Details

Release year: 2022

Storyline

A devout detective's faith is tested as he investigates a brutal murder seemingly connected to an esteemed Utah family's spiral into LDS fundamentalism and their distrust in the government.

Top credits

Cast

Andrew Garfield — Detective Jeb Pyre
Sam Worthington — Ron Lafferty
Daisy Edgar-Jones — Brenda Lafferty
Denise Gough — Dianna Lafferty

See all 158 credits →

Awards

0 wins & 1 nomination

See all awards →

Did you know

• Though not explained in the series, Dan and Ron were both convicted of murder. Dan was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. Ron's case, however, is more complex. He attempted suicide while in custody in 1984, resulting in some brain damage. The court initially ruled him competent to stand trial and he was convicted. An appeals court later found that he was incompetent to stand trial and he was sent to a mental hospital for treatment. In 1996, he was once again found competent to stand trial and was convicted. After a few more failed appeals, Ron was sentenced to death, but he died of natural causes in 2019, shortly before the sentence was to be carried out.

• The series is based on the real-life 1984 murders of Brenda Wright Lafferty and her 15-month-old daughter Erica Lafferty.

• Series creator and adapter Dustin Lance Black was raised in the LDS Church. In a July 2022 interview with Kim Masters on KCRW's show "The Business," he said, "I saw my mother being abused [and] the church preferring she lean on church authority, as opposed to police authority, and that really didn't resolve things because it's the woman's place in Mormon home to create a home suitable to her priesthood holder, the father in the home. But the thing that's most disturbing about having witnessed that is how unremarkable it was. It was not just her. My mother was the president of the Relief Society in our area, which is the women's group in the church, and I was keenly aware that our story was not special." He also said that he was "very attached" to the church as a teen, despite the discomfort he felt with its intolerant policy on LGBTQ rights and his growing realization that he was gay. "I was devout. I didn't know any different. It's how the design of the church is. I was six days a week in church, which I enjoyed, whether that's Sunday school, or Boy Scouts. It was all Mormon, and it's all I knew. And it felt very safe. So leaving the church was not something I wanted to do, but I followed my mother out as a teenager."