‘The Chosen’: Second Season Is Weaker Than First — But Still Gold Standard for Jesus in Film

(REVIEW) “The Chosen” season two is not as strong as its first season. But what works about the show that made its biggest fans into fans will still satisfy them and keep the movement going, hopefully with a rebound in quality in future seasons.

Since the first season of “The Chosen” (which ReligionUnplugged reviewed here), the ridiculously ambitious multi-season planned TV show about the life of Jesus by evangelical filmmaker Dallas Jenkins and Latter Day Saints-backed streaming service VidAngel has only gotten more popular and received more attention—from both religious and secular outlets. “The Atlantic” called “The Chosen” “Christian America’s Must-See TV Show”. The show’s first season became the biggest crowd-funded media project of all time, raising more than $11 million to fund their first season to break the previous record of $5.8 million.

READ: VidAngel CEO Talks Filtering Content For Faith-Based Streaming And Creating "The Chosen"

The leap of “The Chosen”  from a small, independent TV show (back when we first reviewed it) to a growing phenomenon shows just how starved people are for a quality show that portrays a Jesus that his followers recognize as the one they worship. This is good news for Jenkins, who has made no secret of the fact that he wants to produce seven seasons of the series that can reach 1 billion people by 2024 because he feels so strongly that the world needs to encounter Jesus right now. 

“We feel a sense of urgency,” Dallas told ReligionUnplugged. “As you know, over the past year the world has gone crazy. From COVID, to riots to political divides. All over the world. And our future, how solidified it is, is uncertain. And we feel the need to get seasons three through seven out to you as soon as possible.”

READ: 'The Chosen' Sets A New Gold Standard For Depictions Of Jesus

Reviewing a new season of a show you helped champion back before it was so well known is definitely gratifying. You feel like you had a part to play in giving it its well-deserved spotlight—no matter how small. You also feel grateful for the opportunity once again to give encouragement and feedback on what is good and what can be better. 

The second season of “The Chosen” picks up where the previous season left off. Jesus and the disciples are going public with Jesus’ ministry and now have to deal with the added pressures and dangers of growing popularity and public scrutiny. These new pressures test Jesus’ disciples as both their members and enemies continue to grow.

What “The Chosen” continues to get right is the thing that is most important to the show’s appeal for its fans: it is undeniably cool to spend time with a version of Jesus who feels like the Jesus my parents taught me about and I would actually want to hang out with.

Official photo from VidAngel.

As I wrote in my review of the first season, film versions of Jesus that make him feel this human typically do so by making up a version of Jesus who doesn’t exist in the Bible. The version of Jesus in “The Chosen” is both basically faithful to the Bible and very human and fun.  

He’s kind, yes, wise, yes, but also cracks jokes and teases his friends. We like watching “The Chosen” for the same reason that we like watching Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man—the portrayal of these beloved characters resonates deeply and we want to come back and hang out with them again and again. Likewise, “The Chosen” has made such compelling versions of Jesus’ supporting cast, like Peter, Mary and especially Matthew. You feel like you’re seeing old friends whenever you watch this show. That’s a remarkable achievement to do with such iconic religious figures in two seasons.

READ: The Future Of ‘The Chosen’: Ambitious Plans And An Unconventional Season Two Premiere

The second season of “The Chosen” also continues to show it hasn’t lost its ability to build compelling and imaginative backstories for its new supporting characters like the disciples Simon the Zealot and Nathanael that still fit within the themes and narrative of scripture. Moreover, the show does what it does with more artistry than it did before.

Episode seven shows us the history of Simon the Zealot and the Paralytic Man by the pool (who are brothers in this interpretation) as a haunting opening shown entirely without dialogue. Episode Three uses a long one-take shot to show the fatigue and growing tension from the disciples during a long day of Jesus’ healing. All of this shows the filmmakers’ continued creativity growing in their craft.

Official photo from VidAngel.

Sadly, there are ways season two of “The Chosen” is decidedly weaker than the first season. The show mostly (perplexingly) abandons the way the first season spread character arcs throughout the season in favor of introducing characters and character arcs and paying them off in that very same episode or (at most) the next episode. 

Unlike the first season, which introduced Peter, Mary, Matthew and Nicodemus in the first episode (and most of them didn’t encounter Jesus until later, making the payoffs emotionally moving), most of the characters in this season that encounter Jesus, heroes and villains alike, are introduced in the very episode that they meet him, losing a lot of the anticipation and drama.

READ: Why 'The Chosen' Plans To Film Season Two During A Pandemic

This lack of season-long character arcs is particularly weakening to Mary Magdalene’s story, who we in the space of one-and-a-half episodes: 1. discover she is still suffering from PTSD from her life prior to Jesus; 2. watch her have a traumatic encounter that sends her in a backslide; 3. watch her backslide; 4. watch the disciples bring her back to Jesus; 5. watch Mary receive Jesus’ forgiveness and forgive herself. Then this story largely is swept aside to make room for the next plotline. 

Establishing as early as the first episode that Mary Magdalene was struggling with being triggered easily by her PTSD would have built anticipation for her eventual fall and made the payoff feel more earned and natural.

The series seems to generally lack the energy and drama seen in the first season. Far too many scenes in the show involve two characters walking aimlessly in a field trading short spiritual sermons the way Marvel heroes trade quips. 

Shumel, a pharisee trying to lobby the Sanhedrin against Jesus, is the main antagonist of the season. In the first season, he was set up as a potentially intimidating, consistent antagonist, but in the second season, he is annoying and not particularly threatening. 

Moments of potentially deep drama, like the disciples’ first time seeing Jesus exorcise a demon or  Andrew discovering that John The Baptist has been arrested, are all rushed. (For some reason I cannot fathom, we don’t even see Andrew when he first hears the news of John The Baptist’s arrest and have to hear about it second-hand. What a moment that could have been!) 

Compare that to the first season, which features an epic first public miracle by Jesus (built up to over several episodes of Nicodemus tracking Jesus) that doubles as his first face-off with the pharisees, a heartbreaking payoff to Jesus and Nicodemus’ relationship, and ends with the disciples striding down a hill with rock star swagger and the song “Trouble” playing in the background. But this season has almost none of that energy or swagger. I sometimes felt a bit like John The Baptist from this season, begging for any indication from Jesus that he was going to do something cool.

That said, for all the show’s faults, “The Chosen” filmmakers still deserve credit for the monumental achievement of their show. The weaknesses that I describe are easy fixes in future seasons that don’t strike to the essential strengths of the show that we spoke of from the beginning: a show that portrays a Jesus and disciples faithful to scripture and embraces creativity in the art form. Thanks to “The Chosen” team for giving us such great content to challenge us to be better.

“The Chosen” can be watched on The Chosen App, available at any app store.

Joseph Holmes is an award-nominated independent filmmaker and film critic living out of New York City. He runs a blog Overthinking Films where he discusses how films connect to philosophy, society and culture.