You might not have heard of the short-lived NBC drama Kings. It’s a modern retelling of the rise of David from humble Goliath-slayer to majestic ruler, but that’s not important. What’s important is the sheer pleasure of seeing a world much like our own, in terms of technology and culture, that’s geopolitically stuck in the Old Testament. Picture The West Wing, but with the lovably presidential Martin Sheen replaced by a ruthless, theocratic dictator, King Silas, brilliantly portrayed by Ian McShane.
As with Deadwood, Ian McShane alone makes the series worth watching. But there’s something else that struck me after a few episodes. If there is a message to the series, it’s this: Everyone loves King Silas for the occasional mercy that he shows. (Most acutely, we learn in episode six that there’s an annual holiday, “Judgment Day,” on which the king hears exactly ten appeals from the lower courts.) To us, the sophisticated, democracy-loving viewers, this is obviously absurd: Why should the king get credit for rectifying injustices that he merely restrains himself from committing? And yet, any government, even an elected one, is subject to this same paradox. Having an unquestionable king is just the extreme case.
I can’t say for sure whether King Silas is intended to be the complex, conflicted, sinister yet sympathetic personification of “Big Government.” But it’s certainly possible to interpret him that way. Ayn Rand could learn a thing or two from Kings.
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