Click the above play button to watch the full episode of The Real about the real-life case that inspired True Detective. (Warning: The video contains graphic content.)

Time is a flat circle — and nowhere is that felt more deeply than Ponchatoula, Louisiana.

That's a real town, with living, breathing citizens who lived their own version of True Detective a decade ago.

In the premiere episode of Vice's The Real, reporter-host Gianna Toboni investigates the Hosanna Church case, in which leaders and members of the church engaged in "satanic rituals, child molestation, animal sacrifice, and bestiality."

Sound familiar? That description is a dead ringer for the plot of True Detective Season 1.

In each episode of The Real, Toboni talks to the people involved with the real-life inspirations or avatars of television series and movies. And what she finds is that the truth is much stranger, much crazier, much more dramatic than fiction.

Toboni chatted with Yahoo TV about her dark week in Louisiana and what to expect from future episodes.

This is such a cool concept. How did you come up with the idea?

Last year, I felt like I was the only person in the universe who had not seen Breaking Bad, and the fifth season was coming up. So I binge-watched the entire series and got caught up. I got totally obsessed with the concept of the show and the protagonist. I come from a news background and started researching meth dealers, New Mexico, double life — just looking for this character. And I found a guy named Walter White, who lives in Alabama and who built a meth empire and had a family on the side. So we produced a documentary, The Real Walter White, and it did insanely well for us. Huge — millions and millions of hits — and it's still doing well. So my co-producer, Andy Capper, and I thought, "Why don't we make this into a series?"



Watch The Real Walter White:

Why start with True Detective?

I loved the first season of True Detective. I felt like everybody around me, everybody in the office, my friends, my family — it was the one show that was buzzing the most. Also, the buzz about the second season — the new stars, the format, the storyline — everyone is talking about that right now. For myself, when I'm watching a show and a season ends, all I want is more content from that show. Season 1 of True Detective ended, I was like, "I know I'm not the only one who wants more True Detective." So we found the real story, and I thought it was an appropriate first episode [for The Real].



View photos Testimonial drawings from Lewis Lamonica's son More

You went to Ponchatoula and spent time talking to a lot of people. What was the experience like?

Sexual abuse stories are not easy things for anyone to look into. It's always really difficult for me to get into that head space and investigate these stories. It's interesting to look at the parallels with the show, but frankly, it was a pretty depressing week in Louisiana. Going to the courthouse and digging through all the court documents and evidence, and having to look at all those drawings and reading the testimony — it was a difficult case to report on.



[Related: 'True Detective': Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn Confirmed as Season 2 Stars, Justin Lin as Director by HBO]

What was the most shocking part of what you learned?

The drawings that the victims did as part of their testimonies made clear how brainwashed they were. They had sort of a cartoonish, lighter tone to them. They would have exclamation points and captions and smiling faces, but the actual focus of the drawings were the most horrific sex crimes you can imagine. So getting into the mind of a 10-year-old through these drawings, and a 10-year-old who had been abused terribly, was shocking.

