Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Chosen One’ On Netflix, Where A Brazilian Cult Terrorizes Doctors Bearing Vaccines

Shows that deal with faith versus science are often pretty biased to the science side, making the people who rely on faith look like rubes. But in Brazil, where various religions have strong sway, especially in the more isolated areas, the people’s faith is rooted in experience. That’s the idea behind the new Brazilian thriller The Chosen One. Read on for more…

THE CHOSEN ONE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A sick man is brought by a motorboat to a temple, where a priestess demands the man give his life to The Chosen One. Then a hooded man comes in and sticks a shard of broken glass into the man’s neck.

The Gist: Three doctors who work as residents in a remote Brazilian hospital are ordered to go to the isolated village of Aguazul, in Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands region, to vaccinate them against a new strain of the Zika virus. Lúcia Santeiro (Paloma Bernardi), a smart and tough scholarship student, leads a small team that includes the equally tough Damião Almeida (Pedro Caetano) and the more-suited-for-lab-work Enzo Vergani (Gutto Szuster). In fact, Enzo is so unsuited for emergency situations, the Aguazul trip will be the last one he takes before settling into a lab-based position (right then and there, you know the three of them are in trouble).

Even though the village’s doctor sends messages telling them not to come, they are compelled under government order to go. When the only road in is blocked by a rusting bus with the same message scrawled on it, they recruit a local fisherman named Silvino (Francisco Gaspar) to take them there. He says that the villagers there don’t like outsiders; they even bristle at his presence, and he’s from nearby.

When they get to the village, they find the medical center abandoned, the doctor nowhere to be found, and an angry mob of villagers pelting them with rotten fruit. The villagers chase them into the river, where they’re saved by the group’s leader, Mateus (Mariano Mattos Martins). Mateus explains to Lúcia that the villagers don’t need the vaccine because they never get sick. Lúcia isn’t buying it; she comes from the region and her father died because their family believed in faith over medicine, and her mother refused to give permission for him to get a blood transfusion. Besides, if they don’t do the vaccinations, other doctors will come until they agree to it.

After praying about it, Mateus agrees to the vaccine, but only if their not-so-sober doctor administers it. Lúcia reluctantly agrees, but Damião gets a tip from the creepy old lady that’s stalking them, and on the way back to the hospital, the doctors find a plastic bag of the vaccine in the river. The group come back with local police to enforce the vaccinations. But when Mateus explains that the vaccine will pollute the bodies of the island’s residents, who all rely on prayer and faith in The Chosen One not to get sick, she becomes even more determined to do her job.

Our Take: There are definitely some parts of The Chosen One (original title: O Escolhido) that are predictable, like the aforementioned scene where the weaselly Enzo says that this was his last trip before escaping to the comfy confines of a lab. You also know that Mateus, who seems like the only villager that is reasonable when he intercedes with the mob his fellow villagers formed, is also more than likely the leader of the cult (Silvio says as much: “Don’t be so naive, doctor. Nobody wants them more isolated than Mateus.”). But we’re not sure if The Chosen One, written by Raphael Draccon and Carolina Munhóz, really aims to be a twisty-turny show.

What was pleasantly surprising about the show is that it lays its cards on the table pretty quickly, rather than purposely obscuring facts in order to tease viewers into continuing to watch. Aguazul is isolated, the villagers believe in a nebulous figure called “The Chosen One” that could be more from the underworld than anywhere else. Mateus is the group’s leader and the one who more or less controls how they act. Lúcia lost a father to a religion that took faith over medicine, which is why she refuses to back down. It’s all there in the first episode, played out in a way that still pulls out surprises without having to manipulate time, space and narrative.

Hopefully, the subsequent five episodes will round out the villagers, as well as Enzo and Damião more. But for now, the first hour gave us more than enough plot, and some fine performances by Bernardi and Martins, to keep watching.

Sex and Skin: Not so far.

Parting Shot: When Mateus tells Lúcia that no one dies in the village from disease, only if they chose to die, she says that “If you don’t want me to treat you like a savage, then don’t display such ignorance.” As she leaves, Mateus stands up with a knife and slices open his own throat.

Sleeper Star: Caetano does a good job with the limited material Damião gets in the first episode. And the show seems to want to set up a partnership between him and Enzo, who aren’t each others’ biggest fans.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I wouldn’t let this guy give me aspirin,” says Enzo after he insists the drunken, seldom-used doctor administer the vaccines.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Chosen One is a show that isn’t trying to mess with you; it’s a straightforward story about faith versus science, and it does its job very well.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream The Chosen One on Netflix