Kings has become something of a classic among fans, frequently returning to Gilboa to check in on Silas and his conniving against David Shepherd and his own children. Starring Ian McShane, Sebastian Stan, Christopher Egan, and a pretty incredible cast, the show didn’t have a very long life on NBC back in 2009.
It’s been eight years since we were last in Shiloh, watching as Silas forces Jack Benjamin to give him a grandson and exiling his daughter, Michelle, from Gilboa for her allegiance to her brother. Unfortunately, the show struggled to find a significant audience to appease NBC and was canceled after just one season.
To be quite honest, I think it was just ahead of its time. As cliche as that is, Kings found a way to bring up issues within families that seem commonplace in our media now but were sort of taboo back in the 2000s. Jack Benjamin, who finds love in the form of Joseph, is forced to renounce his sexuality (and therefore Joseph) based on his father’s ideas of what a prince should be.
By the end of the season, Jack is forced into a relationship in order to give his father a grandchild, as his “punishment” for attempting to murder Silas. (This is all despite the fact that Jack tries to push Silas out of the way at the press conference where Silas is shot twice by his brother-in-law’s group.)
Season 1 ends with many unanswered questions. Will David and Michelle ever get to reunite? Does Jack serve his “purpose” to his father? How can the public continue to let Silas rule when they see what he did to David and what he called his own son? The last we saw of this group, an attempt at Silas’s life had just gone wrong. Jack and his uncle were planning on overthrowing Silas’s rule, something that Jack felt forced into doing because of his father’s lack of acceptance of who Jack was.
The problem, though, is that the show never returned, so we just have these questions hanging over our heads.
A Michael Green creation, Kings has served to be something of a cult classic among fans (mainly those of the Sebastian Stan persuasion), but it means that now, in 2018, there are enough people who know of the show that it would benefit from some kind of reboot.
It doesn’t have to be a new season. If anything, it would fit as a movie, as well. I just want to know what happens to the Benjamin children. They were products of their father’s rule, and they both struggled to find their place in his kingdom. Jack can’t be who he wants to be, and Michelle is forever trapped as the young, sick princess, because of her father. A second chance for Kings could be an amazing look at how they grew in the aftermath of Silas.
In The Year of Our Lord 2018, it is time to bring back Kings in some capacity. We need it.
(Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for Disney)
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