Somewhere in the pilot for The CW’s new drama “The Messengers,” premiering Friday, April 17 at 9 p.m. ET/PT — and which I got to screen at the network’s headquarters last Monday — a character announces that there are no coincidences.
After the screening, stars Shantal VanSanten (who said she was “raised Catholic”) and Jon Fletcher (“The Good Wife”), and executive producer Trey Callaway (“Revolution”) — a convert to Judaism whose mother is a Presbyterian minister — came in to answer questions from faith-based press.
“The Messengers” traces the lives of five seemingly disconnected people who are engulfed in a force wave set off by a meteorite that hits the earth. At the bottom of the smoking crater is a naked man, played by Portuguese actor Diogo Morgado (Jesus of History’s “The Bible” and “Son of God”), who is revealed to be some iteration of Satan.
Oh, and the people affected wind up with gossamer wings that appear every now and then, and at least one heightened ability each.
It’s all leading up to a version of the Apocalypse/Rapture, with heavy doses from what is practically Hollywood’s favorite book of the Bible — Revelation (there’s lots of it in Fox’s “Sleepy Hollow” as well).
I led off the questioning by asking Callaway if the casting of Morgado was intentional, or just the luck of the audition draw.
“It was really the latter,” he said.
Reminded of the pilot’s line about there being no coincidences, Callaway said, “That’s one way of looking at it. … I think what [Diogo] brings to the role is a real sense of the Devil as we’re trying to interpret him, as a figure that has probably got the biggest inferiority complex in all of history.
“He’s somebody who has literally been cast out of Heaven for hubris and has been shunned by God and has chosen to manipulate humankind during his free time. Diogo brings a lot of that to life in the nuance of his performance, so it’s really interesting.
“[Not in] this season or any season are we hoping that people will root for the Devil, but hopefully, if we’ve done our jobs correctly, you might at least have a better understanding of why he is as evil as he is, or chooses to be at times. Yeah, coincidence.”
Both VanSanten, who plays an atheist scientist, and Fletcher, who plays a charismatic televangelist, paged through Revelation along the way.
“I did, a lot,” said Fletcher. “Kept going back to it throughout the season as other things would come up playing Joshua. [I thought] I should know as much as possible. We use it throughout the season. It’s loosely based on the Book of Revelation, I would say.
“The show is about faith, and not just what your religious background is, but faith in each other, as well. That is the real beauty of the show.”
Said Van Santen: “I bought a graphic novel, actually called ‘Revelation,’ because I like visuals, and I also like graphic novels. I found that Vera’s an atheist; she’s a scientist; she searches for answers. There’s not really a whole lot of room for faith or coincidence or everything happening for a reason. It’s just different in her mind and her belief system.
“I found that it was interesting for me to read, but there wasn’t a whole lot of it that I could base my character’s thoughts around.”
Said Callaway, “Now I know what to get you for Christmas, though. She read the graphic novel, but I’ve red the Book of Revelation many, many times, since I was a kid growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I think that we had a class between horseback riding and whitewater rafting at summer camp which was called ‘Revelation.’
“I actually read it myself throughout the season, Eoghan and I both — Eoghan O’Donnell, who created the series. We got hold of this incredible two-volume set. It’s the Old Testament and the New Testament of the Bible, that an artist spent four years using Lego figures to create.
“It’s truly a beautiful work of art, but something about the visuals and something about looking at it in Lego form, which is arguably the most simplistic form imaginable, helps sometimes to key into certain visual aspects or inspirations.”
(BTW, the Lego Bible is real. It’s called “The Brick Bible,” and apparently creator Brendan Powell Smith is working on Lego representations of American history.)
There was one line in the pilot that I especially liked. Joshua’s father, the founder of the televangelist empire, comes down hard on his son after Joshua speaks about his experience on live TV.
The father says, “If you continue this sacrilege, you won’t be welcome in my church,” to which I muttered, “It’s not your church.”
Then, to my surprise, Joshua replies, “It’s not your church; it’s God’s church.”
If for nothing else, that line would get me to give “The Messengers” a chance.
Said Fletcher, “It’s a huge turning point for him, when he reawakens his whole faith, his belief system in this God that they preach about being, if you do good, God does good for you, the Philistine-type God. It’s not the God that he sees. That was fascinating for me to play. At some point, in each of our lives, our faith is challenged, and it was a fascinating path to take.”
Toward the end, I asked Callaway if the show was going to stay with its theistic universe of angels and the Devil, or maybe come up with some secular explanation for the events.
“It’s not a goal to weasel it,” he said. “It’s where we’ve stood from the beginning, and to his everlasting credit — I thanked him for it again this morning — when the president of this network, Mark Pedowitz, got up at the upfront presentation [for advertisers] in New York and announced us as his ‘Rapture drama,’ and then grabbed me by the shoulders that night, looked me right in the eye and said, ‘Listen to me — don’t run away from Revelation. Stay with it. Use it.’
“We’ve owned that. It’s a flag that we’ve planted.”
Here’s a peek:
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