The Mysterious Village
The Chosen One is going to be one of those shows that will almost certainly garner mixed reactions from audiences. On the surface, The Chosen One is a straight forward cult-thriller but as the episodes tick by, there’s certainly more than meets the eye but the execution does stumble at times. We begin with a ritual where a man is forced to worship The Chosen One whilst harbouring injuries. After this brief prologue, we then cut back to mainland Brazil where we meet our 3 doctors, Enzo, Damião and Lúcia. Heeding the warnings, the trio travel to the isolated community of Aguazul with the intent of vaccinating its residents against the Zika Virus. On the way, they happen upon a bus across the mud track with the words “Do Not Enter” spray-painted on the side. It’s an ominous sign and one they choose to ignore. As they continue to walk down the road they come across a man named Silvino who agrees to take them to Aguazul. They hop on his boat and across the river where they reach the shores of Aguazul. The streets are eerily quiet, children stop playing to stare and as they make their way to the health centre, they realize the doors are barred shut. After breaking in and looking around, they head outside and find the entire village waiting for them with buckets of fruit. They chase them out the village, shouting and cursing, before pushing them in the river. Just as things seem to be hopeless, the charismatic Mateus saves them and brings them back to the village, where he explains to the villagers who the trio are. He asks the Doctors to give him some time to convince the others and warns them against going outside for now. As day turns to night, the three doctors ignore his wishes and venture outside anyway, where they find the village completely deserted. Mateus eventually finds them, beaming from ear to ear, where he tells them the village have agreed to be vaccinated… on one condition. The trio are then taken before Lorenzo, the village’s doctor, and are told he’s going to be the one to administer the vaccine. Despite their initial hesitation on the matter, the village play ball and the trio head back to the mainland having vaccinated them. While in Silvino’s boat, they come across the stash of vaccines in a blue bag on the side of the riverbank – whatever Lorenzo gave them, it’s not the vaccine. They head back to the village and Mateus apologises, calling on Lucia to talk to him alone about the situation. He tells her that no one dies in the village unless they want to and proceeds to slit his own throat, much to the shock of Lucia. Say what you will about the rest of the series, the opening episode does a great job setting the tone and mood for the series to follow. Seeing the eerily quiet village for the first time and the snippets of detail about the mysterious Chosen One ruling from behind the curtains really helps add a layer of mystery to the series and are easily the highlights of the episode. The opening episode gets things off to a good start though with its characters and mystery, ending on a cliffhanger ready for the second episode.
