Dear Doves,
Episode 3
This entire episode deals with a man of the cloth, the Reverend Matthew Jamison, pastor of the local Episcopal church. The rapture, 3 years ago on October 14th, took 140 million people worldwide, but not him or his wife. Believe me, he is super-peeved about it! This is one man you would never want to be your minister.
On the day of the rapture, there were numerous car accidents as some of those drivers were taken. Therefore, there was no control of those vehicles. One such vehicle slammed into his car where his wife was in the driver’s seat. Rev. Jamison was just coming out of a store headed back to their car when it all happened. As a result of the accident, his wife is catatonic and quadriplegic. He has a caregiver for his wife, whom he has been lax in paying. He takes care of his injured wife after the caregiver goes home. This caregiver is a very minor character, but seems creepy. Personally, I wouldn’t let her watch over the family pet.
There has been a great “falling away” from religion subsequent to the rapture. Rev. Jamison has about 7 or 8 people left in his congregation. His banker is threatening to foreclose on the church because he cannot afford the mortgage payments, due to a severe loss in donations. What I don’t understand about this guy is, if he only has 7 or 8 people left, why don’t they just meet at his house? But no, he wants the ‘church’ building to be kept. Like he must keep up appearances, even though it looks awfully sad to have so few people there each week.
The big thing about Rev. Jamison is that he has gone on a crusade to attack the memories of the people who have gone in the rapture. In fact, he doesn’t believe it even WAS a rapture….because he’s still here! How can some wonderful Christian like him be left behind? So….he goes on a ‘fact’ finding mission of the people who have been taken in his area. All that’s needed is somebody (family or friend) to badmouth them, and he puts that unchecked info into a flyer with the raptured person’s photo on it, detailing how they sinned and passes that out to everyone in town. What a guy! Wouldn’t you love for him to be your pastor? Gag!
As you can imagine, this doesn’t go over well with the raptured person’s family. One such father of a raptured woman goes to the Sunday service at Rev. Jamison’s church, walks up to the pulpit and punches him out. The 7 or 8 people sitting in the pews let out a couple gasps, one person stands up, but the outraged dad just leaves after knocking out the pastor.
How does the good reverend know that these people didn’t *zealously repent* and turn away from their sin(s) at some point? He cannot possibly know that. Yet he uses hearsay as gospel to condemn those raptured people of whom he is jealous. Jesus looks on the heart and knows everyone…but this reverend is judging people and that is waaaay beyond his pay grade. Wait till you see what he does next….
His banker informs him that he must come up with more than $135,000 to keep his church from being sold to another entity. The Rev gets the idea of seeing his sister to ask her for the money, in the form of a loan. She is the govt worker I spoke about in my first post on this subject where she interviews people who want benefits due to their loved ones being taken away. Well, in her case, she lost a husband and two children to the rapture. The govt gave her reparations, which are enough to pay for her brother’s church to evade foreclosure. She tells him that she will give him the money, but ONLY if he stops his flyer campaign against the raptured people. He abjectly refuses, saying they are being tested not for what came before the rapture, but for what comes afterward. She then tells him that he is failing that test. He gets offended, then tells her that he knows that her own husband (who was raptured) was cheating on her with their kids’ preschool teacher. How he knows this, I can’t imagine. He says it’s the one story he won’t publish….what a guy! He leaves his sister emotionally wounded and bereft with this ‘news’.
Not getting that money, he goes to the chief of police’s back yard, where there is something buried for him there ($20,000) left to him by the chief’s father, who was a close friend. He digs it up and goes gambling with it. He takes it to an Indian casino after seeing some visions. There were 2 birds (doves?) on a red traffic light. He gets in the casino and sees them again at a specific gaming roulette table. He goes to that table and keeps betting on red until he wins $160,000. He cashes out and takes the money to his car in the parking lot. A guy followed him out of the casino and raps on his car window. At this point the Rev should have just burned rubber out of there, but no….he opens the window to talk to the guy who wants that $160,000. He pulls the Rev out of the car and attempts to steal the money. Rev gets up, grabs the thief, knocks him to the ground and pounds his face into the pavement several times. It looks as though the assailant is dead. He could have just knocked him out once and fled, but it looks like he killed him with so many head poundings to the pavement. Rev gets back in his car, lets out a primal scream….drives home.
The incredible irony of this scene is mind boggling: killing a human being (even though the guy was a thief) in order to “save his church”…a heavily mortgaged building where he preaches to only 7 or 8 people a week, if that. And this guy can’t understand why he wasn’t raptured….
Meanwhile, back at the ranch….on his way home with the money in the blood stained envelope, his car passes by the Guilty Remnant’s house where one of them is being attacked (someone threw paint at one of their women), he stops to help and is beaned with a rock. He ends up in the hospital where he is in a coma for a few days. He has some sort of dream sequence about making love to….none other than the police chief’s wife!...who just happens to have joined the Guilty Remnant. It’s not clear whether they had an actual affair or if it’s just a dream about it….but the Rev is not looking good, is he.
He comes out of his coma, gets out of bed, viewers see his open hospital gown exposing his backside (I really could have done without that scene). He dresses real fast, leaves the hospital and gets to his car. He finds the envelope with the money is still there (amazing!) and hightails it to the bank. The bank is closed, but he pounds on the door, his banker recognizes him, and he is admitted inside. He tries to pay for his church…but the banker informs him that the church has been sold…three days ago. He has obviously been out of commission during that time.
He subsequently finds out that the people who bought his old church was none other than…the Guilty Remnant cult! They are at his old church, painting the stained glass windows white and throwing all the Bibles into the trash. What a group these people are!
It’s getting quite obvious why all of these people have been left behind with each other.
Episode 4
This was a very hard episode for me to take. The title of it is: “B.J. and A.C.”….ostensibly “Baby Jesus and Antichrist”.
Well, it’s Christmas time for the left behind residents of Mapleton, NY. Even though there has been a great falling away from the church, religion and belief….they are still big into all the pagan traditions: decorated trees everywhere, gifts under the trees, lights galore, wreaths, holiday parties, etc. There is even a crèche in the town square….statues of the holy family and baby Jesus in a manger.
This episode starts out showing how dolls are made in a factory. One of these dolls ends up as baby Jesus in the manger. Someone steals the baby Jesus doll, and the manger is empty. The mayor is outraged and advises the police chief to go buy a replacement doll at the toy store. He really doesn’t want to do that, and would rather find the perpetrator(s). He believes his own daughter is in on it. She was. In another scene, he stops two twin teenage boys, friends of hers, and says he wants the doll back, he knows they all took it, but if it’s returned, no questions asked.
The doll ends up with those kids, including the police chief’s teenage daughter. They abuse the doll (I am starting to think these creeps are satanists), they then put the doll on a raft out on a river or stream. The chief’s daughter has a bow and flaming arrow as it heads out on the water and they all yell for her to set the doll on fire. She aims at it….but doesn’t follow through and lowers the bow and arrow. Is there hope for this lost soul, yet? We’ll see.
The twin teen boys return the doll to the police chief’s front door. He takes it to the holiday party at the school. He gets up and makes a speech about how he found the doll, baby Jesus, and will place it back in the manger after the party. The celebrants at the Christmas party look at him as though he has two heads. They couldn’t care less, they just want to party.
It is obvious that all of these people were Christians in name only. They didn’t know their Bibles at all. Everything they do is against God’s Word. Everything. If they had only read it…..
The police chief sees the Rev’s sister at the school. They get to talking and she reveals that her husband cheated on her. He reveals that he cheated on his wife. Afterward, he goes to the manger, sees the Rev there. He rushes up to the manger, and the Rev is putting a baby Jesus of his own in the manger, saying he had an ‘extra’. Rev wishes the police chief a Merry Christmas. Cute, after killing someone. Boy, are all of these people lost….idolatry is only one of their problems. Adultery figures prominently, as does murder.
The police chief is back in his truck, with the baby Jesus doll in the other front seat, staring at him. He looks at it a few times…picks it up and tosses it out the window. What a guy….
Anyway, that is just half of the episode’s title. The other half is the A.C.—
The police chief’s son, Tommy, works for Holy Wayne, the leader of the healing hugs cult. Wayne’s cult has been violently attacked by the govt, and his underage lover (an Asian American girl) is pregnant with his child. She is somehow ‘special’, appearing in prophetic dreams, and it is alluded to that she is carrying the AC. Tommy was told she must be protected at all costs. She is therefore some mimic or counterfeit Mother Mary character.
This is where I am lost in this series. These people appear to be on the cusp of the Great Tribulation…but the AC is not yet born???? Maybe we can’t expect the Hellyweird, er Hollywood, writers to understand the Bible.
Holy Wayne is a black guy with a British accent. His teenage love interest is Asian American. Hmmm…so the AC will be a man who is half black and has ‘American-Asian’ roots? What famous person do we know like that, huh? LOL….It’s either B.O. or Tiger Woods! I guess I’ll have to go with the former rather than the latter. I was wondering how they were going to work him into this series….but the timing is way off. The AC is already here…perhaps they couldn’t be that obvious and this is just an identity clue from Hellyweird.
Christianity seems to be taking a real beating in this production. However, the Rev and the Christians in name only, don’t really appear guiltless.
See you next week…God willing!
YsiChrist,
Patty RP