As a reminder, my recaps are a little stream of consciousness, as I’m writing while I watch. Sometimes I might posit a theory that’s confirmed or disproven a few sentences later. Sometimes I’m guessing at what’s going on. I also take a “you’re sitting next to me on my couch while I watch” approach. That means you also get all my snarky comments as I watch. It’s part and parcel of watching TV with me.
As we return to the heartland, Rebecca, the preacher’s daughter, packs up a small wad of cash, some stuffed animals, and grabs a backpack to run away. Papa Preacher is up in the middle of the night also sneaking out of the house. We see him on a ladder in the church disabling the fire suppression and warning system at the church, as he once again returns to the “FLAMMABLE LIQUID” depot in town. We get it. You’re burning the church down. We also get that you don’t understand how insurance fraud investigations work, because they can pretty easily tell when you use accelerants in a fire. I have to say, this is one of the few times they’ve actually gotten me to feel something. The preacher’s wife, Anna, doesn’t really seem to have much going on in her life other than her family, and to have one of them on foot on her way out of town and the other gassing up to burn down their church while she scurries around the house, worriedly trying to find and protect them from the coming storm is kind of heartbreaking. Also, not sure if Rebecca knows how hitchhiking works, but sticking out your thumb in the middle of an empty road in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere isn’t it. It’s not the Night Bus from Harry Potter, cars don’t just magically appear. Preacher’s wife bursts into the church on Felix (played by John Ortiz, it’s the first time they’ve actually said his name that I’ve noticed) just as he’s about to pour gas all over the place, but pauses that awkward conversation as they realize they don’t know where Rebecca is. She’s on the outskirts of town being chased down by a tornado, but smartly hides in a drainage ditch as her parents scream their way through the house trying to find her. Seriously kids, unless your parents are monsters, at least leave a note. Her parents aren’t perfect but they didn’t deserve that. Just as Felix is closing the doors of the tornado shelter, he gets a glimpse of what he thinks is Rebecca, but is actually Al-Masih at the foot of the tornado.Cut to Israel, where Geller is still frantically searching for signs of Al-Masih in Jordan, only to find an Instagram video of Al-Masih returning Rebecca to Felix and Anna (Melinda Page Hamilton, the preacher’s wife). OMG, how did he get to Texas so fast? He was in Jordan five minutes ago! We return to Aviram, who is low-key torturing Jibril for more information on Al-Masih, but poor Jibril is just along for the ride and doesn’t know anything. Interestingly, Aviram asks him why he went to the fence line where he got food and water the previous episode, and then asked questions about who gave him food and water. I had assumed this was all part of Aviram’s trap, but apparently not. So who is this mystery good Samaritan? Literally, she could be a good Samaritan, they’re literally in the ancestral homeland of the Samaritans. This also raises the question of why, with Al-Masih disappeared to Texas, the show is giving airtime to Jibril and Aviram. Is Al-Masih destined to return? Or is there more to the story back in Israel even without Al-Masih there?
Geller is somehow already in Texas on her way to question Al-Masih. Q calls and lets her know that a private jet was chartered from Amman and forced to land in Mexico because of bad weather. The US border was only 5 miles from the airport. Easy peasy. On her to way question Al-Masih, Geller appears to be in distress, sweating, overheated, and has to force the taxi to pull over so she can puke. Her boss tells her to rein it in and get back to the office, but she’s a rebel, she’s pushing the envelope, this thing is bigger than anyone realizes and it’s all boiling over. She needs to question the witness and get the intel! Ugh, her character is just. So. Awful. She plays intramural softball with the FBI, because a fight between government agencies over jurisdiction is the perfect cliché to cap off this nonsense. The show slows down for a moment as Geller’s dad calls her, concerned that he never hears from her and to see if she needs anything. She pretty much tells him to buzz off, further cementing the fact that she pushes away everyone around her. The scene ends with her laying in her hotel room bed looking down at her sheets and pants covered in blood. Maybe something to do with her treatments? Or a miscarriage? She stares ahead with a horrified look on her face.
We return to Dilley, Texas, where the devastation appears to be total and complete, except for the church, which appears to be the only untouched building left standing in town. The camera pulls back to show the entire town literally wiped off the face of the earth, except for the church. Inside, Felix and Al-Masih are having a chat. They share scripture long enough for Felix to believe he really is what the videos say he is, and then he’s carted off in a government Suburban for illegal entry. Felix vows to get him out.
Back with Aviram, he parks in front of his estranged family’s house and is approached by his adorable daughter who brings him a blanket, fearing he might be cold. We get another reminder that he’s pretty much the worst father and in general, a mess of a human being. Aviram seems to dump Jibril’s body on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Unknown if he is dead or alive. We cut back to Geller, who seems to have taken her hotel sheets to a laundromat to wash them. She looks up to see a bird trapped in the room of windows with her, and remarks “you’re not where you’re supposed to be.” This could be a reference to seemingly everyone on the show, but I’m pretty sure this is just her commenting on her own feelings. This isn’t what her life was supposed to be. Interesting that the most emotional resonance Geller feels with any living thing thus far has been the trapped bird. The episode ends as she stares at a swirling bath of bloody, soapy sheets. The bird thing was a little contrived, but I’ll take any sign that she’s human at this point.
Interesting stuff! They’re expanding the footprint of the show and introducing new elements to sway the view back the other direction on the whole “is this really Jesus II?” angle. With that in mind, let’s check in on our theories:
- He really is the Messiah, the second coming, and God has a message that he’s not pleased, and folks have been misinterpreting his vision for mankind for a couple thousands years, so he sent this dude to correct the record.
What do I think of this theory? Last week I thought it looked pretty weak, because everything we saw looked pretty obviously like a well-orchestrated campaign of manipulation, but this week the pendulum swings the other way. First, there’s the biblically named Rebecca out there with prophetic dreams that come true. There’s the tornado that destroys an entire town except for a preacher’s church (that he’d just been trying to burn down), at the exact moment the preacher needed it to happen, when the faith of the town was at its lowest. And of course, how could Al-Masih know exactly when to fly to nowhere, Texas, to be on site the exact moment a tornado destroyed this town. It created a situation of maximum emotional impact to get everyone in rural America to believe Al-Masih really is divine. So, is Rebecca a prophet? Are there other prophets, and that’s how Al-Masih knows where to be?
- It’s a government conspiracy / It’s someone else’s conspiracy (NEW)
What do I think of this theory? There is still some weird stuff going on. How does Aviram figure into everything? Who was the woman who lured Jibril to the fence and why does she matter? I assumed at first she worked with Aviram, but that appears not to be the case. Was the flight from Amman to Mexico and the cause that drove the flight to the ground all part of a plan or an Act of God? Money could get him across the border easy enough. At first I wondered if there might be two of them, a West and East version to perpetuate the myth of his teleportation powers, but I think it’s just him.
General thoughts so far: This Texas story arc does pull together some overarching themes that the show is actually doing a pretty good job of marrying together. One of the major messages of the show so far is that people have more that unites them that divides them, and that religion has the power to gather and heal as much as it does to separate and destroy. It’s also starting to really take up the idea of faith as a concept as a major theme as well. What is faith? How does one lose faith? What is the power and the vulnerability of faith?
The storyline with Geller being a cliché stone-cold jerkface is still mostly annoying me, but I wonder if this angle with the possible miscarriage will finally open her up a bit so we can see why she is the way she is. At least this episode did a fun job of getting me to doubt that the whole thing is a trick. Points, also, for realism in people’s reactions. They set up premise that there are desperate people all over the world looking for hope, and in that environment, people will believe in a mirage. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this show is that CIA agent Geller is using a Google Pixel phone. It’s maybe the least believable thing so far.
Episode grade: B (until they make the other half of the show with Geller more interesting, I don’t see this getting into A territory anytime soon).
