House of David (2026) s2e01

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 most are 2500 years old.

The new season of House of David has recently landed on Amazon Prime, and having enjoyed Season 1 I am keen to catch up on it, not least because it ended in the middle of the battle just moments after David has killed Goliath.

LORD of the Rings

But before we get to the battle, though the series tries to tap into some Tolkein-esque mythologising around Goliath's sword. As Goliath falls and the Israelites advance a young-ish female voice, narrating in slow measured tones, says 

They say there was none like it: the sword of Goliath. Born in the fire it had a strength unmatched for those who could harness it. It would change how wars are fought. Change the very world itself. Those who wield its power would conquer nations, destroy their enemies. Just as the Philistines sought to destroy us, desperate to claim their place as masters of the coming new age – the age of iron. This is what they say, but I know the truth: a sword is only as powerful as the one who wields it.

This voiceover is accompanied by scenes of the sword being forged in the fires of a furnace, molten metal, the writing in a strange looking script, scenes of battle as well as the ethereally soundtrack.  The tone and style of voiceover, the words themselves and the imagery leave no doubt that this is a nod to Cate Blanchett's famous opening voiceover to Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). Here it is for comparison:

It all began with the forging of the Great Rings. Three were given to the Elves; immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven, to the Dwarf Lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls. And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of Men, who above all else desire power. For within these rings was bound the strength and the will to govern over each race. But they were all of them deceived, for another ring was made. In the land of Mordor, in the fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord Sauron forged in secret, a master ring, to control all others. And into this ring he poured all his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life. One ring to rule them all.  

The most notable thing though, is that in contrast to Galadriel's monologue, House of David's narrator seems to want to debunk the mythology of the magical object of her world.

I find all of this interesting because I'm thinking quite a bit about more right-leaning politics in the current crop of biblical films being made at the moment. For one thing I'm writing this after one of the Evangelical pastors who prayed at the White House last week, Lorenzo Sewell, speaking about Trump's role in the Iran conflict said "The Bible is a book of war. God is a God of war".(1) For another I'm struck by the release of two major biblical productions, in the last 12 months that have focused on Israel's warrior king David (the other being the animated David 2025, not-yet released in the UK), though both went into production long before Trump began his second term. 

Still this Lord of the Rings-esque opening might not have grabbed my attention but for the fact that I also became aware recently of the increasing popularity of The Lord of the Rings among figures on the right such as Giorgia Meloni , Elon Musk and JD Vance.(2) Interesting co-incidences which I'll probably regret commenting on in future.

Anyway it's interesting that while this segment invokes Tolkein, it also ends by refusing to give in to the idea of magical tokens like the sword of Goliath. So, aside from trying to appeal to the large audience who loves LotR, it's difficult to know if this is trying to appeal to right-leaning fans of Tolkein; rebuke them; or find a middle ground where the show mirrors back to people what they want to take from it. 

The battle

The remainder of the battle takes up about two-third of this episode, but it's actually handled pretty well. There's a sense of chaos and disorientation, which intuitively feels like what one might expect a battle would be like, but it never loses either the sense of which characters are which; nor the overall sense that the battle is flowing Israel's way. In other words it does a great job of combing the personal and the bigger picture. 

On top of this, Jon Erwin and his team, do a good job of making this look more expensive than it surely way. Most of the battle takes place amid a heavy night time misty, dusty, smog, but these close-up shots are complemented by distance shots which portray the size and scale of the battle. And the costumes are good (by which I don't mean "accurate"), which certainly helps.

The battle, and indeed the whole episode, more or less seems to cover just a verse and a bit from 1 Samuel 17:48-53. Here the author describes the Philistines as fleeing back to Gath. I've always thought of this as being something that happened in a fairly linear fashion, but of course that is a gross over simplification of how a battle such as this would go. Here they very much spill into the surrounding area.

Personal stories

Amidst the fighting, there are four personal stories which are flowing in the middle of all of this. 

The first concerns Jonathan and particularly his attitude to both David and to Achish. Both men met as boys when Saul killed Achish's father after a similar victory and the two face each other again on this battlefield. But we also seem him reconnect with David and giving him an impromptu fighting lesson in the midst of the battle

Secondly, we find that Agag is still haunting Saul. While he ought to be focussing on the battle he can't get the slain king of the Agagites out of his mind. Eventually at the end of the episode he manages to kill his imagined image of him once again. While we know this is unlikely to  improve Saul's mental health overall, it seems we're at least meant to think he has point his torment over the Aga issue behind him. We also see a flashback to Saul's anointing. This is seemingly part of the reason why, at the end of the episode he has Samuel (who spent the battle on top of a hill overlooking the battle, only briefly having to pause to smash a couple of stray Philistines with his staff) arrested.

Then we see Saul's daughters Mychal and Merib imperilled as the battle spills out in their direction. It does perhaps seem a little unlikely the princesses would find themselves in a potential conflict situation. Anyway, just as in series 1 we see that they are both made of sterner stuff that might be assumed. Here  is pulls a trip wire and stabs a Philistine soldier, as does her sister Merib. 

Finally we get David's brother Nathaneel who fares rather less well. Having finally learned to appreciate his younger brother and just as he is celebrating victory he gets killed by an arrow. He's not had much screen time so it's in the series' favour that this is fairly affecting.

Anyway, a good start to the series. It will be interesting to see how quickly the rest of the season progresses through the rest of 1 Samuel.

==================

(1) Sunday on BBC Radio 4. 5th April 2026. Available online at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002tp9g
(2) Counterpoint: I am also aware of many lovers of Tolkein who very much leftwards and would describe Lord of the Rings as a work about tackling fascism.