Recommendations: Week of 9/19/22

The FX/Hulu edition (part 1)

For the next couple of weeks, I am going to be highlighting a streaming service for each recommendation post. These Monday posts are always non-exhaustive by definition, but I want to use them to understand our current moment in tele-cinema. My apologies if you aren’t subscribed to whatever streaming service I pick each week, but maybe this is a perfect time to get a free trial and see if it’s worth the investment.

This week, I chose FX and its partnership with Hulu. As of 2019, Hulu is owned by Disney and has therefore gotten an influx of cash with which to do…something interesting. In the past, my relationship with Hulu was mostly contained to watching shows that were airing currently on network TV, as Hulu would often show those episodes a day later. Hulu’s original content took me longer to warm to, partly because it has been so scattershot. Hulu creates everything from Victoria’s Secret documentaries to gay adaptations of Jane Austen novels to American Horror Stories. Streaming services tend to exist on a spectrum regarding how much their content relates to each other; HBO, I would argue, has always been the best at tying all their content together thematically. Hulu has been probably the laxest on that scale, but their partnership with FX is an exception. FX shows on Hulu are consistently high-quality, interesting, and cohesive. What follows are two projects that I think demonstrate that.

Under the Banner of Heaven (Hulu/FX): The short version of this short review is: It’s Mormon True Detective. In tone, content, and a constant sense of creeping dread, it hits all the notes of that series. If that description appeals to you, so will this show. My mileage on True Detective has always varied, and many of the issues I have with that anthology series (too many men talking too much; too many women dying horribly; too many long car rides that involve monologues that don’t advance the plot; too many timelines) are present here too. But there’s a lot to recommend, as well. The series is set in 1984 and follows the investigation into the murder of Brenda Lafferty and her baby. Brenda is LDS and so is everyone in this community, including the detective investigating her case, Jeb Pyre (Andrew Garfield). The series is based on a true story so there’s not much mystery involved. A quick Google (as well as some heavy foreshadowing) will inform you that Brenda and her baby were murdered by two of her brothers-in-law, men who had become obsessed with fundamentalist Mormon beliefs and believed Brenda, a fairly progressive proto-feminist, had to be killed to purify their family. The most interesting thing about the show is its exploration of LDS and FLDS (fundamentalist LDS) beliefs. The show uses flashbacks to two other timelines to flesh out its story, one being the timeline of Brenda’s marriage into the prestigious Lafferty family (the Mormon Kennedys, apparently), and the second being a low-budget historical recreation of early Mormon history. The flashbacks are used in extremely interesting ways, playing with perspective and reliable/unreliable narration. This is sometimes great and sometimes messy, so I think it is fair to say the show can be uneven. It’s also controversial, with LDS members pretty universally condemning it for depicting their faith as violent and far more connected to cult-like tendencies such as polygamy and child abuse than they believe fair. A great review on that here. Watch if you enjoy True Detective or have some feelings about Mormons you’d like to explore.

The Patient (Hulu/FX): One of the things the FX/Hulu partnership seems able to produce is shows that are not beholden to traditional formats. The Patient is basically a chamber piece, more indebted to the tradition of short-form plays than long-form television. The premise is wild; a serial killer (Domhnall Gleeson) kidnaps his therapist (Steve Carell) and holds him captive so they can have an honest therapy session. Gleeson’s character wants to stop killing, but can’t kick the addiction. There are a few other characters, both in the present and in flashback, but most of the series’ run time is limited to conversations in one room between these two characters. The show is taut (the episodes are a tight 20 minutes) and well-executed. It comes from the team that gave us The Americans, so I wouldn’t expect anything less. Watch if you like therapy, Steve Carell playing both with and against type simultaneously, and nods to classic serial killer flicks.

More to come, because there are about 5 more shows I want to talk about on this streaming service!