The ending of Children of the Church Steps is guaranteed from the very beginning. This isn’t a story about surprises; it’s one about inevitability. Each of the four episodes unfolds from the perspective of a child, each involved in the real-life Candelaria Church Massacre, which occurred in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1993. Episode 4 revolves around and is named after Jesus, who attempts to take shelter in the house of God only to discover that Hell awaits him there.
It’s bleak, this show. That’s worth pointing out. It’s about children being senselessly killed after a lifetime of trauma and the finale does indeed strongly feature the massacre itself, which kills off two of the four main characters (eight homeless people were killed in the massacre, six of them minors.) Jesus, perhaps fittingly given his name, is one of the survivors, but it’s small consolation after what he witnesses.
The massacre contorts and sullies the idea of a church as a place of refuge. Jesus hides there after he and the other displaced people were apprehended for loitering outside on the eve of an important wedding. The building should be safe. For the kids who have grown up on its steps, many of whom were ancestors of its original builders, it has been their shelter. This is, perhaps, the ultimate tragedy of it all.
I don’t know why Jesus takes Mother Mary’s crown, though he makes more logical use of it later. Ostensibly it’s a gift for Jessica, who had earlier said she thought it was beautiful. Jesus imagines a future with Jessica, literally dreams one into existence before he’s snapped from his imaginings by the real-world commotion outside the church. But it’s hard to imagine there isn’t some symbolism involved in a character named Jesus seizing the crown of his namesake’s mother.
Jesus goes from watching his friends as he settles down to sleep to watching them get shot. Douglas and Seven are both killed by the police. Popcorn only narrowly escapes the same fate, and Jessica isn’t far behind. Jesus’s distraction in ringing the church bells causes enough of a commotion to save the girls. He uses the stolen crown to smash a window, allowing him to reach them, and they all run away together, leaving the dead and their innocence behind.
Perhaps that’s what the crown means. It’s a tether to the idea of religion as salvation, protection. It serves a purpose, but after that, it has no utility. Jesus abandons it like the world abandoned him and his friends. The ending of Children of the Church Steps has that feeling of transition, the promise of things never being the same again. Even the survivors of the massacre don’t really escape it. They will have to live with it for the rest of their lives.
It’s hard to imagine a bleaker climax than this. But it is a fitting one. In a show about the harshest realities, it wouldn’t be right to concoct a warm and fuzzy ending. The truth is the most powerful thing of all. A final message leaves us with a last twist of the knife – that everyone who was convicted for their participation has since been released. Many who were guilty were acquitted. No true justice was ever really done.
At least now, more people know that. It’s a small consolation, but it’ll have to do.
