The Path: Having a little faith goes a long way
The Path is an American drama television series created by Jessica Goldberg. The series had 3 seasons, with the first premiered in March 2016, and the other two seasons in the following two years. There were 36 episodes over the three years.
The Path is about the lives of a group of people who have unshakable faith and who live under the doctrine of a cult – or movement called Meyerism.
Eddie Lane
Aaron Paul gives life to Eddie Lane. A character who had a difficult, rebellious and tragic past after his older brother committed suicide, that led to Eddie converting to Meyerism.
Eddie is married to Sara Lane (played by Michelle Monaghan) and is the father of two children, Hawk and Summer. The family are all members of the Meyerista Movement.
The series begins with Eddie having spent time in a retreat in order to advance further on the spiritual ladder of Meyerism. But he suffers a crisis of faith and everything he has always accepted as truth is called into question, and he begins to question his faith in the Movement. Eddie now doubts what he has chosen to believe in, and starts looking for answers, knowing he could lose his family if he leaves or his doubt is discovered.
Mayerism Faith in the Path
Meyerists believe that if you “look into the Light” and climb the Ladder, you will be able to face suffering and prepare for the End that is to come in a special garden.
Each episode takes a deeper look at what it means to choose between the life we lead, and the life we want. Few things are as powerful as a person’s belief, so it’s interesting to follow such dedication to faith plots and how it results in the characters’ life choices and their consequences.
DID YOU KNOW?
• The Eye symbol, which we saw throughout the series in various interiors and on necklaces worn by characters represents Meyerism, was based on tribal, Egyptian and modern art, with a rising sun superimposed to show the hope of a new day. Series creator Jessica Goldberg describes the Eye’s symbolism as a duality of enlightenment and paranoia, meaning on the one hand “your eyes have been opened and now you’ve seen the truth”, and on the other, “you are always being watched”.
• Originally, the title of the series was ‘The Way‘.
• In addition to starring, Aaron Paul was also a Producer on the series.
• The series was broadcast on Hulu.
How good was The Path?
The Path was one of the first works by this guy that I watched as soon as I became a fan, having first seen Aaron Paul in Breaking Bad. I obviously did some research on the actor who played Jesse Pinkman, having fell in love with Aaron (that wasn’t too difficult) so I started looking for other titles and came across Need for Speed and The Path .
I watched the series in 2020 and didn’t do any prior research on the show’s plot, so I didn’t know what to expect, the only thing that interested me was to see Aaron Paul acting.
It didn’t take long for me to become obsessed with The Path, a story about the loss of faith, the imprisonment of belief and how to deal with groups that have a very strong mindset and point of view about what they believe. It was a much better show than I expected.
And today after watching the series 3 times, it entered the list of favorites and Eddie Lane is among the characters that I love the most.
The cast absolutely shined, each one brought their own truth to their characters and that kept us hooked, always waiting for the next episode.
Something about Eddie…
A fan talking about his idol will always seem cliché, but talking about Aaron Paul is always very pleasant (and at that moment I already notice a smile on my face). The talent that Aaron has is something out of the curve, he gives life to characters that at first we thought “that doesn’t suit him”, but then he arrives and ends any doubts we had. It was like this when the show started and we saw that his character was a father of a teenage boy, many said he looked too young to play Eddie Lane, they said it was hard to believe he could have a grown son.
I confess that when I started watching the series I also thought like that at first, but Aaron gave such an impeccable performance. He was excellent as Eddie Lane, and I really believed that he was perfect in this role.
AP brings a lot of honesty to Eddie, and it’s not hard to root for him from the first few episodes. His talent is not just restricted to his acting, he shined and collaborated as a producer as well, a man of many talents.
The only thing I feel is that The Path was cut short prematurely, I wanted to see more of this interesting character that moved us so much.
