Messiah (2020): Episodes 6-8

If this is the first time you've come across my blog I should point out this is not a typical post. In 15 years of blogging I've hardly ever used the term 'antichrist' - it just happens that both this and Good Omens have come out at the same time!

Two things happened for me while watching and reading about episodes 6-8 of Netflix's Messiah (2020). The first is that it was in these episodes where is becomes clear that it is not just the filmmakers who are knowingly referencing events in the Gospels, but the character Al-Masih himself. Most significant in this respect is the main set piece of episode six when Al-Masih (who we learn is really called Payem Golshiri) walks across the Lincoln Memorial's Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C.

This is a miracle recognised even by those who have no other knowledge of Jesus. When Al Masih does it, it is a calculated move he has chosen as a way of staking the claim that he IS Jesus. Without tediously going into the specifics, this is exactly how the crowd in the programme interpret this miracle. This was not clearly the case in earlier miracles which lacked such a biblical parallel. So while there have been other parallels along the way, the Messiah's referencing of gospel events is part of servicing the series' broader aim.

This is particularly significant because prior to this we have not been party to Al Masih's understanding of himself. Dramatically this serves to keep up the suspense: is he the real deal or an impostor? We've been denied any hint of what he himself thinks - even his typically flat and seemingly dispassionate delivery maintains this barrier. When, for example, in episode seven a woman turns up in Al Masih's room his initial response is blunt and a little offensive, as if he lacks social skills. Indeed, I find myself a little repelled by it. But then he turns it around, the reaction his abrupt manner produces gives him enough to work with to reach the heart of this woman, and maker her devoted to him. Again there are shades of the Gospels here, albeit it a mishmash of the woman accused of adultery, the woman who anoints Jesus, and later traditions about Mary Magdalene. Essentially a woman who has broken the supposedly acceptable markers of sexuality finds acceptance in the Messiah and becomes a follower.

It's clear that Al Maish has a heightened sense of who this woman is, but is he genuinely helping the woman find self-acceptance, or just disarming one of his enemies weapons? Al Masih talks about love, but there's very little warmth. This is cunning because it sets the viewer against her/himself. We expect the two to go together, but because we want this encounter to be genuine we're also prepared to accept that the two don't have to go together.

The second element to emerge for me during these episodes was the possibility that Al Masih is the Antichrist. One one level this has been there from the start, not least because of the Muslim commentators who were quick to point out the associations of the name Al Masih with Al Masih ad Dajjal (an Antichrist-like figure, see comments on episodes 1-3).

At the same time, however, I've not felt the previous episodes of the show were that concerned with this possibility, but were more interested in three other options: that Al Masih is some variation on Christ returned; that he is simply a harmless impostor; or that his deception is more insidious but is part of a rogue foreign power's plan to compromise the defences of the US and her allies. That's what's concerning the CIA at any rate. It's perhaps significant then that these episodes see an increase in Muslim reactions to Al Masih, including Jibril becoming a leader.

Thus far, what Messiah has done differently from, say, horror films which use an Antichrist figure, is to leave the viewer puzzling over whether or not Al Masih is the true Christ or a false messiah. In fact, biblically speaking the term is very low key. It's only use is in John's epistles, primarily 1 John 2:18-28 (but also ch.4 and 2 John 1), and is simply "one who denies the Father and the Son" (v22). A single, dramatic Antichrist is not on the cards so much as various people who will leave the community and deny their faith.

From there various people have extrapolated the word to other parts of the Bible. Perhaps the closest is  Mark 13/Matt 24/Luke 21. The disciples ask Jesus a question about the destruction of the temple (which happened in 70 A.D.) and he starts to discuss false Messiahs - people posing as Christ returned but who are nothing of the sort. Some have spun this out to be referring to the end of the world, hence this is the biblical conundrum these episodes pose.

This is why Al Masih's deliberate rehashing of biblical incidents is significant. It's a claim to be a Messiah, but is it true or false?

What we also see in this episode is references to some of the other, more vivid passages and characters, such as 2 Thes. and Rev.18, that some have linked to the idea of the Antichrist, even though the word is not used.

Firstly, at the start of episode 8 we have Al Masih suggesting to the US President the possibility of a thousand years of peace, which seems like a reference to Rev.20's thousand years when the devil is locked up, though Al Masih's solution is for the president to "withdraw all American troops" from foreign soil.

Then there is the scene where Philip Baker Hall's character, Kelman Katz, encounters a beach full of dead fish. For film fans, this very much evokes the famous moment in Magnolia when it starts raining frogs, but it also has echoes of a third of all the sea creatures dying at the start of Rev.13-18. The news of a tidal surge at the end of episode 8 also seems to evoke this passage.

Thirdly, episode 7 also reveals a link between Al Masih and Russia. Some of the most extreme end-time predictions link Russia with Gog and Magog from Ezek.38-19 and Rev.20. It's a clever reference by the writers, more than anything else, designed to catch the ear of those who know more about this than is probably healthy.

Finally, episode 8 also features Al Masih holds a press conference and is asked outright "Are you the Messiah", but instead of giving a straight answer he replies "I am a message". The journalist is not so easily satisfied however and demands that he "answer the question". This time he replies with a claim which could come from either a returning Jesus or an antichrist figure: "I am here to bring about the world to come."

All of which has the effect of placing the audience in a position similar to that of the intended audiences for John's epistles and the synoptic gospels. Someone is making claims to be the Messiah, but is he; or is he a false messiah working to bring about the end of the world? The series wants it's audience to make it's own judgements and, unlike typical supernatural thrillers, wants to prolong that process so audiences have to wrestle with it themselves. The episode ends with a tidal surge putting lives at risk (perhaps the third trumpet in Rev.13?) and Al Masih being grilled again. When he says he only wants what God wants, he is pressed further. "What is it that God wants?" Al Massih pauses and looks wistfully out of the window "He wants the flood".

Ongoing thanks to readysteadycut.com for the extremely useful plot summaries.

Messiah (2020): Episodes 4-5

If the biblical allusions of Messiah episodes two and three were somewhat muted, then the fourth episode is much more upfront. "The Trial" riffs heavily on the discussions between Jesus and Pontius Pilate, most notably from John's Gospel.

For some the image of a (potential) Christ-figure clad in a state-issued orange jumpsuit, with all the evocations of Guantanamo Bay may be relatively shocking, though it's an association others have made before. In 2006 Irish comedian Abie Philbin Bowman brought his show "Jesus: The Guantanamo Years" to the Edinburgh fringe where it proved such a success that twelve months later it was playing in London's West End and Off Broadway in Boston. Biblical scholars may also be aware of Gwyneth Leech's "Station X: Jesus is Stripped of his Garments" which adorns James Crossley's book "Jesus in an Age of Terror".

While I get the impression that this will not be the last time that Al-Masih finds himself in front of the authorities, the script itself firmly points towards the connection with the trials before Pilate when Al-Masih's interrogator, CIA agent Eva Geller. When Al-Masih mentions truth, she fires back "Truth? We'll come to the truth" - not a precise use of John 18:38's "Truth, what is truth", but both structure and delivery point firmly in that direction.

Within the confines of the programme's story, the scene with Eva is only an interview, but this episode also contains an actual trial in front of a judge who (we find out later) knows he is dying. The presidency tries to pressure him into refusing Al-Masih's asylum so instead he grants it. It is unclear whether this is simply because he wishes to resist the tyranny of the President trying to force the hand of the supposedly independent judiciary, or whether it's because he buys Al-Masih's speech about the arbitrary nature of faith, fate and nationhood, but having already delivered a speech in a similar vein to Eva, Al-Masih is clearly going to be making such speeches on a regular basis.

Al-Masih's release is a great relief to church leader Felix who has been paying for his lawyer. Having been on the verge of torching his own church due to a lack of faith Al-Masih's appearance in the eye of the storm has restored it. Meanwhile, in Texas, crowds are flocking to Dilley the site of this miracle.

Episode 5 picks up the story of Jibril, following his interrogation by Mossad agent Avrim in episode 3. The two were largely restricted to brief wordless scenes in episode 4: a battered Jibril stumbling through the desert; Avrim drinking and stumbling around being drunk. The Mossad man's superiors managed to catch up with him long enough to suspend him for deleting the footage of his interview with Al-Masih. Towards the start of Episode 5 it emerges Avrim has gone missing only for him to turn up later on buying guns in Texas and heading towards Dilley. Jibril meanwhile finds himself amongst Al Masih's followers on the Israeli border, only they are starting to divide as some lose faith.

The episode's title is "So that seeing they may not see" - Jesus' explanation in Luke 8:10 of why he speaks in parables - his followers can understand, while those who don't believe won't understand even though they see the same things. And so the pilgrims flock to Dilley, multiply, and a tented community sets up home. Even Al Masih himself has a (private) tent there. But just when it appears that another miracle is due to round off the episode we get the opposite. When Al Masih is called in the hope he will heal a wounded and traumatised dog, he takes Avrim's gun and puts it out of its misery. This is the second indication this episode that this production is not to be a straight Christ figure narrative: at the start of the episode it emerged that Al Masih's court speech in "The Trial" was stolen from a stock exchange hacker. It will be interesting to see where things go from here in episode 6.

Messiah (2020): Episodes 1-3

It's difficult to know what to make of Messiah, Netflix's new political / religious thriller. The only senior off-camera names with which I'm familiar with is executive producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, who were responsible for many of the larger screen Bible productions of the last decade. The three main writers, including series creator Michael Petroni only have a handful of titles to their names (though Petroni did co-write the screen play for 2010's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader), yet the two directors James McTeigue (V for Vendetta) and Kate Woods are much more experienced.

The story itself begins in Syria, where an unprecedented forty-day storm defeats an ISIS/Daesh siege of Damascus and claiming credit for this "miracle" is a charismatic preacher called Al-Masih (Belgian actor Mehdi Dehbi). The name is perhaps typical of the series itself. For a start, despite the biblical overtones this is also a story centred around the Islamic world. In addition to geographical locations, characters speak Arabic and dress in a way that most westerners would identify as Muslim, even if they are the same clothes that the many Christians in the region would also wear. Then of course there's also a heavy Jewish and/or Israeli angle to the story of as well, notably scenes set in Jerusalem and its environs and passing mention of "the word". Add in the occasional shot of Al-Masih sitting in the lotus position and its clear the production is going to draw on a wide range of religious influences.

It's not long before Al-Masih has claimed to be the prophet Isa returned and is acknowledged as such by a group of 2000 people who follow him into the desert ("He is Isa returned, the Messiah"), but this is where the story begins to diversify. Al-Masih's actions raise a red flag for the CIA in particular Eva Geller (Michelle Monaghan) who begins to investigate the various goings on.

Clearly names here have much significance. In particular the use of 'Al-Masih' caused various controversies even before the series began to air. Al-Masih is the Arabic name for the Messiah, but it also has resonances of another character from Islamic tradition, Al-Masih ad Dajjal. Dajjal is a false messiah/evil prophet figure mentioned in the Haddith, about whom Muhammed is claimed to have warned his followers.(1) It is said, he will come to earth and try to lure people into following Shaytan (Satan).Whilst he is largely unknown in white western Christian circles, to many people across the world (and you have to remember Netflix attracts a world-wide audience) Dajjal's name is as common as the word "antichrist".

Various things happened as a result of this. Netflix was criticised for crassly using a supposedly mysterious name which, for millions, was anything but. For some it was white bias, for others merely just a dumb spoiler, along similar lines as calling a character "Murder McMurderson" (@frankoceanhafiz). There were claims that Twitter accounts pointing this out were blocked, which Netflix strenuously denied. This lead to various Islamic voices, such as the Connotasians podcast, calling for people to educate themselves about the true story of Dajjal and wrestling with the issues of whether this was an opportunity or a threat. Then on Monday, two days before the series was due to be released, The Royal Film Commission of Jordan called on Netflix not to stream the programme in their country, despite some of the footage having been filmed there.

All of this hinges on the understanding that the names Al-Masih and Al-Masih ad Dajjal are more or less the same, and I'm not convinced they are. More to the point, my understanding of how the series progresses is that this is one of the issues that has not been resolved by the end of the series (2). There's more on this in an article released ahead of the series on the BBC website.

Other significant names are also apparent, Eva Geller has an obvious connotation of 'Eve', original sin and the mother of humanity, but Geller makes me think of Uri (rather than Ross and Monica) a real life character claiming supernatural powers and a wide (if shallow) exposure. Perhaps I'm reasing too much in. Then of course there's the use of the place name Megiddo, from which we get the word Armageddon.

So far the series seems subtle and rather slow-paced. This is not necessarily a criticism, indeed given Burnett and Downey's completely over-the-top version of The Bible in 2003 this is a nice surprise. Indeed their trajectory is quite positive. A Jesus film, Son of God (2014, scroll here for brief comments) emerged from The Bible, which wasn't quite as bad and then the sequel A.D. The Bible Continues (2015) got better and better as the series went on. In 2016 they remade Ben-Hur and while the wider, more critical, range of critics that opened them up to were largely critical (including me) it was progress for them. So whilst I'm hesitant to read too much into this on the basis of three episodes, I'm encouraged by the fact that so far the sound isn't hugely distracting and that not every moment of biblical resonance is accompanied by the cinematic equivalent of a giant pointy sign.

Episode 1 also introduces us to Jibril (the name is an Arabic variation on 'Gabriel') who is to become, at least from the audience's point of view, one of Isa's most prominent followers. There are the scenes of Al-Masih and his followers in the desert which have a particularly strong Jesus vibe, along the lines of the Sermon on the Mount.

We also learn more about Eva, which only enhances the show's strong Homeland-vibe, she appears to have some mental health issues, including insomnia. Eva is given permission to track Al-Masih and catches up with him approaching the Syrian border with Israel. As Al-Masih crosses the border he is arrested and we're introduced to a further character Avrim, an Israeli agent. His initial interrogation of Al-Masih is turned on its head when Al-Masih begins to probe him about an incident in Mediggo which Avrim thought no-one aside from his friend knew about. When he returns to Al-Masih's cell later, he is gone.

The story doesn't develop too greatly over the next two episodes. We're introduced to new characters in a new location - Texas, where a family including a preacher father (Felix) and a mysteriously ill girl (Rebecca). Meanwhile Al-Masih turns up at the Temple Mount, there's a scuffle in which a boy is shot, and then Al-Masih miraculously heals him. There's another storm and another miracle in Texas where Al-Masih appears in the eye of the storm, which spreads rapidly. Felix talks to Al-Masih and starts to believe. Avrim arrests Jibril and tortures him.(3)

I tend to have a bit of a problem writing about modernised takes on biblical stories when they are released on (long-form) television rather than as feature length movies. Part of the problem is that there's too much material and it's difficult to know at the start how strongly the biblically themed material will sustain for. Will it be consist throughout the show, or is it just in the first episode and a half? What happens if it goes dormant for a while only to burst out much further down the line? All of this was a problem with Kings (2009) which is why I still haven't written much by way of my own reflections on it here, in a way that wasn't a problem with A.D. Kingdom and Empire. I knew that there would be enough material to sustain one post an episode. Here, however, I'm unsure, (plus I've been delayed by other projects) so I've decided to tackle a few episodes at a time and see where that gets me. The last two episodes suggest a similar trajectory to Kings but I guess we'll all find out soon enough.
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1 - See Ain-Al Hayat, The Essence of Life by Muhammad Baqir Majlisi, notably chapter 5.
2 - There are spoilers at this site, but you can learn a few non-spoilery things if you carefully don't look too closely.
3 - I'm grateful to Ready Steady Cut for their plot summaries. You might appreciate them too.