Recap time! Introducing all the horsemen and the fact
they’re going to use the shiny rock to break the 5th seal and cause
all kind of badness using drones to spread them far and wide. They also realise
that the whole “you can’t kill a horseman” rule came from Rose who may not be
the best source given the givens.
Since they need guidance, Joshua has a vision – the city
the horseman are targeting is Houston (so they can kill the Messengers as well)
and Vera’s long lost irrelevant son Michael is also involved. The vision also
shows them all dying which I suppose is sad.
Of course such a big ominous announcement requires some
tearful goodbye scenes: Raul to Nadia (who is taking Amy Satan-Spawn away) and
Nadia calls Raul “dad.” Vera calls Alan to ask him to leave town and be safe –
and to take Michael with him. She’s realised she can’t be distracted from her
mission to save Michael (which shows a lot of growth of her character), she
needs Alan to do it. First he needs to pick up professor Leo, Michael’s father.
To Michael’s parents who are now all tormented over the
evil things the devil has made them do and they’ve realised the only way they
can try to make it right is get Michael (or Brian as they call him) back to
Vera – because a school aged kid being taken away from the only parents he’s
ever known will definitely fix everything
Said kid overhears all this and isn’t hugely thrilled by
this.
It looks like Lucifer is no longer on their side because
he’s working with Ronnie, Erin’s ex-husband and Amy’s dad, to kill the
Fairburns (Michael’s adoptive parents) and Michael because… because he’s the
devil and he doesn’t need a reason.
Joshua’s also kind of worried about Amy Satan-Spawn and
contemplates some holy child murder before she turns the ultimate power of
supreme cuteness against him. Fear the power of little girl hugging you and
saying how nice you are!
Erin says goodbye to Amy who is being taken away by Nadia
to stay with her mother in Tulsa. She then tearfully hugs Joshua about letting
her daughter go – and Rose, Horseman of Death, appears to use death woo-woo. Couldn’t
she have done this earlier? I mean she was with the group for so long, she
could have bumped off three or four of them!
Amusingly, Raul and Zahir talk and try to present the
idea that this show is totally multi-religious because of the multi-religious
Messengers (various stripes of Christianity, a Muslim (Zahir), Jew (Erin), Buddhist
(Koa) and an atheist (Vera)) and kind of ignoring the whole blatant Judeo-Christian
mythology all through. Oh Messengers, you tried.
Everyone’s in airport looking for Pestilence and trying
to lock down the building to stop him hacking the systems to keep the drones
(which will deliver the Shiny Doom Rock) off airtraffic control (and being shot
down, because mysterious flying things near busy airports are generally
regarded with Some Hostility). Lucifer drops in to add more information about
Vera losing her son, Michael – turns out he’s called Michael for a reason, he’s
an Archangel. He also tells he has his own kid because of the antichrist which
he’s all excited about and I have no idea why he’s telling Vera this. But he
does have the location of the launch site of the drones so he is still trying
to help.
The Messengers (except Erin and Joshua) go to the site
and are captured by War and her soldiers. Well, briefly, before angry Zahir
unleashes his zappy powers (and Raul grabs a gun. Hey is anyone going to remind
Peter of his super strength?). Zahir is injured in the fight though. Why they
didn’t bring Erin along I do not know
The victory is short lived and they’re soon all captured
again.
Lucifer appears and unleashes his wings to look all ominous – but the four horsemen let loose their own wings and shiny powers, knocking him aside. The four of them are stronger than him. Rose confirms her villainhood by responding to Joshua’s begging by mocking all of their various reasons for angst – deciding this is why humanity deserves to die for being weak (god destroys humanity due to whining? Harsh).
The Drones are launched and the evil shiny rock, the
Genesis Element, is deployed, covering the city in an ominous red light –
including Nadia and Amy, Leo and Allan who haven’t got clear of the city.
Joshua decides to respond with a group prayer session,
which is an excuse for a huddle and have a plan – getting Zahir to a generator
to destroy it while everyone else acts as a human shield to protect him,
willing to sacrifice themselves.
They run, putting themselves between Zahir and the gun
men, one by one they’re shot until Zahir reaches the generator – and is shot as
well. He doesn’t get to use his power
Except the ominous red Genesis element turns blue (good
Genesis element rather than evil) and instead of raining death it just rains
(Lucifer snarks at god), rain that burns the horsemen.
In the blue rain we see Nadia and Amy, Ronnie suddenly
regretting everything (he has burned down the Fairburn’s home) and Leo suddenly
able to walk
The Horseman, dead on the ground from bullet wounds, all
heal. Vera goes to the charred Rose and tells her it’s over – but she says it’s
just beginning before she turns to dust.
In the aftermath Vera meets the walking Leo and Michael –
who was rescued from the Fairburn’s burning house.
Two weeks later (Archangel and Antichrist seem to be good
friends now). Ronnie is locked up. Nadia and Peter are together. Raul and Erin
are together. Koa and Zahir marvel over angel powered cell phones. Joshua also
reflects they still have something to do – because all of them still have
powers which means their job isn’t done. Vera tells Joshua about her Archangel son
– he warns her about the antichrist, who he says is Amy. Vera absolutely
refuses to have kids labelled that way.
Amy sees Lucifer and calls him father. So that pretty much answers that question.
Ok that ending was super-twee but I think it worked. It
worked that, ultimately, The Messengers won not because of power but because of
simple, pure unselfish self-sacrifice. It’s twee, but it’s right.
I do appreciate the Messengers are multi-religious, it’s
a nice touch. But it feels like a tiny, weak attempt to present this very
judeo-christian story as multi-faith. Ultimately, we’re talking about the
horsemen, several broken seals, Lucifer and are repeatedly quoting the book of
revelations. Unless more effort is made to present how these can be scene
through the lenses of the different faiths, what we end up with “hey we have a
group of multi-faith Messengers. But those who aren’t Judeo-Christian are,
well, wrong.” They tried, I think they genuinely did, but there’s not enough
effort put into it or enough development.
Which I think is one of the problems with the Messengers. It actually got really
interesting about the same time Rose was revealed to be Death. Before then the
pacing was slow and the development shallow. There was little development of
the concept of the Messengers (they
could have just been X-Men), the horsemen (or what they get out of this), the
seals or the supposed weaknesses the Messengers were supposed to have (which
most of them didn’t have). Everyone had personal dramas – everyone. Peter being
orphaned, Raul and Nadia, Erin, Amy and Ronnie, Vera and missing Michael,
Joshua and his dad and wife – all of these issues and, with the endless and
utterly boring exception of Vera and Michael, none of them really went
anywhere. We had little time consuming hints of each one but none more than
enough to give a brief addition to each character. Don’t get me wrong, it was
nice to have those brief additions of development but there just wasn’t enough
time for them all – and it actually left me feeling some of the Messengers were
surplus (Peter and even Erin, neither of whom seemed to be involved that much
in what the Messengers do).
Speaking of surplus – Amy Satan-Spawn and Michael
Archangel – save that for season 2 (yes, I know it may not be renewed) because
there’s already too much distraction with the various personal dramas of the
many characters and the Magic Shiny Rock which never really got developed to
throw in another plot line and another group of characters (Ronnie, the
Fairburns). I realise it needs setting up for the story to continue but it’s
just so full that everything felt like a distraction. It’s actually a shame because
the second half (or, well, last third) of the season was pretty good but it was
a hard slog to get there
We do have quite a racially diverse cast. The Messengers
had Raul (Latino), Koa (Asian), Zahir (Black). Connected to them were Nadia
(Latina), Alan (Black) and, tangentially through villainy, Rose (Black). There
were some problems – Alan was very much on the edge of the plot and did very
much serve to run around after a White woman who didn’t seem to have all that
much attention for him (not saying she should have given the givens and I’m
certainly not crying out for more of a romance plot – but I think I’d have
liked it more if we had Alan overtly decide to save the world as his primary
motive). Zahir was such a very belated entry, Koa as well, albeit less so (and
with Rose changing sides there was very much a shuffling of the POC characters
except Raul). However, Raul was one of the most involved Messengers by far and
Koa’s ability was probably used more than any others and she became far more
integral (and was far more interesting) than, well, any of the others. There
were some tropes (Raul fighting against a man who was literally known only as “el
jefe” and Rose being a disturbingly sexual Jezebel Death – which there was no
need for) but a lot was turned round. Rose going from the magical wise Black
woman guide to a cunning enemy was certainly more interesting even with the
unnecessary Jezebel tropes.
Two of the four horsemen were women – and both of them
leaders and while Death had some sexualisation the general trope of
sexy-evil-woman was clearly avoided. While Erin wasn’t the most dominant of the
Messengers, Vera and Koa certainly were and both of them held onto their own
agendas and lives more than most of the others, I also like Nadia’s character
even as a non-messenger, she was influential and her interactions with Raul
were good. Vera’s and Erin’s storylines did revolve heavily around being mothers
–but Koa’s certainly did not.
We had a briefly appearing disabled character in Leo –
which looks dubious. He’s clearly set up to be a much more important character
next season rather than a bit part – so they magi-cured him. This is a terrible
trope – introducing disabled characters and then magically curing them when you
want them to be involved in the plot just suggests that a person who is
actually in a wheelchair could not possibly be an active part of the story
We had a very briefly appearing Lesbian, Josh’s sister. She
was there to basically forgive him his apparent past homophobia (not that he
really apologised) so that she could then serve as life lesson and growth
moment for him. She wasn’t a character, she was a plot device and was never
seen again.
Honestly I don’t know if I want The Messengers to be renewed or not. For much of the season I haven’t
enjoyed it, its pacing has been poor, it’s development lacking and it all felt
terribly crowded. But, towards the end, several elements did pick up and now we
have had this large cast of characters well established I think it’s possible
that it could be much better than it has been.
