The Chosen inevitably fails to avoid disappointment
I knew that eventually something like this would happen. "Watch it," they said. "Nothing could go wrong," they said. But I didn't watch The Chosen, nor will I.
It's just that today, people think that emotional value trumps adherence to the truth (and don't believe that the truth can convey emotional value).
In general, I think it's a mistake to have actors play sacred persons. I know I will be repelled by the sappiness, the lameness. But in particular, the stakes are too high here.
Fr. Dave Nix explains here what exactly is wrong with a scene in Season 2, Episode 3. Read what he says to understand how little details that seem so relatable and "human" actually erode our understanding of the great mystery of the Incarnation and the vital and beautiful role that the great Mother of God plays.
But we should know this.
Without necessarily having the theological particulars at our fingertips, something in us should rebel at depicting Mary this way -- as just another woman who finds herself at a loss to understand what God wants of her or what the meaning of His actions are.
The angel doesn't react to her that way; Joseph doesn't; the wedding guests and servants at Cana don't. Every thing we know from the Gospel points to her set-apartness and her holiness. Unless we have lost our own common sense regarding holiness, we should treat her the way we treat an especially delicate antique treasure -- and also the way we treat a particularly fearsome warrior (or do you not know that she "comes forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in battle array"?).
If the takeaway after watching this episode (or worse, if the children's takeaway) is that Mary is pretty much like us in our fallen nature and *proclivity to sin*, then things are not well.
I try to explain here in this post on my other blog why looking at the Mother of God as a person with basically the same reactions to things as we have will not ultimately help us in our spiritual life (or in any other way); it comes down to the fact that we will simply have nothing left, and we will have offended God.