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| Image Courtesy en.wikipedia.org |
Well, I suppose the best you can say is that
at least this last episode of Of Kings and Prophets was better than the
first one! And to be honest, it really
is better than “Offerings of Blood.” The
Biblical accuracy is improved somewhat (though they still make one egregious
error near the end of the episode).
There is also less gratuitous sex (though there’s still one
terribly-gratuitous sex scene which pretty much destroys the character).
Unfortunately, that’s not quite
enough to redeem the series, considering all the problems.
In this episode David gets to
play at being a simple shepherd and musician in love, with Saul’s daughter
Michal as the object of his affections. However,
he can’t simply be in love with the king’s daughter; he also has to find his
place within the palace—not an easy task for a simple Bethlehem shepherd. He accidentally stumbles into Ishbaal’s
assassination plot against Samuel when Michal discovers the plot and reveals it
to David while waiting for Jonathan to return.
When Ishbaal attacks Michal, David leaps to her rescue (though Michal
doesn’t let them fight). Then David is
playing his harp at Jonathan’s betrothal party when the Reubenite elder’s son
tips him with a piece of Philistine silver.
David reports the silver to Saul, who immediately orders the execution
of the Reubenite’s entire family (including the 9-year-old son). In gratitude for David’s loyalty (and because
her dear husband is too busy with his concubine to show her much affection), Ahinoam
summons David to sleep with her. Between
these latter two actions, David becomes disillusioned with the court and returns
home.
In a parallel to David, Saul and
his family must deal with much of the same court intrigue, though in their own
unique way. Because he fears that the
prophet will anoint a new king in place of his father, Ishbaal sends his best
assassin to kill Samuel… but Michal persuades him that killing the “Voice of
Elohim” will fracture the alliance between the tribes. Oh, and Samuel slaughters both the assassin
and the servant who talked to him for good measure! Meanwhile, Saul and Ahinoam are playing
political games to unite the tribes against the Philistines. Ahinoam first unites the other 11 with a
speech, and then brings Judah into the fold by arranging a marriage between
Jonathan and the daughter of Etan (the Judahite elder whose son was
betrothed to Merav). However, Saul’s
concubine/spy has already arranged for the Reubenite elder to betray Saul on
the battlefield. When Saul learns of the
treachery from David, he kills the entire family to make an example of why no
one should betray him (not God, but he himself).
There is a lot to commend in the
portrayal of both David and Saul in this episode. Saul’s madness has definitely begun, and it
is brought about by God’s abandonment of him and declaration that he will strip
the kingship from him and give it to another—even if this is said by Saul as
something he feels, rather than a message from God. At the same time, David’s unquestionable
loyalty to Saul is on display in his words to Michal and his reporting on the
Philistine silver to Saul. I’m not a
huge fan of the “Dave-Bro” portrayal of David with regard to Michal,
though: he’s got way too much of an “I
love the ladies and the ladies love me” attitude for a humble shepherd (which
is what he was according to the Bible itself).
However, I can forgive that. What
I really cannot forgive in their portrayal of David is the fact that David
would sleep with Saul’s wife. Simply
put, David’s loyalty to Saul all through 1 Samuel is unquestionable. Later on Saul attempts on multiple occasions
to kill David (uh… spoiler alert?), but David refuses to lift his hand against
Saul. Now, that’s not to say that David
was immune from lust and adultery—far from it; he falls into it plenty of times—but
this early in David’s life I do not see him sleeping with his master’s
wife. And honestly, I don’t think the
writers of this show included this scene for any theological or
character-related purpose. Instead, I think
that they included this scene for no other reason than because they needed to
reach their quota of sex scenes.
The other major issue I have with
this episode comes right at the end, when David leaves Saul’s service entirely
to return to his father’s house and arrives just in time for Samuel to already
be there waiting to anoint him king. Simply
put, it didn’t happen. David never
really left Saul’s service, and only departed from him permanently when Saul
started trying to pin him to tent walls!
In 1 Samuel 16, Saul summons David and puts him to work playing the harp
for him to drive away the harmful spirit that plagues him (v. 19-23). Chapter 17 is the prelude to David’s fight
with Goliath (1 Samuel 16-17:1 provides what inspiration there is for this
episode), and takes place after David entered Saul’s service. Verses 14-15 explain exactly how it can be
that David both serves his father and serves Saul: “The three eldest [brothers of David]
followed Saul, but David went back and forth from Saul to feed his father's
sheep at Bethlehem.” In other words,
David is able to be in both places by going back and forth between them. He doesn’t get fed up with courtly intrigue
(or at least not yet) and leave Saul’s service.
Maybe this isn’t a major issue (perhaps the bigger issue is that in the
Bible David is actually anointed before he enters Saul’s service in 1
Samuel 16!), but it really does make the David we see in this series look
radically different from the David we see in the Bible.
I don’t know how to feel about
the portrayal of Samuel, who at this point is little more than a crazy, bloodthirsty
old man. On the one hand their portrayal
of the Lord speaking to him in 1 Samuel 16:1-3 is kind of meh—he has a vision
of a lamb and some other stuff, wakes up, and heads off with a servant—but on
the other hand I’m not sure how I was really expecting them to do it. I think the better option would have been for
Samuel to actually (you know) talk to God, but I’m sure they don’t want
to actually suggest that much! While he
is on his way, Samuel is approached by the servant he left behind at Ramah, who
seems to be attempting to distract him so the assassin can make his move. However, Samuel kills the assassin and then
(off-screen) kills the servant as well and sends both bodies back to Ishbaal as
a warning. Now, I don’t object to the
idea of Samuel killing—he does plenty of that in the Bible, as he is a judge
(meaning military leader)—but I don’t know if the Biblical Samuel really would
have killed his own servant for giving information while being tortured. But that’s a relatively-minor objection.
Surprisingly, Yoab is starting to
grow on me, even if he still sounds like an Irish-Israelite immigrant! (Seriously, why does everyone sound British!?!)
He and Ishbaal have a moment of butting
heads when Yoab goes to “observe” the armorers working on the swords in the
army’s armory. He and David also have a
couple moments together when Yoab warns David against getting mixed up in the
affairs of Saul’s house when Saul is clearly on his way out. Considering that Yoab does eventually become
David’s right-hand man and the general of David’s army, it’s interesting to see
where he starts.
The final—and most important—facet
of this episode to review is the portrayal of God. After all, any Bible-based media have to give
an accurate portrayal of the main character—and that main character is always
God Himself. How is God portrayed in
this episode?
Answer: He’s really not. If Samuel is the stand-in for God, then he’s
kind of off doing his own thing. Saul
and the people in Gibeah talk about God quite a bit—whether or not He is
still with the house of Saul—but God himself really isn’t doing all that
much. The most direct portrayal of God
is in Samuel’s vision, but that’s not very direct; the meaning of the vision is
left up to the viewer’s imagination. I get
that the idea of God speaking directly to His prophets is rather unpopular
among modern critics, but that doesn’t make it any less of an accurate
portrayal of the Biblical account!
Ultimately, I suppose that this
episode follows the “Killing Jesus Principle”: “If you avoid putting God in the limelight,
you can actually make a decent movie.”
(Remember that every good scene in that miniseries didn’t have Jesus in
it, and every scene with Jesus in it was terrible)
This series showed some minor
improvement from week 1 to week 2, but I don’t know if this means it will
actually become a good (and accurate) series by the end of its run. My guess is that a better test will come next
week with its portrayal of David vs. Goliath.
Will David fight with the Lord on his side, or not?
What do you think of this series if you’ve
seen it? Do you think the portrayal of
Samuel and David is accurate? Let me
know in the comments!
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