First off, I am a Christian of deep faith who has the ability to separate works of fiction from my own beliefs and can appreciate them as art.
This is a story I've witnessed over and over throughout my life. It highlights the dangers of putting so much faith in man and in the church, that they bypass God Himself in terms of importance. The potential horrors when those leaders stray from God's path and set out on their own, and how man can use faith as a weapon of manipulation. It asks the question what would you do if your trusted religious leaders began going against what God has laid out and the crowd began to move with them. Would you follow blindly or would you have the conviction to walk with God, even if it was just you and Him.
Bravo to the guy who played Father Paul (Hamish Linklater). I thought this was one of the best performances I've seen in a while. Granted, the series is heavy in monologues but I loved the way he delivered his sermons. There's also a scene in one of the later episodes where it's just him and Riley. It's after a major event and he's explaining what happened to Riley and telling him that he needs complete honesty from him in return for his, and I thought the acting was superb here. On both parts really, but it was the first time Father Paul had shown any extra emotion and it was really powerful. You could really begin to see that he was torn. Part of him actually believed he was doing good and part of him knew it went against God's intention, and he portrayed this inner battle so well for the remainder of the series. Just excellent.
Bev was also played extremely well by Samantha Sloyan. I absolutely could not stand the character, but she acted her ass off too. Especially in the late episodes
I thought the end was awesome too. The scene where they were gathering together singing was some true, pure, honest repentance. We are good people who lost our way and we know it, and we're going to sing to you Lord in our final moments.
Minus the silly little babbling monologue about death and the cosmos and nonsense mixed in near the end, it was great.
8.2 ish - 8.4 ish.
