It's long been said that you can't get to Easter without Good Friday, but what was that day like for Jesus and the Apostles? On Sunday, Nov. 15, Season Six of The Chosen begins on Prime Video, showing us just that.
And it's not a pretty picture.
Speaking at ChosenCon in Charlotte, N.C., earlier this year, series creator Dallas Jenkins said:
Season Six is when the disciples are watching Jesus willingly go through the most painful thing that anyone can go through, willingly surrender, willingly empty Himself. And the Apostles are going, "Wait a minute, what's in it for me? What about us? What do we do? What do we do next?"
We know that eventually they become the heroes of the Faith, the founders of the early Church, but at their most confused, at their darkest hour, they weren't necessarily following Jesus' example of total surrender. But we see throughout the season them starting to work through that.
Good Friday Is Here
On Nov. 15, the first three episodes of the season roll out at once, and then more episodes premiere weekly on Sundays until Dec. 6 (coincidentally, the feast day of St. Nicholas).
The show's depiction of the actual Crucifixion will be released in theaters as a two-hour movie, reportedly on March 12, a bit more than a month into Lent. No date has yet been announced for when these episodes will stream on Prime Video.
The season depicts the events of the end of Holy Thursday into Good Friday, from Christ's arrest to the Crucifixion. Through the first five seasons, fans have gotten to know many of Jesus' disciples, especially the Apostles. They've faced challenges and dangers in their quest to follow Jesus.
But, at this crucial moment, they find themselves frightened, confused, and bewildered. And, as Jenkins said, they aren't exactly at their best.
On a practical level, most of the actors playing the Apostles stayed behind in Texas to film, while Roumie and a few others -- such as Vanessa Benevente, who plays Mother Mary, and George Harrison Xanthis, who plays the Apostle John -- headed to Matera, Italy, for three weeks to shoot the Crucifixion (also where Mel Gibson's 2004 film The Passion of the Christ filmed its Crucifixion scenes).
Talking to The Chosen Cast About Season Six
At ChosenCon, I talked to Roumie and some of the other cast members about all of this. Here are some highlights:
Roumie on leaving most of his cast behind:
It was an isolating season. Yeah. It was weird. It was weird for a lot of us, and it's actually emotional to think about it and to put myself back into that head space. It was a traumatic experience for all of us, especially those of us that filmed the crucifixion in Italy, but as Dallas said, we are all trauma-bonded.
Austin Reed Alleman (Nathanael):
It did feel like a helpless season. You are stuck in one room, you don't know what to do, what's going on. Some people come and go, but really apart from that, we have no idea. You know what I mean?
We take it for granted today that we now have our phones, that we're able to get news instantly. But I mean, you have to imagine back then they had no way of knowing what was going on. So I imagine it was really terrifying, especially because it's someone we love, someone we've been with for years.
Also, it's the questioning thing. It's like, "I can't believe this is happening," and "Was this all fake?" There's that kind of fear in some people as well.
Paras Patel (Matthew):
Matthew's head space during this is more of a seeking understanding because above all he seeks knowledge and understanding. But obviously, in the show, above all, he seeks Jesus. So he's trying to put everything together.
So I would say he's processing, but he's observing and he is watching his brothers unravel because of their own limitations getting to them and arguments and things happening.
But he's also listening to what Jesus is saying and he's not understanding, and he's not making sense, until it finally does. And he says, "Thank you for explaining it to me."
So throughout the whole season, you see Matthew just put it all together and think and just use all the moments to make it connect in his own brain.
I'm sure we can all relate to when we feel hopeless, when there's something we want to do so bad that we're not able to do. And that in a way is a limitation. That in a way I feel is an invitation to seek from within, turn to the Word if you need to and want to.
And I think that's what Matthew is learning to do when Jesus kind of tells him ... "I've already told you everything." But it's hard to get to that point, and you see that with the disciples kind of struggling to make sense of things, and they don't realize that it's all there in front of them.
Abe Bueno Jallad (Big James):
So I definitely found the reality of that in doing this season, because I had my questions, too. But then there is a moment where I think, also, Jesus is saying that it's His turn to undergo a process and not necessarily ours yet.
So there is a good amount of reasons why I think the Apostles are going into hiding, and one of them is to stay together as a family as best they can, because we can tell that things will never be the same. So it helped me suss out that perceived lack of conviction.
Because now everything that He said in the Last Supper is happening. But it takes another level of faith.
"Now am I going to believe what He had just said, even though it's happening? Or am I in just some dysphoric, crazy world that I don't believe in?"
So I think our show this season does well, once again, to mend those gaps of, why were they in hiding? Why not be there? Support? Well, there was a lot of reasons.
Jordan Walker Ross (Little James):
It was definitely an emotional season. There was a lot of unknown for the characters, but also for us as actors, because so many of us weren't there for the Crucifixion scene.
So we're just like, we don't know what's going on. We don't know how any of that went. We're missing our friends. Some of the people I hang out with the most on set are the wonderful women in our cast, and none of them were there. So I'm like, "I miss my friends. I don't know. I feel alone right now."
All these different emotions that really worked and served the story. It was definitely a challenging season for sure.
It's one of those things that you can only prepare so much for these traumatic things. You do fire drills, and you picture all these scenarios in your head, but until you're in this situation, you don't know how you're going to respond.
And I've talked about Judas a lot in particular and it's like some of the stuff Judas does in the show, most of us are like, "Oh, we would never."
But then it's like, I think a lot more people would do similar things that they don't even realize or wouldn't want to admit. And I think with the Apostles, you see some of that.
You see Little James and Thaddeus — Giavani [Cairo] plays Thaddeus — have always been very loyal and faithful and trusting and these quiet followers.
And season six, they're kind of panicking too, and they're doubting, and they're like, "Is Jesus right about this? Are we right and staying here?"
They get shaken more than you would've expected or more than you've seen before. So I thought that was really fun to kind of tap into because it was human. It was real.
Here's a peek at the coming season:
Image: Credit: Richard Foreman/Prime. Copyright: © Amazon Content Services LLC
Kate O’Hare, a longtime entertainment journalist, is Social Media Content Manager and Blog Editor at Family Theater Productions.
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