The Chosen TV Show Review – Episodes Ranked
Heard about a TV show called The Chosen? It raised a bunch of money via crowdfunding. It’s also about Jesus. And a bunch of other people. Is it, however, worth a watch?
Why Making Entertainment About the Bible is So Challenging
In the last decade and a half, a number of Bible-related shows and movies have cropped up. Starting with The Passion, it seemed that interest in Bible-based entertainment could extend beyond the marginalized, maybe even into the mainstream. Following Passion were projects like Noah – a strange fantasy based on the Biblical character of the same name.
Then came the Bible Series – a really good take on Biblical stories, topped off with a really strange casting choice for Jesus.
And then, there’s Chosen.
The thing is, making entertainment about the Bible is a big challenge. First of all, it’s a very sensitive topic for a lot of people. People do, after all, worship this stuff, and make major life choices based on the lessons taught within its pages. Needless to say, there’s a lot of pressure to get it right. But what does getting it right in the context of religious sources mean?
For some, it means rehashing scenes from the Bible word from word.
For others, it means focusing in on the brutality in order to create a visceral experience, and the truth at the heart of Christian teaching.
For Chosen, it means presenting a group of individuals, and even Jesus himself, as approachable.
The Entire World that The Chosen Presents is Approachable
Biblical scholars will note right away that Chosen takes creative liberties with its source materials. Instead of being the ubiquitous, everyday fisherman, Peter is a gambler, in over his head in debts, a fighter, and ultimately, a would be traitor of his own people. In fact, much of the creative liberties present in Chosen stem largely from Peter’s side story where he moonlights as an informant to the Romans. More on the creative liberties later, however. The first thing viewers will notice about Chosen is its approachability.
However, that approachability is not to say it is is insipid or too sweet. All-in-all, Chosen strays away from the easy pitfall of being overly sweet that many other religious based shows fall into. Its approachability is multifaceted, and stems mostly from the creative choices of those who made the show.
For Starters, The Chosen Adopts Modern TV Tropes
Some time ago, it would have been perhaps unimaginable to put together a powerful, meaningful drama about the life of the most influential person who ever lived through the medium of a television show. However, as the director of Chosen is happy to point out, Chosen is much like other great TV shows of recent years – shows like The Wire, and Friday Night Lights. This is where Chosen shines right away. It’s clear from the vignette at the very beginning of the show, and the edgy music and artsy intro credits that this show is conforming directly with what we expect from other contemporary shows. In this way, the show is immediately approachable to contemporary watchers – it’s giving them the story of Jesus in an easy to digest manner. Because it’s made the way other leading TV shows are made, we don’t have to suspend our disbelief and tag along with this religious experience simply because it’s good for us (like eating our greens). We are drawn into the world of Christ the way we are used to being drawn in – through clever film making.
Modern Dialogue is Necessary to Reaching Modern Audiences
Mel Gibson made an interesting choice when he decided to make Passion using the languages that the contemporary people of Jesus’s time would have spoken in. It’s truly hard to imagine a more powerful depiction of the Passion than his movie, although it is certainly quite bloody. I don’t know how Chosen will handle it, and I doubt they will get it as right as Mel did. But maybe they will.
However, Chosen creators made a very different choice when it comes to how the actors speak. They use mostly modern ways of interacting, combined with accents (supposedly somewhat accurate accents, at that). It’s not over the top – they don’t use slang (as far as I noticed) – and it’s not Hamilton: there’s no hiphop. But the way the actors express themselves when not directly quoting scripture makes the whole story of Jesus and the Apostles more approachable, and also easier to understand.
Added Context Helps Paint a Vivid Picture of the Gospels
One thing that some people might find difficult with Chosen overall is the fact, as mentioned earlier, that many fictitious things were added into the story in order to help it flow better. As it so happens, this was a very inspired thing to do, and doing so really helps the Gospel stories come together in an easy to understand way. Even for people like me, who have studied the Gospel stories many times throughout their lives, the connections the creators of Chosen make between different events, and the people and places involved in them, illuminates the impact of Christ’s ministry.
Chosen does a great job of including these fictitious subplots to add grandeur to the miracles and events actually recorded in the bible. For example, a moment of dialogue between two of the disciples about stone work, and how once you make something in stone that thing is final, is used to give emphasis to the importance of Jesus performing his first public miracle.
Fictitious events happening in the lives of the Apostles leading up to their being “chosen” by Christ also help show why they were so willing to follow the Teacher. For example, Jesus’s miracle of helping Peter catch fish was not just a cool trick. It saved Peter from a desperate situation. Although I know these happenings are fictitious in nature, it’s very keeping with the themes of the Gospel and Christian Salvation.
Chosen Episodes Ranked
Ultimately, I loved the show. I thought it was great – the best religious inspired entertainment I’ve seen since Silence (you can learn more about my views on Silence on my podcast). Also, I think every single one of the episodes in this season are great. They work together well to tell a story effectively. Virtually none of these episodes are dispensable. Still, inevitably, some episodes are going to be better than others. Here’s how I rank them.
Episode 1: I Have Called You by Name. It’s interesting that Chosen decides to start the show out with Mary of Magdalen. After this episode, though, it doesn’t seem strange at all. Her encounter is one of the most personal and moving of all the stories shown in this season. I think why this episode ranks first on my list (and on many other lists) is because of how well the creators set up the world, compared with the startling nature of Christ’s arrival in that world. In a place largely filled with darkness, greed and despair, Christ is a clear light against that darkness. The moment where Christ “calls Mary by her name” at the end of the episode is the most powerful moment of a show filled with powerful moments.
Episode 4: The Rock on Which it is Built. Peter is such a central character not only to the Bible and Christianity but also to this show. Much of the impetus for the first half of the first season is driven by Peter’s dealing with the Romans while trying to protect his family. Peter’s willingness to do anything for his family, including breaking one of the cardinal rules of the Jews, foreshadows both his future calling as the first Pope of Jesus’s Church and leader of the Apostles as well as his future willingness to break another cardinal rule: denying even knowing Christ. Because we’ve seen the struggles he’s gone through, the words he speaks to Jesus when they meet for the first time “Depart from me for I’m a sinful man” make a lot more sense. This episode is the culmination of the movements of part 1 of season 1, and establishes one of the best known partnerships in history – that of the partnership between Peter and Jesus (I know it’s not really a partnership – but they are kind of the ultimate buddy-relationship).
Episode 5: The Wedding Gift. It was actually quite hard to rank these episodes as I think episode 4, 5 and 8 are all relatively on the same level. However, I give The Wedding Gift a slight edge over the next episode on this list thanks to its incredible structure. The entire episode takes place around a wedding. It’s a very memorable episode, and probably the best standalone episode in the entire series. It also marks the beginning of Jesus’s public ministry.
Episode 8: I Am He. You gotta love that ending. Watching Jesus and the disciples walk slow motion into Samaria along to the tune of someone singing about trouble is pretty cool.
Episode 7: Invitations. This episode ranks above the others simply because of the calling of Mathew. We follow the oddball Mathew throughout the show, and the way in which this particular calling happens is the antithesis of the other big moments in the show. In fact, it is actually comically brief and uneventful. Yet, that somehow suits the factual, logical nature of Mathew. Mathew has already seen what Jesus can do, and already believes. All he needed, was a gentle nudge. The show successfully sets up Mathew’s backstory so that you really believe he’s totally willing to take off after Jesus simply asks him to follow. A guy like Mathew who has been alone for so long is also probably desperate to be a part of something bigger than himself. We also know that Mathew is the sort of person willing to abandon everything for what he believes in – he did it already when he became a tax collector. This time he does it to become one of the most famous writers of all time, and an Apostle of Christ.
Episode 6: Indescribable Compassion. This episode is a very action heavy episode, and also offers a great depiction of one of Christ’s memorable miracles. One thing of note that takes place in this episode is that Peter starts taking his role as Christ’s right hand man more seriously. He’s visibly protective of Jesus, while also acting as the public relations guy. All-in-all, you get the feeling Peter’s a bit of a hype-man for Jesus. He clearly doesn’t get the whole picture yet. But he will.
Episode 3: Jesus Loves the Little Children. This is a very heartwarming episode, and shows the humanity of Christ. It doesn’t have a lot of bearing on the rest of the show, however, and acts as a standalone episode. It’s probably the only episode that could have been done without, in regards to its negligible impact on the rest of the story. But, it’s so sweet, it ranks second to last.
Episode 2: Shabbat. This episode is critical to setting up events and moments that happen later in the show. It’s not a bad episode at all – it just doesn’t have the impactful moments that the others do.
