Testament (2025): Something New [s1e08]

This post is part of a series looking at Testament. Spoilers throughout

The final episode of Testament, “Something Old”, reflects back to the title of episode one, “Something New”. Hopefully, this is just the final episode in this season rather than Testament as a whole. It’s six months since the show launched and there's been no announcement as to whether it’s been renewed or cancelled. Angel Studios are, at least, proving less trigger happy in their approach to renewing shows than Netflix, and with good reason in this case. The show has proved popular with its fans and they must be hoping that once introduced to it, new potential fans will become equally as enthusiastic. Moreover, I suppose that even if Angel  cancelled it, I suspect Paul Syrstad and the rest of this team of filmmakers would be keen to see if they can produce the remaining seasons elsewhere.

Episode 8 begins unsurprisingly in the aftermath of Stephen's death, although the first big scene revolves around Caiaphas and Gamaliel. These two have previously been somewhat at odds, but nevertheless serving on the same side, even if it’s been somewhat uneasy at times. Now, however, they have a kind of full-blown verbal conflict whose implications reverberate throughout the episode. Caiaphas tries to put Gamliel under pressure, but Gamaliel counters that it’s Caiaphas who is the one under pressure, not himself.

Caiaphas seems somewhat unnerved by this and when Pilate arrives shortly afterwards, a now cowering Caiaphas gets entirely disassembled by Pilate. I’ve never seen the power dynamic here captured in such a way, and its most welcome, even if it comes a little out of nowhere. This was a situation in which Pilate held all the power. He may have his own concerns, and back-up might be a little further afield that he would like, but ultimately he had the might of the Roman war machine backing him up: Caiaphas held little sway even among many of his own people.

Elsewhere, there are indications that other people's pasts are catching up on them. A man called Shem appears and starts to pull Mary Magdalene and Dana back to their pasts. At first he seems like some kind of low-level pimp, but there seems to be an implication later in the episode that the people this Shem works for are so powerful that even Rosh (the captain of the temple guard, and Dana's godfather) can't protect her from them.

Meanwhile, the followers of Jesus try and perform what is perhaps the first Christian burial. There’s an interesting scene where they produce a memorial with a ring of stones (which I'm not sure would be entirely appropriate in this situation, given how Stephen was killed), but what this does do is remind us how the normal temporary grave marker in cinema (a cross) would not be appropriate in this context, because it’s not yet become a symbol of Christianity in that sense. 

As Philip (the Philip who is one of Stephen’s best friends, rather than the Philip who is counted among the apostles) reflects on Stephen's death, he is starting to feel the call to go further afield. This is happening at more or less the same time as the disciples are weighing what to do next, but it’s interesting to see the way in which this idea unfolds, and particularly the order the inspiration comes in and how it comes. 

Philip is not part of the inner circle. He’s got a role, supporting the work of the apostles and he’s well known and well liked within the organisation, but he’s not one of the leaders, who’s planning strategy. I think the implication is that his vision is coming from reflecting on the words of Jesus and, crucially, the Holy Spirit. It’s coming from the roots of the organisation, rather than (just?) those ‘leading’ it.

Meanwhile the disciples are trying to figure out what to do next. While the order in which the scenes are shown suggests they are reaching similar conclusions to those such as Philip, it’s also born out of more practical concerns. Unsurprisingly, there's no small amount of fear among them, and this is only being intensified by the fact that Saul is hell-bent on persecuting the disciples after this initial ‘progress’*. The authorities still haven’t found the apostles’ lair, and Rosh tries to convince Caiaphas that it shouldn’t be Saul who is the one tasked with following up on the remaining apostles. Presumably in an attempt to protect his God-daughter, Rosh tries to get assigned to that task himself, but Saul makes a more convincing case. He's quickly brought into the Sanhedrin and it’s noticeable that now, Saul has been given the ‘title Minister’.

There's a nicely-crafted montage part way through this episode of Saul going on to arrest some of those within the church. It starts, in particular, with the former members of the Sanhedrin who have crossed over to join the followers of Jesus, and it's clear from what's done here that they are being both imprisoned and tortured.

So there are twin forces acting on the church, trying to work out what to do. On the one hand, the threat of being attacked or arrested is being escalated by Paul, and to a lesser extent Rosh, and this ends in spectacular fashion at the end of the episode. And on the other hand, the question of what the Spirit is doing, and what he is calling Jesus’ followers to do, with increasing numbers remembering Jesus’ instructions to take things further afield and feeling pulled away from Jerusalem in pursuit of that goal.

The moment when this all comes together is one of the less than brilliant moments in this episode. The disciples seek to find out who will be the first to leave and one or two fo the followers stand up and declare “I'll go”. it starts off well enough, but unfortunately after a few more times becomes too reminiscent of “I'm Spartacus”. Also, things got a little bit preachy at one stage and it started to feel like a message was being forced rather than a story being told.

That said, in terms of the number of Bible verses covered in an episode, this is perhaps the lowest number so far, covering just Acts 8:1-2. Yet, as I suggested towards the end of my review of the previous episode, those two verses represent a significant distance in terms of human drama. It also means this series ends in a good position. Obviously, I'm hoping it gets renewed for a second season and can continue to tell the story, but if that doesn’t happen, then the portion of the Acts covered is quite neat. It covers a certain moment of how the early church discovered that they were to go further afield and ends with them renewed with purpose (if still a little fearful for their own personal situations). And it ends on a montage that captures some of those hopes and fears moving forward, particularly focusing on Stephen's mother Esther.

All in all, Testament has held up the promise of its early episodes. I's remained true to the world building it did in the first episode, and has produced a context where Acts does seem to seem to make some kind of sense. It's not perfect, but it's certainly far better than we had any right to expect. The acting's been great.The dialogue has generally been very strong, and theologically, the show has been unafraid to let the Bible speak for itself, rather than rather than stacking the deck in its favour. Here's to an imminent announcement on season two!

*This isn’t a quote from the show, the quotation marks are just there to indicate that whether or not this represents progress very much depends on your point of view.