'The New Pope' Episode 5: Pope Pius XIII's miraculously timed sighs in his coma sees the world stop to listen
Can a fictitious Pope's breathing and miraculously timed sighing create a visceral reaction of hope and devotion? Viewers of Episode 5 of 'The New Pope' can attest to the fact that it can. If the surrealism in Paolo Sorrentino's Vatican saga has been distracting until now this season, it all comes together beautifully in this episode.
From twerking nuns, the epitome of sensuality and life, the scene shifts to Lourdes, France, where 10 dead priests in their wheelchairs, are strewn like roadkill on the riverbank. It is the first strike by the unknown Islamic caliphate whose terrifying speech we have been hearing since episode 1.
It is the first of many juxtapositions of images and sound that create an ephemeral sense of waiting, of hoping -- that niggling butterfly in the stomach in anticipation of something momentous.
It plays out in the exchanges between Pope John Paul III and Sofia as the thrum of their attraction grows stronger with every minute they spend together and with every moment they dance around each other.
It is there in the heartbeat of new life as a cloistered nun finds herself pregnant after finding love in the arms of Faisal, the migrant who lingers in the gardens of the Vatican. And how could we forget poor Esther, who skips out on the priest and the widower who, between the two of them, have made a virtue out of prostituting her?
As she runs out with her "miracle" child and gets into a taxi to go to Rome, another miracle is blooming amid the grubbiness of machinations of Voiello, Sofia's cocaine sniffing husband and Bauer, the Ambassador of the Holy See and Voiello's unofficial hitman.
When Pope Pius XIII aka Lenny sighs in his coma, the world stops to listen. The radio devoted to broadcasting his every breath announces that the Pope-in-coma sighed after 414 breaths and then again after 412 breaths. The "idolaters" outside the ICU building know that with every sigh, the Pope is coming closer to waking up again.
So everyone waits, in a hushed silent tableau till Pope John Paul III aka John Brannox asks someone to turn the radio off. Of course, this is right after he decides that his famous middle way to counter pedophilia and gay priests in the Order will require him to give permission to priests to be married. Since "abhorrent love" cannot be done away with, providing a distraction to redirect it will have to do. To him, this is embracing the lesser of two evils, even if he is "updating the Bible". Something, he himself tells Sharon Stone in the cold open, the Church refrains from.
Pope Pius XIII waking up seems like a counter to Pope John Paul's middle way that has already seen success with his ambiguous slogan of "NO!" in response to dead priests that is a moral stand. It leaves the Pope's words to interpretation, something that definitive Lenny would never do.
It lays the ground for the confrontation between the two Popes with Lenny on the verge of waking up. But he might find a reluctant opponent in John, who would rather vote for a man in a coma than himself. Unlike Lenny, he is sure that God "does not like" him.
His secret shame hidden in the silver box reveals itself to be a poisonous leech, the same leech that probably had something to do with his brother Adam's death. It is no coincidence that a leech also shows up on Pope Pius's body that alarms the nun who is keeping watch on him.
Will Lenny wake up and finally give John the pardon he has been waiting for all his life for?
'The New Pope' airs on HBO from 9 p.m. onwards on Mondays.