Kings – First Night

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This episode was about court politics, the role of the royal family, and the relationship between Silas and his god.  It was less story and more set-up/character building, which is fine both because the series is still young and because it’s nice to get a sense of real time with the political decisions of the king.  If every episode were action-packed, it would feel unnatural, like we were never shown the behind-the-scenes analyzing and negotiating and agonizing that happen before each petition granted and each international peace proposal accepted.  So this week was about giving us a glimpse into the daily workings of the kingdom of Shiloh.

Today is Queen Rose’s day.  It is the day of her exclusive charity ballet both to promote the appreciation of arts in Shiloh and to raise money for a worthy cause.  Seats, we are told, were $10,000 apiece just to be among the 300 guests of the king.  David Shepherd is uninvited at the last minute after Queen Rose is told someone wanted to pay $100,000 to have his seat moved next to David’s in order to “see what he does next.”  All of a sudden David’s star is 10 times more valuable than that of Silas, and this state of affairs is unacceptable to the queen because (we discover a bit later) it threatens everything she has worked to build in the new kingdom.

David is disappointed not to be able to go, because he was hoping to see Princess Michelle–despite the fact that she snubbed him the last time they met.  Prince Jack, presumably at his mother’s behest, offers to take David out with him to party like royalty and even flies in two of David’s soldier friends from the front lines.  They go to several wild clubs.  Prince Jack is confronted by his male lover, whom he has not called for some time now (at his father’s orders, though he cannot admit that to the boy) and scorns him for not taking the hint when he didn’t call.  David is caught on camera kissing one of Prince Jack’s favorite lady friends, possibly also at his mother’s instruction.  David ultimately declines the offer to go home with her and leaves with his virtue mostly intact…but not his image.  Prince Jack is left alone and embittered at having had to break the heart of his heart’s real choice–but that was the price he agreed to pay for the power he wants to eventually inherit.

At the ballet after-party, Princess Michelle wonders why David did not come, and her mother plays innocent–that he chose not to come and to instead go out with Jack.  Queen Rose encourages her to speak with a long-time suitor, which she does…on the subject of whether his bank might be willing to co-finance her health care plan with the government.  Her disappointment at David’s absence is obvious, until the other man mentions that her mother had told him earlier in the day to expect a tête-à-tête with Michelle.  She confronts her mother about why David had been told not to come, and Rose explains that David’s star could not be allowed to outshine that of the royal family.  That everything about their lives had been designed to give the people of Shiloh hope and awe and larger-than-life royalty to look up to and adore.  She didn’t even like ballet, she tells her daughter, but she pretended to love it because it made such a good show for the people.  Michelle, perhaps naively, is shocked to discover her mother is so calculating and artificial and, in her own way, ruthless.

Meanwhile, King Silas is interrupted on this, the one night of the year he has promised to devote to his wife and her activities, with the urgent news that his illegitimate son’s chronic condition has taken a turn for the worse.  The boy has been hospitalized and is begging for his father.  Silas sneaks away to see him, covering his tracks with the queen by an emergency military protocol that was instituted by a general who “didn’t know” he was off-limits for the night.  When the doctor tells Silas there is nothing left for the boy but the dangerous last-resort treatment, Silas gives the go-ahead and sets off to confront Reverend Samuel about why God is taking this one special thing away from him, the one thing that he cannot lose.  The reverend does not have an answer to give him; God, he explains, has been silent on the subject of Silas lately.  His only advice is that if God is looking for atonement, then Silas must find another sacrificial lamb if he wants to save the one God has chosen.  In the end, Silas makes the choice to give up his second family in exchange for the boy’s safety.  He tells his mistress as he walks away that it is “the cost” of the boy’s seemingly miraculous recovery.  He asks his assistant what code word she uses for his time in the countryside:  serenity.  “Then serenity must end,” he announces poetically.

The episode wraps up with Michelle’s reaction to the photographic proof that David Shepherd is, as her mother claims, “not so virtuous, after all”:  shocked, angry hurt.  Personally, while I can understand her being upset over the picture of him kissing someone else, it’s a little unfair since she did tell him to leave her alone.  Perhaps she had changed her mind and had planned to tell him so at the ballet.  For now, they are embroiled in situational irony of the most dramatic Much Ado About Nothing–or Othello--ish type.

One of the things about this episode that I really liked was the notion of sacrifice, that the pursuit of power demands a sacrifice.  Jack must give up his lover.  Silas must give up his beloved second family.  Rose must give up her personal inclinations.  David and Michelle are still innocent of any lust for power; they seem like babes in the woods who are only now beginning to see the machinations of everyone around them.

Another was the subtly included divine right of kings aspect.  The reverend had said in the last episode that God had abandoned Silas, that Silas was thus no longer a real king.  God’s seeming anger with Silas in this episode (if you want to attribute the illness of his son to that, as Silas does) indicates a vested divine interest in the proceedings.  The idea of the divine right of kings is both a historical tradition and one that has shown up frequently in literature–certainly in Shakespeare, and also in plenty of medieval-analog fantasy worlds.  I think the belief is appropriate to bring into play in this show as a modern Shakespearean drama/tragedy (remains to be seen which, or perhaps it will prove to be both) and as a piece of speculative fiction.  I also like it simply as one more texturizer for this story being about a true monarch and not just a dictator by a different name…or is he?

Hm, good question.  Remains to be seen.  Guess I’ll just have to keep watching….

8 Comments

1. 

   Damon

   April 1, 2009 at 7:33 am

   I really dig this show, but I am glad I am not covering it It has so much going on. I really like the angle they are pulling with the king’s son. And here is my question, based on what the reverand says and Silas. Is the God in this reality talking directly to the people. It may seem to be the way with the crown of butterflys and the fact that Shepherd refers to it that way. Love the story, love the director, so far so good.

   Reply
2. 

   Damon

   April 1, 2009 at 10:51 am

   Yeah I would tend to agree, except that way we see the actual butterflies with David and the way Shepherd talk make it seem a little more of an interactive God. I agree the show is great, but I think it puts a lot of people off by being ambiguous. I wish it was a limited run show to be honest then we would have a real end if it does get canned.

   Reply
3. 

   Elena

   April 1, 2009 at 10:43 am

   I am more than happy to keep it.

   The angle they are pulling with the king’s son being…his resentment over David’s attention? His patricidal ambition? His forbidden homosexuality? All of the above? I like all of them with him, just wasn’t sure which you meant.

   For me so far the God aspect has been ambiguous, but in the best possible way. There are events that have happened (for example Silas’s supposed crown of butterflies and then David’s actual one) that the characters choose to interpret as being signs from God. Are they really? I am not sure. I hope the show never makes it clear. It’s one of the chilling and beautiful aspects of a great drama (I really do think this is a modern interpretation of a Shakespearean style epic story), to have “signs” that portend someones doom. Bewared the ides of March and you’ll be king until Beck’s Forest should march on Dunsinane and all that. But what makes the signs great, for me, in all those cases and so far with Kings, is that they may or may not be from any divine or otherworldly source. They may just be in the mind, in the characters’ desire to see a pattern of fate or the hand of God in their lives–perhaps even becoming self-fulfilling prophecies.

   So in short…I’m not sure if God is meant to be seen as speaking to the people, or if it’s meant to be up to however you personally want to interpret the signs, as coincidence (maybe butterflies like hair gel) or as a divine marking.

   Reply
4. 

   Kris

   April 1, 2009 at 11:02 am

   I’m glad you are posting the series summary (and others). I don’t really want to sit and watch so many shows and often seek good summaries about the stories. Reading instead of watching; imagine that?

   Reply
5. 

   Elena

   April 1, 2009 at 11:06 am

   Honestly, I kind of agree on the wishing it was a limited run. I don’t want to see it get bogged down and lose its sense of direction a la Battlestar after the first 3-4 episodes of Season 3, which is when they started rehashing themes and conflicts that had supposedly already been resolved. The first inklings of doom…I know this isn’t the place but have you watched the end yet? Get on it already and comment on appropriate column!

   Sorry. Anyway, yes, Kings does seem to have a particular storyline that its building and I’m not sure how well it will work in an “indefinite” series setting. My guess is that they have an exit strategy to wrap up the main story in, say, 2 episodes in case of cancellation. Rather like How I Met Your Mother does, which I appreciate about that show–it makes me feel safe to keep watching it.

   I am curious how much of an audience this show is actually getting, and who they are attracting. I don’t really see it as being a show that appeals to the “average” TV viewer–but I am not sure if NBC expected it to, or if they decided to make a show with good production value and intellectualism to appeal to a small demographic that will be loyal when a series is good. It seems to me like the show has good support from the network, again just based on the advertising I saw for it pre-airing, so I hope that means they took the time to think through who their audience was likely to be and the likely size.

   Maybe it’s the first step by a major network to lock into the current cultural trend of niches. By which I mean that, to me, it seems that instead of the American public becoming more homogenous, with the advent of the internet and a bazillion cable channels and youtube and all that, people are actually more and more settling into smaller subdemographics rather than all obsessing over the same thing. It is how the personal identity is being expressed in the age of mass media. So a show like Kings that appeals only to one demographic may be the first (or one of the first, anyway) cases of a network creating a show to appeal to that smaller group instead of the next CSI or Friends that 50% of TV viewers will watch at some point. By downsizing at least some of their programming, it allows them to stay relevant when that demographic could instead go watch something on Sci-Fi that was designed for them.

   I could be wrong and Kings gets the axe after 3 more weeks because its audience is no bigger than Battlestar’s…but I hope not. Cause I’m certainly loving it, too.

   Reply
6. 

   Elena

   April 1, 2009 at 11:10 am

   @ kris – glad you are enjoying the recaps! I can certainly imagine reading a handful of 1000 word summaries instead of investing 4 hours to get caught up on a new show. Or just to follow a story that intrigues me if I don’t watch much TV.

   With Kings, at least, there is a lot of visual interest in the filming and the set design so I think it’s worth actually watching.

   Reply
7. 

   Damon

   April 1, 2009 at 4:39 pm

   @Elena at this point I dont even know if it will be worth watching the end of Battlestar. You know what though Crusoe was supposed to be a limited to 13 week run and they couldnt even make it to that. I actually like Crusoe. Anyway yeah I dont know if with the way advertising is going niche shows make it, not when you can just add some dumb reality show to have triple its numbers for 1/10 th the cost. Should we start a petition to save Kings already? Really this is a show that if it was on Syfy or Sci Fi channel would have been something I didnt feel a shadow looming over.

   The only saving grace I see is that they leaving it on a night that does not do much traffic overall anyway. That is until Sunday night football and its on late enough that it doesnt complete with Nascar.

   I liked Heroes also when it started, but now dont even bother. Lets hope Kings comes out ok. Ok enough rambling by me Do you watch Reaper? Damn if that isnt a show you should be catching.

   Reply
8. 

   Elena

   April 1, 2009 at 8:10 pm

   Except that if it were on SyFy there’s no way they could get actors as well known as Ian McShane.

   Have you seen any kind of ratings for it? I’m curious to know how it’s doing in terms of viewership. On the bright side, its first season should be well finished by the time football starts back up…

   I don’t watch either Heroes or Reaper. And at this point, I am not sure what to suggest on BSG. Maybe watch until they jump away from the Cylon colony, because the last battle was pretty frakking awesome, and then just ignore the last hour of it. ?

   Reply