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Guardian Angel - Pilot

PROLOGUE

EXT. A DESERT GARDEN – NIGHT

A rail-thin man kneels at a boulder half the size of himself.  His head is bowed, his clasped hands raised.

Far away from him, the black head of a serpent rises into view – a shadow given shape.  It hisses and slithers slowly toward the kneeling man.

The man shivers and sobs.  This is JESUS – not the perfect, white-washed messiah, but a terrified, middle-aged, Middle-Eastern laborer.

                          JESUS
                     (Subtitled)
               Father?  Can you hear me?

From everywhere at once, a hiss echoes.  Jesus looks up to the sky – where he thinks heaven is.

                          JESUS
                     (Subtitled)
               If it is possible, please…take this cup from me.

Loud snores fill the air.  Jesus turns.

A stone’s throw away from him lies a group of men: laborers all.  They are the APOSTLES, and they are all fast asleep.

You have to fuc – effin kidding.

                          JESUS
                     (Subtitled)
               The spirit is willing, but the flehs is weak.

Not as far away as before, the shadow serpent picks up speed.

Jesus turns back to “heaven” and raises his hands high while his head falls onto the stone.

                          JESUS
                     (Subtitled
               Please father!  I don’t want to die.

The moving snake’s body gets darker.  At its belly, two legs burst out.  Now half-human, half-snake, the shadow serpent starts running.

It races past the apostles, making straight for Jesus.

Jesus keeps praying, oblivious.

The serpent’s right behind him now.  It opens its mouth, bearing its shadow fangs.  It LEAPS at its prey.

But inches away from tasting that sweet messiah meat, a beam of white light SHOOTS through its head.  The snake is driven into the earth, melting into the night.

The beam of light fades revealing the blade of a sword.

And its wielder is an angel, right out of a William Blake painting.  His silver armor gleams, and outstretched behind him are a pair of wings so white they glow.  On his head is a silver helm that covers his entire face, save for two openings for his eyes.  This is REMIEL.

He pulls up his sword and sheathes it as he steps in front of Jesus.

Jesus raises his head, looking straight at the angel.

                          JESUS
                     (Subtitled
               Father?  Are you there?

We take on Jesus’s POV, and where we know the angel to be standing, there is nothing.

Jesus’s head falls against the stone.

But Remiel is still standing there.  He lifts his hands to his helm, making to take it off…

When he’s suddenly spun around to meet another angel.

This one is taller and broader than Remiel, with golden armor,helm and wings.  Like Remiel, his face is covered save for the eyes.  This is GODRIC.

And the pair speak to each other in English.

                          GODRIC
Stay yourself Remiel!  We are forbidden from showing ourselves to mortals.

          REMIEL
I’ve had enough, Godric.  We were made to protect them.

Remiel points right at Jesus, who cannot see either angel in front of him.

                          REMIEL
               I was made to protect him.

                          GODRIC
Even so, the fiends have been beaten back.  Banished from this mortal plane.  Our work is finished.

ON REMIEL who can’t take his eyes from the prophet begging for his life.

                          REMIEL
               Mine is not.

                          GODRIC
Do not misremember our task, little brother.  We were only meant to protect them from the spawns of Lucifer.  Against which they could not fight back.

                          REMIEL
               So the Seraphim say.

                          GODRIC
               So God the Father has commanded!

                          REMIEL
But not to us, Godric.  We’ve never spoken to the Father.  We’ve never even met him!

          GODRIC
Very few have, Remiel, and you know why.  What is your point?

          REMIEL
My point is I don’t need to know the Father to know the purpose he gave me.  It drives me, Godric, as I know it does you.  We are Guardians.  Only now, we’re being told we’re not anymore.  Yet I still feel like one.  If it was the Father’s will that I should not be…

          GODRIC
You travel down a dangerous path.  The Seraphim are the keepers of the law, and they have declared our purpose achieved.  By the law of heaven, we are to return home.

Cries recall Remiel to look down on the suffering Jesus.

                          REMIEL
I have walked with this man.  Watched him.  Heard him.  He believes, truly, that he carries a message given to him by our Father.

          GODRIC
That is impossible.

          REMIEL
I know.

          GODRIC
Which is why his belief will fail him.  Because it is not enough to believe.  He must also have faith.

          REMIEL
     (Talking about me without having to)
He has faith.

          GODRIC
Does he?  Enough to be challenged?  Beaten?  Killded?  And even after all that, when he learns the truth, do you think he has the faith to go on believing in a Father he may never truly know?

A SIGNAL CRY echoes.  Jesus is spooked.  He gets up, goes to the edge of a cliff nearby and looks down.

Below he sees the glow of many torches moving through the trees.

                          GODRIC
They are coming for him.  His own kind.  Do you think he will give himself over, for them?

Godric holds out a hand toward the sleeping apostles.

                          GODRIC
In the end, they will choose themselves over their brothers.

Jesus rushes back to the stone in a panic.  He looks on the sleeping apostles, then at the road leading away from them, and danger.

                          GODRIC (O.S.)
               Remiel…

Remiel, who has been watching Jesus, turns to Godric.

                          GODRIC
I do not know what happens now.  But we have been called home.  And commanded to give up our guard.

          JESUS (O.S.)
Father!

Jesus commands focus – like, through impassioned eyes.

                          JESUS
                     (Subtitled)
So be it.  Let it be as you, not I, would have it.

The rail-thin man goes back to the cliff and looks down on his doom.

                          JESUS
                     (Subtitled)
               I am going to die.

Remiel turns to Godric with a similar, determined look in his eyes.

                          GODRIC
               Remiel, he’s mad!

                          REMIEL
               Forgive me brother.

Remiel strides to the rock Jesus was praying against.  He sits.

         
                         GODRIC
He is a martyr!  Nothing more.  He is not the first, and he will not be the last!

                          REMIEL
               Perhaps.

Remiel turns his head back to Jesus.  He exhales audibly, then brings his hands to his helm.

Remiel lifts his helm off his head, and as he does the warm light around him grows brighter.

That light strikes Jesus’s face.  The prophet’s eyes drink it in – he sees.

Underneath the full helm, Remiel reveals a face that looks exactly like Jesus’s, only fuller, healther, and smiling.

                          REMIEL
                     (Subtitled)
               Hello.


END OF PROLOGUE

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