Of all the things that have enjoyed a rise in popularity during the pandemic (sweatpants Zoom meetings, people actually respecting your personal space, and having an ironclad excuse to avoid going out or really doing anything) perhaps the most interesting is streaming services. The rush of every content distributor big and small to stake its claim in the market has created an explosion of streaming-exclusive content, of which the miniseries has maybe had the most success. With the rise in streaming the line between traditional television series and movies has blurred. With the ability to watch movies from the comfort of your own home comes an increased attention span that some movies have taken advantage of by increasing runtimes to over 3 and even 4 hours. Conversely, the same increased attention span has lead to a rise in television shows aiming to tell more self-contained stories similar to movies. These mini-series seek to tell a single story to be consumed in a more streamlined way than the traditional weekly, commercial-filled format. Movies are becoming longer, like shows, and shows are becoming more focused, like movies. Of all the mini-series I have seen, however, there have been none that scratched both itches for me as satisfyingly as HBO’s The Young Pope.
The 2016 mini-series is both wildly daring in its art film-like cinematography and expertly crafted with its weaving narratives and subplots rivaling the best TV shows. The show is a House of Cards-esque story following the recently elected fictional Pope Pious XIII and his devilish political machinations inside the Vatican. Originally elected by the cardinals as a compromise candidate that they thought would be easy to control Pious instead takes charge of the Catholic Church as a radical reactionary that seeks to bring brimstone and fire back to the Catholic church. He launches a campaign to teach the Catholic faithful that it takes suffering to find God, and will trample anyone inside the Vatican that stands in his way. However, as the show progresses it becomes clear that Pious’ own iron-fisted papacy is actually the result of a deep insecurity stemming from when his own parents abandoned him at an orphanage as a child. The trauma of being callously discarded by his own family left such a deep wound in Pious that he wants other people’s love of God to cause them the pain that his love for his parents caused him. It’s a brilliantly heartbreaking study of a person beloved by over a billion people but who is unable to truly love himself. The brilliance of the show is most evident in the perfect “Fifth Episode”. The episode features a scandalous attempt by the Vatican Secretary of State to blackmail the pope into resigning by using a series of photos that seem to show the pope in a morally compromising situation with a young woman. The pope then goes to visit his fellow orphan, Dussolier, where the two proceed to have a night out exploring the town reminiscent of their daring adventures from their childhood shared together at an orphanage run by the nun Sister Mary, an orphan herself. The two laugh and talk and reminisce and for what feels like the first time in the series Pious seems to be unguarded and vulnerable. When they finally return in the early hours of the following morning they are greeted by Sister Mary anxiously awaiting their return just as she did all those years ago in the orphanage. The three of them walk silently together back into the Vatican as the only family any of them have ever known. The rest of the episode is an enthralling continuation of the blackmail plotline with Pious confronting the Secretary of State about his plan before giving his first address to the cardinals, but the soul of the episode, just like the soul of the show, lies in Pious’ search for family in whatever form he can find.
I feel strongly that The Young Pope is one of the best television shows of the last decade and was slightly ahead of its time in many ways. It’s the kind of show audiences could really sink their teeth into if it all came out at once on a streaming service, rather than languishing on a premium cable channel at a time when people were cutting the cable. If it were released today I think it would’ve found a much larger audience as viewers have become more open to the concept of a self-contained mini-series with a definitive ending, but maybe its daring freshness gave it the edge it needed to be truly genius.
Matthew Daugherty is a young writer from Cleveland, Ohio with a love of pop culture, politics, and the intersection of the two. As a part-time writer and full-time crank, Matt can be found shouting into the void on Twitter at @mdaugherty1221.