TV Review --God Friended Me

Sixth Tuesday of Easter

I love "God Friended Me." I know at least one couple among you watch this show. Here's the premise:

Miles Finer, a young man in New York who does a podcast entitled The Millennial Prophet (Miles is an atheist) gets a text message from someone claiming to be God (or maybe it is God) giving him a friend suggestion. The friend suggestions name is someone Miles doesn't know. A few minutes later Miles goes to take a subway home and is able to save someone about to be killed by an oncoming subway. The person he saves Miles quickly finds out is the person on the friend suggestion. 

Miles tells his friends Cara and Raquesh, who are both intrigued. More friend suggestions come periodically from what Miles, Cara, and Raquesh call "The God Account." Raquesh is a computer professional. Cara writes for a magazine. Miles quickly learns that he can do something to help each of these friend suggestions, all of whom are in desperate situations of one sort or another. Each episode deals with a different friend suggestion.

Miles is estranged from his father, Arthur, who is the minister of Harlem Episcopal Church. Miles lost his faith after his mother died of breast cancer when he was growing up. Miles's sister/Arthur's daughter, Allie, is able to reconcile the two. Allie, who is a bar owner,  still very much has her faith. They all puzzle over the God account. None of them think that it's God. The series develops with two themes. One is the friend suggestions that keep coming from the God account and that Miles and his friends keep tracking down and finding out that they can do things to help these friend suggestions out of various sorts of difficult situations. The other theme is trying to find out who is behind the God account. Raquesh with his computer abilities keeps coming close but something always comes up that disables his computer, or his program, or his screen goes blank, or leads him to someone who is not behind the God account. They all keep trying to find the person behind the God account, but never do. All the characters are very likable people. The show blessedly lacks villains 

In one of the later episodes Miles's friend suggestion is his hero, the man who wrote the atheist book that convinced Miles to be an atheist. The man (I can't remember his name) has been in depression. Miles and Cara are able to help him. When Miles invites him to be on the podcast, he tells on the podcast that he has come to believe in God through the help that Miles and Cara gave him and that it is God who is behind the God account. Miles is shocked and disappointed By the end of this year's series Miles becomes open to the possibility of God. 

There are many subplots. The relationship between Miles and Cara goes from friendship to love to breakup to friendship to love over many episodes. Arthur becomes Bishop of New York and gets married again. Ali gets breast cancer and almost dies because of a heart problem in surgery. Arthur tells Miles to pray. Miles leaves the hospital for a few minutes and walks around. It's not entirely clear whether he prays or tries to. He comes back to the hospital and Ali has had a miraculous turn and survives. 

The show in some ways reminds me of "Touched By an Angel," if you can remember that one, but God friended me is far more intellectually sophisticated. Whether the God account is really God underlies it, whether God exists underlies it. Everyone assumes that the God account is the creation of some human, but why, and how does this human know who needs help and that Miles and friends can help. The viewer is left wondering how it will all come out, though the viewer, or at least this viewer, thinks it's God. I suspect that the show will end with no one finding the author of the God account and the question still up in the air. 

Yesterday I wrote about God things. Every episode of God Friended Me is about a God thing. In the last snippet Miles tells about what happens next year. Ali follow in her father's footsteps and goes to seminary to become an Episcopal priest. Miles goes to the Himalayas, apparently in search of God in an Eastern setting. 

It's unclear whether the show will continue. I guess its unclear whether anything will continue. If social distancing and sheltering in place remain, much TV  will have to change. Last Monday's "All Rise" had all the characters doing a court case on Zoom. It was a brilliant production. Will that sort of thing have to continue. 

I hope God Friended Me returns, or if not, that the rerun the whole series (it has run for two years). If you haven't seen it, and get a chance to, I highly recommend it.

Faithfully,

Christian