So yeah, I thought that he’d be made either with one of the women, or in the bath house. I was really nervous during the bath scene, I figured that would be the beginning of the end.
Finished it last night. The episodes’ hour-long running times seemed to go by in about ten minutes. Kudos to SBC, who should be looking at an Emmy. The story was tight, and tension was very real.
My only small nitpick in the entire series was a throwaway comment by one of the characters about having “tried to reach out” to someone. In the 60s, people still used “call” or “phone” or “contact”. “Reaching out” is a modern-day replacement for “call” that for some reason has become as ubiquitous as “have a nice day”, but much more annoying.
If your concern was based on the end, it should be noted that circumcision is an Islamic custom as well.
I did like the recurring buttering toast connection but not sure why I liked it so much.
I think they also did a good job noting the prejudice against Arabs, including Jewish Arabs, in Israel, without beating it in too hard. The fact that at home he had to deal with that, the profiling in the department store, when he was so powerful with his Syrian world and doing so much for his country … tough to swallow. And set up well from the first party scene in which he did just make it more comfortable for the one with the unthinking prejudicial profiling.