The Chosen: Last Supper - Part 3 [s5e06-08] (2025)

 

I saw the third and final part of The Chosen: Last Supper last night and I have a very narrow window in which to post some comments so I'm, just going to post some initial thoughts under sub-headers and get through as many as I can in the available time. There's good, bad and some, well, ugly stuff in this episode so this will be a bit of a mix. Spoilers throughout.

Structure

Episode 6 picks up from the dramatic reappearance of Nicodemus at the end of the last episode. We also get to meet the man who has previously been dubbed "The Watcher" and it turns out he's called Matthias. Those familiar with the book of Acts will know that this is the name of the man chosen to replace Judas, so this is inevitably the same character. As before the opening scene starts at the Last Supper, showing the segment from John's Gospel than leads up to the passage that episode 5 began with.

 

Episode 7 then starts with the scene before that in John's Gospel where Jesus arrives and starts washing the disciples feet. Those of us who were disappointed that The Watcher didn't turn out to be Mark have a treat in store because we do get to meet Mark. The main part of the episode joins up the gap between where the last episode ended and where this one begins. It's the join between the intro sections (which have been telling the last part of the story backwards and the main section which has been moving forwards. In between we get to see several of the disciples remembering their lives shortly before Jesus called them.

Episode 8 now abandons this structure. We instead start with a flashback to Jesus calling Thaddeus – his first follower – on a building site near Bethsaida. The main story progresses to the Garden of Gethsemane and Judas kissing Jesus on the cheek having just arrived with a cohort of temple guards and officials.

Flashbacks

The Chosen has often used flashbacks, often back more than 1000 years into the Hebrew Bible, sometimes into scenes from minutes ago. We've also had several scenes showing how disciples came to be disciples, particularly those of Peter, Matthew and Zee (Simon the Zealot). But some of those other disciples we've never really seen how they came to meet Jesus, particularly Little James and Thaddeus. We've learnt a little about Little James, because he has had conversations with Jesus about his disability and how he himself has not been healed, but some of the others have been mysteries.

Here some of these stories are finally revealed and in glorious black and white as well. As I think I've admitted before, I am a sucker for black and white photography. I know it sounds pretentious, but I genuinely have to counterbalance my own love of black and white films when I review them because they appeal to me so much. And these sections were lush. The one of Simon the Zealot heroically trying to save two younger zealots only to discover he has sent them to their deaths is heartbreaking. Those about Big James and then of Andrew and Philip really stood out as well. 

 

Big James' was first such that I was so busy enjoying the filmstock that I don't recall the details. Andrew and Philips comes together as they are on the road with John the Baptist and the line about making the paths straight finally comes out. Little James we see how his dreams of becoming a singer in the temple are dented by his mentor and then he meets Thaddeus and Jesus on the road. 

 

Anyway these sections are beautiful to look at and on that level I enjoyed them, but to be honest after the first few they began to drag a bit and feel a bit like they were being dragged out a bit. The feeling, for me at least, was not unlike those episode you occasionally used to get of Friends or The Simpsons where they'd just assemble a bunch of clips from previous shows together and film and opening scene, a closing scene and a couple of link shots.... and yet this was new material. Personally I think it might have been better if these scenes had eeked out a long the way, a little as happens in season 1 of Lost (which I've just started watching). Perhaps with the flashbacks this season has a few too many structural gimmicks going on already but either at least one of these sequences should either have been cut or brought into an earlier episode, because they are beautiful and moving, but the effect started to wear thing quicker than it should have.

Gethsemane

The scenes in the Garden of Gethsemane take up most of episode 8 so there are a number of points I want to make about it. Firstly, this is one of the few on-screen biblical adaptations to include all three of the cycles of Jesus praying and then finding the disciples that we find in Matthew and Mark, but not in Luke or John where they abbreviate down to just one cycle. This is a continuation of how this series has tended to be structured with John's account of Holy Week being covered in the pre-credits sequences, and the Synoptic take on the last days leading up to Jesus' death being covered in the main section of each episode.

Secondly, easily the most striking element of this cycle, and certainly the one that is boldest visually is that of Jesus walking through Ezekiel's valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37). This is the third of three visions that Jesus has (one for each cycle of praying & sleeping disciples, I think . The other are of Abraham and Isaac en route to the aborted sacrifice; and of his father Joseph, who hugs him). I have a vague memory of this scene from another production, but I can't quite remember where (2013's The Bible? This is what you get in a quick post like this one!). Anyway, it's a very striking, even if something about it feels a little off. It's interesting too that this non-biblical meeting with a past prophet – Ezekiel – gets included, but the transfiguration wasn't included (which I can understand).

 

Finally, what I really liked in these scenes were the visual references (conscious or otherwise) to previous artistic takes on these moments. This is partly because last weekend I got to go to the National Gallery and witness some of these amazing paintings, but their influence has definitely been passed down and seems to pop up here. Some of these are about the large rock that Jesus clings too. Othes are more to do with the disciples lying prone, deep in sleep. In particular, Andrea Mantegna's "The Agony in the Garden" (1455-6) and Giovanni Bellini's "The Agony in the Garden" (~1458-60), but possibly Ferrarese's "Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane" (16th century?) and Jacopo Tintoretto's "Prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane" (1543-4) as well. I have a feeling there's at least one more of these, but don't have time to search for it right now.

Mark

I was really pleased to see Mark get an appearance as he only rarely makes it into Jesus films and what an appearance it was! I think most normal people found the Gethsemane scenes the most emotional, but for me the closest I was to tears was during the opening moments of episode 2. There we meet a young man, a mid-teenager, really, meticulously laying out the venue in which so much of the season has taken place: the upper room. 

 

From a conversation he has with his dad we learn that Mark has incredible visions. It was one of them which brought them to Jerusalem and to buy this very house after an earlier vision of that very room and now he has had another one. Or should we say three, because on top of a repeat of his vision of the room all laid out and being used for this meal, he has also had one of him carrying water to the well and one of his father in conversation with two men making arrangements for their master.

I don't know whey I'm so moved by this. It is an interesting plot device as well as further way of arguing for the reliability of the Gospels. According to The Chosen not only are Matthew and John literate scribes who write down everything as it happens (and Matthew has perfect recall due to his ASD), but now we find Mark as another eye witness who may not have been a disciple, but met them and knew them, but who also has special visions, presumably from God. It's an interesting and fun piece of dramatic licence, but it is notable how these moments all tend to point in the same way.

Anyway, this guy Mark is probably going to turn up at the very start of season 6 and I suspect will be losing some clothing shortly thereafter. (I'm not a mystic, it's just a popular interpretation of Mark 14:51-2)

The worst antisemitic stereotype yet

I didn't really want to lead with this, but I have to say that one scene towards the start of episode 6 absolutely appalled me. The first antisemitic racist insult I ever heard was at school. It was about Jews being "tight-fisted", money-grabbing, ridiculously reluctant to spend, or save money. It's an age old, very much Christian, slur about the Jewish people going back to the medieval times when, barred from most professions by the authorities (including the church) some of them managed to survive by doing work Christians at the time were forbidden from doing handling and investing money. Once some Jewish people succeeded at it, they got a name for it, and then envious Christians turned it into an insult and came up with all kinds of slurs to explain away their success.

And now here we are, hundreds of years after these stereotypes emerged and probably 40 years after I first heard the insult at school, in a time that we have otherwise (thankfully) largely left behind recycling racist slurs and what do we get? We get Judas and Caiaphas haggling obsessively over how much money Judas will get for betraying Jesus.. I can't say it's the first Jesus film to show this, but certainly the vast majority have the cultural awareness, the decency maybe, or at the very least the common sense not to recycle old racist stereotypes about Jewish people. 

I'm sure some will probably wish to defend this so allow me to say a little more. Firstly, this is not anywhere in the Bible. Of the four Gospels, John (who does call Judas a thief, 12:6) doesn't even mention an exchange of funds. All three of the Synoptics mention an exchange of money, but only Matthew gives the 30 pieces of silver detail. None mention any form of discussion over the fee.

The two characters in the haggling scene matter too. Judas is significant because he became (in later Christian tradition) especially associated with the Jews. Bizarrely many came to think of the majority of the disciples as not Jewish, but Judas retained that cultural identity. He became seen as typical of them. Then, of course, there is Caiaphas, who was, in many people's minds the leader of the Jews and therefore also, in a sense, a representative of the Jews. 

Honestly, I cannot for the life of me work out how this got past the advisory committee, and frankly, the fact that it did it seems to undermine the advisory board's very existence. Is it doing anything other than providing intellectual cover? Have there been any scenes at all that they have successfully vetoed? Honestly Dallas Jenkins and the other writers and producers need to take a long hard look at themselves, and perhaps the odd history book, because this is not acceptable and frankly I now have serious concerns about how season 6 is going to play out.

Final points

It's a shame to end on such a negative note and there are some more areas I'd like to talk about but I don't have time to discuss, the middle class nature of most of the disciples that emerges from all those flashbacks. Perhaps Is should have caught them earlier? I was also interested by the way that Jesus actually wears some headgear in his flashback scene. I'm not quite sure what to make of the fact that this is almost the only occasion we've seen this (was it just to avoid continuity issues with his shorter hair in the first season? Or a sign that he put off something when his ministry began. Also what is with Nicodemus' crime-movie string board?

Anyway, let me know what you made of it all in the comments.