The third episode of The Chosen is where I have been assured that the show is good. And for what it’s worth the third episode easily surpasses the former two in quality and storytelling. The episode is called, “Jesus Loves The Little Children” and is aptly named.
This episode stood out because it is insulated from the rest of the plots of the show like Matthew, Simon/Peter, Mary Magdalene, and Nicodemus. This episode is 30 minutes without a B-plot.
It takes place over the course of about a week. A little Jewish girl goes playing outside and stumbles across the campsite of Jesus. Feeling drawn to it, she returns next day with a friend, and the following day with even more friends.
Not much happens in this episode, but we see the children learn from Jesus. He instructs them in the Lord’s prayer, explains that Scripture does not teach the Messiah to be a military leader, and gets into a discussion about justice. The biggest issue from a Biblical standpoint is the fact that this Jesus vaguely promotes the idea of letting God handle injustice, without any real caveats. This is bad theology, as Scripture is not so simplistic even when explaining to children.
Overall, The Chosen demonstrated an honest attempt to adapt a noncanonical event in Jesus’s life into television.
However, this episode does little to raise my shattered confidence from the prior two. This episode was a reprieve from the dull plots and the cliché characters in the first two episodes. Their absence improved the show dramatically. Moreover, episode 3 walked away from the premise of a show about the disciples, giving them backstories and bringing their character’s to life and was better. So from an entertainment point of view this episode makes the other two look bad and lowers confidence in the next ones.
I give this episode 4/5.
One Response
Thanks for doing these reviews. I’ve heard that The Chosen was good, but it never seemed to interest me much. From the sound of it, I’d be better of reading the Bible (as usual)