The Trickster
Episode 7 of Messiah begins with more scepticism surrounding Al-Masih’s latest act of God. The Vatican is also getting involved now too, by holding an investigation while we see more than 150,000 faithful have gathered in St Peter’s Square awaiting a statement from the pope. Unfortunately, this is also causing riots in Washington and as Anna becomes overwhelmed, Felix decides to help Al-Masih build his church. Qamar calls Eva and tells her she is needed back in the East but she refuses to come as she believes she’s onto something. She then meets with Cameron Collier in the White House where she explains that she believes Al-Masih is connected to Russia. This is where they believe Wallace is hiding who continues to entice his online followers to carry out acts of social disruption. However, he doesn’t think she has anything concrete and just wants him to be discredited. Meanwhile, we see that the Syrian refugees who left the camp have arrived in Jordan where a teacher called Zaid will be helping them while Rebecca is getting multiple messages on social media – and not all positive ones. In a university, we see a history class where Keon decides to leave following a discussion on the latest events. We later see him in his room, in deep thought while he looks at the Quran. In their hotel, Felix holds a conference with different media and religious figures where he tells them to heed Al-Masih’s calls and tells them to pray while we see Staci and her daughter sneaking in the hotel to find the latter. As they reach his room, he tells the mother that he will see her daughter – but only her. In the evening, Eva meets Aviram for drinks and reveals that Al-Masih is connected to Russia. She also talks about her mentor and we find out that his nephew is Keon whom she checks on every now and then. After helping a prostitute, Al-Masih follows Rebecca outside the hotel. As they stop to talk on a bridge, Keon walks past and calls Al-Masih a false prophet in Arabic. Al-Masih then ends the conversation by asking her to let go of all her burdens. Meanwhile, Qamar is questioning Adar about his brother who tells him that he always liked telling stories and often lied. He also explains that they were raised by their uncle who traveled a lot and was a trickster who taught them English and the art of illusion. The episode ends with Al-Masih returning to his room just as someone surprises him and places a black hood over his head. As expected, some people are now questioning whether Al-Masih has been tricking people and this might just be the case when we find out even more about his past and his upbringing. If this is really the case, he is definitely quite the clever character as he has been manipulating a lot of people. Eva is desperate to prove it and as she heads to the White House, she tries her best to explain that his actions could be a new form of terrorism, which is quite frightening and also morbidly fascinating to think about. The next episodes are bound to be even more interesting as the show seems to concentrate more on his potential lies and manipulation. Will Eva manage to convince the people around her and stop him from creating even more chaos? These questions should hopefully be answered soon and one thing I do hope is that we get a decent ending with resolutions to most of the plot points.
