CNA Staff, Feb 13, 2024 / 17:00 pm (CNA).
Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers about Episodes 1–3 of Season Four of “The Chosen.” Read at your own discretion.
The theatrical release of Season Four of “The Chosen” has officially kicked off and has left fans of the show shocked and in tears with both expected and unexpected moments.
In the first episode of the new season, viewers witness the tragic execution of John the Baptist at the hands of King Herod Antipas.
In a powerful scene between Joanna, the wife of Chuza, and John the Baptist, a terrified Joanna warns John of his execution while two Roman soldiers lead him out of his prison cell in chains. John quotes part of Matthew chapter 11 saying: “The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the poor have good news preached to them.” The scene ends with John turning to Joanna, saying: “The way of the Lord is prepared.”
Later, a chained John walks toward the guillotine as flashbacks of his birth as told in Luke chapter 1 remind us of the role he was chosen to play in the story of salvation. With only moments left, he looks outside and sees a lamb grazing in the field before the Roman soldier takes his swing.
David Amito, the actor who plays John the Baptist, and Amy Bailey, the actress who plays Joanna, spoke to CNA in an interview about these important scenes.
Amito shared that filming the scene of his character’s execution “felt a lot like poetry.”
“I didn’t know, or pre-meditate, how it was going to play out and a lot of it was just experiencing it and it was a really intense experience but at the same time very creative,” he said.
He added that everyone involved worked hard to make the moment “feel as true as possible and something that would fit with what the expectations people had were and at the same time to give them something they weren’t expecting.”
Regarding Joanna’s storyline and where she goes next now that John has been killed, Bailey said: “I’m fascinated to see what the next season will bring for her because I think there are people in Jesus’ camp who are suspicious [of her].”
She also teased that viewers will see a “beautifully epic scene” for her character in Episode 8, which has been her favorite scene thus far.
While the death of John the Baptist was expected this season, the death of another character was definitely not expected by fans of the show. Ramah, one of the women following Jesus and who was in a romantic relationship with the disciple Thomas, is killed at the hands of Quintus, the Roman Praetor of Capernaum.
The season picks up with Thomas and Ramah making arrangements for their betrothal. However, after a large crowd gets unruly following a sermon given by Jesus, Quintus’ sword pierces Ramah, leaving her dead and Thomas devastated.
Yasmine Al-Bustami, the actress who portrays Ramah, told CNA in an interview that she found out about her character’s death in Season Two but didn’t know when it would be coming.
“Even before I read the script, all of my friends — everyone on the cast basically — were texting me asking, ‘Hey, how are you? Is everything fine? Are you doing okay? Did you read the script?’ So, already I knew, I was like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be in this one,’” Al-Bustami said.
She added: “So I finally got to it, read it, and it hit me but it didn’t hit me, obviously, until I did the whole thing.”
The actress explained that the scene wasn’t an easy, one-day shoot. Instead, it took six days to film.
Al-Bustami shared that while she has several favorite scenes from her time playing Ramah, a scene from Season Four stands out at the top of her list — the scene where Thomas and Ramah tell Jesus of their plan to get married and ask him if he’ll take part in it.
“Seeing how that played out — I just thought that was very beautiful,” she shared.
Throughout her time playing Ramah, Al-Bustami said she learned several things from her character, including “following your gut” and “making sure that you’re staying true to yourself.”
She added that her experience being a part of “The Chosen” has reminded her that she hopes to continue to make “meaningful work for people.”
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This series has been really wonderful to watch. My only regret is that it takes so long to produce a new season and watching them goes too quickly. I am not sure if they released season 4 in theaters this way in order to increase awareness of the show, or to gather some funds to continue filming. In any case it sadly will make the experience of engaging with the show go much faster because they are grouping several episodes together to air each time. Part of me wishes they would air a new episode every OTHER week in order to allow viewers to engage with the series for a longer period.
I have recommended this series to many people and ALL of them have loved watching it. Costumes and sets are wonderfully authentic, but most of all, the characters ring true and are emotionally engaging. If you have not watched this series (available online, with their free ap, now on some commercial or cable stations, or through a streaming service) you are missing something special. Start with season 1, episode one. You won’t regret it.
The only major problem is that nothing like that happened or it would have been recorded in the gospels since it involved one of the Apostles–Thomas–and especially Jesus’s response, which is misleading about Him. I agree that the rest was great, but not the ending and not because it was tragic but because id is misleading about a major event and the assumed response of Jesus, which should not be assumed. Afterall, he had just healed a blind man but now will not! But even if the Hollywood version showed that He did heal the woman, it still did not happen in the case of Thomas according to the Scriptures. Such a major event involving Jesus and Thomas would have been in the Gospels.