Very Little Bible Content? (Episode 7 Reaction)

i thought oh this might be the episode that viewers don't love hey it's dallas hello again time for another director reaction to an episode from season two this time it is from episode vii episode vii interestingly enough happens to be the episode that i was probably most concerned about in terms of audience response i thought this would be the episode because it has the least amount of things from the bible it's very plot heavy a lot of intensity going on not too many big moments that are like emotional and happy and exciting i thought this might be the episode that uh viewers don't love and it turned out to be one of the most responded two episodes we've had this year which was really cool and so i'm going to take you through it scene by scene give you some details some behind the scenes talk about one of the most anticipated scenes for me of the whole year which was the meeting between jesus and quintus we had a lot of fun writing that talk to you a little bit about that and then of course this was the episode where we experienced one of the more powerful moments on the chosen one of the miracles that we experienced i don't know how else to describe it so i'll talk you through that real quick but let's just dig right into it the opening scene of episode 7 is a return to capernaum capernaum happens to be the name of one of the studios that we filmed at in season one we filmed actually most of season one at capernaum studios just outside of weatherford texas and we went back to matthew's tax collector booth something that we actually built and added on to their set and we put the notice calling for the arrest of jesus of nazareth up there and had atticus grab it and one of the funny things about this note was that in season one when we first did the note apparently when we wrote out the word jesus in hebrew it was modern hebrew and there was a slight little mistake and it turns out that the word that we used in hebrew is actually quite offensive and i'm not going to get into all the details of it you can look it up sometime but we had to fix it in visual effects we had to literally go back and change it so that it read actually yeshua properly as opposed to this offensive terminology when it came time for season two long story short miscommunication we did it again so we had to go back and with the effects visual effects we had to change once again the uh hebrew spelling of jesus so that it wasn't offending the uh portion of our audience that actually speaks hebrew and knows that this was a problem so it just goes to show you we've got so many things to think about so many props so much set dressing words translations all of this stuff we do everything that we can we have consultants we have experts and even style sometimes things get slipped through the cracks and in this case we needed to fix it so you see atticus coming in to talk to quintus and this is where we get our first glimpse at quintus's chamber for season two it's the return of quintus one of the fan favorites the one that everyone loves to hate you may notice if you watch closely enough you'll see that the set for quintus this time around as well as the exterior in the area around his office we upgraded gave it a little bit more of a paint job made it just a little bit better than we had the first season it's not in a way that most people would notice but just looks better on camera looks a lot richer looks a lot more textured even the lighting through the windows we were able to control a little bit better so it looks better so you might have noticed that if so congratulations coming out of the credits is one of the scenes that was impacted by this miracle that we experienced and this was the miracle of the fog now we've got another video that we've already put out that talks about that day of filming and so it's in the recaps if you just look at our daily recaps and i think the title of it is when god clears fog or something like that you can look at it in our channel and we've got another video coming up we've got a video that we're going to be talking about three different miracles that happened in season two and this was one of them where we didn't film the scene that you're watching the scene with them throwing the rocks that was a scene that we were planning to film in the beginning part of the day and the fog was so thick that we couldn't film anything and we had to wait for eight hours until we could film anything and right as we were about to leave for the day give up we knew we couldn't get in the scenes that we needed to get in in time the fog cleared in seconds so you need to watch that video to see more details about it but it was truly extraordinary and as soon as the fog cleared we all rushed to the set we all rushed to the beach the lake and we got this scene in where you see the four disciples having a bit of a contest and this is something that i've always wanted to do from the beginning is i i wanted to sprinkle in these moments that are very much like what we would experience 2 000 years later which is contests and it's their their their form of rock paper scissors is you know who can throw a rock the farthest they didn't have a ton of entertainment back then they didn't have baseball or basketball they couldn't play two on two but they had this we were able to film this in all the different angles that we wanted made it look great and then we rushed to try to get in the other scene that we filmed this day which is simon and andrew in the boat out on the lake than them fishing and we were able to get that in as well again you'll see all the details in this recap that we did by the way do you like my new microphone i know it's in the shot so it's not quite as smooth as the other one but i think it sounds a lot better so this is the kind of thing that we can do when you are paying it forward or when you are purchasing some of the stuff that we offer in thechosengifts.com so if you go to thechosengifts.com you can get stuff like this shirt you can get stuff like i mean gosh i got it i happen to have them right here this stuff books the bible study the dvd the devotional books all of that is at the chosen gift.com it allows us to upgrade and get things like this beautiful microphone that where i sound so beautiful then we've got jesus giving the preamble to the sermon on the mount to the disciples to he's got some of the disciples that he's assigning now tasks now this is actually very realistic in the sense that one of the jobs of the disciples and this is true of a lot of students of rabbis but especially here in the these disciples with in in the gospels is they would actually go ahead and they would prepare areas where jesus was going to teach so whether that was spreading the word or whether that was getting things set up or building relationships that's the kind of thing that disciples would often do and so jesus is assigning tasks to each of the disciples one of the things that we also wanted to do was we knew that we were going to end the season with the sermon on the mount or at least glimpses of the sermon on the mount and so what we like to do in that situation is work our way backwards and we want to make sure that we earn those moments and we took time on this scene to really establish some of jesus's dialogue here to say this is why this sermon is so important and that of course then explains why the disciples get so tense when things go wrong so even after we decided that jesus was going to get arrested and we that he was going to get arrested in this episode we thought well why is it that the disciples are going to get so passionate about it besides the fact that they're just scared that he's arrested what are things that are going to cause them to be stressed out to feel responsible to try to solve the problem and that's because jesus assigned them a task and that's something that we tend to do is when we feel called to something we take it very very seriously which is a good thing but we also sometimes can maybe take on too much responsibility and feel like we own it now while the disciples are taking on some ownership which is a good thing but it's also going to be what causes them to get a little bit too psychotic as we see what happens to andrew here but all of these disciples now are like all right we can't screw this up we've got to make sure that we get this right and we set that up now which explains some of the tension that happened later then you've got shmuel returning to capernaum and this is where we really start to see shmuel's stature rise we've seen him with yani we've seen him on someone else's home turf and we see him among pharisees that outrank him well now he's going back home and he's a celebrity now and this is a call back to when nicodemus was returning and so this was a great way for us to show shmuel rising up the ranks and gaining an importance and so when he comes back it's a bit of a celebrity return much like nicodemus's return in episode one of season one and shmuel even tries to make the same joke doesn't land quite as well but you got shmuel trying a fish joke a sardines joke just like nicodemus did and now yusuf is in the position that shmuel was in and yusuf is trying to make sure that everything's right and that everything looks good for shmuel and then we get to see yusuf and shmuel and yani have this the conversation and you see the range all in one scene of what the pharisees did in response to jesus we like to think of the pharisees as the villains and they must have all just been angry and greedy and that's not realistic nor is it accurate in this one scene you see yani who is doing it primarily for selfish reasons you see shmuel who's doing it for legitimate reasons but is clearly overcome by his own fanaticism and then you see yusuf who is wrestling with it and who's not comfortable with the fact that they seem to be trying to arrange things to build a case against jesus in a way that might not even be accurate and yusuf even says well what if she didn't do this on shabbat and if you discover the healing was not on shabbat [Music] i hope you will consider sharing your experience in jerusalem with us i would like that yusuf but there is one other i must speak with what if it's not what you think it is what are you going to do then and you start to see the wheels turning in shmuel's head of well gosh i'm not sure what i would do in this situation i'm trying to build a case here and you see the wheels turning in yousef said where he's going i don't like how this feels and the guy who i look up to shmuel just like schmuel responded to nicodemus the guy i look up to as yusuf as kind of his understudy he's starting to go astray and i'm not enamored with how he's responding to this and i'm gonna start doing things on my own and that's what shmuel did in season one but it was for different reasons and so we're again we're showing the shades of grey in the pharisees we're showing the range of responses that they had to jesus so then you've got this other scene that we had on the day of the fog so the fog clears we shoot that one scene where they're throwing rocks and we hustle the boat out into the water we try to get as many shots in as we could a couple things had to happen for this to work one is shahar and noah as uh simon and andrew had to be so prepared because we didn't have time to do too many multiple takes i cannot emphasize to you how prepared shahar and noah were they hadn't rehearsed it between the two of them so when they started doing the lines back and forth it was so fast and it was so much on top of each other and there were so few mistakes when they were kind of rehearsing during when the fog was there i was like oh how much time have you guys spent together on this and they said oh we don't we don't get together on this those two are so on point and so prepared themselves and have worked well so well together that when they come together for a scene like this they can go right into it they'll just be like shoot it fine we're ready let's go and there's such an energy and a passion and intensity that i think plays so well because those two they work off each other so well now also you'll see that the boat is rocking because we're shooting close-ups because we're shooting wide shots we want the boat to kind of be moving even though the boat is actually somewhat close to shore well we put two of our crew members we've got allen who's one of our set dressers we've got chris who is our special effects guy but who's always willing to do anything and they're literally standing in the water on their tiptoes with their hands behind the boat gently trying to rock it and so you can't see them and they do it in a way that's hidden but that's what's causing the boat to rock so that it's moving a little bit and they're getting water into their waders and they're just doing everything that they can to keep the boat not only rocking a little bit but also keeping it steady and keeping it from moving because the waves are such that even though they're subtle the boat starts to move and we don't want the boat to move because we're trying to capture it with our cameras and so we've got camera guys in the water holding it and they can't move as easily uh when the boat is moving and those guys are trying to hold onto the boat while rocking it a little bit but keeping it from moving so that's what they're doing that whole scene right standing right behind it then you've got shmuel and yani going into roman territory and by that i mean literally they're going into a roman building and this is a preview of what's to come we do scenes like this to give you a foretaste of what it's going to look like when the stakes are even higher right now shmuel and yani are just saying hey listen we've got some information we know you're looking for jesus we're looking for jesus maybe there's some alignment that we can be doing you saw some of that in season one between nicodemus and quintus and sometimes the pharisees and the romans interests aligned and sometimes the enemy of my enemy is my friend but right now it's still at the beginning stages the romans aren't quite sure what to make of jesus the pharisees aren't quite sure what to make of jesus and so sometimes when one is giving information to the other or asking for a favor from the other their interests don't fully line up and so when the romans mentioned the zealots the pharisees are like no that that's nothing to do with jesus and sometimes the romans in this case are ahead of the pharisees in terms of their information in terms of what's relevant and then there's other times the pharisees are head of the romans pharisees in this case are saying you're looking in the wrong spot you're not focusing on the right thing and the romans are saying the same thing back to the pharisees so we're showing how this confusion starts and why jesus caused so much confusion and that leads into the next scene which is between gaius and atticus and this is the return of gaius and i know gaius is also a fan favorite it's funny how the romans even though they're the enemy have engendered such passion among uh you the viewer we've got gaius who everyone loves is back now and he's interacting with atticus who is late to the party when it comes to jesus gaius has already seen some of jesus's behavior and is wrestling with it himself and now atticus is experiencing this and he is just confused why is he confused he says it in this scene he doesn't strike me at all as threatening or scary and that scares me and that's what atticus doesn't have a lane for he can't figure out why this supposed rebel someone who is scaring the pharisees and scaring even the romans why he actually seems to be not scary why he's not preaching a message of rebellion and that makes atticus even more nervous as they're trying to figure out how to handle all this you also see why the romans didn't always just kill people guys has got these soldiers and he's like we're just going to walk right through jada potter like we own the place and atticus is like ah this is not the place to do that this is the place where we where an all-out war could be started these guys actually kill people these guys are so religiously fervent that you might actually have a problem you're not looking for and you can see again it's all about political interests everyone's motivated by either something they want to see or something they don't want to see and the romans did not want war with everyone that they occupied they were interested in keeping the peace they wanted to build a new society and this is some of the backroom dealings some of the political machinations that we like to show that give you the full flavor of the chosen and the full backdrop and context of what jesus was smack dab in the middle of why because it's going to end up making a lot more sense and you're going to see all that went into the relationships between the romans and the pharisees in jesus's death in future seasons then we're back with simon and andrew in the boat and you see that simon and andrew have switched places andrew is now freaking out he's the one who's a little bit more tense he's the one who's feeling this strong sense of loyalty and that the betrayal of that loyalty which he thought mary magdalene was acting out and jesus even himself causing a little bit of trouble andrew isn't up for that he does not want it he's saying if we're gonna fight a battle that needs to be at the right times and it's too soon for that right now and simon's the one calming down and we like showing the contrast human beings are complex bad shows will present good guys and bad guys and angry guys and calm guys and that's it and that's how they are for seven seasons we like to show the nuance we like to show the flavor and so in this case we think when andrew goes a little bit haywire simon's going to right size and going to calm down a little bit and i think that happens in relationships i feel like that happens in my marriage sometimes that if i'm a little bit more stressed or if i'm acting a little bit intense my wife's response is to be a little bit more calm especially when it comes to parenting you know you sometimes see one spouse is starting to overreact and you go wait a minute that you know calm down a little bit let's treat this a little bit more objectively and then with another roll switch that happens with simon and andrew here as well simon is the one not trying to calm andrew down and andrew's like whoa whoa whoa you're a hypocrite and this is what happens when they're following jesus and when they're getting confused they start acting contrary to what their natures are sometimes and we think that that's very human and that's what we're trying to do with this show is give you the humanity of these people and make sure that they're not just cardboard cutouts suddenly we'll do anything selfish leaves the group stranded at camp for two days starving or puts jesus on it makes him snap the pharisees who are hunting us down now he was grieving john's arrest and they're not hunting us down you're so dramatic but now we've got the arrest and i know that when some people saw the trailer for this episode they were like wait a minute this is too soon what are you doing why is jesus already being arrested of course this isn't the arrest which then calls into question well what arrest is this i don't remember another arrest in the bible uh this isn't in the bible but as we always ask ourselves is this plausible is this plausible that jesus would have been arrested in our opinion of course this is why we which is why we did it the answer is yes we believe that it is absolutely plausible for the romans to have wanted to bring jesus in and talk to him now did they put him in prison no and is this some sort of violent arrest no but early on in his ministry as things were happening and his gossip is starting to spread is it plausible that quintus would have wanted to talk to jesus and bring him in i think so certainly i don't think this was contrary to the character or intentions of jesus and the gospels which is what we never want to do did this happen probably not is it plausible probably a couple other things that emerge in this scene is one again you see that gaius revealing some of his thoughts and heart from matthew where he is looking around for him jesus knows it and gaia says you know he's used to eating well you need to be taking care of him we see that again gaius as a roman is not just this heartless killer things are starting to happen in his head the walls are starting to crumble what is guys his character aren't going to be you're going to have to of course see but we're setting the stage for some of that now and then we see that moment a subtle moment that not everyone noticed but there's this moment near the end of the scene when mother mary puts her hand on her womb for us it's a moment of reminding you the viewer that mother mary is a mom and jesus is a son and that even in a moment like this he needs to tell her this is not a moment to be afraid there will be a time when she should be afraid there will be a time when the disciples are going to not only be afraid but they're going to be freaked out and where it's not going to end well but this jesus is saying be calm no matter what you think of mother mary and what you how you think she would have responded to things the perspective of this show is absolutely that she is a mom and is a human being mom and is going to have the same stresses and concerns and fears that any mother would have watching their son get arrested and that's followed by the big breakdown of andrew and this is where andrew not only loses his mind a little bit with simon but he's now expressing it to others and he actually goes as far as to confront mary magdalene for what she did and he expresses what he's been thinking and what maybe some of the other disciples were thinking and you see that later when john says something similar where he's like well you were gone for two days there are consequences to behavior and it's not as easy for people to get over it jesus is the one who forgives and forgets these disciples even if they forgive they certainly aren't forgetting it's taken them a little bit of time to get over this and andrew has completely lost it and this was bothersome to some viewers who just didn't like watching andrew turn into this and to that i say good it means that you're invested it means that you care about andrew i didn't love watching him act this way either but i do believe it's human he's been through this on a small scale he's seen how people react to john the baptist as we portray that he was a former disciple of john the baptist well this is even worse the stakes are even higher andrew is not used to it it's easy for andrew to be following and andrew has always been one of the most loyal followers of jesus from the beginning and we show him obeying quickly but now he this is what he didn't expect and it's easy to follow and it's easy to be loyal and it's easy to be calm when things are going great and when you're all riding in that honeymoon phase of being called to something but then things stress out things go different than planned now they're facing some trials and this is where their character is revealed and this doesn't mean that andrew has bad character it just means that he's stressed like he was stressed in season one when he was dealing with the taxes and he was the one who was worried about it simon was the one trying to solve the problem well now andrew's trying to do everything and he's doing things on his own accord and he's now saying things that he's going to have to account for and may have to apologize for maybe i should come with you i feel responsible you might be responsible andrew how could you leave and we're seeing not only how his behavior affects him but how it affects the others and now philip's being called into it philip saying all right i'll be there i'll help him out simon is now confronting andrew saying stop it stop it stop it tensions are rising and this is what is ultimately leading to a scene that comes later in this episode and of course the scenes that happen in episode 8. you are seeing in real time when you watch this scene exactly what the chosen is all about setting the stage the context of it the back story of it so that when it comes time for the disciples to ask jesus how to pray there is emotional resonance they're doing it because they need to and when you're just reading the bible sometimes and out of the blue it just says and then the disciples asked jesus how to pray and he told them it's great it's all that you need in terms of knowing how to pray when it comes to the perspective of a tv show or we're hoping that you can identify with these people and hopefully you can see that their struggles were yours and their questions were yours we like to show backstory so that you can connect with it even stronger and when those moments hit you go oh the lord's prayer isn't just something that i read on a wall it's not just something that comes out of the blue i can go to this when i am stressed like they were this is the disciples tensions are rising and they struggled just like we would have struggled and i think that's actually really encouraging even though there's a lot of tension in this episode in many ways it's hopeful and now we've got the return of tamar and the return of ethan i don't know if we hear his name for sure we didn't name him in season one but the paralytic who was lowered through the roof they are now spreading the word and we get to see that in action in season one when uh the leper came to jesus and he said my sister was at the wedding she told me what she can do now we're actually seeing people spread the word in real time you get a chance to see who's telling people about jesus and why and tamar is an evangelist and ethan is an evangelist and this is great and this is a model for us but as you can see just like in today's world back then it could cause some problems and so andrew is saying look right now is not the time and we see tamar with her strength and ethan was his strength saying uh yeah not sure we're going to go along with this plan we have to tell people and she's questioning andrew why don't you have the bravery and andrew's giving her all this information of why but we love this return of tamar and ethan and tamar is actually someone she's played by amber who in season one the plan was at the end of episode six we weren't going to see tomorrow again but we loved the tune that she played and we talk about that a lot when we're putting together this orchestra we like people who play a different tune or bring a different instrument to the table and we just loved tamar and her energy and her passion and so we thought she's someone who we actually think would be a great addition to the team moving forward and so this was our way of bringing her back into the fold and also at the same time having it be related to the plot what she's doing is actually causing more tension and she's now raising the stakes and she's part of that but now we also get a chance to bring her into the fold and add her to the team moving forward and so you're gonna see more of her in season three and she might also bring a little bit of tension and we'll get a chance to explore that in season three that of course leads into the scene between quintus and jesus and this scene is one of the scenes that i was most excited to write most excited to be part of we were really looking forward to this this is like a face-off of titans you get to see the fun of it now does this scene advance the plot significantly not necessarily but we just wanted to get these two in a room together and you see a lot of easter eggs so when you watch this scene you get to see some of these moments jesus talking about for example the visit that jesus had from the far east which is a nod to the the wise men who visited when he was a child you see talk about fish and jesus even mentioned that's a common theme but you get to see these little easter eggs between the two of them but ultimately quintus is just trying to get a handle on this guy and he thinks that he's getting him figured out of course we know and jesus knows that he's not but again a precursor to what's to come the romans are trying to figure this out and we get a chance to see jesus get brought in for questioning and what does he do when he's brought in for questioning how does he respond to all of that and we get to see this really fun moment and i think there's also what i think is one of the funnier moments in the season is when jesus says i won't make you do anything but my father on the other hand i don't know what that means but let's leave on a high note this scene is just one of those scenes where regardless of what it accomplished we just wanted to happen we just wanted it to be fun and enjoyable and we love seeing two tremendous actors get together and then you got a third tremendous actor standing there watching and observing and you get to see atticus going man this guy is up to something and i'm gonna figure out what it is and ultimately that brings us to the climax of the episode the lord's prayer now originally we didn't know exactly where the lord's prayer was going to go i decided that we needed that in this episode just because of the fact of what i said earlier which is that this episode is so tense and has so many things that aren't from scripture i just thought we've got to bring it back somehow to the center of our show and the center of our show is ultimately jesus's impact on his followers even though this is just a brief scene we thought let's bring the lord's prayer into this episode this will be a beautiful climax to the episode it doesn't solve everything but it does show you where the disciples need to go when they are stressed jesus said something in this scene that i saw in the chat during the live stream it hit so many people which is when he when he's talking about how i told you to wait and then he said there are going to be times when i'm not around and you have to learn how to navigate through these situations you have to learn how to face fear because it's going to come even worse and isn't that true 2000 years later we have got to figure out how to seek out jesus in ways beyond just having him standing there in the flesh with us we know jesus is with us at all times but he's saying what are you going to do when i'm not standing here with you in the flesh and they've got to learn how to navigate through that and that's when they ask well how should we pray we want to pray like you do and that's another key part of it we see you praying jesus setting the example for us we see you praying and we want to be more like you and jesus says now you're acting like true students and hopefully this scene is a lesson for all of us i know it was a lesson for me now some people said well why didn't you show the whole prayer i want to see the whole prayer bear in mind you've already seen the whole prayer from season one episode three when he's teaching it to the children and you're gonna see it in season three you'll see it again don't worry about it you know the prayer and for some people it's like well what's that prayer i wanna hear i wanna hear the rest of it they go to the bible and they see the full thing so don't worry the prayer is not getting short shrifted is that the right term short shrift a short shrift short shift i think it's short shrift and that takes us to the end of the episode where jesus says to matthew i've got some thoughts i want to get them down and this is jesus inviting matthew into the process why does matthew get brought into the process does jesus need matthew for this we'll talk about that in my next director's reaction to episode 8 which is coming soon but for now we just get to see jesus inviting matthew into this process now the time has come for him to start sharing some of the most important aspects of his message and his mission we'll get into that in episode eight so with episode eight that's coming soon i will give you the details of one of the most talked about episodes we've ever done i'm really excited about that but i hope you enjoyed episode seven a little bit of a glimpse into the what the when the how the why and as always remember your job is not to feed the 5000 your job is only provide the loaves and fish thank you so much

Channel: The Chosen

Views: 56,512

Rating: 4.9343147 out of 5

Keywords: the chosen, the chosen tv series, bingeJesus, GetUsedtoDifferent, Faith-based, Bible show, Bible study, Christianity, Jesus show, tv show, filmmaking, Director commentary

Id: HaEdowAzz3o

Length: 26min 18sec (1578 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021