The Chosen season 4 review: Big screens for TV Jesus?
Though the entire season went theatrical, its relatable Jesus take still feels episodic
Film Reviews The Chosen
The Chosen’s plot may be mostly familiar, with the story of Jesus Christ being, if not the greatest story ever told, certainly one of the best known. The model, however, is new. Following in the footsteps of sci-fi and fantasy shows like Doctor Who and Game of Thrones showing certain episodes in theaters via Fathom events, The Chosen started with a Christmas special that included a concert, continued with the premiere and finale for season three, another Christmas special, and for season four, released every episode in theaters, in groups of two and three, staggered across several weeks. Thus far, this has been the only way to see them, though one or more streaming homes seem sure to be announced eventually, once all the episodes finish their runs in theaters, churches, and even prisons.
All of these theatrical releases, save one of the Christmas specials, are among Fathom Events’ top ten releases since 1995; of the remaining four, three are Christian faith-based films, while the last one is Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. We might semi-facetiously compare devoted Kevin Smith fans to a cult, but the overall message is clear: for Fathom Events, faith sells. The season four grosses taper off after the premiere, with episodes one through three as a single showing grossing $14.6 million, and the finale cluster of episodes seven and eight together down to less than half that, at $6.3 million. That’s still impressive, though, for a production with no big-name stars, shot entirely (this season) at the Salvation Army’s Camp Hoblitzelle in Texas, with extensive crowdfunding support. In theory, this is a story viewers should be able to jump in on at any point; in practice, the numbers suggest many paying customers are one-and-done. The producers want the show to be available for free, and position the theatrical tickets as ways fans can donate for a more premium experience.
Are these groups of episodes particularly cinematic, or do they merit the largest screens possible? Director Dallas Jenkins initially cited the feeding of the 5,000 scene, for which the production apparently assembled 12,000 extras, as the kind of spectacle that would benefit from a wide canvas. There’s nothing quite like that in season four, though Jenkins frequently makes use of wide landscape shots while the Apostles hike from one town to the next. In fact, the first episode of season four feels stagey if anything, relying heavily on two-character scenes which, for drama’s sake, could have worked almost as well on an empty stage, but for budget’s sake, often have extras aplenty in the background. The fact that episode two opens with a recasting announcement only adds to the effect.
As for the groupings of episodes, they do in fact feel like groupings of episodes rather than sub-movies. Episode one deals with the execution of John the Baptist; episode two involves Simon taking on the new name of Peter; and episode three builds up to a confrontation between Jesus and religious officials that ends badly. Each episode has a different focus and arc. Later in the season, episode seven, bookended by flash-forward sequences, feels very much standalone, though it’s screened with the similarly contained episode eight, which also includes some bloopers after its lengthy end credits. Footage of actors messing up is hardly blasphemy, but it’s unusual to see “Jesus” messing up and improvising jokes. Some of the target audience might take offense, but The Chosen’s Christ, played by Catholic ministry leader Jonathan Roumie is, after all, an extremely chill Jesus.
The Chosen’s plan is to run for seven full seasons, which may incorporate the Acts of the Apostles as well as the Gospel story. To maintain a runtime like that for a story that often takes a single movie to tell, The Chosen adds a lot of material, with the thought process of a producer. Storywise, for instance, the Gospels frequently introduce characters only when they’re needed to make a point. In The Chosen, rather than have Thomas only figure into the plot when it’s time for doubt, for instance, he and his newly invented wife Ramah are the bartenders at the wedding in Cana where water becomes wine. Judas (Luke Dimyan), too, has a much longer narrative as a good guy before losing faith, expanding on the Gospel of John’s role for him as purse-carrier; Lazarus (Demetrios Troy) gets to demonstrate his friendship before his eventual death and resurrection. The general rule seems to be as long as it doesn’t actively contradict any scripture, it’s fair game to augment for story purposes.
The focus of the show is on the perspectives of the twelve Apostles, as well as others in Jesus’ orbit who become convinced of his divinity, but the primary narrative problem is obvious: Jesus remains the most compelling character, and episodes without him feel his absence. Roumie, like the other actors, speaks mostly in contemporary dialogue—“I’m out of time, Laz. This was the last,” he confides in his re-animated friend—and thus feels relatable. Still, some parts of scripture, like John 3:16, are mandatory word-for-word lines, and he’s not as adept at making them sound like natural speech.
As much as the series theoretically preaches to the choir, though, it and Roumie give us a Jesus who’s more of a best friend than a stern judge. Complete with his trusty backpack, he’s like your hippie hiking buddy, the type of dude who would totally carry you across the beach leaving only his footsteps. In another area that The Chosen has in common with Kevin Smith, this buddy Christ literally gives a double thumbs-up at one point—to Matthew, for not dead-naming Peter as “Simon.” (Make of that what you will.) He gets frustrated, he gets panic attacks, and he delights in seeing just how much divine power he’s allowed to use for each miracle. While some movie Jesuses are more ethereal, this is a guy you’d want to drink wine with, and will not want to see get beaten and nailed to boards. He is portrayed as distinct from the Father, which isn’t necessarily the evangelical take.
He also doesn’t seem like he’d toss anybody into eternal fire; it’s Judas, in fact, who constantly advocates for Jesus to essentially become Book of Revelation Jesus, a Christian nationalist on a high throne who’ll snap his fingers to decimate all opposed. Considering Jenkins’ father, Jerry B. Jenkins, cowrote the Revelation-based Left Behind books, one has to wonder if a generation-gap conflict is playing out here.
If this inspires notions of “woke Jesus,” here’s more fuel for that fire: the cast is predominantly nonwhite—Romans excepted—and speak with a generic sort of Middle-Eastern accent that seems a peculiar affectation given the use of anachronistic English words and phrase like “oxymoron” or “I had ONE job.” Matthew is coded as autistic, James disabled, and Jesus is more openly Jewish than usual, observing rituals and being addressed as Rabbi. The emphasis of the show is on Christ’s loving, human, spiritual side; those who prefer him more judgy may go for God’s Not Dead instead, but this is safer to share with secular friends.
Dallas Jenkins has come a long way as a director since The Resurrection of Gavin Stone, an uninspired evangelical conversion movie that doubled as anti-Hollywood screed. With more structural experimentation inspired by shows like Lost, and a wider variety of shot and lighting choices that make the sets look more lavish than in similar productions, he has made a Jesus story that cares as much about medium as message. The score, by Jars of Clay’s Dan Haseltine, eschews the cloying qualities of most evangelical films, with influences and echoes that seem to vary from the original Franco Zeffirelli Jesus of Nazareth miniseries to Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”
The actors aren’t necessarily the most polished: aside from Roumie, the standout is regular anime voice actor Brandon Potter as the evil Quintus Dominus, dressed like a Roman version of One-Punch Man and enunciating like an angry Bill Hader. But all the cast members are clearly trying, saddled with that affected accent that they don’t need, and generally achieving likability at a bare minimum. Even if it doesn’t inspire newcomers to buy a movie ticket, when season five shows up on streaming somewhere, you may not have to be a Christian to want to check in on the bros and see what Biblical hijinks they’re up to next.
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If you believe it’s a true story: The Greatest Story Ever ToldIf you don’t: Extremely Weird Historical Fantasy Fiction
The Greatest Story Ever Told is in Amazing Fantasy, issue 15.“With great power there must also come… great responsibility!”Words to live by.
Spider-Man>Jesus so that tracks
Not a believer at all but using the Bible stories as an entry point into the relevant history and context is super interesting. For example, go to the wiki page for Maccabees. The cultural, political, and geographic backdrop is massively complex. Well sure, obviously, you say but understanding that extra information sure does change the way you look at Jesus, King David, Herod and all the other cast of characters.Anyway, regardless, the Bible does have some cool ass characters and stories (again, NOT a believer). My favorite has to be Samson and Delilah, the horniest, action-y-est Bible story of them all. Much better story than ol’ goody-two-sandals Jesus and his band of fishermen.
The Maccabees are real historical figures and the Books of the Maccabees (part of the Christian Old Testament but not the Jewish Tanakh) are historical books (with a clear ideological line), they are not about supernatural miracles and prophets and imaginary people.
Oh yeah, I’m on the same page there; the Bible is hugely important to the Western cultural tradition, even if quite a lot of it is obviously made-up or massively distorted.
Yep. And the reductive arguments around the thing have sworn me off from making that point.“lol its all maed up stories lulz”ME: Well, yeah, and also has led to civilizations rising and falling, informs sociopolitical policy to this very day, shaped various eras of history, etc. But sure, may as well just avoid the entire concept amirite?
See, this is why I’d be interested in the show too. And I’d be curious about how successful the show is as historical fiction, rather than just Biblical expansion. Because I think it’d be cooler to do both. But from what little I’ve seen, the show seems more interested in verisimilitude than in genuine history.
You’re totally a believer, dude.
Look, all I’m trying to say is that I’ve jerked off to the bible. May God strike me dead.
I’m tired of pretending to humor Christians while they spread their message of hate and intolerance.
I was walking one day and ran into a woman with her dog, we started chatting about the dog and next thing I know she’s telling me she’s a “Bride of Christ” and it was all because of this batshit movie. This woman said she loved Jesus so much and couldn’t wait to be with him and he makes her so happy, yada yada. I didn’t ask how her human husband feels about Jesus horning in on his marriage.
So . . . don’t?
Would you write the same phrase about muslims ?
#notallChristians
That’s a pretty uniquely American form of Christianity you’re railing against, and one this show (as expressed in the article) pretty explicitly doesn’t traffic in (nor does any of the New Testament.)
lol
I really want to see a critical deep dive on this show and how it fits into the Christian media from a non-evangelical perspective. Like, it seems to be the most popular piece of Christian media, but nobody outside of Christians are interested in talking about it, they all focus on the God’s Not Dead freak shows. The show seems more competently made than the usual fair. Is it more insidious? Is it genuinely good? What are the objectives of its makers, and whaht does the show say about their mindset? How does it fit into wider contemporary evangelical and non-evangelical Christian narratives?
One thing that’s really interesting and funny to me about this show is how it sells itself on its versimilitude. It’s a show that goes out of its way to not directly contradcit the Gospels while also trying to fill out a historical fiction setting… but it doesn’t seem to care much about historical research that goes beyond the gospels. Like, it gets basic worldbuilding details that should inform the show wrong right off the bat – I saw a scene where you’ve got a Roman soldier leaning on a Pharisee to help him collect taxes in Galilee. There’s several problems here – Galilee was not a Roman province at the time, and so Romans didn’t really collect taxes from there (taxes were also only collected from Roman citizens as well, which was an elite minority of the population even in formal provinces). Galilee was a somewhat nominally autonomous puppt kingdom. Judea to the south was a Roman province. The tension involved with social movements rooted in Galilee moving into Judea is a big part of the story. It’s also why Pilate tries to pass Jesus off to Herod Antipas during the trial – he’s arguing that Jesus is a subject of Herod, the king of Galilee, and outside of Rome’s jurisdiction. Pilate’s the Governor of Judea, not of Galilee. So it’s right there in the text, but I don’t know how the show will portray that, when an early scene has Roman soldiers marching around Galilee and talking about taxes. Additionally, the guy he’s talking to is a Pharisee. This is a weird way to introduce them – the key divide in Judaism at the time was between Pharisees, Sadducees, and other zealout movements. The Sadducees were culturally Hellenized and made up the bulk of the priesthood. They didn’t really mind Roman culture, and embraced Roman (Hellenistic) fashion trends and social mores, etc., and the Romans preferred to work with them. The Pharisees literally defined themselves as anti-Hellenistic traditionalists who took a much more skeptical look at Rome. That by the end Pharisees were turning on Jesus and collaborating with the Romans is meant to be a betrayal and a mark of hypocrisy. These were some of the people that would have made up Jesus’ “base” in a way. Why a Roman would approach a known Pharisee for help, I don’t know, unless it’s in a “can you talk to these people and get them under control” kind of way, but why INTRODUCE them that way.
I don’t have the energy to watch the whole show, but I’d be interested in seeing the show’s versimilitude pierced a bit by someone who’s well informed about the actual history of the era.
Mostly fair review of this show. As a Christian who considers 95% of all faith-based media agonizing to watch, I find The Chosen a breath of fresh air. While it doesn’t always succeed at the lofty heights its aiming for, cinematically, I appreciate that it is at least TRYING. It’s making a supreme effort, and when it does land those moments, it’s as good as any normal Prestige TV. Johnathan Roumie as Jesus is, as noted, the clear standout. While reviews like this one seem to want to paint him as a hippie/Buddy Jesus, all of the righteous anger and darker-days-ahead of regular Bible Jesus is there, just humanized a bit more than we’ve ever seen. A lot of the invented subplots are extremely hit and miss. The ones that hit really add some needed subtext and historical background to Biblical events that otherwise are somewhat dry and confusing without having a Wikipedia article open explaining motivations. Fanamir’s comment below about the historical accuracy of Sadducees and Pharisees is very enlightening, but I don’t know that it matters as far as what the show is shooting for.
The one thing I’ll poke fun at in this review that shows the author is himself using Wiki articles as his source for Biblical knowledge is his comments about Judas and the expectations of Jesus/”the Messiah”. The commonly-held understanding is that mainstream Jews back in the day (and probably still today) expect the Messiah to arrive as a latter-day warrior king, throwing off the shackles of whatever oppressive regime is holding down believers and claiming His throne in awesome powerful glory. A common speculation is that Judas was very much in this line of thinking, and that contrary to just being a thieving, traitorous dude, he was genuinely (in his own mind) attempting to prod Jesus into claiming this warrior throne, as Jesus kept on doing things to minimize His power and glory and kingship, at least in an earthly manner. So the speculation goes that Judas betrayed Jesus so that Jesus would have no other choice but to Hulk out and show everyone who’s boss. The irony is that everything Jesus stood for, and proclaimed about himself and how he would become King, is almost the exact opposite of those expectations. The Chosen is very masterfully showing that irony, but it still seems a lot of people aren’t getting it. Bottom line, I fully agree with Dirtside below, that if you are a believer, this is a show that is giving Jesus the full Game of Thrones prestige treatment. It’s wonderful seeing this much care and attention being given. But even if you aren’t a believer, I think you can enjoy this show as a weird fantasy show, as much as you can invest yourself in a series of books and/or movies about a boy who attends a magical school, or a trilogy where a Dark Lord is pulling out all the stops to stamp out the forces of good one last time, or a TV series and books where scheming houses climb over each other to gain power while a magical dragon lady and her vast armies sail for their shores. Just treat The Chosen as another fantasy series and you’ll still have a good time.
I actually think we’re very much on the same page about the irony of Judas, which I just happen to find particularly ironic in light of the family connection to Left Behind. I can assure you that my biblical knowledge is significantly more than wiki, not that it necessarily matters.
“Catholic ministry leader Jonathan Roumie”C’mon, man. The guy’s a devout Catholic, but he’s been an actor for 20 years and done a lot of voice work. Calling him a Catholic ministry leader as if he’s the local church lector who just stumbled into this gig is kinda weird.
It always bugs me that they bothered to put tzitzit and tehelet on the clothing but not in the correct fashion. Like they did so much research and just missed some key elements of it.
Meatwad of the New Jersey Jews
Well they were Meatwadberg until they hit Ellis Island.
Do what now?
Also, why is he white?
Because that’s how people from the Levant looks like. They are very similar to Southern Europeans.
They also forgot to add an onionon their belt, which was the style at the time…
Mr. Thompson, I am impressed with your scriptural knowledge.
Spoiler warning….Once this guy dies and comes back there isn’t much more story for now. So the show runners are gonna have to pull a Game of Thrones and just add their own stuff and that never goes well
If they go into the Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letters in later seasons there’s some good drama. The new guy Paul gets all uppity and annoying to Jesus’ brother James and Jesus’ head disciple Peter – basically saying they’re irrelevant and that he doesn’t have to listen to them because Jesus talks to him too. There’s some good reality TV-style beef there that could be entertaining. There’s also a subplot that could show the Jerusalem group’s importance fading as Paul’s self-appointed mission to the Gentiles starts to succeed.
Dude, spoilers!
My bad, sorry. Good thing I didn’t mention Taylor Swift’s letter to the Galatians.
Wouldn’t every episode of this show be a Christmas special? Well except for the big Easter finale I suppose.
Lori Loughlin’s agent is on the line!
Why is The Lord Jesus so…jewey looking? Everyone with a Bible knows He looked like this . . .
At least this religion allows you to draw/paint/sculpt depictions of its prophet/avatar.
I take your point but it’s a weird one to make here. This Jesus splits the difference between realistic and traditional western depiction, imo.
I guess…still gotta love blond Surfer Jesus. Snugglin’ that lamb.
Who’s the black lady in that still shot?
I was hoping it was Mary Magdalene, to annoy fundies, but I guess it’s Joanna or Suzanna?
I like a lot of your opinions on the show but I disagree with your take on the acting, which I find very competent and compelling across the board, but perhaps that’s because it’s the first time a series based on the bible hasn’t felt cheesy and the dialogue hasn’t felt stilted.I don’t mind the accents as a gentle reminder that these characters weren’t actually speaking English, and everything is transliterated. Every once in a while I’ll get a laugh at the modern language they choose to transliterate though. The only one that really bothered me was the use of the word “teenager” because they didn’t really have a concept of a period of time between childhood and adulthood at that time. 🤔😏
If you think it’s the first time a TV series hasn’t felt cheesy, try to find a copy of Jesus of Nazareth. Considering Laurence Olivier is in the cast, I’m pretty sure you won’t fins it cheesy.
What an amazing telling of the life of Jesus and his disciples. Dallas Jenkins does a perfect job of portraying the humanity and Love in Jesus for mankind. Jonathan Roumie is the most believable and talented portrayal of Jesus to date. He is not rigid and misunderstood, he speaks the words spiritually as they are embraced by those of us who do believe. I have seen most if not all of the Epic stories of Jesus’s life on the Big Screen, and I have not seen anything yet done as accurately and beautifully done as this group of exceptional actors. Jonathan Roumie is an excellent Actor, and the cast is powerful and well received from their audiences. Great Job from Dallas Jenkins and his very talented cast of actors. I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of this WonderfulJourney of Christ and his followers on the Big Screen and at home as well. And hopefully more Spiritual Stories Mr Jenkins can share with us. This series has touched the hearts of many across the country and beyond and will continue to do so.