Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Kingdom’ On Netflix, About A Televangelist Who’s Thrust Into The Political Spotlight After An Assassination

One of the reasons why we do this Stream It Or Skip It column is that the first episode of a series has a lot of heavy lifting to do, including all the characters and what their situations are in relation to the general premise. When there are a lot of characters, that becomes tough to do. And when that information is missing, it makes a show too hard to follow and impossible to connect with. That’s what we found when we watched the Argentinian drama The Kingdom.

THE KINGDOM: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: In the window of a massive school/dorm building, a lantern light goes on. A boy climbs a lot of stairs to an attic, where a younger boy is hiding.

The Gist: We’re introduced to Emilio Vázquez Pena (Diego Peretti) by way of his daughter Ana (Vera Spinetta), who is in one of the student dorm rooms with Julio Clamens (Chino Darín); they’re engaged in a secret affair that’s led to Ana getting pregnant. They have to be discreet because Julio is still in debt to Emilio, a well-known televangelist who is running for Argentina’s vice president, on a ticket with Armando Badajoz (Daniel Kuzniecka).

As Ana sneaks back to her room, she runs into her mother Elena (Mercedes Morán), who knows Ana is up to something. When Elena rejoins Emilio in their room, he’s nursing a black eye. Elena wants Julio out of the residence, but Emilio still wants to have him close by.

In preparation for a big campaign rally that night, Badajoz tells his campaign manager, Rubén Osorio (Joaquín Furriel), to tone down Emilio’s speech, touting love of Jesus above any Republic. Badajoz hates Emilio’s religious rhetoric and regrets that Rubén insisted that the pastor be on the ticket.

We cut to a bed with a number of weapons laid out on it. A seemingly deranged man, with a massive cross tattooed on his back, chooses a dagger that is sheathed in a cross; we see him leaving Emilio’s school, and he heads towards the campaign rally.

Despite protestors trying to disrupt the rally, both candidates insist it should continue. The two of them are on stage, when Emilio suddenly drapes the cape he’s wearing, that says “JESUS SAVES” on it, over the back of Badajoz. Suddenly, the deranged man bounds onto the stage and stabs Badajoz in the back. We’re not sure if he just saw the cape and the attack was meant for Emilio or not. But Badajoz collapses and can’t be revived.

Roberta Candia (Nancy Dupláa), the district attorney investigating the case, is respectful of Emilio and his family but something about the murder that doesn’t sit right with her. She at first thinks that the killer is a deranged nut, but her assistant comes back with information that he was a churchgoer and teacher at Emilio’s school.

Rubén feels that the best thing the campaign can do is damage control, which means that Emilio will ascend to the top of the ticket, despite his lack of political experience.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? There isn’t a show that’s a direct comparison to The Kingdom. It’s a bit of a Manchurian Candidate type of story, with undertones of shows like The Righteous Gemstones; as Emilio’s presidential campaign moves forward, the skeletons that he and his family have carefully buried will likely get dug up.

Our Take: It’s really hard to get a handle on what is going on in The Kingdom (original title: El Reino) during tis first episode. There are a ton of moving parts, and the main moving part isn’t well defined. That moving part is Emilio and his family. By the end of the first episode, we don’t know much about him, his ministry or his school. We know that there are kids there, and that one of the students is harboring what can best be described as a stowaway. We know that the killer worked at the school and may or may not have had it out for Emilio.

But none of that comes together well enough for us to have an idea of what Emilio will bring to the campaign as the head of the ticket. He’s a zealot, to be sure. But how much of a zealot? Is he a Jim Bakker-level nut that peddles fake COVID cures 30 years after he embezzled from his old ministry? It feels like Elena runs the show from behind the scenes, but what is her influence, and is Emilio more of a figurehead? How did he get that black eye?

We understand how the show’s creators, Marcelo Piñeyro and Claudia Piñeiro, may want to keep the family’s secrets under wraps for a few episodes, but we’re given so little information in the first segment that trying to figure out who’s who and what their relationships are to each other is tough. There’s just too much going on with too little information. In fact, by the end of the episode, we seem to know more about the DA, Roberta Candia, who has been frustrated over failed IVF treatments.

With no sense of what’s really at stake, it’s hard to connect with any of the characters. And, if you can’t connect with the characters, the chances of watching more episodes are pretty much nil.

Sex and Skin: None, at least in the first episode.

Parting Shot: One of the other instructors at the school, who goes into the assassin’s room, sees the weapons, and proceeds to bury them, goes into the dining room, catches the eye of the boy harboring the stowaway, and the two of them stare at each other.

Sleeper Star: There wasn’t any performance we would classify as a sleeper. In fact, many of the supporting characters blended together.

Most Pilot-y Line: The detective on the scene tells the DA “You’d be in better company with the killer,” when Candia tells him she’ll be questioning Emilio and his family.

Our Call: SKIP IT. There’s so little character development in the first episode of The Kingdom that we found ourselves caring very little about any of the characters or the implications of Emilio’s surprise candidacy.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream The Kingdom On Netflix