The Complicated Emotions Behind ‘The Path’

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When TV writer Jessica Goldberg lost her father and got divorced within a year, she turned her energy into writing “The Path,” a show about a cult.

“I hadn’t written for myself in a long time,” Goldberg said. “I found myself in one of those completely-lost-my-footing times.”

In “The Path,” which will have its premiere on Hulu this Wednesday, Goldberg explores a fictional fringe-faith-based group in upstate New York called the Meyerist Movement, whose followers are enraptured by the teachings of Stephen Meyer, a former Army psychiatrist.

At the heart of the show are Sarah (Michelle Monaghan) and Eddie (Aaron Paul), a couple whose marriage is being tested. The movement’s basic principles are transparency and honesty, but if a member no longer has faith in the movement’s teachings, he or she must leave. Eddie is beginning to have his doubts.

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Goldberg grew up in Woodstock, N.Y., where, as a child, she said she romanticized the alternative spirit that suffused the region. When developing “The Path,” which was filmed in Nyack, N.Y., she channeled elements of that area into the show’s setting.

She also spent time researching cults, religions and spiritual organizations. She went as far as working with the show’s writers to create a 25-page bible, full of specific phrases, words and habits that people in the fictitious Meyerist Movement would use in their day-to-day lives.

“Most cults don’t make it beyond the first generation,” Goldberg said. “It seems like if you can get beyond generation one, it’s gonna go. So that was the first question: How do you take a religion from the first generation to the second generation? The second is: Can you stay in a faith you don’t believe in?”

TV shows based on cults or fringe religious groups have sprung up over the last several years. HBO’s “Big Love,” which aired from 2006 to 2011, explored a polygamous Mormon community in Utah. The Netflix comedy “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”—a second season of which is set to be released next month—is a humorous, albeit dark, look at a naive cult survivor learning to adjust to life in New York City after escaping. And last year, David Duchovny starred in “Aquarius,” a fictional detective show that revolved around the early days of Charles Manson.

Still, Goldberg knew “The Path” would be a tough sell. “[Faith] is still very taboo to talk about,” she said.

Instead of shopping around a formal pitch, she showed a spec script to the online streaming service Hulu, which gave it the green light.

“They really saw what it could be and what I was trying to do,” she said. “They just encouraged us to be bold and push the envelope and really try to go deep.”

Goldberg achieved another coup with “The Path”: bringing back “Breaking Bad” star Aaron Paul to television. Paul, who won three Emmys for his portrayal of Jesse Pinkman on AMC’s critically acclaimed drama, said he wasn’t actively looking for any TV series after “Breaking Bad” ended in 2013.

“It’s almost like she romanced me,” he said of their first meeting. “I was really in love with everything she was telling me [about the show]. It was impossible to ignore.”

Paul said he grew up in a religious household and has read the Bible several times. The role of Eddie is new for him: He is playing a father and husband who has to make some tough choices about his immediate future.

“I come from a great family. It’s a loving world,” Paul said. “Maybe that’s why I tend to gravitate toward the darker sides of things.”

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As for his character, said Paul, he “loves his kids, he loves his family, but he’s in a crisis of faith. He knows if he’s transparent with his family about this, they will turn their backs on him. They will say, ‘You no longer exist to us.’ ”

Goldberg started out as a playwright before transitioning into the world of TV. Before “The Path,” she worked on the NBC series “Parenthood” with Jason Katims, the writer and producer of shows such as “Friday Night Lights” and “Boston Public.”

“Emotional truth,” Goldberg said, is the goal of Katims’s storytelling. He is serving as an executive producer on “The Path.”

For Goldberg, the show’s essence lies within her own path.

“I see where I grew up. I see my complicated feelings of faith, of being a partner, of being a parent,” she said. “You definitely work on things as a writer in your life where you feel very divorced from who you are. But this show—and maybe people will not be my friend if I admit this—it feels very me.”