A few brief thoughts on The Chosen Season 3: Finale
The season's last two episodes, currently in theatres, revisit some old themes and confront some logistical challenges (how to be heard in a crowd? how to multiply the loaves and fish? etc.).
The Chosen Season 3: Finale is in theatres now, so here are a few brief random notes.
First, a bit of box-office reportage: The Chosen earned $1.67mil yesterday and was the top-grossing movie at the box office—ahead of the $1.45mil in previews that M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin made (Thursday-night “preview” money usually gets rolled into the Friday box-office reports), and ahead of the $1mil that Avatar: The Way of Water made. This is only the third time since Avatar came out seven weeks ago that Avatar was not the #1 movie of the day (the other two times being the opening days for M3GAN on January 6 and Pathaan on January 25).
Second, a note about “faith-based movie” cross-pollination: The theatrical show began with a video in which series creator Dallas Jenkins drew attention to the fact that Jesus Revolution, a film starring The Chosen’s Jonathan Roumie as a hippie preacher, is coming out in three weeks. (Apparently some theatres showing The Chosen this week are getting a full trailer for Jesus Revolution, too?)
And now, a few preliminary comments about the finale itself:
These episodes repeat some of the themes and motifs that we’ve seen previously this season: there is another flashback to Matthew’s tax-collecting days (like the flashback at the beginning of S3E1); there is another physical object that goes back to a significant moment in Old Testament history (like the bridle we saw in S3E3); there is another biblical character who, we learn, has been involved in a purely fictitious extra-marital relationship (like Joanna’s husband in S3E1); there is another set of scenes in which a crowd disperses after one of Jesus’ public speeches (like the scenes after the Sermon on the Mount in S3E1).
On that last note, I’m reminded of a song called ‘Props’ by my favorite band of all time, Daniel Amos, which includes the lines: ‘When the curtain comes down I’ll pack my things and go / That’s not in the show / But it’s part of the play.’ I am also reminded of a scene near the end of Mike Leigh’s Topsy-Turvy in which William S. Gilbert, after the premiere of his classic musical The Mikado, says gloomily, “There’s something inherently disappointing about success.” The way life just goes on—the way the world of mundane things carries on, even after something super-special has happened—is a theme that fascinates me, and I’m intrigued by the way this last season of The Chosen just shows the crowds packing up and going once the Big Show is over.
There’s a moment during Jesus’ sermon when someone at the back of the crowd complains that they can’t hear him very well (which of course brought Monty Python’s Life of Brian to mind). Jesus solves this problem by having the disciples stand at various points within the crowd so that they can act as relay stations, as it were, by repeating his teachings as he preaches, shouting them to the people sitting further back. I… am not sure how well this would work. Among other things, I wonder what would happen if the disciples began making tiny changes, however unintentional, to the teachings (the Pythons, no doubt, would show different sections of the crowd hearing different things from different disciples and getting into sectarian fights over what they heard), and I find myself sympathizing with anyone who ended up sitting next to these “relay stations” and had to hear the teachings twice, especially if Jesus’ and the disciples’ voices overlapped.
The feeding of the 5,000 is one of several miracles in the Bible that is kind of hard to visualize—how, exactly, did twelve men start passing seven food items around to a crowd of thousands, without running out of food? how did the disciples begin the food distribution? did people see the food self-replicating? what would that have looked like?—but filmmakers that tackle this story have to visualize it somehow. I haven’t looked closely at how films have tackled this story in the past, but I’m kind of inclined to, now. Suffice it to say that I liked the way The Chosen dealt with it. The miracle happens off-screen not only in the sense that it happens between shots or whatever, but it happens when the disciples deliberately hide the food from themselves, by putting it under the lids of their baskets.
In his introductory video, Jenkins asks audiences not to spoil “the twist”. So I won’t. But suffice it to say there is a major plot element in the finale that none of the promotional videos have even hinted at—and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. It reminded me of one of the problems I had with the miracle of the catching of the fish in S1E4, when Simon’s confession of sinfulness was changed from a general recognition of his non-holiness to a confession of specific misdeeds. The filmmakers say they want to give these moments deeper meaning, but to my eyes they gave those moments narrower meaning. And as far as this scene in the finale goes, while I think I can see how the filmmakers wanted to explore the idea that arguing with God is not a negation of faith but an expression of faith, I also think they’ve reduced a potentially transcendent moment to something smaller, and more melodramatic even, for lack of a better word. (This series has generally avoided the more mystical or transcendent aspects of the gospels—no baptism of Jesus with the dove and the voice from heaven, no Transfiguration, etc.—and I wonder sometimes how it’s going to handle the Resurrection, which is supposed to be the major theme in Season 7.)
When the trailer for Season 3 came out back in October, it seemed to be hinting that we would see a certain story from the gospels this season—and, well, it turns out we haven’t seen it yet! But the groundwork has certainly been laid for it.
Whenever Jesus and the disciples go for hours- or days-long walks from one place to another, I sometimes find myself thinking that they’re dressed awfully light; they’re not really prepared for any sudden changes in weather. I had that thought again during the finale… and then, lo and behold, the weather changed.
And, because I can’t help myself, I am once again distracted by timeline issues. S3E3, the episode in which Jesus returned to Nazareth, took place on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Now S3E7—the first half of the finale—begins with Purim, a Jewish holiday that takes place 5½ or 6½ months after Rosh Hashanah, depending on whether it’s a leap year. Does it feel like half a year has gone by in the last three or four episodes? (In the episode immediately before this, it was established that Eden’s miscarriage took place “weeks ago”.)
So here’s the timeline so far:
Matthew revealed in S2E1 that the entire first season had taken place in the month of Adar (roughly February-March on the Gregorian calendar).
S2E4 took place during the Jewish feast of Sukkot, which begins on the 15th day of Tishrei (roughly September-October).
S3E3 took place during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which begins on the 1st day of Tishrei—almost a full year after Sukkot.
And now, S3E7 begins on Purim, which is on the 14th day of Adar.
Taken at face value, this would mean the series has covered two years now.
The episodes are definitely getting longer. Season 1 had three episodes under 40 minutes. Season 2 had the first episode that ran over an hour, to 64 minutes. By my count, Season 3 now has five episodes that run over an hour—including three that run over 70 minutes. (S3E8 is 75 minutes before the end credits roll.)
And that about does it for now, I think.
The Chosen Season 3: Finale—which includes Episodes 7 and 8—is playing in theatres right now. Episode 7 will start streaming on Sunday, and Episode 8 on Tuesday.
-
The Chosen interviews:
Season 1: Dallas Jenkins, co-writer/director (Dec 2019)
Season 2: Dallas Jenkins, co-writer/director (May 2021) | Derral Eves, producer, on Christmas with The Chosen: The Messengers (Nov 2021) | Dallas Jenkins on the ‘The Chosen Is Not Good’ marketing campaign (Apr 2022)
Season 3: Jordan Walker Ross, Little James (Oct 2022) | Vanessa Benavente, Mother Mary (Nov 2022) | Kirk B.R. Woller, Gaius (Nov 2022)
The Chosen recaps:
Season 1: review | scripture index
Episode recaps: The Shepherd | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eightSeason 2: The Messengers review | scripture index
Episode recaps: one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | The MessengersSeason 3: Episodes 1 & 2 notes | scripture index
Episode recaps: one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight
-
The Chosen can be streamed via Angel Studios or the show’s app (Android | Apple).
Not really possible to do this without spoilers -
1. I wonder if the revelation about Gaius is meant to indicate a merger of the story of Matthew 8/Luke 7 with the story of John 4. More liberal critics have often considered these potentially variants on the same story, but now that the idea has been placed in my head, it does seem (no libel meant toward an anonymous man of 2000 years ago) all too possible that they could be the same story and yet both be literally true, the boy both a servant and a son.
2. At first I thought it was powerful that the walking on the water was connected to a particular crisis of faith for Simon (almost wrote Peter, but that name has yet to be used), and overall I still did, but I disliked that Jesus and Simon talked directly about Eden during the scene. I think I would have been more powerful to stick closely to the Biblical dialogue with the family crisis as subtext instead of text.
3. Overall I find the show to be more successful in giving depth to the Biblical characters than in creating entirely new plots. I did not find the idea that Andrew and Philip had plunged a large-ish region into crisis by a brief visit to be very plausible. The scene in which three or four ethnic groups appeared one by one to voice their grievances was for me uncomfortably evocative of the fight scene in Anchorman! But the smaller miracle scenes built into this framework (and obviously the big miracle at the end) were very well-done.