House of David (2025) s1e08

This post is part of a series looking at Amazon Prime's show House of David (2025). There are some major spoilers in in what follows even though we all know the biggest one.

The difficulty for the makers of House of David is that its plot twist is arguably the best known of all time. The last 3000 years have witnessed stories, poems, paintings, sculptures, operas, plays and, more recently, movies and television series retelling a story that is referenced almost every time someone reaches for a metaphor for a little person/team/organisation taking on a big person/team/organisation. So while on the one hand adapting the story for the streaming age seems an enticing proposition, the challenge for this episode and, I suppose, the whole series is to fashion engaging drama out of everything that happens before that fateful moment.

At the end of the last episode, itself part 1 of a two episode finale, David, Mychal and Merab are all en route to the battle field where Saul, Avner, David's brothers and thousands of other Israelites have set up camp. Facing them is Goliath, the five Philistine kings and their army. But Jonathan and group of mercenaries are sneaking towards the Philistine camp in the hope of slaying Goliath while he sleeps.

Of course Jonathan's efforts fail miserably, thanks to a turncoat among his men who's received a better offer. It's actually this moment that provides the episode's best action sequence, as Jonathan, rather optimistically, tries to fight the whole Philistine camp single-handedly. No wonder he and David are going to be friends. The Philistines, who have tired of waiting for Israel to send someone out to fight their champion, begin to enact the second phase of their attack.

Having spared Jonathan, but killed his mercenaries. the Philistines first task is to pick off the Tribe of Zebulun, who decided at the end of the last episode to retreat home rather than stay and fight. As they trudge through a steep sided valley at night, Philistine archers appear on either side and pick off the tribe's army with flaming arrows. As far as I'm aware there's no real precedence for Zebulun – a largely unremarkable tribe descended from a not particularly remarkable patriarch – leaving the field early or suffering a significant military defeat aside from the other 12 tribes. Indeed Zebulun are not mentioned in either of the Books of Samuel. It does make for a spectacular scene though, with the arrows arching across the night sky and the fire from Zebulun's torches spreading as its army is gradually snuffed out.

Meanwhile Avner is also trying to put out a few fires, albeit more metaphorical ones. Saul's mental state means he's largely unaware of the problems he's facing, but not only has Zebulun left / been massacred and Jonathan has been captured, but now Adriel suggests he takes over if Saul is not fit to lead. Meanwhile, and unbeknownst to all of them Eshbaal (Saul's eldest son) has returned to Saul's palace to assume the crown.

Mychal and Merab's arrival at the camp works to restore their father and his spirits are further lifted when David arrives. David's fury at the lethargy and fear in the Israelite camp; his sense of Samuel's anointing and words of advice; and his surefooted confidence in God (they seem to have stopped using the name 'Hashem' in this episode) mean he puts himself forward to tackle the giant. An argument with his brothers, an unsuccessful armour fitting and a quick snog with Mychal later he's dashing on to the battlefield and we're back at the start of the first episode.

When we finally get back to it, the famous fight scene is handled pretty well. Martyn Ford's acting as Goliath has been on the weak side all series, and seems particularly exposed here. And the moment where the fight scene cut-off in episode 1, with David pinned to the ground by one of Goliath's spears, is milked a little too thoroughly. Otherwise, it's good scene. There's a nice wide shot with Goliath towering at the left hand side of the screen, with David on the far right. Samuel shows up on the ground high above the valley to add a sense of reassurance that things are going to go to plan. There's a nice slow motion shot as David dodges yet another spear while managing to fire off the celebrated shot, and a pause between Goliath getting hit (and the injury not being immediately apparent) and him finally falling. And then the Israelites charge forward while the Philistines fall into disarray.

The decision not to even get to the end of the battle is an interesting one. Now that the show has been given a second season, it will work really well with the structure of the next season: interest and familiar territory at the start, David getting to finally marry Mychal all of which can be going on while the story for the rest of the series is being developed. This matters because season 2 will inevitably be very different to this one. Here the audience has been drawn in by the familiarity of the well-known story bt that has presented a challenge in making it interesting. In contrast, season two will rely on having built up a committed audience and having developed the characters. The stories are less well-known, but handled competently there is plenty of material to make a great series. This season has been reasonably good – this final episode in some ways typifies the series as a whole – but much of how House of David is remembered will depend on subsequent seasons and the team's ability to get the pacing and structure right when it's down to a series of smaller decisions, rather than one major one as with these initial eight episodes. But certainly House of David has the potential material to make it work, has set good foundations to drive things forward and has now built a supportive a audience willing for it to succeed.