The New Pope (1×09) Episode 9 Review

For our review of the last episode of The New Pope, click here.

Synopsis: John Paul III addresses his followers with a message of love that resonates. A historic meeting of the minds occurs after six children and their teacher are taken hostage on the island of Ventotene. As the Church prepares for battle, Voiello (Silvio Orlando) receives a visit from a man close to the caliph and a rescue mission has an unexpected conclusion. (HBO)

As The New Pope comes to a head, Malkovich and Law finally split the headlining slot in this final episode with the former kicking off the episode a brilliantly-performed scene while the latter closes it, in sequences that shows all of their respective powers as actors. 

While the characters remain at the heart of it all, episode nine does have a decidedly different tone to it. Its pacing picks up as storylines start to tie themselves up and the characters move much faster through the episode’s narrative. But for a series that has so patiently made its way through eight other episodes using such a purposeful pace, this speeding up of the action feels really at odds to everything that has come before. 

The character arc of Malkovich’s Brannox has been fairly stop and start throughout and this episode does give him something of a satisfying ending but Jude Law on the other hand feels like he’s just getting started as the series comes to an end. His tone is something of a superhero who’s going to fly in through a window to save the day but for everything that’s come before now, I’d much rather have Malkovich – who’s done all the heavy lifting as far as being the titular New Pope goes – given the limelight right to the very end. While Law gives a performance that shows exactly how much Belardo has changed, it just doesn’t feel like his end-point is very deserving, if you look back at the other eight hours of television audiences have had to sit through. 

Visually, the final episode of the series has everything you’d expect. It’s a beautifully-created hour of television, with a return to the elegance that we saw in the first episode when the cardinals were voting inside the Sistine Chapel. 

What this episode does is start to explore themes and ideas that would have been really interesting fodder for the entire series. It just feels a bit like it’s too little too late. If there wasn’t so much pondering over the events of the last eight episodes, and more of this narrative, the series would feel so much more satisfying. For such a purposefully-paced series, it seems to come to a fast end with everything tied up in a bow really quickly. It does feel like a satisfying ending, it’s just been a really long journey to get there. 

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Guest Writer