The recurring question in the pilot of Ticket to Heaven isn't just faith. It's belonging.
Dissecting the pilot of Ticket to Heaven is absolutely fascinating because almost everything shown on screen operates on three distinct levels at once:
1. The literal narrative level (what is actually happening to Barth and Tanrak).
2. The psychological level (what Barth is internally experiencing).
3. The religious-symbolic level (what the series is saying about faith, judgment, belonging, and queerness).
First: Who is Barth, psychologically?
If I step inside his head based entirely on the pilot (for context, I haven't read the book and only know what the episode showed us) his internal monologue likely sounds something like this: "The Church preaches love, but the people who sent me here view me as diseased. My father betrayed me. My old school discarded me. Everyone dictates what God wants, but no one cares what I want."
The compelling thing here is that Barth isn't archetype-rebellious. He doesn't act out because rules are tedious; he acts out because he has exposed the hypocrisy of his authority figures. While a typical rebel adopts a posture of apathy ("I don't care"), Barth is driven by wounded idealism ("I care too much, and it makes me furious"). The fight that got him expelled is incredibly telling. He wasn't kicked out for a secret romance; he was expelled for fighting back after being called a slur. That is a deep humiliation wound. It taught him a cynical lesson: If I don't defend myself, nobody will. That realization is exactly what creates the detached, hostile exterior we’re seeing. He is entirely alienated by a system where everyone claims to speak for God while actively judging him.
The uniform scene.
There’s a lot going on here, especially when you look at it through Barth’s eyes. While the uniform symbolizes belonging for his peers, for Barth, it represents an environment forced upon him. The Father tells him, "You have to wear Tanrak's uniform." Physically, sure, it’s just practical. But symbolically? It's like the institution's way of saying, "You don't belong here enough to deserve your own identity." At least, that’s how he perceives it. Everyone else gets a custom-fitted uniform, while Barth gets hand-me-downs. And not just from anyone, but from Tanrak, no less: the golden-boy seminarian, the perfect believer, and everything Barth isn't. So it makes total sense that Barth experiences it as erasure¹, regardless of what the institution intended. Every time he puts it on, it probably feels like the uniform is whispering, "Be more like him."
Why arrive in casual attire?
Because it was a refusal. The ordination ceremony is the ultimate symbol of Church authority. Everyone participates, everyone wears the right clothes, and everyone falls into line. But Barth arrives looking almost disrespectful. If I were in his shoes, I’d be thinking, "You don't get to dress me up and pretend I'm one of you. No way." The clothes became his protest. Not verbal. Visual.
The moment Tanrak tells him to sit with the churchgoers is particularly interesting.
Tanrak is probably just enforcing the rules, but from Barth’s perspective, it feels like a slap in the face. It may sound to him like, "You don't belong with us," even if Tanrak doesn't mean it that way. That's why these kinds of stories work so well: both characters can be completely right and still manage to hurt each other. Tanrak sees order; Barth hears rejection.
What interests me most is why he keeps standing.
If he merely hated religion, he'd probably just roll his eyes and leave. Instead, he stays, standing and staring. That suggests engagement, not indifference. It's not passive, it's confrontational. The Father says sit, and everybody sits, but Barth remains standing. That's a power struggle. A tiny one, but completely deliberate. He uses the one thing he still has power over: his own body.
There's a famous distinction in literary criticism between absence and negation. Barth doesn't behave as though God is absent from his life. He behaves as though God is painfully present but inaccessible.
The picture he's looking at is the Holy Family, which is one of the most traditional representations of family in Catholic symbolism. This feels especially loaded given the context, because the Holy Family represents the ideal family: a loving father, a loving mother, and a holy son. Contrast that with Barth's recent history. He was apparently outed by his father, possibly rejected by his family, and maybe even sent away because of who he is. And now, here he is, standing beneath an image that represents the ideal holy family. If I were writing Barth's inner monologue, it might sound something like: "That's nice. Joseph protects his son. Mary loves her child. God watches over them. Must be nice." I don't necessarily see it as, "I hate God." I see it as, "Why was I denied what they're celebrating?" That's a different emotion. It's bitterness and resentment², not atheism.
Now look at Barth's expression. That clenched jaw? That's restraint. It's usually the look of someone trying not to cry, trying not to scream, trying not to completely break down. It almost looks like he's actively challenging a sacred image. And honestly, in a church setting, refusing to sit down, staring down holy imagery, and then walking out can be read as defiance against God. But given the context, there’s another reading: "Where were you?"
It’s not, "I don't believe in you." It’s, "If you're real, where were you when all of this was happening?" That's a centuries-old religious question. Even deeply religious people ask it.
Why does everyone watch him?
Because he's breaking the ritual. Church ceremonies rely on shared participation: standing, sitting, kneeling, and responding. Everyone moving in unison symbolizes unity. The moment one person refuses, especially in a solemn ordination ceremony, all attention goes to them. He's no longer participating in the ritual. He's confronting it, whether he means to or not.
So, why did he storm out?
My guess is that the image of the Holy Family hit a nerve. Not the theological side of it, but the family aspect. The ceremony celebrates vocation, belonging, acceptance, and spiritual fatherhood, which are exactly the things Barth probably feels have been taken from him. He feels like nobody in that room understands him, or at least that's what he thinks. Leaving is the only real control he has left before the mask slips and anyone sees the vulnerability underneath the anger. It’s the behavior of someone who feels abandoned by people, by family, and maybe by God too. And he isn't willing to pretend everything is fine just because everyone else in the church is playing along.
The inclusion of the Leviticus quote in the opening is highly deliberate.
The most famous anti-gay "clobber verses" in modern Christianity come straight out of Leviticus, so a lot of viewers are going to immediately associate it with condemnation. (Side note: queer people in religious communities often face massive religious shame—yours truly included—and Leviticus is always a go-to in anti-queer rhetoric. I actually once wrote a whole-ass fanfiction based on this verse just to reclaim a traditionally moralistic text and tell a queer love story that was messy, real, and worthy of reverence. I wanted to turn condemnation into consecration, but hey, that's a story for another time, lol.)
Opening with "The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born" creates a powerful reversal. The show is basically saying, "Before you quote Leviticus to condemn queer people, remember it also commands radical hospitality." The core idea here isn't even about being a "foreigner," it's about being an outsider. Thematically, it's all about the stranger. The unwanted guest. The person everyone sees as different. That opening verse becomes the lens for the entire story. It shifts the question from "Is this sinful?" to "How are people treating him?" That is a completely different moral question³.
Rain. Jesus falling. The cross pulled from both sides.
Between the rain, Jesus falling, and the cross getting pulled from both sides, this whole scene feels almost too intentional to be accidental. Their first meeting happens during a storm. In literature, storms usually symbolize upheaval, transformation, divine intervention, and emotional chaos. And then you have Jesus falling. That’s fascinating because usually, characters kneel before Christ. Here, Christ literally collapses between them, almost like faith itself is becoming unstable. But notice how both boys catch the statue. Neither one lets it break. That matters. It proves neither character is rejecting Jesus, even Barth. He helps save the statue, suggesting that Barth's conflict is not necessarily with Christ, but with the institution around Him. It’s a massive, very common theme in queer Christian narratives.
The cross being pulled from both left and right is especially striking.
Master Phak (brilliantly played by Bright) ties a rope to both sides, stretching the cross between two opposing forces: Barth on one side, and Tanrak on the other. The symbolism practically writes itself; the cross becomes a visual representation of tension.
Here are a few possible readings:
Reading 1: Tanrak represents obedience, while Barth represents resistance, leaving faith caught in the middle.
Reading 2: Tanrak represents Church doctrine, and Barth represents lived human experience, leaving the cross suspended between these two realities.
Reading 3: The boys themselves are being crucified. Not physically, but emotionally. Both are trapped by expectations, just in different ways.
The empty pool scene is probably the richest image the pilot gives us.
We usually associate pools with water, and water has massive symbolic weight in Christianity, like baptism, purification, rebirth, and spiritual transformation. But this pool is mostly dry. That’s the key details here: it’s a symbol missing the very thing it’s supposed to hold. In the same way, Barth has self-knowledge without belonging, and Tanrak has devotion without self-knowledge⁴. They're both incomplete.
When the bully throws Barth's bag into the shallow water, it’s a powerful image.
This isn't enough water to cleanse anything; it's only enough to dirty it. Again, it's highly symbolic.
Religion in this story seems to function the exact same way. It doesn't heal Barth, it just humiliates him⁵.
Spending the night together is a classic romance setup narratively, but symbolically, it means so much more.
For the first time, Barth is trapped with someone who actually stays. Everyone else in his life rejects him, but Tanrak comes looking for him. That matters a lot, even if Barth won't admit it. Inside Barth's head, the thought is likely: "Why did you come? Nobody ever comes for me." That realization is usually the emotional core for characters like him.
The shot looking up from the bottom of the pool is what immediately caught my eye.
We see Barth and Tanrak below while everyone else is above. With everyone looking down, there's this incredibly judgmental atmosphere. The visual almost resembles a tribunal, like sinners being inspected, or people standing before heaven, or even trapped in a pit. This kind of religious imagery draws on a long tradition of descent, exile, judgment, and being placed beneath society. Because the camera puts us right there with Barth and Tanrak instead of the authorities, that choice really matters. The show is telling us exactly whose perspective is morally important.
To reiterate the conclusion from my previous analysis, I think the show's central theme is: "What happens when someone spends their entire life being told who they must be?" Tanrak and Barth are mirrors for one another. Tanrak never asks himself what he wants, while Barth knows exactly what he wants but has been punished for it. Tanrak represents obedience without selfhood; Barth represents selfhood without belonging. They are two sides of the same wound, which is why they attract each other narratively. Each boy possesses something the other lacks, and the religious symbolism seems to reinforce this idea over and over.
Everything revolves around the same question: Who gets to belong? And from Barth's perspective, every scene feels like a variation of the same challenge: "You tell me God loves everyone. Then why do I feel like an intruder everywhere I go?⁶"
The pilot is less concerned with whether Barth belongs to God, and more with whether God's people are willing to make room for him.
Viewed separately, Barth's actions can look like rebellion. Viewed together, they start to resemble mourning. Not the mourning of someone who never wanted faith. But the mourning of someone who wanted faith, family, belonging, and recognition, and feels denied all four. If that's what the writers are building toward, then the pilot's recurring question isn't merely, "Can Barth belong in this religious world?" It's something closer to: If a community proclaims universal love, what obligations does that create toward the people who feel the least welcome? That's a question with theological implications, certainly. But it's also a profoundly human one, which is probably why the pilot resonates even for viewers who aren't religious at all.
NOTES:
¹While Tanrak's uniform clearly symbolizes institutional pressure toward conformity, there's another layer that makes it even richer. Because the uniform belongs specifically to Tanrak, it doesn't just represent the Church's expectations. It symbolizes an unwanted intimacy. Barth is literally placed inside Tanrak's identity before he's even ready to know him. In a lot of stories, clothing functions as identity. If that's true here, then Barth doesn't simply experience Tanrak's identity as something imposed on him. He's being placed inside Tanrak's world. And Tanrak, by extension, is being forced to make room for Barth's presence. The symbolism works both directions. Narratively, that's fascinating because Tanrak eventually becomes the person Barth is drawn to. The very thing Barth initially experiences as erasure may later become a connection. Good romances often do this: an object first symbolizes coercion, only to later acquire a completely different meaning as the relationship changes. A lot of romances are built on complementary wounds, where each character is missing something the other possesses. Not because one is "better," but because each has solved a problem the other hasn't. Tanrak knows how to belong. Barth knows how to be himself. Neither knows how to do both at once.
²A lot of stories about religious trauma get flattened into simple "religion bad" narratives. What the pilot shows us is way more interesting: Barth isn't indifferent to faith. Indifference looks like disengagement, but Barth is intensely engaged. He reacts, he resists, he stares at sacred imagery, and he stays in the room longer than he needs to. Psychologically speaking, anger often indicates attachment more than it does detachment. People rarely rage at something that means nothing to them. If Barth truly didn't care, the imagery wouldn't have the power to wound him.
³Whether or not you agree with the theology here, the story seems less interested in forcing abstract rules on people and much more focused on real human responsibility.
⁴The empty pool is perhaps even sadder because of what it represents. Baptism symbolizes both death and rebirth, so a drained pool is a place where rebirth should happen, but can't. It's a failed threshold, and everyone in the story seems stuck there. Barth cannot fully enter the religious community, and Tanrak cannot fully examine himself. Neither boy is becoming who he is meant to be. Tanrak isn't questioning enough. Barth isn't being accepted enough. They're both suspended. In fact, that feeling of suspension describes the entire pilot. No one has arrived anywhere yet.
⁵Regarding the show's ambiguous themes, the institution certainly humiliates Barth, and certain people within it undoubtedly wound him. But the pilot episode repeatedly separates Christ from the institution. That's why the scene featuring the fallen statue is so important. If the show wanted to argue that faith itself was the problem, it could have had Barth reject the statue, mock it, or leave it shattered. Instead, both boys catch it. That visual seems deliberately designed to maintain a distinction between faith, religious institutions, and the people who operate them. The pilot appears interested in the possibility that those three things are not always the same.
⁶Whether or not my interpretation matches the writers' exact intentions, the symbols I've identified all orbit the same emotional center: the fear of being told that love is universal while continually experiencing exclusion.
