Ghosts of Beirut [2023] on Showtime/Paramount+

Showtime’s Ghosts of Beirut can be broken into two parts: Two great and informative episodes. And two sci-fi episodes that felt taken from 24 or Rabbit Hole.

In fact, the show tries to take the exceedingly complex Lebanese Civil War and make it into a good-guys-bad-guys spy thriller. And as a Lebanese, I can tell you that the show fails miserably at it mainly because history can’t be boiled down so easily.

At this point in time, everyone knows who Imad Mughniyeh is. So, I’ll skip that part. But when your subject matter is a “ghost”, and his assassination is heavily classified, it baffles me why Showtime chose to do this project right now, instead of waiting a couple of years until things are declassified.

Plus, it doesn’t help that even when the creators tried to take an objective approach, it wasn’t. However, what they managed to do is serialize milestone events in the Lebanese civil war in an okay outcome that is informative, but with lots of “creative liberties”.

Should you watch it?

While it is intriguing in parts it suffers from fleeting storylines and intermittent glimpses of the characters. Not a documentary and certainly not a series. There’s no core to grasp onto except the milestone historical events.

Where can I watch it?

You can stream Ghosts of Beirut exclusively on Paramount+.