Paolo Sorrentino’s The Young Pope climaxed with something of a cliffhanger, with viewers unsure of Pope Pius XIII’s future. However, the title of the follow-up might have just cleared everything up. Things can’t have ended well, because the new show is called The New Pope.
Now, The New Pope is a pretty terrible title. The Young Pope was great, because the adjective “young” did some of the work for us. There would be a pope, we were told, and he would be young. Admittedly, it didn’t do as much work as it should, since the pope in question turned out to be a grown man in his mid-forties and not, say, a badass toddler in a massive zucchetto. But, still, it helped.
“New”, though, is a void. It’s absolutely meaningless. It tells us nothing about the new pope, other than that he happens to be quite recent. Paolo Sorrentino, let’s end this madness. Here are six better titles for this coming season, plus some casting suggestions.
The Younger Pope
Paolo, we should give the people what they want. When they heard about The Young Pope, they expected a show about a kid on a skateboard who kept pulling down all the cardinals’ trousers and then looking over the top of his Wayfarers directly into camera as the opening riff to Bad to the Bone played. Let’s make this show. Let’s end every episode on a freeze-frame high-five. And let’s cast Jacob Tremblay in the lead. Everyone loves him.
The Lady Pope
Picture the scene. Julia Roberts has sent shockwaves through the Catholic world by becoming the first female pope in history. Her appointment raises a number of profound theological questions that cause the church to examine its place in the world like never before. But first, let’s have a changing room montage of all her kooky, sexy pope outfits. Maybe in the end she goes for a slinky off-the-shoulder number. And pillow fights. She has to have lots of pillow fights with her flirty gal pals, too.
The Sexy Pope
Ryan Gosling plays Pope Ryan Gosling in a series that’s explicitly dedicated to showing Ryan Gosling watching over everything with a sleepy, detached smile on his face. When things get tough, he looks straight into camera and drawls: “Can you believe this? I wouldn’t be in this mess if you were my girlfriend.” Then he winks, and the show becomes the biggest success in all of television history.
The Rapping Pope
Very specifically, the Rapping Pope would be Pep Streebek, the character played by Tom Hanks in the 1987 film Dragnet. Head bowed, Streebeck steps out on to the Loggia of the Benediction. He inhales, trying to summon the strength of spirit to get him through this momentous occasion. Suddenly a dope old-school beat booms out across the Vatican and he starts spitting a sick rhyme: “My name is the pope and I’m here to say / Don’t use condoms or be gay”. The crowd goes wild.
The Nope Pope
I haven’t really thought this one through, but what about a pope who literally just responds to everything with a blank-faced ‘Nope’? Nick Offerman would be good for this.
The Nightmare Pope
This is the real corner that Paolo Sorrentino has painted himself into: Lenny Belardo was a monster. Vengeful, egotistical and conservative to an impractical degree, he’s going to be incredibly hard to top. So really, if we’re going to go down this road again, there’s only one man for the job. Step forward Mel Gibson. He’s already a terrifying version of megalomaniacal catholicism run rampant, plus he’s in possession of the world’s most wild-eyed old testament beard. Sorrentino probably wouldn’t even need to write scripts for this one. Stick him in a room with some GoPros and tequila and the show would pretty much film itself.
