Critic Reviews

Hand of God’s strengths are its elongated scenes, enabling the characters ample time to play off one another.... The wheels keep turning but can take too long to get rolling while the plot hits some ruts in the road.

The show’s reach may exceed its grasp, but the cast succeeds in selling a farfetched premise.

[A] fascinating, if uneven, new drama,

There are enough flourishes surrounding Pernell’s visions to maintain viewer interest, but after a while the pilot feels like a slog.

Four episodes in, I can't say I've warmed to Watkins' dark and not always coherent vision. But there's a crackling electricity between his characters that's kept me watching.

It’s clear Watkins has ideas to spare, but he struggles to make meaningful drama with them.

Despite frequent predictability and other issues, though, we do get pulled into the story. Even if we don’t always believe the characters, or huge swaths of dialogue, we do want answers, to the crimes, yes, but also to whether the judge is a nutcase or the only sane person in San Vicente.

Hand of God, while smoothly made, nice to look at and mostly well-acted, is also a cautionary example of the pitfalls of the new style of serialized drama. It’s trying to do several things at once, but it doesn’t feel particularly layered or complex.

Dillahunt and Corinealdi are the only members of the cast who manage to shine through the deeply flawed writing. It’s not even so much the writing, which isn’t bad on its face, but the ideas behind it.

Hand of God’s bleakness doesn’t serve any greater purpose, and all the bluster says nothing about the nature of faith or revenge. Like its main character, the show ostentatiously wallows in sin and then tries to pass it off as genuine redemption.