'The Faithful' Episodes 1-2 Recap: Does Sarai Get To See Her Dream Fulfilled?

After the recent successes of shows based on biblical stories, Fox Entertainment Studios has come up with their latest project, The Faithful: Women of the Bible, which aims to tell important stories from the Old Testament, but with a bold twist. These stories are told from the perspective of the women characters instead of the traditional male-centric narratives, seemingly in an attempt to counter some of the claims about the Bible and Christianity in general being quite sexist. With episodes 1 and 2 released this week, the show seems to be just a half-hearted affair meant to cater to easy audiences, with the story of Sarai at their center.

Spoiler Alert

How does Sarai meet Hagar?

The story begins in the city of Harran in 1900 BC, where a young woman named Sarai lives with her parents. Although she has fine taste and high ambitions in life, Sarai is limited by her parents’ lack of wealth and even more so by their desire to treat her like some prized cattle and marry her off at the first chance. Therefore, when a rich businessman in the region, Abim the Gerarite, makes an offer to Sarai’s father asking for her hand in marriage, he readily agrees to the deal, with the promise that he will receive 12 sheep in exchange. But as Sarai is brought to meet Abim, she simply refuses to show him any respect, since he is lecherously looking for a young wife even though he has already married multiple times. She does not hesitate to insult Abim, and at the right moment, a young man named Abram steps in to help her by landing a blow on Abim’s nose and driving him away from her house.

Although news of the ruckus spreads across the city, leaving Sarai’s parents distraught that no man will marry their daughter now, Abram meets the young woman and professes his love for her. Despite being of a poorer stature than Sarai and her family, Abram still dreams of marrying her and spending the rest of his life with her, and even goes on to propose with an expensive blue shawl that Sarai liked but could never buy. The two soon get married, and are still an extremely loving couple 25 years later, albeit with a worry—for they have not been able to become parents in all this time. Believing herself to be the problem, Sarai casually suggests that Abram take another wife, just so that he can become a father as he desires, but he is totally against such an idea. But their troubles seem to be over when Abram suddenly receives word directly from God, assuring him that he and Sarai will be able to become parents only after Abram leaves his native land and settles in a new land God will guide him to.

Years later, while traveling the lands and having to avoid a drought, Abram and his followers settle in Egypt for some time, where Sarai’s life takes a significant turn. One day, while standing on the riverbank, the group is visited by the Pharaoh, and while everyone else bows down to pay their respects, Sarai refuses to do so, simply because she had taken a pledge to never bow down to any man in her life back when Abim had insulted her. As a result, the Pharaoh orders his men to take Sarai hostage, and when he learns that she did not mean to disrespect him with her actions, he does spare her life, but decides to keep her as a mistress. Intelligently, Sarai claims Abram, who had tried to save her from the Pharaoh’s guards, is her brother and not her husband, simply to ensure that he is not killed or harmed by the Pharaoh. In the actual biblical stories, it was Abram who had told Sarai to introduce him as her brother to everyone so that no harm would come his way, but the show intentionally makes the character of Sarai exercise her agency in this regard. The Faithful also seems to try and put to rest the confusion and debate about whether Sarai and Abram were related to one another, as suggested by certain parts of the Old Testament, in this innovative manner.

While Sarai’s faith in God had been unconvincing up until this time, the divine intervention that followed quickly changed her opinion. As the Pharaoh attempted to force her into sexual submission, he suddenly started to choke and fall sick, as if poisoned, and there is apparently no other explanation for this miracle than God taking charge and protecting Sarai from dishonor. The pharaoh believes her to be a witch and lets her leave unharmed, fearing that more harm will come his way if he tries to punish her. As the Pharaoh had tried to woo Sarai into becoming his mistress, he had gifted her the slave woman, Hagar, and he now lets the two women leave together. Without any hesitation, Sarai brings Hagar back to Abram’s camp with her, since she knows of the young woman’s woes and wants to help her. Hagar had been taken away from her homeland in Egypt by the pharaoh, and she hopes to return to her family some day in the future. Both Sarai and Hagar are impressed by each other at this point, and a strong friendship soon forms between them.

Why does Sarai decide to have Hagar lie with Abram?

With time, Sarai once again grows disillusioned with God, for although her husband has led his people to a new land where they have settled, there is simply no sign of her conceiving a child, despite years of attempts. This is when she eventually grows vulnerable and comes up with the idea that if Hagar lies with Abram and bears a child for him, she will be at peace and will raise the child as her own. At the base of this plan is obviously God’s promise to Abram that he will surely become a father, which now makes Sarai feel herself to be physically incapable. She completely takes the blame upon herself, and her wanting her husband to get intimate with Hagar draws from feelings of guilt and grief at her incapability to bear a child for him. Moreover, Sarai also starts to believe that there is divine guidance in this matter as well, for the unexpected series of events in Egypt might have been divine intervention as well. She believes that she had come across Hagar for this very reason, so that Hagar could some day give birth to Abram’s child, and feels that God had intentionally made the two women’s paths cross at the Pharaoh’s palace in Egypt. 

In this context, the female-centric perspective used in The Faithful is at danger of seeming diluted, for questions can be raised about whether Sarai really wants her husband to sleep with another woman, or feels compelled to let him do so because of the social and personal expectations. After all, she clearly acts more out of respect, admiration, or perhaps even fear towards God’s orders than her own willingness. Despite the title of the first story in the presentation, “The One Who Bowed to No One,” the show attempts to show Sarai as an exceptionally strong-willed and self-dependent woman, but such a portrayal does not actually come through. Perhaps such problems will always arise while trying to portray biblical stories (or similar stories from any religion) through a different and more modern lens, but Sarai’s plan of making her husband sleep with her friend/slave still continues to feel dated and questionable.

How do Sarai’s flaws become apparent?

The manner in which the first two episodes try to counter the datedness of the topic is by making Sarai have her own set of flaws which become apparent gradually, and which also make her appear more grounded as a character. To begin with, Sarai is put-off by the fact that her husband did not protest much when he was told to spend nights with Hagar, and she also does not want Abram to speak with the concubine, fearing that he will grow close to her and might even fall in love with her. Her fears naturally keep growing with time, and she wants Hagar to leave the group right after giving birth and return to her original family. Sarai clearly does not want the child to ever learn of his real parentage, and her situation grows significantly tougher when Hagar, in the grip of motherly instincts, refuses to part ways with her child. 

Although Hagar eventually returns to the group and gives birth at the place and also names the boy Ishmael, all according to the orders of God Himself, Sarai does not really feel comfortable with her presence from here on. Things take an even bigger turn when God’s plan brings more complications into the couple’s lives, and Sarai conceives a child even after menopause and gives birth to a baby boy of her own, Isaac. From then on, she is openly biased towards Isaac and does not consider Ishmael worthy of the same treatment as her own biological son. This hurts Hagar, who is also concerned about what the implications would be for Ishmael, whom she has still not been able to tell about how she is his biological mother. Hagar begs Sarai to tell Ishmael about his true parentage as the teenager grows more jealous and resentful of his younger brother, Isaac, with every passing day. But Sarai’s mortal flaws are once again on full display, as she simply wants to bury the truth and keep Ishmael uninformed so that he never goes against Isaac’s decisions, since Sarai wants Isaac to be considered the true successor to Abram.

Who places the tablet inside Abram’s tent?

The only object that bears testimony of Sarai and Hagar’s deal in the past is a stone tablet on which the details of the agreement had been laid down and the two women had signed. Now, in a sudden development, Ishmael comes across this tablet inside his father’s tent one day and learns exactly what had happened in the past and how Sarai is not really his biological mother. This is enough to convince Ishmael to make the decision to leave the group and settle in Canaan, and he takes his mother, Hagar, along with him. Although he is almost about to die during the long and arduous journey, God appears to Hagar once again and protects her son from certain death by magically creating a water spring in the middle of the desert. 

For some time, everyone believed that it must have been Hagar who had placed the tablet inside Abram’s tent for Ishmael to find, as she had been the most eager for her son to learn the truth about his parentage. However, it is later revealed that Sarai herself had placed the tablet there, intending to make Ishmael hate her for covering up the truth and leave the place. Sarai had still acted to only ensure that her biological son, Isaac, would go on to become the leader of their people and that he would not face any opposition from Ishmael, for which she had to ensure that the latter separated from the group. Since Ishmael would never hate his father, and since Sarai never wanted such a fight between father and son either, she had chosen to reveal herself as a villainous woman, only so that her son would benefit from the situation in the future. 

Does Sarai get to see her dream fulfilled?

At the end of episode 2, Sarai passes away from old age while she and her husband take shelter on the banks of the Great Sea (the Mediterranean Sea in real life). Although she ultimately dies of natural causes and does not get to see her beloved son marry and start a family of his own, Sarai’s dream of becoming a mother, and especially of ensuring that God’s plans for Abram come true, is fulfilled. According to biblical history, Isaac would go on to become Abram’s successor in every sense, and take the bloodline forward to more glorious days. Her decision of cutting off Hagar and Ishmael from the family also seems to pay off, as Ishmael becomes the leader of his own people, and according to many biblical interpreters, this is when the Arabs part ways from Judaism/Christianity. In the end, Hagar still appreciates all that Sarai had done for her and the greatness that the woman had shown, and so she attends Sarai’s funeral at Canaan. According to the scriptures, Abram marries again after his first wife’s death, and possibly makes Hagar his second wife, but the first two episodes of The Faithful does not delve into such dangerous waters, and instead concludes with the death of Sarai.

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