With Love Star Isis King on How the Series Keeps the Faith

[Spoiler Note: Light spoilers through Season 2 of With Love are discussed below.]

A few weeks ago my son received his first Communion.

The event is a revered Catholic tradition that honestly hasn’t changed that much since I received the sacrament many years ago. The girls wear white dresses and the boys white suits as they march down the aisle ready to accept the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Many who know me are surprised to learn I’m a practicing Catholic. I don’t agree with so many of the church’s positions. I am what my college friends and I used to refer to as a “cafeteria Catholic.” Yes I will take the “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Hard pass on women not being allowed to be priests. I try to live by “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” But no thank you to the Catholic Church’s stance on LGBTQI+ people, homosexual marriage, and well, you get the idea.

When I became an adult and was living on my own, I entertained the idea of joining another church, leaving the Catholic faith behind and finding a religion that more accurately aligned with my core values. But what I found was that saying I was no longer Catholic would be like saying I was no longer of Irish/Italian descent. Or that I was a blond instead of a brunette. Sure I could dye my hair, but the truth is still right there as the roots grow out. It turned out being Catholic was so much a part of my identity. Leaving the church behind would feel like leaving a part of myself behind. 

It’s a concept I often struggle to explain and, if I’m being completely honest, there are some days I don’t even quite understand it myself. But watching the second season of the Prime series With Love, I feel like the show really gets me and the nuances that can exist for practicing Catholics. That the issue isn’t as black and white as it may seem; many of today’s Catholics live in the gray area.

The terrific series, which recently returned for a second season, follows the Diaz family: siblings Lily (Emeraude Toubia) and Jorge (Mark Indelicato), their parents Beatriz (Constance Marie) and Jorge Senior (Benito Martinez), their cousin Sol (Isis King), Jorge’s boyfriend Henry (Vincent Rodriguez III), and Sol’s boyfriend Miles (Todd Grinnell). Lily is caught in a classic TV love triangle between Santiago (Rome Flynn) and Jorge’s best friend and roommate Nick (Desmond Chiam). 

Both seasons open with the family attending Christmas Eve mass. In the series premiere, Jorge, who is gay, doesn’t attend. “The Lord is kind of a dick about people like us,” he tells Sol, who is transgender and uses they/them pronouns. “No baby, people are dicks about people like us,” Sol tells him. “The Lord is all good with me.” In one quick exchange, With Love epitomized how the church can be a flawed conduit to a relationship with God. 

“In general people always have this thing where they think just because you are queer you don’t have faith, and that’s a stereotype that’s not true in many cases,” King told Paste in an interview last week. “You can see that Sol has a strong faith. Faith and queerness are not mutually exclusive. They do intersect for many people, and I think that’s kind of beautifully wrapped in a bow for this season.”

King, who competed on the eleventh and all-star season of America’s Next Top Model, credits show creator and executive producer Gloria Calderón Kellett and the show’s writers for bringing this story line to the screen. “A big part of this is based on people Gloria knows,” King says. “It also goes to show how important writers are, writers of different diversity and different opinions. We have such a strong writing team to bring these characters to life in such a beautiful way.”

Jorge and Sol’s grandparents Marta (Renee Victor) and Luis (Pepe Serna) are, in many ways, traditional Catholics, but struggle with the fact that the church doesn’t fully accept their grandchildren. Marta has Jorge and Henry participate in a pre-Cana style quiz on marriage compatibility even though their parish priest said Jorge and Henry couldn’t get married in the church. “I think she just wants some sort of Catholic stamp of approval,” Jorge says. “It means a lot to her and I love her, so Jesus take the wheel.”

With Love can be humorous about the whole thing. When Jorge and Henry write their own vows, Jorge Sr. jokes that they had a Catholic wedding and “had to stick to the script.” When Sol learns about the Catholic compatibility quiz, they deadpan,  “I’m sorry. Did the Pope just pass a thing allowing us to get married in church? ‘Cause I didn’t get that phone call.”

The show offers up the perspective that the Catholic church is like a family member that you still love even if you don’t approve of them all the time. “There are people in your life who don’t agree with you and you just have to kind of pivot and keep going,” King says. “I think that is the case with Sol. They have such a strong bond with their family that it’s so easy to kind of keep the faith. That is an ideal scenario, that your faith and you being who you truly are align and you have the support to back you. In this day and age, it’s unfortunate that people use faith to kind of isolate or pick apart the trans community.”

With Love shows characters not often seen on TV, devout but not blind to the Catholic church’s flaws. And that’s something to celebrate. 

Both seasons of With Love are currently streaming on Prime Video. 

Amy Amatangelo, the TV Gal®, is a Boston-based freelance writer and a member of the Television Critics Association. She wasn’t allowed to watch much TV as a child and now her parents have to live with this as her career. You can follow her on Twitter  (@AmyTVGal).

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