Pressure

I looked up the movie showtimes in Detroit Lakes, Minn., about 45 minutes away from where I live, and lo, this movie was starting in 46 minutes. One showing only. I hopped in my car on a beautiful Memorial Day afternoon and made it just on time for what must be a sneak preview of the film, which is supposed to open next Friday. I saw it with exactly one other person, a random lady who couldn't stop gushing about how good it was, afterward. I had never heard anything about it before but based on a two-sentence synopsis and the poster, I couldn't not go to see Pressure, a movie about the meteorologists whose weather forecast led Gen. Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower to move the date of D-Day from June 5 to June 6, 1944.

Sound like riveting stuff it does not. But actually it's a very absorbing film, featuring Brendan Fraser in a performance as Eisenhower that blazes with power (but also a little tortured self-doubt). A couple of times his image on the screen hit me and I thought, "I'm actually looking at Eisenhower." You know, for about two seconds. Alongside him are Andrew Scott (Sherlock, Fleabag, Ripley) as a Scots meteorologist named Stagg, Chris Messina (Julie and Julia) as the American expert named Crick with whom he butts heads, Damian Lewis (Homeland) as a Bernard Montgomery who all but orders Stagg to give the D-Day invasion a rosy forecast and then throws a screaming hissy-fit when the evidence doesn't support that conclusion, and Kerry Condon as Ike's Irish aide, Kay Summersby.

So, Stagg shows up at Ike's headquarters five days before the initial date set for D-Day (June 5) and receives orders to present a forecast by the following morning. Crick, who has advised Ike on his African campaigns, wants to present a calm, sunny outlook based on similar conditions in a couple of previous years. But Stagg is like, "Weather systems don't repeat. We need to go where the data takes us," and the data takes him to a dire forecast that would spell disaster for the invasion. The word "pressure" takes on multiple meanings as these men, and Ike and Monty, and more, feel immense pressure about a gambit that could win or lose the whole war against Hitler's Germany. But also, you know, barometric pressure. Plus, there's a subplot in which the hospital where Stagg's very pregnant wife has gone to deliver the baby gets bombed and nobody can tell whether she survived. Kay rightly tells Ike that if he keeps being too hard on Stagg, he could crack.

Anyway, I drove home from D.L. thinking about how this movie could almost be produced as a stage play, though I couldn't make out how the scenes at the beginning and end – the first revealing that Mrs. Stagg is preggers, and the second revealing her fate and that of their baby – could be told any way but cinematically. Like, the camera can choose to reveal her baby bump only when Stagg turns back for a final look at his wife, before leaving for Whatsit's House; whereas an audience at a stage production will spot it as soon as the lights come up. Likewise, the camera can bring the Mrs. and Stagg Jr. into focus only when Stagg himself sees them, but again, there's no hiding them in a live performance from stage left, stage right and the nosebleed seats. At least some of the audience will know before it's expedient to the storytelling. But between those bookends, I thought, the drama could have played out on a stage ... and now I read that's exactly how this film started out, as a stage play by David Haig.

I'm very honored to have gotten an early look at a movie that, in the U.K., won't be officially released until September. Memorial Day was a good day for it. The gravity of the sacrifices that must be made to fight against world Fascism, and the importance of sparing lives from being spent in vain, wasn't lost on even such a commander as Ike, who also had to put up with a subordinate (Monty) who openly sneered at his lack of battlefield experience. Also, it isn't every day you see a war film in which the crucial turn of the plot happens when, in the middle of singing "All Creatures of Our God and King," a worshiping congregation's ears catch the sound of a rainstorm rolling in. Not to take anything away from the grueling images of the initial carnage on Utah and Omaha beaches, but the turning point of this movie is really when Stagg finally declares Crick's theory to be a load of horseshit and Ike believes him. Well, that and what happens when the two rival weather guys finally put their heads together and give Ike an alternative.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) The scene in which Stagg finally raises his voices in front of Ike's general staff, convincing him to call off the plans for June 5. (2) Kay asks Ike if she can drive to the hospital to see if Mrs. Stagg made it through, and Ike says no. And, putting her in her place, "Dismissed, lieutenant." Despite a hint of some tenderness between them (from her to him, at least), the movie doesn't have the bad taste to insinuate that they were actually a thing, and if it came close to lighting that flame, this moment efficiently snuffed it out. (3) The words Stagg says as Ike is about to storm out of the room: "The Germans will never see it." And finally, when asked if he's absolutely sure, Stagg says yes.

Two Movie Reviews

A couple weekends ago, I found time to see The Sheep Detectives, a film whose title tells you exactly what it's about. Yes, a flock of sheep solves the murder of their shepherd, helping the inept local constable spot clues he otherwise would have missed. Despite not being the brightest of species (in fact, they have a way of forgetting things they find too painful to think about), they are aided in the case by one ewe's particularly keen mind, a certain ram's wisdom (he's the exception to the rule about being able to forget), the courage of the black sheep of the flock and the outcast, winter lamb's observant mind.

Playing human characters in the movie are Hugh Jackman as the murder victim, Nicholas Braun (Succession) as the town cop, Nicholas Galitzine (Red, White and Royal Blue) as a reporter who offers to help solve the case, Molly Gordon (Theater Camp) as the shepherd's daughter who becomes a suspect, Tosin Cole (Doctor Who) as a rival shepherd, Hong Chau (an Oscar nominee for The Whale) as an abrasive inkeeper, and Emma Thompson as an estate lawyer. Meanwhile, on the voice cast side (as various sheep) you'll hear the voices of Patrick Stewart (Star Trek, The X-Men), Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld, Veep), Chris O'Dowd (The IT Crowd), Bella Ramsey (Game of Thrones, The Worst Witch), Brett Goldstein (Ted Lasso) and Laraine Newman (an original cast member of Saturday Night Live).

The sheep characters are beautifully portrayed by I know not what movie magic; I'd rather not dig too deeply and find out they were all CGI. There are some belly laughs, a lot of wit, a wonderful variety of characters and heartfelt relationships, some very sad and touching moments, and of course the adventure the sheep have, with their whole interesting way of viewing the world. As for the mystery, which is the main thrust of the storyline, I had kind of guessed whodunit at an early stage and wasn't terribly surprised to be proven right. But you decide for yourself if it's a stimulating mystery.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) Sebastian, the solitary ram who low-key keeps the other sheep safe, tells the story of how he became part of the flock. It's a very moving moment. He has another, but I won't spoil that for you. (2) The town cop finally figures out what the sheep have been trying to tell him, and solves the case. (3) When Lily, the hero ewe, finally realizes the error of the sheep's little way of forgetting painful subjects, but can't stop the flock from pulling the wool over their own eyes. Pun intended.

My next trip to the movies, some week ago or so, was to see In the Grey featuring Jake Gyllenhaal, Henry Cavill and Cavill's The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare costar, Eiza González as the leaders of a group that operates in a legally gray area, for example, to collect a $1 billion debt owed by a vicious crime lord. Rachel (González) flexes legal muscle to pressure Salazar to cough up, while Sid (Cavill) and Bronco (Gyllenhaal) lead a six-man team to infiltrate and sabotage Salazar's operation on an island where he basically owns the police force, to say nothing of a small private army. Then they just have to protect Rachel and, not if but when things go pear-shaped, facilitate her escape. Much of the movie is devoted to their preparation to do this, but as the saying goes (I know, I've quoted it often), no plan survives contact with the enemy.

Gyllenhaal and Cavill have an interesting chemistry. As Sid, a.k.a. "Capt. Sensible," Cavill is cool, stoic, unflappable and methodical. As Bronco, Gyllenhaal is flamboyant and mouthy, given to improvisation and emotional outbursts. In one scene the pair pretends to be a married couple and when, later, Bronco sends Sid off (to get himself arrested so he can case the local jail) with an "I love you," you're suddenly not sure it was a ruse. But machismo is all over this movie. Even the women are tough (Rosamund Pike plays a hard-bitten executive with their client). Carlos Bardem, Javier's brother, is here as Salazar. Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones) plays Salazar's security chief, and his lawyer is Fisher Stevens of hilarious Short Circuit memory (and also an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker).

The movie is written and directed by Guy Ritchie, on whose uneven output I've commented before (probably in my review of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare). Based on how much fun I had watching this, he should keep making things with Cavill and González, preferably also with Gyllenhaal, ideally playing the same characters, if he can manage to extend the franchise without, well, sucking. Because as I've mentioned in previous reviews, when he's on his game, he makes brilliant pieces of entertainment ... and when he's off, it's [choose your favorite expletive] disaster. He's definitely on in this movie.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) Preparing to extract Rachel from the bar where she stops for a cold one after bearding Salazar in his den. They know the heavies are going to make a move, and the build-up to the inevitable action-fest is exquisitely suspenseful. (2) Just when you think they've gotten away from Salazar, the bad guys catch up with Rachel. Uh-oh!! (3) The whole rear-guard action as the team escapes from Salazar's island for the last time, including once again an action scene that doubles as a suspense extravaganza. Will they get the traps they set in the "Banana Pie" sector to work on time? Will the last good guy make it out of the villa alive? Will Bronco, Sid and Rachel make it to the boat when there's a helicopter chasing their buggy? It doesn't just deliver explosions. It makes you scoot forward on your seat, chewing on your knuckles.

Duplicate Puzzle Non-Tutorial

You might be thinking, "One (or two) of these things is not like the others." But actually, quite the opposite is true. In this picture are four pairs of 3D twisty puzzles, each of which is exactly the same puzzle. On the far left are the Super Ivy Cube (at front) and the Rex Cube, corner-turning puzzles that I've discussed before. They look a bit different from each other but aren't. Don't let Super Ivy's gentler curves fool you. Other than the fact that it turns more smoothly and with less propensity for locking up on you, or even shedding pieces that can only be snapped back into place through frustrating struggle, its solution is exactly the same as the Rex.

The second pair, from front to back, are the Eight Petal Cube and the Redi Cube. Unlike Rex and Super Ivy, I didn't order them knowing they were the same puzzle. I bought Eight Petal expecting it to be something else; I must not have looked very closely at the image on the website where I ordered it, or else I wasn't reasoning clearly about it. But yes, it does exactly what Redi does, only with more gracefully rounded cuts between the moving pieces. It moves very smoothly – they both do, really – but the Eight Petal Cube is smooth-turning to a fault: to the point where you have to be careful how you hold it or you'll turn it by accident, and where turning it just the way you intend can be tricky when it's trying to turn two or three different ways at once.

Second from the right, at front, is the good ol' 2-Cube, a.k.a. Rubik's Mini Cube. Hard to believe, but that strange object behind it, called the Magic Eye Cube more because of its eye motif than for any actual resemblance to a cube, is essentially the same puzzle. When it arrived last week or so, I was flummoxed for a minute before I could work out how the pieces were supposed to move. I actually pulled up a video tutorial and only had to watch about 5 seconds of it before I realized what my problem was: Magic Eye's corners are inverted. Concave. So that bit of cube facing forward in the picture is actually the same green, orange and white corner as the top front corner of the 2x2x2 next to it. Once you realize that it's flipped inside out like an optical illusion of a cube where the corners poke inward instead of outward, solving it exactly like a 2-Cube becomes possible. And oddly satisfying, with the guts exposed to view. Except when the layers lock up, which they do if you try to twist it while everything isn't perfectly aligned.

Finally, yes, we have a banana. I couldn't resist. And I've scrambled it and solved it, so I can verify that it scrambles and solves exactly like the 223 cuboid at front right. A few of the pieces (especially the corner pieces at the back of the banana) are similar in size and shape, but not so similar that you can't tell when they're not in the right place. Transferring the cuboid concept into banana form does generate some shape-changing oddness, and forces you to reason not so much from color but from the shape you're trying to restore, which piece needs to go where. But remember your algorithms. I mean, it's just two steps plus a couple of final cases, remember?

So, there are no new procedures to demonstrate this time. No tutorial necessary! And therefore, since shooting pictures of a sample solve is low-key a pain in the butt, I'm not doing it. Have a banana. Go outside and touch grass. Feed some ducks. And see you later!

Capybara Rescue

I just dreamed that I came home for lunch and found my brother Ryan sitting in an armchair, watching three capybaras napping on a greasy blanket on the couch.

I say to him, "There seem to be three capybaras on the couch." He says, "I know." I say, "Why are there three capybaras on the couch?" He says, "I saw an ad that (name of community) Capybara Rescue was having a fostering program and I thought it sounded great." I said, "Sure it'll be great, until the living room starts to smell like an Iowa feed lot." Then I woke up mad at my brother.

The truly daft part about this dream is that I don't actually have an armchair.

Now to see if I can get back to sleep again. ...

Art: Photo by Karoly Lorentey, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

592. Prayer for Mistreated Ministers

For my friend and brother, Alan Kornacki Jr. Art: Window in the Apse of St. Ignatius Church, Chestnut Hill, Mass., photograph by John P. Workman, Jr., licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. Tune: LOB SEI DEM ALLMÄCHTIGEN GOTT by Johann Crüger, †1662, the tune to "Great God, a blessing from your throne" in Lutheran Book of Worship, "Not always on the mount may we" and "O Paschal Feast, what joy is thine" in Service Book and Hymnal. Or whatever.

Remember, God, Your children's need!
Stand watch, we pray, upon Your seed:
Your living and abiding word,
At work where it is preached and heard.

Uphold, dear Christ, the men You call
To speak Your truth to one and all.
Through their reproof our steps correct;
Put what they promise to effect.

Look, Lord! How Satan sows his tares
And sets out stumbling blocks and snares
To hinder, if he can, the feet
That carry news of comfort sweet!

Look how this age's tyrant tries
To curb Your word, preferring lies,
And what devices he has brought
To set Your servants' work at naught!

Look how false brethren daily rise
To do what seems right in their eyes;
How some, who churchly power claim,
Betray those branded with Your name!

Before their strength is fully spent,
Bid every help to them be sent;
Let even us, with spirit bold,
Mistreated ministers uphold.

For if no trusty heralds go,
Lord, how can we Your tidings know?
Inhale the prayers the faithful burn,
The incense of our heart's concern!

The Devil Wears Prada 2

Did I see The Devil Wears Prada 2? You betcha. On Thursday night, when it debuted in my small town's local theater. I had seen the original, of course. All of 20 years ago! The year before I started this blog! So I have no record of what I thought of the first movie at the time, but I remember it well enough. You see, I was working for a magazine back then. In fact, I was the executive assistant to the editor. I was basically a guy version of Andrea "Andy" Sachs, except I was nowhere near New York. (That was the year I first visited the city, though.) And it wasn't a fashion magazine.

As for my then-boss ... well, it wouldn't be politic to say much about that, except that he is also a guy, and not a fashion maven by any stretch. But I got a lot of what Andy was struggling with, and I learned a lot of the lessons she had to learn. It gave a certain kick to my viewing experience. And then, I guess also like Andy, I moved on from the magazine job to other things and eventually ended up as a journalist. Even, if I may say it, an award-winning one; though again not on anything like the level we find Andy working at in the early scenes of this film. I'm still writing for a newspaper, in fact. I haven't been cashiered out. The company I work for did lay off a few folks during some lean times, but most of us are still working. But yeah, I am also acutely aware of the predicament that print media and independent journalism are in. Our industry is changing. It's going digital first and, for some outlets, digital only. The perception that a newspaper career is a thing of the past holds the kind of currency that, when I was catching up with some cousins at a family funeral a couple years ago and I told them what I do, they scoffed: "How do you still have a job?" Screw you very much, guys.

So, in this 20-years-later follow-up to what might be Meryl Streep's most popular role – Runway editor Miranda Priestly – her ex-assistant Andrea comes back, played again by Anne Hathaway. Andy was actually moments away from accepting a major journalism award when she and her entire editorial team got sacked, via text. But Runway isn't faring much better. Now an online-only magazine, it struggles with public credibility. So the publisher brings on Andy as the new features editor in a last-ditch attempt to right the ship. Of course Miranda is as unsupportive as she could possibly be, but Andy gradually proves herself and works her way into her boss's confidence, only to see one new crisis after another emerge as a new owner, and potentially another one after that, threatens everything they have built.

Synopsis aside, it's a fun adventure among the jealousies, snobberies and treacheries of the fashion world. There are plots within plots, and Andy really doesn't earn Miranda's confidence until she hatches one of her own. There are delicious surprises and moments of pure cringe. The deeper Andy gets in the fashion world, the more whatever she wears looks stunning. (Whereas a lot of the high fashion displayed in the movie's magazine shoots actually comes across as ridiculous.) There are some brilliant lines (One of my favorites is "Bridges that I have burned, light my way"). Even after a good 20 years of experience doing serious journalism, Andy still has a lot to learn about figuring out what her job is and how to do it. And the film doesn't fully commit to painting Miranda as the devil; it softens her, or softens toward her, I think even earlier than the first movie did. Nevertheless, Streep still has it, and Hathaway does too.

Stanley Tucci, although noticeably older now, still plays Miranda's faithful doormat, a fashion director who has been passed over for promotion too many times to count and now steers a tricky course between being a warm mentor to Andy and a ruthlessly unsympathetic reality check: "Ah, poor girl! She actually has to work things out for herself!" Emily Blunt is back as another former assistant to Miranda who has gone full Cruella deVil, working in the luxury retail industry. Kenneth Branagh puts in a turn as Miranda's husband. Lucy Liu and Justin Theroux play a super-rich ex-couple – his half being hands-down the most obnoxious person in the movie. B.J. Novak of The Office and Lady Gaga (as herself) are also in it.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) After Emily makes a catty remark about her eyebrows, Andy looks anxiously in the mirror, then snorts: "They're just eyebrows." (2) The new publisher summons Miranda to a lunch date in the cafeteria, it is suddenly apparent that she didn't even know the building had one; she's never even been on that floor. (3) Miranda is always being restrained by her current executive assistant from saying the kinds of things that H.R. frowns upon these days, but can't help letting little enormities slip out – like the line, in criticism of a story pitched by one of her editorial team, "May my suicide be quick and painless." Then, catching her assistant's hairy eyeball: "What? At least I didn't threaten to kill someone else."

The Chosen, Seasons 1-4

Someone at my church loaned me the DVD set for Season 1 of this show, which dramatizes the gospels of Jesus Christ, and I enjoyed it so much that I went looking for more of it on disc. I saw a five-season boxed set available online for more money than I wanted to pay, but then I glanced at a shelf at Walmart and there were seasons 1-4 for considerably less. So I got the set and binge-watched Seasons 2-4, and this is what I think about it.

First, the show has a great cast, plays out on beautiful locations and has terrific production values. When it's hits, it hits hard, with big-picture faithfulness to the biblical witness and emotional beats that left me sobbing more than once. It also, unfortunately, embellishes the canonical story with fictional scenes that, I suppose, are intended to fill in gaps in the story and carry forward the parallel stories of Jesus, his followers and their families, the Roman authorities, and various Jewish people ranging from ambivalent supporters to deadly enemies of Jesus. Some of these extra scenes, more and more as the series goes on, feel to me like unnecessary padding and is sometimes downright dull, whereas the parts that emotionally grabbed me were pretty much all biblical material.

I gather this show started with a pilot that the creator, Dallas Jenkins, made as a video for his church, and the series developed from there, all crowd-funded. In a message Jenkins inserted into the Season 1 video set, he says he planned the show to get through Jesus' entire ministry, death and resurrection in eight seasons, but I think it's been trimmed down to seven seasons since then; five have been filmed so far.

The pilot, "The Shepherd," is a version of the Christmas story according to Luke 2, from the point of view of a lame shepherd who (in the film, not the gospel) is miraculously healed when the angels announce the Messiah's birth. I'd like it more if you actually saw and/or heard the angels' announcement. But you see a good deal of the potential for the series in this brief film.

Season 1 covers Jesus' ministry from healing the demon-possessed woman we will know as Mary Magdalene to Jesus' encounter with the woman at Jacob's well in Samaria. A broad thread running through this season's eight episodes is the Pharisee Nicodemus' recognition that Jesus is the Christ, which pays off with some of those powerful emotional moments I mentioned before. It also shows part of the process of Jesus' calling his 12 disciples, starting (when we first meet him) with "Little James" and Thaddeus, then collecting Andrew, Peter, "Big James" and John as well as Matthew the tax collector. It depicts some of Jesus' early, non-public miracles, such as healing Mary and filling the fishermen's nets, then moves on to his public miracles like changing water to wine at Cana (making a disciple of Thomas, a wine merchant) and healing the paralytic let down through the roof of Zebedee's house. It gives us Jesus' rooftop conference with Nicodemus (John 3), with his "For God so loved the world" statement and discussion of being born again, and he finally heals Simon (Peter)'s mother-in-law before leading his first half-dozen disciples to Samaria.

Like I said, the whole Nicodemus plot line sent me into fits of tears. Erick Avari, whom you may recall from such movies as Stargate, delivers a powerhouse performance as a man torn between following Jesus and remaining rooted in his scholarly position. Other cast members you may recognize are Yasmine Al-Bustami of NCIS: Hawai'i as Ramah, Thomas' woman friend and later fiance, Kirk B.R. Woller as Roman Centurion Gaius, Brandon Potter as the Roman praetor of Capernaum and Jonathan Roumie as Jesus, an actor I first spotted in Solo Mio; he also played an evangelist in Jesus Revolution.

In Season 2, Big James and John get their nickname "Sons of Thunder" when they ask Jesus to destroy some hostile Samaritans. Moving on from Samaria to Syria, Jesus makes disciples of Philip and Nathanael – the latter in another one of the scenes that gets me choked up. Conflict simmers between the disciples, particularly between Simon Peter and Matthew, whose background as a tax collector he particularly resents. In Jerusalem, Jesus heals another paralytic, the one who has spent years waiting for a chance to crawl into the Pool of Bethesda when its waters are stirred, and this gets the attention of Simon the Zealot, known as "Z" in this series and depicted as the second paralytic's estranged brother. Z, kind of a kung-fu disciple, follows Jesus and appoints himself as security chief.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned, a lot's going on among the Pharisees, with a couple of them investigating Jesus' activities and looking for a pretext to file charges against him. Their attitude in general seems to be to take offense at everything. I don't remmeber if it's in this season or not, but at one point a Hellenized Jew shows up at the temple to inform on Jesus and before he can get five words out of his mouth, the Pharisee questioning him gives him the what-for for wearing damask, a blended fabric, which isn't kosher. These stooges catch up with Jesus as he and his disciples are coming away from a big sermon and various miracles, and when one of them takes that hoity-toity tone with one of the witnesses, he shames them with a statement like, "He's healing us, and you're just tearing us down" – a moment that creates a spiritual crisis for one of the Pharisees, in what may be the most emotionally powerful non-canonical moment in the series.

Season 2 wraps up with preparations for Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, an occasion that brings Judas Iscariot into his circle. Season 3 introduces us to Jairus, a sympathetic synagogue offical whose daughter Jesus will eventually raise from the dead. Jesus sends the disciples out on a mission trip, two by two; he preaches at the synagogue in his hometown and is violently rejected by the townsfolk; he heals Veronica, the woman with a discharge of blood; he responsds to questioning by John the Baptist's disciples, offending the Pharisees once more; he heals a deaf-mute man; and he concludes the season by feeding the 5,000.

Season 4 depicts the birth and death of John the Baptist, with Paul Ben-Victor (Entourage, The Invisible Man) playing Herod. Simon confesses Jesus is the Christ and receives the name Peter. Richard Fancy, Elaine's boss on Seinfeld, appears as Caiaphas the high priest. Matthew and Peter are reconciled. Jesus heals the man born blind, but when the local praetor goes spare during a small-scale riot and stabs Ramah, Jesus doesn't heal her; her death becomes a sore point with Thomas. Jesus begins foretelling his death, and he heals the new praetor's (previously a centurion) son. Judas starts pilfering from the disciples' funds. After visiting Lazarus, Mary and Martha at Bethany, the group barely escapes being stoned in Jerusalem. They travel back to Bethany for Jesus to raise Lazarus from the dead, further upsetting Thomas. Mary of Bethany anoints Jesus' feet with costly perfume, which causes a Pharisee who earlier started sympathizing with Jesus to break with him and hardens Judas' resolve to betray him; and with a bit of preparation, Jesus enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey.

So far, season 1-4 of The Chosen. I've left out an awful lot, but this is enough of a synopsis to give you an idea of how the show is progressing. It looks like Season 5 stretches out Passion Week from Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on Sunday to his arrest in the garden on Thursday across eight episodes, which further suggests that Season 6 will be eight hours of Jesus' being tried, crucified and buried and Season 7 will cover from his resurrection to his ascension.

Whether or not it turns out that way, I have no complaints about the show except that, increasingly as it progresses, the plot drags as supplementary material is added to the biblically witnessed teachings and works of Jesus. My complaint isn't that it's doctrinally incorrect or tonally out of whack, just that it gets a little boring when it isn't laser-focused on what Jesus did and said – for when that focus is there, it's dynamite. Nicodemus' tears as he hid around the corner, at the end of Season 1, declining to follow Jesus on his travels, and the way Shmuel the Pharisee's world drops out from beneath his feet when Leander (I think that's his name) rebukes him for tearing down when Jesus is building up, are two exceptions – cases when something the show reads into the narrative hit hard. There's so much biblical material and I think focusing on that would be more to the show's advantage when it's actually the most gripping stuff.

Three Things That Made It For Me, as a TV dramatization: (1) Matthew being depicted as more or less Charlie Eppes from Numb3rs, with some additional OCD tics and possible signs of being on the autism spectrum; his characterization is a highlight of this fictionalization, with character growth as he breaks with his Roman protector, reconciles with his estranged parents, reconnects with his faith and becomes an evangelist. (2) John, also an evangelist, depicted as working out the opening of his gospel while sitting shiva for his brother, Big James. (3) Little James, depicted as suffering from a partial paralysis that Jesus never heals, and learning to bear this affliction faithfully despite the evidence all around him that he could indeed be healed. Yeah, yeah, there's a love story between Simon and his wife, and there's all the drama surrounding Thomas and Ramah, and of course I love the Nicodemus storyline in Season 1, and Z asking after Simon becomes Peter if that means he can have his name back and everybody in unison answering, "No," is legit hilarious; these are touches that show that faithfulness and a vivid imagination need not be kept apart. But sometimes the faithfulness is moving in and of itself.