By Kim
Ian McShane is King Silas Benjamin of alternate reality country Gilboa. When first we meet him, he has apparently successful united some warring territories and rebuilt the capital city in Shiloh. Three years later, there is a new war going on with the neighboring nation Gath. When Silas's son Jack is taken hostage with some other soldiers, a young soldier named David Shepherd defies orders and goes behind enemy lines to perform a daring rescue, not knowing that he's earned the king's debt.
David the country mouse goes to Shiloh to be shown off to the press, where he runs into Jack, doing his best Ryan Phillippe in Cruel Intentions. King Silas has some sort of cabinet meeting where he throws his weight around, decrees that the country should be more aggressive in the war, and then shoots down a proposal on health care reform presented by his daughter Michelle, clearly not for the first time.
At the banquet in his honor, the ladies are falling all over David (including Michelle Benjamin) and he handles the press easily, impressing the king. Silas doesn't mind all the attention David garners since it distracts the press from the war. Silas has a busy night as he orders a cabinet member secretly assassinated (heart attack while jogging) and also has a run-in with a reverend (played by the awesome Eamonn Walker, who was Said in Oz), because the holy man doesn't support the war.
The morning at the Benjamin family breakfast, David learns that he's been promoted and reassigned as the military liaison to the press, which he reluctantly accepts. There are rumors that Jack's actions during the kidnapping are going to lead to a court martial. David charms everyone in his first press conference, where he announces both the new offensive and Michelle's health care reforms. Shortly thereafter, Gath offers up a truce and the war ends. During the victory celebration, David and Michelle kiss for the first time. Jack finds out that he's been transferred and taken off active duty, which he feels is an admission of guilt. He confronts his father, and Silas reveals that he knows Jack is gay, and commands Jack to hide that if he ever wants to be king.
After lurking around in the shadows for the entire episode, William (Dylan Baker) steps up in a private meeting with the king and reveals that he works for (owns?) a company called Crossgen that runs the king and the country. William orders Silas to keep the war going for another year so that Crossgen can continue making money, and it's intimated that Crossgen has some dirt on Silas and his past. Despondent, Silas heads to his mistress's house, which is also home to his illegitimate son.
Silas orders David to announce that they are re-engaging in the war, and when David protests, Silas threatens him physically. Silas then orders the reverend (who, based on the Biblical allusion, I'm going to guess is named Samuel) to garner public support for the war, but the reverend refuses, since he knows Silas engineered the ambush and the hostage crisis. The reverend claims that God no longer wants Silas as king, and that another will be chosen.
David's brother is killed when the war starts up again and he throws a hissy and convinces an enemy soldier to hug him on the battlefield. That part was weird. As a result, Silas claims he's forced to restart peace talks and Crossgen pulls their money from the kingdom, as William approaches Jack to be their new man on the inside.
I didn't even mention two things: first is that Silas's wife is a real Lady Macbeth type, manipulating her husband, her kids, and the press, while claiming that she stays out of politics. And second, Silas always tells this story about how a bunch of butterflies landed on his head like a crown, and it's how he knew he was God's chosen king. So at the end of the episode, guess what happens to David? And Silas sees the whole thing, and he's quite vexed.