Confession is arguably the important sacrament in the Catholic faith. Only by purging yourself of the sins, mistakes, and shames weighing you down, can you be reconciled with God and your community. So it’s rather fitting that Say Nothing, FX‘s new limited series about atrocities committed during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, is framed around a series of secret confession-style interviews from former IRA soldiers. The characters recount the raucous joys of being revolutionary youths and admit the horrific crimes that haunt them. In doing so, they believe they are setting the record straight on what went down — and who was truly responsible — but they also providing people left in a torturous form of purgatory a chance to be finally reconciled with the truth.

Say Nothing is spectacular television, deftly weaving multiple perspectives together in various timelines to give the viewer the full scope of the Troubles. It’s a show that doesn’t pull its punches, be it in terms of the bleakest moral nadirs of that time or in the sharply hilarious gallows humor of West Belfast. Say Nothing is propulsive, nervy, and FX’s latest must-watch masterpiece.

Say Nothing opens just like Patrick Radden Keefe’s best-selling nonfiction book of the same name, with the mysterious abduction of Jean McConville (Judith Roddy) in 1972. McConville was a widowed mother of ten, living in the Divis Flats, a low-income housing complex that was a hotbed of IRA activity. What happened to McConville, her children, and why is the central mystery propelling Say Nothing, but it’s hardly the only true tragic story that the FX show explores.

Say Nothing is primarily focused on the Price sisters. Dolours (Lola Pettigrew) and Marian (Hazel Doupe) were raised in West Belfast by fierce Irish republicans. Their father (Stuart Graham) would brag about his time spent in jail for “the Cause,” boasting that he never snitched on his fellow IRA members, aka turning tout. Their mother (Kerri Quinn), like most Belfast Catholic housewives, helped hide guns for the IRA. Their Aunt Bridie (Eileen Walsh)? Well, she lost her hands and eyesight in an explosives accident. Aunt Bridie is basically considered a saint. So as sectarian violence begins to heat up in Belfast in the early 1970s, Dolours and Marian find them itching to join the fight.

While the men of the Provisional IRA were happy to recruit the Price sisters for the Cumann, aka the women’s wing of the IRA, Dolours and Marian weren’t content to simply stash weapons or roll bandages. Dolours longed to be the front lines, alongside local heroes like Brendan “The Dark” Hughes (Anthony Boyle). The sisters convince the IRA to let them join as actual soldiers and they soon develop a reputation for their ballsy operations with dramatic flourish.

Early episodes of Say Nothing treat the Price sisters and The Dark’s escapades with rock ‘n roll flourish, emphasizing the perceived glamour of being a “freedom fighter.” However, doubts begin seeping in when Dolours is recruited to a top secret unit allegedly* overseen by Gerry Adams (Josh Finan) himself. This unit’s task is to deal with traitors within the organization, snidely known as “touts.” Dolours drives these people she knows and often loves across the border to the Republic of Ireland where they will be executed and left in an unmarked grave. It’s a process that forces the fiercely loyal IRA members to turn on their own, leaving many irate with the process and traumatized by guilt.

*Every episode of Say Nothing is punctuated by a disclaimer that the Sinn Féin politician has always denied being a part of the IRA or involved in any of the violence (which I found progressively more and more absurdly hysterical).

Say Nothing refuses to tell its sprawling story in a straight line, preferring to meander back and forth through memories, until it finally reveals how the entire tragic tale ties together. Because of this, the show offers its mostly locally-born cast the opportunity to shine at various points in the story. Lola Petticrew is a fireball of charisma and courage as Dolours Price and Hazel Doupe is astonishing in her command of subtlety as the slyly more dangerous Marian. Anthony Boyle plays Brendan Hughes as the living embodiment of swagger, proving once again — after equally charismatic turns in The Plot Against America, Masters of the Air, and Manhunt — he’s one of the most exciting young actors working today. But even supporting players, like Paddy Towers as an incorrigible teenaged IRA member or Emma Canning as a desperate wife, manage to dazzle in their time onscreen.

Say Nothing is a tremendous achievement that not only manages to capture the detail and pacing that made Patrick Radden Keefe’s book so addictive, but it also implants us in the real life characters’ world. We’re in the car making trips across the border with Dolours or hurtling through alleys of Belfast like Brendan Hughes. Most hauntingly, we’re also with the victims who lost their lives during this tumultuous time in Irish history.

Say Nothing is a triumph.

All nine episodes of Say Nothing premiere on Hulu on November 14.