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The Chosen Season 2 Finale

Jesus, played by Jonathan Roumie, delivers His Sermon on the Mount to a crowd of thousands. Photo: www.press.thechosen.tv
Jesus, played by Jonathan Roumie, delivers His Sermon on the Mount to a crowd of thousands. Photo: www.press.thechosen.tv

The Chosen’s Season 2 Finale … It’s finally here! The moment that millions of people have been waiting for and what half of this second season, in one way or another, has been building up towards.

And in true The Chosen fashion it arrived full of moments of emotion, examination, explanation, and a narrative that twists and turns to an ending that leaves you wanting more.

Previously we have been following Jesus, played by Jonathan Roumie, and His disciples as they prepare for the upcoming sermon with some struggling with each owns weaknesses and personal differences.

The pressure of putting on this momentous event and the fear of failing the Messiah causes deep doubts to surface and strained relationships to tear as we have witnessed particularly with Mary Magdalene, Simon, Matthew and Andrew.

Episode 8, entitled ‘Beyond Mountains’, continues on this path as we see the disciples scramble to complete each owns responsibilities for the sermon while dealing with the tensions that are present amongst them.

“It is a beautiful reminder of our duty to be compassionate and empathetic to those who might be in a different place in their faith and relationship with God.”

While some of the ‘peace makers’ of the group are off securing the right spot, the situation in camp intensifies with growing anxiety over the Sermon and Jesus’ disappearance with Matthew.

Jesus is well aware of the complexities of this forced family and explains to a curious Matthew (the audience surrogate for this season) that this conflict is bound to happen “when you start something that is open to all, truly all people, Zealot and even tax collectors”.

Jesus continues this powerful response, which speaks to our own empathy with those within the Church, by saying that these are “people who have been through tough times, people both hesitant and sceptical as well as bold and confident, people hungry to learn as well as those learned and knowledgeable.”

It is a beautiful reminder of our duty to be compassionate and empathetic to those who might be in a different place in their faith and relationship with God.

In fact, due to the incredible dialogue and outstanding performances by Jonathan Roumie and Paras Patel, these scenes shared alone by Jesus and Matthew are the most powerful of the episode and possibly the season.

A lot of time is given to showing the process of completing and perfecting the sermon and it was a true joy to see Director Dallas Jenkins use the dialogue between Jesus and Matthew to unpack some of the passages and go deeper into the beatitudes.

“I didn’t think it would be compelling to showing Jesus preach for 30 minutes and we wanted you to see the context of it, to see what it was in response to, the process of it,” said Dallas in the Come and See show after the episode’s global premier.

“To me it was a beautiful moment when Jesus goes to His Father and comes back with the beatitudes and that He involved Matthew in the process.”

Walking off in pairs, the disciples put their differences aside and begin spreading the word of the sermon to the local communities.

Congregating at a field that was acquired through the help of two men with a dishonest past, the disciples are re-joined with Jesus, Matthew and a crowd of thousands that appear over the horizon.

“In fact, due to the incredible dialogue and outstanding performances by Jonathan Roumie and Paras Patel, these scenes shared alone by Jesus and Matthew are the most powerful of the episode and possibly the season.”

And in a welcoming season finale cliché, a handful of past characters make a cameo from amongst the crowds including the parents of John and James, Simon’s wife Eden, Gaius the Centurion and Shula (the blind woman) with her friend Barnaby.

As the final shot follows Jesus towards the built stage (have a look who are on either side of Him), we see the crowds begin to settle.

And in a scene reminiscent of one from Marvel’s The Avengers: Age of Ultron involving Captain America uttering his infamous phrase “Avengers assemble”, the camera slowly zooms in on Jesus as He is about to say His first word and then cuts to black.

For the most part, the episode was well-executed and previous characters and subplots that became a hindrance were given the right amount of attention.

And even though that speculation of episode 8 blending the Sermon on the Mount with the Feeding of the 5,000 was wrong … it could still occur as Dallas has mentioned that he will be revisiting the Sermon on the Mount in flashbacks.

Episode 8 is now streaming on The Chosen App.

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