The Faithful continues its ambitious biblical retelling with another character-driven installment, this time focusing on one of the most complicated matriarchs.
The Woman Who Risked Everything explores Rebekah, wife to Isaac and mother to Jacob and Esau, framing her story as one of devotion, destiny, and impossible choices.
The hour attempts to center Rebekah’s perspective as a mother navigating warring sons while bearing the burden of divine knowledge that clashes with her husband’s wishes. But does it succeed?
Well, that’s a tough one.
What these installments do well is work as a great follow-up to The Faithful Series Premiere. By the end of that story, we caught our first glimpse of Tom Mison’s adult Isaac.
But here, we get some perspective that was otherwise lacking, not so much about everything Isaac had endured in his life, but rather how he felt about some of the key events in it.
Mainly, within the first hour, the installment touches on how complicated Isaaac’s own relationship is with God because of the incident of Abraham nearly sacrificing him at God’s request.
It’s interesting to hear him talk about what it was like for him, knowing that he was a test of his father’s faith — that if God asked for it, and didn’t stop him, his own father would’ve killed him without hesitation.
You don’t really think about that perspective often, and it’s nice that this installment doesn’t shy away from how something like that strained Isaac’s relationship with Abraham.
How could it not? You don’t simply “get over” that your father almost murdered you, regardless of the intent behind it.
It’s actually through that that Isaac and Rebekah’s relationship gains some legs, despite his treatment of her when she first arrived. She exuded genuine sympathy, willing to reconsider how she had perceived Abraham, whom she admired, after learning that story.
And it serves as a solid foundation for that romance because, beyond the early days of their dynamic, their relationship feels more like contention than love, devotion, or partnership, to the degree of Abraham and Sarah.
It’s actually interesting to see how different those love stories play out. The former very much feels like a love story that blossoms into Sarah becoming a Matriarch of the Abrahamic religions.
Whereas the latter feels less like a love story between a couple and more like a love story between Rebekah and her son, Jacob.
Yes, just the one son. Rebekah is certainly one of the primary matriarchs, and she also gave off peak “Boy Mom.”
This story plays out a bit differently because of its pacing and the fact that it feels more like an ensemble than Alexa Davolos leading.
The intention here is to put us in Rebekah’s mindset as a woman who heard God’s message when he spoke to her during her pregnancy and has spent the better part of decades trying to bring it to fruition.
Often, throughout the story, we’re told via the dialogue how heavily this weighs on her, and that it’s coming at great cost that she’s carrying this secret or watching her family tear itself apart.
But it’s a bit difficult to really feel it, specifically from her perspective.
It’s another Biblical story of brothers at odds, namely because God disrupts human order and rules about hierarchy and entitlement.
From Cain and Abel and Isaac and Ishmael to Jacob and Esau.
It’s such a prominent theme that in this instance, it overtakes Rebekah’s story. Davolos tries to capture Rebekah’s conflict, but it’s largely overshadowed by Tom Payne and Ben Robson‘s portrayals of these brothers at odds.
Ultimately, Rebekah’s story still very much feels like Jacob and Isaac’s.
Davalos and Payne have great chemistry and the most solid dynamic out of these installments’ offerings.
Perhaps that’s what leads to the depiction of this story feeling so strongly like one of favoritism — when it felt like we’d get something with a bit more depth to round the sharp edges of Rebekah’s story, wherein she favors one son and deceives her husband.
I anticipated a bit more nuance to her story than we got — like one in which we got to see a mother who loved both of her sons but was motivated by a desire to help God’s plan along and didn’t want to see either of her sons hurting.
But outside of a moment where she halfheartedly speaks to Esau’s sleeping form, it never really does feel like she loves him as much as Jacob.
And Isaac’s favoritism toward Esau doesn’t even feel as prominent as whatever traumas he harbors from his own complicated relationship with God, his past, and what happened with Ishmael.
If anything, it mostly felt like he was resentful that God spoke to Rebekah and even Abraham about his sons rather than to him, and he never let go of that or wanted to trust in what Rebekah said — in part because of her own bias in the first place.
Mostly, compared to the premiere, Rebekah feels lost in her own story, and The Faithful doesn’t do the best job of centering her in this one or in her conflict.
The occasional bit of dialogue gives voice to the conflict and alludes to a nuanced shading of Rebekah onscreen, but we don’t actually see much of it.
It was a much harder story to bring to life, in which Rebekah comes across as more layered and complex, in addition to her flaws. Here, she feels a bit shallow and thinly written.
The Woman Who Risked Everything didn’t sell me on the stakes or complexities. But I loved this ensemble regardless.
Over to you, The Faithful Fanatics. How do you feel about this depiction of this story? Let’s hear all of your thoughts below!
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