This show has a lot going for it: great actors, interesting settings, intriguing historical type mystery. I watched in fascination as the secrets slowly became revealed, and the tension built and built through the ten episodes. And as the story was coming to its powerful conclusion... it suddenly died with a puff of dust and a splash of water. What the heck happened? For almost eight episodes the story got better and better. Why did the writers destroy it all in the last 2 or 3 episodes? Some examples...
Major Spoilers ahead.
Debbie (Lauren Ambrose) is a hard-life girl who finds some redemption for her bad choices, in protecting and trying to save Josh (Zen McGrath) the young messiah-in-training. She rescues him from his desert confines more than once, and the young guy helps her in their escapes, and the two of them have a certain connection together from their shared experiences. But in a twist as the story nears its climax, the good guy Josh ends up being the bad guy, and kills the hero Debbie without a struggle, and the hero dies a useless death. One quick and gurgling neck slashing, thus dies the hero.
Peter (Jason Isaacs) is a hard-life FBI agent, who finds some solace over his daughter's death when he meets Emma (Alison Sudol) a smart and somewhat innocent young woman, who he helps keep safe after her abduction, and as he wrestles with their mutual attraction to each other. He also finds a good friend in his antagonist partner Golan (Ori Pfeffer) who gives him unexpected support as they encounter numerous dangers while they protect Emma and piece together the answers to multiple mysteries. But in a twist as the story reaches its climax, the good guy Emma ends up being the bad guy, and kills the hero Golan without a struggle, and the hero dies a useless death. One quick and gurgling neck slashing, thus dies the hero.
Seriously? These are two different story lines in two different countries, and both of the rescued victims end up slashing the necks of their saviors, killing two of the main heroes right before the end.
The last few episodes have other issues that greatly weakened the story's ending. Let's see...
There was the young shy guy Avram who is the first character we get to know in the whole series and we follow him in each episode, which puts a huge importance on him as a character. But at the end his character doesn't make much sense. In his desire to protect the calf he can apparently justify killing a priest or the young boy Josh, all to keep them from killing the calf. But then he doesn't have to, and at the climax, just as the calf is to be sacrificed, he has no difficulty at all in simply walking away with the calf, when the surrounding crowds of people are magically distracted by a distant explosion. No conflict, no drama. Just walk away quietly and bring the calf to a far off farm to live out its life in peace.
And the exploding dam that was to flood big swaths of the city. It starts to crack, we see some gushing water in one small underground shaft, but that's it. And then shortly later, in the emergency drainage tunnels that were presumably being pounded with torrents of water, those tunnels are now somehow only damp and there is no water to be seen. What, did the big lake and river behind the dam completely drain in five minutes? Never mind that Emma and the archaeologist somehow survived being in those same drainage tunnels.
And then we find out that sweet smart Emma was apparently the mastermind behind much of what happened at the end. She was avenging the death of her family by the archaeologist, and did all this to maneuver him into just the right place so that she could kill him. Never mind that she'd been working with him, and even sleeping with him, for months. And never mind that she wasn't shown as being at all psycho during any of the other episodes, but at the very end she was. And though she was avenging the death of her family, she had no qualms about killing Golan, who she knew was a father in his own family.
And a quick shout-out to the big bad preacher man who dies a long lingering death from choking on a cashew. A cashew!
For the first seven episodes I'd give an average of 8 stars. But the last few episodes totally destroyed the story and many of the most important characters. A twist is only a twist if it was at least somewhat foreshadowed. Otherwise its just making stuff up. And after a full season of buildup you can't avert Armageddon by letting the calf loose in a sunny meadow.
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