to the Lord, they say.\u201d The Bradys are cheerful buffoons who say \u201cgosh\u201d and \u201check\u201d and \u201cdang\u201d a lot as they introduce the detectives to \u2014 no joke \u2014 the \u201cwhole Brady brood.\u201d (I mean, come ON.) Detective Talba brandishes a search warrant, and they proceed not to search for anything. They have a cheerful conversation wherein it becomes clear that Mrs. Brady is a useful idiot who wouldn\u2019t dare speak to Brother Brady about anything substantial. Of course, they both know all the confidential details of Ron Lafferty\u2019s church court, because in this universe, such things are likely posted in the ward newsletter.<\/span><\/div>\n
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We get a quick flashback where Ron hisses at his wife for not being a doormat to his priesthood and then punches her in the face. \u201cYou will submit WILLINGLY,\u201d he snarls, \u201cor I will STARVE you into obedience!\u201d He then throws a lot of eggs on the floor, perhaps as a metaphor for how his yolk is easy and his burden is light.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Diana then gets a knife and kicks Ron out of the house, and he slinks off to the sound of ominous bass notes. He apparently made a beeline to the Brady house, and Mr. Brady tells the detectives that they made up for Ron\u2019s felony violence with lots of scripture study. \u201cThese guys will read anything just to get out of hosing my gutters,\u201d Mrs. Brady says with a smile, leaving us to wonder if \u201chosing my gutters\u201d was a deliberate \u201cthat\u2019s what she said\u201d cue.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Anyway, while Mrs. Brady is in the room, they pleasantly reminisce about the camaraderie of this nifty little study group that ensued, which included a stinky \u201ceccentric\u201d named Onias who was \u201cnot a fan of bathing.\u201d Mr. Brady tells his wife to \u201cget some lemonade for these hardworking boys.\u201d As soon as she\u2019s gone, the detectives speak to Mr. Brady as if he\u2019s an adult, and Talba calls Brady \u201cdoughy.\u201d Ouch! They get him to squirmingly admit that his School of the Prophets included a lot of talk about the \u201cold ways,\u201d i.e. polygamy. \u201cDon\u2019t tell my wife,\u201d he pleads, as if he\u2019s asking them not to spill the beans about the flowers he bought her for Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Brady apparently sent himself a letter documenting how the School of the Prophets was compiling a list of names of people who would suffer \u201ceternal consequences,\u201d but the letter doesn\u2019t identify any specific names. The cops want specific names, and when they mention Diana, Brady casually says that \u201cshe wouldn\u2019t be the first woman to dash off something she had no right to and have it lead to bloodshed.\u201d Oh, yeah, tell me about it. That\u2019s a typical Thursday in East Rockwell.<\/span><\/div>\n
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No, what it is is an opportunity to give us the first historical flashback of the evening. \u201cBrother,\u201d Brady begins, \u201cour greatest loss can be traced to words written by a wife who thought she knew better than her husband.\u201d Quite the seamless segue there.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cNo, we\u2019re not going there,\u201d Pyre says, but, alas, we go there. And \u201cthere\u201d is to a truly loopy scenario where, near as I can tell, Emma Smith is directly manipulated by Brigham Young into killing her husband. And the \u201cletter\u201d she writes isn\u2019t actually written \u2014 it\u2019s a verbal message she gives to Cotton-Eye Joe to deliver orally, telling Joseph to come home and face justice. Joseph dutifully complies and is consequently assassinated.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Everything about this scenario is ludicrous in the extreme. The real Emma demonstrably loved her husband and didn\u2019t want him dead, and she hated Brigham and would never wittingly or unwittingly conspire with him to kill Joseph. Brigham was also on a mission when all this went down and didn\u2019t have the access to put the murder wheels into motion. No actual letter was written, so they invent this \u201cunwritten\u201d oral message of which there is no record, but somehow Laffertys and doughy Bradys know it word-for-word 150 years later. According to UTBOH, this flimsy, ludicrous, evidence-free conspiracy is the foundational sin of Mormon violence that continues to breed dangerous men well unto this day. So there.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Mrs. Brady interrupts History Time bearing lemonade made with brown sugar, which sounds gross. Mr. Brady acts like he\u2019s going to go hang out with \u201cthese fine men\u201d of his own free will and choice, and Pyre says \u201cwe\u2019ll get him back to you faster than you can say \u2018Lamanite\u2019 three times fast.\u201d Groan cringe blech. Speaking of three times fast, I\u2019m already at 2,500 words, and I\u2019m only halfway through the episode. I better speed it up.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Anyway, they go investigate, we get a bunch of MTV-cut flashbacks, including one where Pyre is inexplicably standing in an empty temple wearing his detective clothes. Pyre goes home to an empty house, so he pulls a gun, not assuming that maybe his family has gone to McDonald\u2019s or something. Ominous music builds until he finds the scary, scary note that they\u2019ve gone to the bishop\u2019s house. They decide to do a sleepover with the bishop, which is not something that anyone does, and Talba later assumes that the slumber party is the Church trying to put a stop to the investigation of people they have excommunicated, which is also not something that actually happens.<\/span><\/div>\n
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A flashback tells us that Ron was excommunicated by the local Star Chamber, so he goes home and terrorizes his children to celebrate. The cops go to the farm where the School of the Prophets is held and find teenage girls being trafficked for polygamists. On the way back from their creepy field trip, Alan Lafferty talks about Ron going home to his parents. Papa Lafferty is dying, and Ron refuses to get him a doctor because Mormons are Christian Scientists as well as Amish. His mother, the spiritual sister of Sissy Spacek\u2019s mom in Carrie<\/em>, tells him he\u2019s passed all of the Lord\u2019s tests and that he\u2019s the One Mighty and Strong. Then Joseph Smith gets killed, because it\u2019s all connected and stuff. The end.<\/span><\/div>\n
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I wish.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Shared with seething wrath from New York City<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 *** \u00a0 I recently read online that I\u2019m burning with incandescent rage about the Hulu\/FX miniseries Under the Banner of Heaven.\u00a0 Among other things, I learned that I\u2019m beside myself with furious envy at its success.\u00a0 With that in mind \u2014 and scarcely able to see the keys on my computer for sheer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[28248,28965,28236,28239,28269,788,55,1667,28242],"class_list":["post-95157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-andrew-garfield","tag-jim-bennett","tag-jon-krakauer","tag-krakauer","tag-lafferty","tag-mormon","tag-mormonism","tag-mormons","tag-under-the-banner-of-heaven"],"yoast_head":"\n"Under the Banner of Heaven," Episode 5: "One Mighty and Strong"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" 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