The Chosen, Season 4: Lectio Divina or Fan Fiction?

Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast

The Chosen has now passed the halfway point of its seven seasons. Four seasons in, it is possible to take a big-picture look at the show’s trajectory.

Season four takes us from the execution of John the Baptist to the raising of Lazarus, ending on the verge of Holy Week with the apostles preparing for Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Biblical threads throughout the season include the falling away of Judas, and Jesus’ sorrow and frustration at his disciples’ inability to hear His predictions of His imminent death.

This season still has some of the great moments that have made The Chosen worthwhile, and these scenes are highlighted in the discussion. Unfortunately, though, the show’s weaknesses have begun to get out of hand, to the point where even its otherwise great moments are significantly undermined.

The first major issue is with the creativity of the writers. At its best, the show has shed new light on moments from the Gospel by noticing small details of Scripture and fleshing them out. Invented backstories for the Apostles served to support and color the Biblical account.

But in season four, the writers seem to be caught up in their own story ideas, so that even the Gospel moments are overshadowed by wholesale invention. Instead of enhancing the viewer’s understanding of Scripture, the show increasingly interprets the Gospel events through the lens of fictional subplots, in a way that is necessarily reductive, necessarily less interesting, and often clumsily executed. One particular fictional plotline is so badly conceived and so distracting from the Gospel that much of season four is genuinely hard to watch.

Another thing consistently undermining the show’s strengths is its busyness, and in particular its tendency to overexplain Jesus’ words from Scripture rather than letting them resonate. This problem is not new, but it stands out all the more in a weak season.

Br. Joshua Vargas and Nathan Douglas join James and Thomas for a deep and entertaining discussion of these and many other aspects of the show.

Music is The Duskwhales, “Take It Back”, used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com