House of David (2025) s1e03

This post is part of a series looking at Amazon Prime's show House of David (2025). I'm trying to post them as soon as possible after the show airs, so keep checking back. There are a few spoilers in in what follows.

If episode 2 was content to take it's time to build up the characters, the this third episode ("The Anointing", directed by Alexandra La Roche) is where things really get going. There are some of the key moments in this and La Roche's direction really delivers some great imagery to underline everything that's going on.

It all starts with Saul having nightmares about the fate of Jonathan. Of Samuel saying he won't be king and then a premonition of Jonathan being killed in battle. Even here there's a great moment where Saul's crown falls to the ground and he goes to pick it up, only for Samuels' staff to prevent him. Saul still half lost in his dreams throws a spear and kills a young servant. The family make up a story to fob his family off and to prevent news of Saul's madness from spreading, but they know they're in trouble.

Alternative religion

Keen to save her husband (and perhaps herself) from his demise, his wife Queen Ahinoam (Ayelet Zurer) turns to alternative spirituality. She speaks first to Abner, who we discover comes from Endor (a place whose name will be familiar to some as the place name attached to the witch Saul uses to try and contact Samuel later int he story) because his mother has been known to dabble in the dark arts. But Abner steadfastly refuses: Saul has banished religion other than worshipping the one true God.

Ahinoam, is tapping into the witch-wife archetype here, channelling other biblical wives such as Jezebel, (and perhaps Eve/Lillith) whose devotion to gods other than YHWH causes their husbands to wander from the true faith. And, of course, she soon wears down Abner. Despite his protestations that he has turned his back on all his prior association with other forms of religion, he manages to locate someone (another woman, never the men in these things!) who can help and pretty soon the three of them are indulging in a occult-cliche mishmash ceremony to undo Samuel's curse on Saul.

I'm in two minds about this scene. On the one hand we have very little idea about what actual ceremonies might have gone on in dark alleys and backrooms in ancient Israel. We know, from both archaeology and the Bible itself, that other forms of religion existed among the Hebrew people for centuries after when David was supposed to have lived. At times they were clearly rife and while the writers of Samuel-Kings and of Chronicles try and paint a world where everyone accepts that YHWH was the one true god, it's also equally clear that theirs is often a minority report: Kings keep popping p and not being faithful to God.

Yet on the other hand we do know a bit about Baal worship (and Baal is specifically cited here), but without really getting into the sources I'm not sure it looked much like this. I think this is forgivable though, because this ritual is not presented as in anyway mainstream, and it's just fictional elaboration. And seen in that light it's over-the-topness is kinda fun.

Goliath

The same could also be said about how we encounter Goliath in this episode. And, in a way (because we've only really seen him briefly in a flash-forward right at the start of episode one) this is our introduction to him. 

Tired of getting routed by King Saul and the Israelites, the five Philistine kings got together in the last episode and now we see one of them, Achish (Alexander Uloom), entering the Valley of the Giants to try and persuade the giants to join them. There are some striking visuals here. Here first as Achish and his companion stand atop the mountains before entering the Valley of the Giants, the scenery looks spectacularly rugged, huge and forbidding. Then as they approach the giants' fortress he passes a cone of skulls, perhaps a little too neat to be the handiwork of someone who rips bodies apart with his bare hands, but it's memorable nevertheless. Then the gated / walled entrance to the giants' lair which captures a little of the start of The Return of the Jedi (1983)* and then finally the moment when Achish finally meets Goliath. I was tempted for a moment then to write "comes, face to face with Goliath", but of course he doesn't because Goliath is roughly twice his height (as pictured above). There's some great lighting in this scene as well. I also kind of like the dialogue as Achish tries to enter the lair/fortress/cave, essentially if you really want to come in you can, but nobody ever really does.

The Anointing

As it happens, Achish is not the only one who is recruiting. Samuel has also heard from God and heads over to Bethlehem to visit Jesse's children. this is the first solidly biblical incident we've had for sometime, but the series has put a lot of backstory into making these scenes work. Firstly there's the way Samuel is viewed both with respect and fear. Secondly, Jesse being an outsider among the village elders because of fathering a son (David) outside of wedlock, and David being an outsider among his family, for being that son. It's an elaborate back story with little precedent in the text itself, but it does work to make the biblical story of David being left out of the original line-up make sense. Moreover, it doesn't do that by smoothing over the cracks and making everyone see heroic because they're faithful to God and in the Bible. Jesse is not, so far a good character in this. Yes the death of David's mother has hit him hard, but the show is not prepared to let him off for that and Samuel's unimpressed.

It's actually fairly rare to have a proper scene of Samuel anointing David. David's integration into the royal family is kind of awkward in the Bible. Is he brought in as a harpist to soothe Saul's moods, or as  boy dropping off lunch to his brothers who is so incensed by his people's inaction that he signs up to fight the giant? Plus also the part of the story that the filmmakers usually want to tell is elsewhere, so this disjointed start, often doesn't quite fit into a smooth story arc. Nor does the fact that David's most famous moment happens at the start of the story. So some filmmakers show the Goliath scene in flashback, or as stripped of the other part of David's origin story.

Here though, they have a whole series, which I suspect is going to end on the fight itself, which means that this season is really about how David gets onto that battlefield. Set in that context the multiple origin stories could kind of work.

Anyway, there was something about the way this episode, and indeed the programme so far, builds up towards this moment that really made me appreciate the contours of the story. David really is an outsider, he's a boy compared to his tall, warrior-king-like sovereign. The line about "man looks at outside appearance but God looks at the heart" (1 Sam 16:7) has both a spiritual resonance, but also a dramatic/literary one about the rise to prominence of someone who goes against the grain of previous post-holders. The long-overdue recognition of the person who has been rejected for so long.

The scene itself is interesting as well. Eliab as the oldest, most experienced fighter has been brought more into the spotlight by the series-makers than his siblings. We know that he, like his prince, is tough but fair. He's sometimes brusque with his kid brother, but he takes a shoulder to the arrow while trying to help him sign up. When Samuel sings his praises, it strikes me that this is how I feel about this character, to some degree at least. David's other brothers get a rather shorter shrift. Sons 2 & 3 get a mention and some suggestion that they've done OK, surviving in the army and so one. Son 4 though doesn't even get mentioned. When the camera briefly cuts to him I wonder if I've even seen him yet in this series. He looks like a cross between a male model and a Chippendale and Samuel skips past him as if he hasn't even joined the army yet as he's so busy on shooting assignments.

Anyway, by the time Samuel gets to the end of the line he realises that the one he is looking for isn't there. David is sent for and once we get to the moment we know the momentum slips a little, but this sequence did make me think, or at least, feel differently about this part of the story.

Wrapping up

There's another sub-plot that I won't go into here, but again we do see here how the show's strategy of leaving the worst of the violence to the imagination is really effective. Anyway, just as David is being anointed there's a bit of a surprise: Saul is back on his game again. While there's a hint to the viewer that perhaps he's not as well as he appears, he's now back, clothed in stately gear and striding through a crowd of his supporters in his courtroom. There are some anxious looks, but whatever Ahinoam and Abner have bought into seems to have 'worked', at least to some degree. The scene more or less ends with the above shot: Saul, on the throne, seemingly being endorsed by the light streaming through the windows. And so there's a parallel, or rather a conflict, being set up between the existing king and his chosen and anointed rival, though neither man has seriously considered their relationship to one another.

The final point I want to make is that in the original release (at least) episodes 1-3 were released together on the first night, and then one episode was release per week after that. I'm keen to know at what stage that decision was made, because the way these three episodes pan out perfectly fits that structure. At the end of this original trilogy the stage is set, we know who these characters are and how some of them think and feel and act, and groundbreaking developments have set the platform for the rest of the series. And while they are all quite good on their own, it's the way that these three quite differently-arranged episodes combine to work together, that really consolidates a good start to the season. It creates a suitable launching pad for the rest of the show as it now starts to arrive at the reduced rate of one episode per week.

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*There was another moment that seemed to evoke something of the original Star Wars films, but I can't remember what it was now.