Just ahead of the holidays, FOX delivers a compelling series in The Faithful.
The two-hour event essentially allows the story of Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar to unfold before our eyes.
But what we get, in a manner that’s again compelling and satisfying, is an opportunity to see a familiar story through the eyes and voice of the two women at the center of this tale.
In many ways, The Faithful serves as broadcast’s answer to The Chosen.
Here, we get one of the pivotal stories of the Bible, yes, but also a pivotal story that is unifying in its importance, how integral these figures are amongst Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
These three individuals are highly revered in interfaith circles, and The Faithful offers a perspective that’s not insular, is diverse, and is appealing in modern frameworks, too.
What makes it so refreshing is actually having the perspective of the powerful women in the Bible.
It goes without saying that when it comes to stories in the Bible, while there are many women with strong presences, the emphasis is most often on the men.
The Faithful allows these exact stories to be told, but centers the perspective of the women who are important figures in them. In doing so, these familiar stories take on deeper and more poignant meaning.
It’s a particularly captivating approach here as Hagar narrates the whole ordeal. As star Natacha Karam noted during our exclusive interview, Hagar is a woman who too often is treated like a footnote in her own story.
Yet, the premiere broadens and expands on that and her. We also get a deeply rich dynamic between Hagar and Sarah as they navigate an incredibly difficult situation while doing the best they can.
Minnie Driver and Karam are most definitely the driving forces of this premiere.
While Jeffrey Donovan is great as Abraham, especially as a loving, doting husband, adoring father, and man of such strong faith, he’s merely at the fringes of this story as it unfolds.
At the crux of the premiere is Hagar and Sarah’s sisterhood.
From the moment they met, there was such a deep connection. Hagar marveled at Sarah, a woman who openly stated that she would bow to no man.
For a woman to have such gumption, ferocity, and fearlessness at a time in which we don’t immediately associate those traits with women is awe-inspiring.
It’s also how The Faithful appeals to a modern audience and sparks a newfound appreciation for these women simply by bringing them to life onscreen and making them the center and focus of their own stories.
Sarah was such a force to be reckoned with, and it was endearing to see that this fire in her is what Abraham was drawn to rather than something he felt he had to fix or change about her.
All the traits that others implied would leave her unwed instead are what had him utterly devoted to her for nearly their entire lives.
It’s that same spark and fire that inspired Hagar. She credits Sarah for saving her, giving her the family she desires, and granting her the freedom that she never would’ve gotten had she stayed enslaved under Pharaoh in Egypt.
The Faithful showcases how the circumstances of these women’s lives profoundly affected them and could even hold them back in many ways.
However, they never feel stripped of their identity, agency, or sense of personhood. They feel well-rounded, as if the series’ goal is to fill in the blank spaces between pages — the gaps where we’re left to wonder.
The intrigue in this series lies in its ability to give a pronounced voice to the voiceless. As the premiere progresses, we learn just how powerful Hagar and Sarah’s voices are.
Hagar narrates, and we certainly get more insight into her, how she functions, and who she is than we likely would’ve gotten in written text.
But the premiere definitely centers on Sarah most. We dive into her resilience, how she’s this woman who has overcome a great deal, how she grapples with being barren when all she could want in the world is to bring a child into it.
Sarah doesn’t feel like some meek, pious wife but rather a genuine partner to Abraham. She is intelligent, independent, and clever, and these qualities combine to make a character who is both intriguing and frustrating.
But that’s what’s most admirable as well. Sarah has space to be infuriating in her complexities and flaws without it ever reading as if she’s a problem or terrible person.
Her flaws, her stubbornness, and even her questioning faith make her more interesting and more relatable than if she were merely perceived as the dutiful wife or as a woman whom Abraham had to apologize to or lead to her own faith in God.
Sarah had her own relationship with God, rocky as it was, but no less reflective of how people often struggle with moments of doubt along their respective faith journey.
What The Faithful depicts well is that each character has a unique relationship with God and requires different things.
Sarah was more inclined to waver because she was a woman who needed to see more immediate effects. God saving her from Pharaoh was a prime example.
Little actions like that were things she could cling to, just as when he had saved her from imprisonment again.
But when it came to accepting a plan in which she was a barren woman past her prime on the cusp of having her own child, she had her doubts.
It was even understandable to see how an analytical woman like Sarah would surmise that God’s intentions were perhaps that Abraham would have a child of his own blood just with someone else — Hagar.
And she jumped at the chance to put that plan into action, interestingly enough, not even consulting with Abraham about it much. She made a contract with Hagar before she even talked things through with her own husband.
And once she did, he just went along with it, despite his own faith. Sarah was pretty insistent, but I can also understand why she noted that he didn’t protest about lying down with Hagar nearly enough.
Whereas with Hagar, we had a mysterious woman who found God through this family she formed with Abraham and Sarah over the years. God sent an angel to speak to her twice during her times of need.
Knowing who she was, a woman, an enslaved person, an Egyptian… It’s profound, especially in its reiteration of God’s love for all indiscriminately.
And through those moments, she came to realize the importance of Ishmael and what he’d become.
Hagar’s story feels like one of real sacrifice and patience.
It was heartbreaking to watch her essentially raise her own son without him knowing the truth until he was a teen. And then to come to grips with the fact that prophecy didn’t play out as they had thought.
Ishmael wasn’t a true heir regardless of the contract, and once Sarah had Isaac, it seemed she poured her all into him, at Ishmael’s expense. Resentment was already building from one poor kid toward the other.
Abraham recounting stories of Cain and Abel didn’t help.
So, Sarah orchestrating a plan that would ultimately push Hagar and Ishmael away for their own good aligned with her clever nature, even if it was also easy to interpret those moments another way.
The Faithful leans more toward the idea that Sarah’s behavior is an act of love and is noble in its own right, which differs from other interpretations of her behavior.
It’s a powerful story, and so is the dynamic between Hagar and Sarah.
But when viewed through a modern lens, the power dynamics are so strong.
It’s a story that makes you reflect on the complexities of surrogacy and the pitfalls of it, even via contracts, blended, and unorthodox families and hierarchy.
And as I pondered those things, I felt genuine empathy for Hagar and all she endured.
She did everything everyone asked her to do, and it makes it difficult to consider how she, in fact, became secondary to someone else’s story and destiny.
Even in this one to some degree.
Sarah is often heralded as the great matriarch, the first matriarch.
Interestingly, Hagar is considered one of the great matriarchs in Islam as well. The one thing that would’ve made this a bit stronger was if it were better balanced in centering both women…
As much as I loved seeing the intricacies of their dynamic onscreen, it still very much felt like just Sarah’s story.
And Hagar has the more interesting story. It’s one of oppression and exploitation, sacrifice and resilience. She’s traditionally viewed as the first woman to whom God appears and the first person to name God.
The Faithful delivers these poignant moments, but they also feel a little understated in the grand scheme of things.
Nevertheless, The Faithful was a great watch.
Approaching this by focusing on the women of the Bible allows you to engage with familiar stories from an entirely different perspective and maybe even expand your own perspective as a result.
Karam and Driver deliver really strong performances and have such great chemistry that they’re impossible to turn away from.
And the series is visually strong, too.
It was filmed in Italy, and the setting almost serves as its own character in the story. We’re transported to Canaan, Harran, and Egypt. It adds an essential element to the story.
And it’ll be particularly interesting to see how that continues with the next stories.
Over to you, The Faithful Fanatics. What did you think of this premiere? Sound off below!
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