Messiah - the most terrifying antagonist you have ever seen

Messiah Season 1 review 

 

We have seen many intricately written, created characters or spotlighted personalities from real life as our antagonist to fit the narrative of the fictional or non-fictional medium it represents (an antagonist is the one who opposes the protagonist/hero. But the correctness of defining protagonist as the hero and antagonist as the villain is merely subjective). In spite of antagonist having a controversial opinion of value they usually impart this with violence and hypocrisy, but what if you have an antagonist who fights with peace and create chaos as a byproduct? Enter Al Masih the messiah! 

The premise is that a mysterious man “Al Masih” (the name that he would eventually be called by his followers) shows up in the war ridden Damascus and pronounces him being the messenger of the God who will lead them to their true purpose. He convinces the crowd of impressionable people and later the critics with “miracles”. We follow the CIA, journalists and various governments, who all consider Al Masih with suspicion and the miracles as act of trickery or just circumstantial.  

The series is a mix of movie Risen 2016, of witnessing the resurrection through the perspective of a non-believer and the series Homeland, where a similar case of CIA officer suspecting someone who everyone else adores. Retelling the story of the son of god in the 21st century might be dull, stale and very boring as most of the population has increasingly turned away from faith and leaving barley any crowd whole heartedly in believing the existence of all self-conscious creator. The series had a very serious possibility of becoming preachy if they had openly portrayed Al Masih as who he claimed to be, but fortunately the coyness of the truth and planting seeds of information that would make you doubt his motivation or discredit his miracles are the stroke of genius.  

The series also let you in on the trouble of the Messiah being real as it might mean for you to disown everything you have as physical or ideological and plead for redemption under him or give up redemption for having the freedom of being that we held so dear. And also similar to this premise, it indicates that even the celebrated human of the history “Jesus Christ” may have been a populist politician with vindictive agenda towards Roman empire in accordance to the Jewish narrative. 

Bottom line 
A man armed with peace is more violent than a man armed with violence itself, and if Al Masih is a trickster then he is brandishing peace to creating chaos and confusion and even if he is real, he just taking away freedom of choice among us and either way the existence of a Messiah is the most terrifying antagonist and the series was competent in engraving this aspect.