As season two of CBS’ hit God Friended Me launches on Sunday, Sept 29, atheist podcaster Miles Finer (Brandon Micheal Hall) has to deal with not being quite to special to the Almighty “God account” anymore.
Sitting in a limo with his mother, heading back from a TV appearance, Hall says of the show’s success so far, “I think it’s because of so much negativity and [the lack of] things that are connecting us to a higher power or something to have faith in or to believe in.
“We can go into politics; we can go into sports — everywhere [it’s] negativity, negativity. So you have something that’s uplifting or positive, that’s going to work, especially if it’s original.”
Last season on God Friended Me, Miles (Hall) got a Facebook friend request from an account with the name of God. Many strange coincidences and friend suggestions later, he figured out his purpose was to help the seemingly random New Yorkers sent his way.
With the assistance of his hacker pal and co-worker Rakesh (Suraj Sharma) and reporter Cara (Violett Beane) — who eventually comes his love interest — Miles spent season one reconnecting with his widowed father, Arthur (Joe Morton), an Episcopalian minister, helping people and trying to figure out the origins of the God account.
As season two opens, Arthur is contemplating big changes after getting engaged to girlfriend Trisha (Erica Gimpel); Miles’ lesbian sister (Javicia Leslie) is also making a major move; Rakesh is settling into his new high-level job at computer security firm Identity Seal; Cara is on a sixth-month sojourn in Paris, writing a book about a tech billionaire (Adam Goldberg); and Miles is struggling to come up with a second season for his podcast, the Millennial Prophet.
What’s messing him up is he’s no longer sure what the God account has in store for him. He hasn’t received any new missions via friend suggestions, but instead, the God account friended someone else and offered that person Miles as a suggestion.
Joining the cast is Jessica Lu as Joy, a brusque, no-nonsense lawyer on her own mission in New York who is none too happy to be swept up into the God account’s larger purpose.
Says Hall, “Spiritually, philosophically and just all around, Miles is in a very complicated place. He hasn’t gotten any friend suggestions from the God account. He has not spoken to Joy, whom we saw at the end of season one. His girlfriend is off with Paris, and he’s not getting the love he needs after he just got together with her — as well as the story for his podcast.
“His friend, Rakesh, is still working at Identity Seal, which Miles quit, and so he’s not there with his best friend anymore. So Miles is really sitting alone, he’s really sitting alone, kind of like Job in the Bible. God kind of took everything away from him and put him in a position where he has to connect again and restart all over again. And Miles, I don’t think he’s really good with change.
“So that’s when we see in the first episode, is him coping with this change that is happening in his life. And we’ll see that happen throughout the rest of the second season, seeing how he copes with that, because there’s a lot of changes that’s going to be happening, a lot of shifts and turns within a family, within his podcast, within the God account, that Miles has to take on.”
One thing about being on a mission from God — or a God Facebook account, in this case — is that you’ve been singled out from the entire world. On the one hand, that’s a pain in the neck, but on the other hand, it would make someone feel very special.
But now, with Joy in the mix, Miles isn’t the one and only.
Says Hall, “Yeah, and I think that’s what’s terrifying him, I guess, is the best word. It took him so long to come around to just accepting the God account as just being a God account. He took God out of the situation. It’s just that he has a purpose to help people, and that purpose is gone for now. So what does he do? He’s lost that purpose. He’s back at square one.
“Or the other side of it is, he sees the purpose in Joy, but she doesn’t want it. He can’t cope with the fact that someone else can do the God account’s work. He should be the only one, and Miles can’t accept that. So he’s in a place of turmoil. He’s going through a storm right now.”
More of my wide-ranging conversation with Hall in a future post, but for right now, check out the season-two teaser for God Friended Me:
Images: Courtesy CBS
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