God Friended Me: Amazon Prime TV Series

Genre: Comedy, Drama
Audience: TV-PG
Rating: 2.5/5
IMDB: God Friended Me (6.5/10)

SPOILERS AHEAD, well just harmless ones.

Summary:
God Friended Me is a TV Series available on Amazon Prime that revolves around questions of faith, existence and science. The protagonist Miles, an outspoken atheist who calls himself the Millennium Prophet on his podcast, who believes that there is no God and everything in the universe can be explained. But his Godless world theory is put into question when he receives a friend request from God on Facebook. He is convinced that someone who has listened to the podcast or someone he knows is trying to convince him about God. He then follows up believing that it is a hoax to find out the people behind it. He comes across a few people who are all suggested as friends by the God account on Facebook. And he becomes the agent of God account, or in other words messenger of God bringing about the change in the lives of the people who were all suggested by God.

My Opinion:
I will be honest. The title itself intrigued me. Because it revolved around faith and God. I will not call myself an atheist but then I am not religious either. Then spiritual? I would have to deny that as well. As far as I know and believe, we are governed by ourselves and faith is something we need to keep us grounded and if I need to put it bluntly, to keep us sane. If there indeed was someone looking after us, they clearly aren’t doing a good job and I, for the life of me do not understand, how they will take care of 7 billion people. But keeping technicalities and my belief in science aside, let’s discuss this show.

Miles, the protagonist works at a call centre, but I have never seen him working. He is always roaming around and barely stays at the office. In 2 episodes that have aired, he was at work for not more than 5 minutes and that as well he is not seen working. Someone get me that job. But he doesn’t want to do this job. When he gets an offer for a radio show, he was excited to get out of that job, the job in which he was doing nothing at all in the first place. And for some reason, he is completely busy and has his hands full. He has an apartment, and everything that he needs in his home which if we were to guess, are all that from his call centre job. And he isn’t happy with the job and wants to do something else which he likes, something like preaching about the Godless world. He has a podcast channel and he talks about the world that doesn’t have a God.

Just like Bruce Almighty, God starts to speak to him. Now, let me clarify how this happens. Miles gets a Friend Request from a person called God. And he believes that this is a complete hoax and doesn’t buy into it. He discards it but he keeps getting the friend request. Nobody taught him how to disable the friend requests. If only he knew, he wouldn’t be in splits. One thing led to another and he accepted the Friend Request in an attempt to find out the person behind it and to stop playing around with him. His belief is that everything in the world can be explained and God is someone who doesn’t exist. But as soon as he accepts the friend request, he gets a suggestion from God, a friend-suggestion. Coincidence enough, he comes face to face with a few people, the people who were suggested as friends by the God account. One bizarre thing leads to another and he is somehow starting to believe a higher power at play. And as these bizarre things happen, all I am thinking in my mind is that God doesn’t work that way. Not one chance. Coincidences are quite less in a world we live in, but they aren’t completely absent. But giving these coincidences a name called “God made this happen” is something that is quite literally bizarre.

Honestly, I don’t believe in coincidences. Because nothing as such ever happened. I haven’t accidentally come face to face with the soulmate I had never even looked for, or those billion bucks that I really want. Leave these bizarre and unrealistic desires. How hard can normalcy be? I don’t know, but I am still in search for it. Anyway, coincidences are not something I believe in. Yes, they do happen elsewhere, but unless I see something on my own, I will stick to my concept. For that reason, I don’t believe in the romantic movies and series at all. Somehow, they are all at the right place at the right time. Even the people who are at the wrong place at the wrong time fall in love. Shucks! And again, at the back of my head, a voice starts to tell that this is scripted and that is how this gets to be that perfect; sometimes disjointed but perfect in a manner, nonetheless. With the same purview at mind, this series as well as the same concept in play, the scripted concept. Of course, it is scripted, but I like the ones that are believable, that doesn’t let the voice at the back of my head ponder into questions such as “This is in no way possible”.

Please note that I am a compulsive Music (LOUD MUSIC), Movies and TV series addict. I, however, read books but then again, I am a lazy person. I watch the movies and series randomly and on top of it binge-watch the whole series. The reason for it is simple. I want to escape from my thoughts. I want to subside the voices in my head and just not let a million thoughts explode into a chain reaction. So, this is my drug of choice, if you so may call it. It is not quite effective but it lets me get through the night. And music through any day or night. However, I sometimes find the Full Volume of the music quite too less. Because the voices are louder and the chain reaction that I have hoped to prevent is at its epitome.

Coming back to the topic at hand, a couple of questions :
1. Why was he chosen?
2. Since when did coincidences become so very much obvious?
3. Why is God (if we are to put a finger and call this person so) just helping a selected set of people and in just that city, when there are much bigger issues at play which need really serious attention?
4. Since when did God’s message become so elaborate and precise?
5. Do you believe in God? Is it the faith in something/ someone, or do we really need a God figure?
That’s all. Too much of anything is bad, that’s what I keep saying myself after I have written way too much nonsense than needed.

If you happen to watch the series, do let me know what you think of the series.

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ajaykontham