Season 5 of “The Chosen” will be the faith-based series’ “most intense and heaviest” yet, creator Dallas Jenkins says. We know what’s looming: The newest installment covers the days leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion known to Christians as Holy Week.
Jenkins says the eight-episode season explores “What happens in the course of just a few days that causes people to go from worshipping him to wanting him killed?”
USA TODAY exclusively reveals the first (teaser) trailer for Season 5, titled "The Chosen: Last Supper," a minute-ish, edge-of-your-seat glimpse of new episodes that will debut in theaters during Lent on March 27. Just as Season 4 did, a four-week screening will be released in three waves. The entire season will be available to stream later in 2025.
Season 5 resumes where the previous one left off, Jenkins says, capturing a crowd celebrating the arrival in Jerusalem of Jesus (Jonathan Roumie) at the start of the week (known as Palm Sunday). Jesus’ despondency in the teaser marks a stark contrast to those rejoicing with palm leaves in the air.
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“We show you the joy of the worship and the triumph of Jesus coming in as the king of the Jews and the son of David,” Jenkins says. “But we also take a moment – you see this in the teaser – to get inside Jesus' head and know that it would have been bittersweet. He's looking at people who are worshipping him, some of whom are going to turn on him, so he can never be fully appreciating and enjoying the excitement of the moment when he knows what's coming in five days.”
Jenkins says the finale occurs before Jesus' arrest. At a trial before a judicial council known as the Sanhedrin, Jesus was sentenced to death. He was crucified on Good Friday and resurrected on Easter Sunday.
“Next season, we'll give you the full gamut of his arrest and what happens over those next 24 hours,” Jenkins says, adding he plans to end the series with a seventh season.
The Season 5 teaser opens with Jesus addressing the 12 apostles at The Last Supper, a Passover marking the last meal Jesus and his disciples shared. “Listen carefully,” Jesus says, seated at a table illuminated by candlelight in a room that has fallen silent, “because I’m going to tell you what is about to happen.”
During the dinner, Jesus revealed that one of the apostles would betray him and introduced the practice of the Eucharist.
“It's been a painting, it's been on stained glass windows, and now we're bringing what ‘The Chosen’ brings to things, which is to bring the humanity and the authenticity to it,” Jenkins says.
The Last Supper scenes were filmed last July at a studio in Midlothian, Texas, outside Dallas. “For several days, we just we did one big sequence in one location over the course of one week,” Jenkins says, describing it as “a beautiful experience.”
The teaser also previews what's for Jenkins “the most epic moment” of the season: Jesus, enraged that the holy place was being used as a market, overturns the tables in the temple with a whip he constructed.
“This is a famous moment where Jesus is whipping and knocking things over and yelling, and it's a side of Jesus that you have not seen yet in ‘The Chosen,’ Jenkins says. “Not only is he explosive in that moment, but it arouses explosive reactions. So we're giving you hints in this teaser of how some of the enemies of Jesus are reacting. And yes, how one of his apostles is reacting to seeing Jesus divide and do the opposite of what they thought the Messiah was going to do.”
In addition to the growing concerns of Judas (Luke Dimyan), viewers will also see Mary Magdalene (Elizabeth Tabish) struggle with what Jesus knows to be his eventual fate. Peter (Shahar Isaac) is challenged as the leader of the apostles and grapples with Jesus’ revelation that Peter will deny him three times.
“And then you've got Caiaphas (Richard Fancy) and Shmuel (Shaan Sharma) and all the enemies of Jesus, the religious leaders, who really do believe that they are under threat,” Jenkins says. “They really do believe that their entire way of life could come crumbling down. So what are they going to do in response to that? Everyone is doing what they think is best to protect their passionate beliefs.”
