Among all the exotic new accouterments peak-TV has brought to our small screens, surely one of the most unexpected is Paolo Sorrentino, a certified high-art Euro-film auteur who made his American television debut with “The Young Pope” on HBO in 2017.

For that modishly hallucinatory satire on Roman Catholic themes — in which the pope was a Gen-X American whose anger over having been abandoned by his hippie parents made him swing harshly conservative — Sorrentino attracted a cosmopolitan, marquee-name cast: Jude Law, Diane Keaton, Cécile de France, Ludivine Sagnier. And in another sign of his clout, what was billed as a mini-series has been revived after a three-year gap. “The New Pope,” somewhere between a second season and a new nine-episode mini-series, begins Monday on HBO.

Most of the principal cast returns, minus Keaton (the sage nun she played was sent off to do missionary work in Africa). That includes Law, but as the title indicates, there have been some changes. The initial series ended with Pius XIII, the beautiful young pope Law embodies, collapsing just as he appeared to find his faith. (And perhaps his long-lost parents.)