Yes, the situation is fridging; Ramah dies for Thomas's character development.
But the worst about this arc is Thomas's characterization as the doubter. The disciples struggle with faith at various points in the Gospels. Mark records Jesus dressing all 11 of them down for not believing the women and the men going to Emmaus.
I also think Thomas isn't really criticized! Jesus blesses the ones who will believe without touching Jesus's wounds, because that's relevant for Jesus's audience. But he doesn't curse Thomas for not taking the disciples' word for it. Thomas just needed some more evidence. Jesus doesn't show up and say "wow I can't believe you didn't believe these ten guys who also sprinted into the night with you and one of whom denied he ever knew me."
I think it's also worth mentioning that the other disciples also disbelieved the resurrection on the basis of personal testimony (Mary Magdalene's), and were not convinced until they saw Jesus themselves. So they were really just as much 'doubters' as Thomas.
And of course the final note of that scene in John's gospel (the only gospel where Thomas appears as a character) is his confession of faith in Jesus as 'my Lord and my God', a revelation which I think comes as the culmination of the apostolic testimony in the gospels. So to the extent that Thomas is set apart from the rest of the Twelve, he is marked out in the end not by his doubt but by his faith!
Is it true that the disciples did not believe in the resurrection on the basis of personal testimony?
-- In the original version of Mark's gospel, no one sees the risen Jesus, not even the women who go to the tomb.
-- In Matthew's gospel, the angels give multiple women a message for the disciples, and the disciples believe it enough to go to Galilee, where they see the risen Jesus for themselves (and then some of *them* doubt what they see -- but they are doubting their own eyes, not someone else's personal testimony!).
-- In Luke's gospel, the disciples don't believe what the women tell them -- but the women haven't seen the risen Jesus, they've only seen the angels.
-- In John's gospel, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene, and she tells the disciples what she saw (20:18), and then Jesus appears to the disciples later that day (20:19), but there is no indication that the disciples didn't believe her (except for possibly Thomas, but his skepticism comes up only after all the other disciples have seen Jesus; we don't know if he was part of the group that Mary Magdalene spoke to).
So Luke's gospel comes the closest to telling us that the disciples as a group did not believe what the women told them, but in Luke's gospel, the women haven't actually seen the risen Jesus, they've only seen the angels.
Fair point - you're right that John doesn't tell us how the disciples reacted specifically to Mary's testimony of the risen Jesus. But I think the passage from Luke is still indicative of their general attitude. When the women report their angelic experience, it still seems to be the reliability of the women's testimony that is doubted, rather than the angel's proclamation: 'these words seemed to them an idle tale' (Luke 24:11).
Admittedly, this is reading between the lines, but I think if we combine the information of the gospels, we can put together a general chronology of the events following the resurrection:
> Mary Magdalene and other women arrive at the tomb and find it empty. Mary runs back immediately to inform Peter.
> Meanwhile, the women at the tomb encounter an angel, who sends them to tell the rest of the disciples. They meet Jesus on their way.
> Peter and John arrive at the tomb with Mary, find it empty, and leave.
> Mary then remains alone at the tomb, where she encounters Jesus.
> At some point later that day, Jesus appears to Peter on his own, and to the disciples on the road to Emmaus.
> In the evening he appears to the whole group (apart from Thomas).
At face value, Matthew seems to claim that the disciples go straight to Galilee after the resurrection (Matt. 28:7), while Luke suggests they remain in Jerusalem (Luke 24:49). But this is due to the compression of the timeline for the sake of emphasis, and is clarified by John, where we see the disciples return to Galilee at least a week after Easter, before Pentecost. This is probably the scene Paul refers to (1 Cor. 15:6), as a major public appearance. By that point the Twelve have already met the risen Jesus multiple times, so the mention that 'some doubted' (Matt. 28:17) probably refers rather to the Galilean crowd.
For what it's worth, I don't believe it's possible to harmonize all four accounts of the Resurrection in a way that incorporates every single detail, as written. It is significant that the angels appear to one or more women *before* Peter runs to the tomb in Luke, but *after* Peter runs to the tomb in John. It is significant that Jesus himself appears to two of the women in Matthew *before* the women have spoken to the disciples, but that Jesus does not appear to any of the women in Luke until *after* they have spoken to the disciples (indeed, in Luke's gospel, the women don't see Jesus *at all* until *all* the disciples do). Etc., etc.
It seems clear to me that Luke, as an associate or follower of Paul's, wanted to stick to the message that Paul communicates in I Corinthians 15: that the risen Jesus appeared to Peter *before* he appeared to anyone else. And yet, Luke can't quite bring himself to say that. He never describes the actual appearance to Peter; he just says that it happened, after the fact. Even more strikingly, the first people who see the risen Jesus in Luke are the two people walking on the road to Emmaus -- one of whom is anonymous (we don't even know the person's gender), and the other of whom is Cleopas, a person who is never mentioned anywhere else in Luke's gospel. We *hear* the road-to-Emmaus story before we hear that Peter has seen Jesus, but because that story takes place "off to the side", i.e. outside Jerusalem, we really have no idea if it *takes place* before, during, or after Peter sees the risen Jesus.
There is one other thing about Luke's narrative choices here that really strikes me: Luke, more than any of the other gospels (arguably), has an interest in women. It is he who tells us about Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna and the others traveling with the disciples. (He is the *only* writer who mentions Mary Magdalene outside of the crucifixion-and-resurrection narratives.) I think Luke puts more women at the empty tomb than any of the other gospels. We also know that Luke will highlight certain female characters, including patrons of the early Church, in the book of Acts. And yet, of the three gospels that describe the risen Jesus appearing to people, Luke's is the only one in which Jesus does *not* appear to the women first. That's kind of fascinating and counter-intuitive. If Luke, despite his interest in women, is the only writer who *omits* the resurrection appearances to the women, then I assume there has to be a *reason* for that narrative choice, and I wonder what it is. Like I say, my best guess is that it has something to do with Luke's closeness to Paul, and his tendency to let the Pauline tradition influence his gospel (see also how Luke's version of the Last Supper has the phrase "Do this in remembrance of me"; cf Luke 22:19 and I Corinthians 11:24-25, though I gather some ancient copies of Luke's gospel might not have that phrase).
I’m not watching The Chosen, but I’m enjoying this series nonetheless! Have you ever read Dorothy Sayers’ play cycle about the life of Christ, The Man Born to be King? I like the plays, but this post made me think specifically of her introduction to the written volume, which is a really interesting discussion of integrity in storytelling and how she went about writing an adaptation of the gospels. I recommend it if you haven’t read it!
(Disclosure: I haven't seen the show) I thought "fridging" as soon as I read the overview of what happened to Thomas' fiancée, and I thought Jesus' in-show explanation sounded callous. The description of what happened to her reminded me vividly of one scene from the otherwise fine-but-weird "Noah" movie, where Noah's middle child's girlfriend dies horribly onscreen in a scene that's so intense (much more so than the depiction of the eponymous Flood was) that it emotionally scarred me for years. (While not violent, I had too many bad memories of how awfully women and girls were often treated in some parts of the subculture I grew up in. My parents were among the few positive role models I had here, and deviations from Christlike morality were very common even in the church.)
I've always had a sympathy for Thomas, and not just because some stories say that he made it all the way to my native India. (I'm not from the state of Kerala, but the Christians there trace their spiritual ancestry to him.) It's because he asks for facts and evidence in a story filled with false prophets and false teachings, where we're told to "be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves" (Matthew 10:16, New International). I've been in far too many churches that veer toward being shrewd or being innocent but almost never both.
Following a thread on a Christian Feminist facebook page about David being a perpetrator with Bathsheba…even there, that story becomes a centering of the man and his actions. No one dares bring up the story of the concubine (the way Phyllis Trible does) to talk about the horrors that women endure and represent as the ultimate in victims and powerlessness and scapegoats, absorbing violence in this insidious way in the story told by The Chosen. If we really want to talk about the subjugation of women, I think we need to use the story of the concubine more often.
Are you familiar with Jonathan Foster’s “Theology of Consent?” He uses Girard’s idea of the scapegoat along these same lines…
Thank you for this! I've enjoyed seeing the story-telling choices The Chosen, but I did not like this one at all, mainly because of what you've laid out in point 3. It seems to me a wooden way & one-dimensional way to get at "doubting Thomas" and sidesteps Thomas' willingness to die with Jesus. I like your suggestion of Ramah leaving Thomas and his response to that much better!
Also appreciate these observations about how women and infirmity and suffering are portrayed.
And I also think the murder isn't really consistent with how they've imagined Quintus' character, and something about it felt a little forced. I guess it showed the dehumanization or unchecked violence of Rome, and got Gaius into place, but because of that it seemed a bit contrived. I think it would've been more believable (maybe) if she had been crushed by the mob or something accidental.
The other thing that could have worked is that Ramah is a radicalizing influence on Thomas. After she leaves her whole family, she encourages Thomas to be equally extreme, and Thomas shoots his mouth off a little about being ready to die with Jesus. However, when Gethsemane comes, Thomas flees, and Ramah actually is one of the women at the cross. Thomas feels like a fool, and needs more convicting that Jesus is alive than Ramah does.
Oooh, I like that trajectory and the potential there, too. I think it fits with Thomas not being with the others when Jesus first appears, too. Lots to explore there. I will be curious to see how they carry it forward. I was more reconciled to Season 4 by the finale, but still!
I may be way off here, but I was thinking that because Ramah is a fictional character, and not in the Bible; and her father did not give his blessing of the marriage; I don't think that Jesus would agree to "give her away" so to speak, thus going behind her father's back. I don't know the mind of God, but it seems to me a little out of character that Jesus would "defy" a marriage tradition. Thus, the marriage shouldn't happen. I know I did not articulate this correctly, and I don't know if this was a factor in Dallas's and his fellow writers' minds, but wondered if that was considered as well as developing Thomas's backstory. Just my thought.
That was my thought too, but rather because the patriarchy got the best of the writers. They couldn’t have Jesus “sanctifying” a union which the pater familias did not approve of.
I stopped watching after the arc of Eden's miscarriage. It was made clear enough in the staging that Jesus knew that Eden had miscarried, and yet he did nothing at all to comfort her. The whole story centers on Peter and his pain. He gets a massive miracle, and Eden gets left behind and shunted off to the side.
Late to this discussion! But this scene actually ended my watching the Chosen. For me, it was too triggering to watch the writers dismiss another woman simply because she was a woman. Jesus prays in John 17 that he is thankful that none of his followers were lost except the one(Judas). Ramah’s death just affirmed what the Patriarchy makes clear everyday, women don’t count. I’m done supporting that.
Totally agree about interpretation of Thomas as a LOYAL disciple and your plot idea/correction. The Chosen has made a few mis steps. I haven't finished season already don't really care for them portraying them asafaid of being stoned or running etc or of Jesus being sad about Lazarus. The reason Jesus weeps at Lazurus tomb is NOT because he loved Lazurus. The text says that is what people SAID. But it you look at passage an argument can be made that Jesus was sad at the general effect of sins i troduction into earth and its lingering consequences death and the sadness it brings to those who dwell on earth.
Hi, Dr. Robinson 👋🏻 Your post on this subject is thoughtful and thought-provoking. I suspect that we are getting partial information from Jenkins on the whys of Ramah's death, for dramatic purposes. There is still time in the series for events to unfold (including the death and Resurrection of Christ) that have a bearing on her passing and the grave loss which the whole company of disciples felt in the wake of her death. The writers of the Chosen have set up a tremendous tension and have opportunities to walk us through a resolution. Will they be able to pull it off? Not sure. They may yet surprise us. I will be interested to see your take once all the seasons are complete.
Interesting point. There does appear to be something developing with the sundial Ramah gave Thomas just before her death, and the details of the intimate conversation they had that time has been implied, but not revealed as of yet. So I guess it’s possible the writers could pull all the strings together in a more satisfying way before the series conclusion.
But having said all that, I agree this plot twist seemed incompatible with the series assumptions, and somewhat manipulative in its “fridging” ( a term I’d never heard before) in trying to drive Thomas’s status as the “doubter”.
Yeah, thanks, Marty. I am still watching this space, and if they are leaving breadcrumbs back to Ramah then we ought to be patient to see how they might breathe new life into this situation. Can it develop into a true subplot that breaks open into something new and unexpected? If not, if they don't close the loop in a satisfying way, then I agree completely and they shouldn't have gone this direction at all.
There's still time to change course I suppose but the commentary by the team has been very clear that this was planned from the beginning to explain Thomas's doubting.
Which... I think is shallow. I think the most likely resolution at this point is that they talk about Ramah after the resurrection and Jesus promises Thomas he'll see her again. Which doesn't resolve the central problem the show has had with violence against women -- that it's all about men.
Yes, the situation is fridging; Ramah dies for Thomas's character development.
But the worst about this arc is Thomas's characterization as the doubter. The disciples struggle with faith at various points in the Gospels. Mark records Jesus dressing all 11 of them down for not believing the women and the men going to Emmaus.
I also think Thomas isn't really criticized! Jesus blesses the ones who will believe without touching Jesus's wounds, because that's relevant for Jesus's audience. But he doesn't curse Thomas for not taking the disciples' word for it. Thomas just needed some more evidence. Jesus doesn't show up and say "wow I can't believe you didn't believe these ten guys who also sprinted into the night with you and one of whom denied he ever knew me."
I think it's also worth mentioning that the other disciples also disbelieved the resurrection on the basis of personal testimony (Mary Magdalene's), and were not convinced until they saw Jesus themselves. So they were really just as much 'doubters' as Thomas.
And of course the final note of that scene in John's gospel (the only gospel where Thomas appears as a character) is his confession of faith in Jesus as 'my Lord and my God', a revelation which I think comes as the culmination of the apostolic testimony in the gospels. So to the extent that Thomas is set apart from the rest of the Twelve, he is marked out in the end not by his doubt but by his faith!
Is it true that the disciples did not believe in the resurrection on the basis of personal testimony?
-- In the original version of Mark's gospel, no one sees the risen Jesus, not even the women who go to the tomb.
-- In Matthew's gospel, the angels give multiple women a message for the disciples, and the disciples believe it enough to go to Galilee, where they see the risen Jesus for themselves (and then some of *them* doubt what they see -- but they are doubting their own eyes, not someone else's personal testimony!).
-- In Luke's gospel, the disciples don't believe what the women tell them -- but the women haven't seen the risen Jesus, they've only seen the angels.
-- In John's gospel, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene, and she tells the disciples what she saw (20:18), and then Jesus appears to the disciples later that day (20:19), but there is no indication that the disciples didn't believe her (except for possibly Thomas, but his skepticism comes up only after all the other disciples have seen Jesus; we don't know if he was part of the group that Mary Magdalene spoke to).
So Luke's gospel comes the closest to telling us that the disciples as a group did not believe what the women told them, but in Luke's gospel, the women haven't actually seen the risen Jesus, they've only seen the angels.
Fair point - you're right that John doesn't tell us how the disciples reacted specifically to Mary's testimony of the risen Jesus. But I think the passage from Luke is still indicative of their general attitude. When the women report their angelic experience, it still seems to be the reliability of the women's testimony that is doubted, rather than the angel's proclamation: 'these words seemed to them an idle tale' (Luke 24:11).
Admittedly, this is reading between the lines, but I think if we combine the information of the gospels, we can put together a general chronology of the events following the resurrection:
> Mary Magdalene and other women arrive at the tomb and find it empty. Mary runs back immediately to inform Peter.
> Meanwhile, the women at the tomb encounter an angel, who sends them to tell the rest of the disciples. They meet Jesus on their way.
> Peter and John arrive at the tomb with Mary, find it empty, and leave.
> Mary then remains alone at the tomb, where she encounters Jesus.
> At some point later that day, Jesus appears to Peter on his own, and to the disciples on the road to Emmaus.
> In the evening he appears to the whole group (apart from Thomas).
At face value, Matthew seems to claim that the disciples go straight to Galilee after the resurrection (Matt. 28:7), while Luke suggests they remain in Jerusalem (Luke 24:49). But this is due to the compression of the timeline for the sake of emphasis, and is clarified by John, where we see the disciples return to Galilee at least a week after Easter, before Pentecost. This is probably the scene Paul refers to (1 Cor. 15:6), as a major public appearance. By that point the Twelve have already met the risen Jesus multiple times, so the mention that 'some doubted' (Matt. 28:17) probably refers rather to the Galilean crowd.
For what it's worth, I don't believe it's possible to harmonize all four accounts of the Resurrection in a way that incorporates every single detail, as written. It is significant that the angels appear to one or more women *before* Peter runs to the tomb in Luke, but *after* Peter runs to the tomb in John. It is significant that Jesus himself appears to two of the women in Matthew *before* the women have spoken to the disciples, but that Jesus does not appear to any of the women in Luke until *after* they have spoken to the disciples (indeed, in Luke's gospel, the women don't see Jesus *at all* until *all* the disciples do). Etc., etc.
It seems clear to me that Luke, as an associate or follower of Paul's, wanted to stick to the message that Paul communicates in I Corinthians 15: that the risen Jesus appeared to Peter *before* he appeared to anyone else. And yet, Luke can't quite bring himself to say that. He never describes the actual appearance to Peter; he just says that it happened, after the fact. Even more strikingly, the first people who see the risen Jesus in Luke are the two people walking on the road to Emmaus -- one of whom is anonymous (we don't even know the person's gender), and the other of whom is Cleopas, a person who is never mentioned anywhere else in Luke's gospel. We *hear* the road-to-Emmaus story before we hear that Peter has seen Jesus, but because that story takes place "off to the side", i.e. outside Jerusalem, we really have no idea if it *takes place* before, during, or after Peter sees the risen Jesus.
There is one other thing about Luke's narrative choices here that really strikes me: Luke, more than any of the other gospels (arguably), has an interest in women. It is he who tells us about Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna and the others traveling with the disciples. (He is the *only* writer who mentions Mary Magdalene outside of the crucifixion-and-resurrection narratives.) I think Luke puts more women at the empty tomb than any of the other gospels. We also know that Luke will highlight certain female characters, including patrons of the early Church, in the book of Acts. And yet, of the three gospels that describe the risen Jesus appearing to people, Luke's is the only one in which Jesus does *not* appear to the women first. That's kind of fascinating and counter-intuitive. If Luke, despite his interest in women, is the only writer who *omits* the resurrection appearances to the women, then I assume there has to be a *reason* for that narrative choice, and I wonder what it is. Like I say, my best guess is that it has something to do with Luke's closeness to Paul, and his tendency to let the Pauline tradition influence his gospel (see also how Luke's version of the Last Supper has the phrase "Do this in remembrance of me"; cf Luke 22:19 and I Corinthians 11:24-25, though I gather some ancient copies of Luke's gospel might not have that phrase).
I’m not watching The Chosen, but I’m enjoying this series nonetheless! Have you ever read Dorothy Sayers’ play cycle about the life of Christ, The Man Born to be King? I like the plays, but this post made me think specifically of her introduction to the written volume, which is a really interesting discussion of integrity in storytelling and how she went about writing an adaptation of the gospels. I recommend it if you haven’t read it!
No but i meant to read it when I was assisting for Mark Goodacre's Jesus and Film class. Must get on it!
(Disclosure: I haven't seen the show) I thought "fridging" as soon as I read the overview of what happened to Thomas' fiancée, and I thought Jesus' in-show explanation sounded callous. The description of what happened to her reminded me vividly of one scene from the otherwise fine-but-weird "Noah" movie, where Noah's middle child's girlfriend dies horribly onscreen in a scene that's so intense (much more so than the depiction of the eponymous Flood was) that it emotionally scarred me for years. (While not violent, I had too many bad memories of how awfully women and girls were often treated in some parts of the subculture I grew up in. My parents were among the few positive role models I had here, and deviations from Christlike morality were very common even in the church.)
I've always had a sympathy for Thomas, and not just because some stories say that he made it all the way to my native India. (I'm not from the state of Kerala, but the Christians there trace their spiritual ancestry to him.) It's because he asks for facts and evidence in a story filled with false prophets and false teachings, where we're told to "be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves" (Matthew 10:16, New International). I've been in far too many churches that veer toward being shrewd or being innocent but almost never both.
This is great insight, Erik. I'm intrigued that by reading the description alone you were able to see that I was -- pretty classic fridging.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Phyllis Trible’s “Texts of Terror.” Dallas et al are complementarian and patriarchal.
That's a great comparison, actually.
Following a thread on a Christian Feminist facebook page about David being a perpetrator with Bathsheba…even there, that story becomes a centering of the man and his actions. No one dares bring up the story of the concubine (the way Phyllis Trible does) to talk about the horrors that women endure and represent as the ultimate in victims and powerlessness and scapegoats, absorbing violence in this insidious way in the story told by The Chosen. If we really want to talk about the subjugation of women, I think we need to use the story of the concubine more often.
Are you familiar with Jonathan Foster’s “Theology of Consent?” He uses Girard’s idea of the scapegoat along these same lines…
Thank you for this! I've enjoyed seeing the story-telling choices The Chosen, but I did not like this one at all, mainly because of what you've laid out in point 3. It seems to me a wooden way & one-dimensional way to get at "doubting Thomas" and sidesteps Thomas' willingness to die with Jesus. I like your suggestion of Ramah leaving Thomas and his response to that much better!
Also appreciate these observations about how women and infirmity and suffering are portrayed.
And I also think the murder isn't really consistent with how they've imagined Quintus' character, and something about it felt a little forced. I guess it showed the dehumanization or unchecked violence of Rome, and got Gaius into place, but because of that it seemed a bit contrived. I think it would've been more believable (maybe) if she had been crushed by the mob or something accidental.
The other thing that could have worked is that Ramah is a radicalizing influence on Thomas. After she leaves her whole family, she encourages Thomas to be equally extreme, and Thomas shoots his mouth off a little about being ready to die with Jesus. However, when Gethsemane comes, Thomas flees, and Ramah actually is one of the women at the cross. Thomas feels like a fool, and needs more convicting that Jesus is alive than Ramah does.
Oooh, I like that trajectory and the potential there, too. I think it fits with Thomas not being with the others when Jesus first appears, too. Lots to explore there. I will be curious to see how they carry it forward. I was more reconciled to Season 4 by the finale, but still!
I may be way off here, but I was thinking that because Ramah is a fictional character, and not in the Bible; and her father did not give his blessing of the marriage; I don't think that Jesus would agree to "give her away" so to speak, thus going behind her father's back. I don't know the mind of God, but it seems to me a little out of character that Jesus would "defy" a marriage tradition. Thus, the marriage shouldn't happen. I know I did not articulate this correctly, and I don't know if this was a factor in Dallas's and his fellow writers' minds, but wondered if that was considered as well as developing Thomas's backstory. Just my thought.
That was my thought too, but rather because the patriarchy got the best of the writers. They couldn’t have Jesus “sanctifying” a union which the pater familias did not approve of.
Exactly.
I stopped watching after the arc of Eden's miscarriage. It was made clear enough in the staging that Jesus knew that Eden had miscarried, and yet he did nothing at all to comfort her. The whole story centers on Peter and his pain. He gets a massive miracle, and Eden gets left behind and shunted off to the side.
Late to this discussion! But this scene actually ended my watching the Chosen. For me, it was too triggering to watch the writers dismiss another woman simply because she was a woman. Jesus prays in John 17 that he is thankful that none of his followers were lost except the one(Judas). Ramah’s death just affirmed what the Patriarchy makes clear everyday, women don’t count. I’m done supporting that.
Totally agree about interpretation of Thomas as a LOYAL disciple and your plot idea/correction. The Chosen has made a few mis steps. I haven't finished season already don't really care for them portraying them asafaid of being stoned or running etc or of Jesus being sad about Lazarus. The reason Jesus weeps at Lazurus tomb is NOT because he loved Lazurus. The text says that is what people SAID. But it you look at passage an argument can be made that Jesus was sad at the general effect of sins i troduction into earth and its lingering consequences death and the sadness it brings to those who dwell on earth.
Hi, Dr. Robinson 👋🏻 Your post on this subject is thoughtful and thought-provoking. I suspect that we are getting partial information from Jenkins on the whys of Ramah's death, for dramatic purposes. There is still time in the series for events to unfold (including the death and Resurrection of Christ) that have a bearing on her passing and the grave loss which the whole company of disciples felt in the wake of her death. The writers of the Chosen have set up a tremendous tension and have opportunities to walk us through a resolution. Will they be able to pull it off? Not sure. They may yet surprise us. I will be interested to see your take once all the seasons are complete.
Interesting point. There does appear to be something developing with the sundial Ramah gave Thomas just before her death, and the details of the intimate conversation they had that time has been implied, but not revealed as of yet. So I guess it’s possible the writers could pull all the strings together in a more satisfying way before the series conclusion.
But having said all that, I agree this plot twist seemed incompatible with the series assumptions, and somewhat manipulative in its “fridging” ( a term I’d never heard before) in trying to drive Thomas’s status as the “doubter”.
Yeah, thanks, Marty. I am still watching this space, and if they are leaving breadcrumbs back to Ramah then we ought to be patient to see how they might breathe new life into this situation. Can it develop into a true subplot that breaks open into something new and unexpected? If not, if they don't close the loop in a satisfying way, then I agree completely and they shouldn't have gone this direction at all.
There's still time to change course I suppose but the commentary by the team has been very clear that this was planned from the beginning to explain Thomas's doubting.
Which... I think is shallow. I think the most likely resolution at this point is that they talk about Ramah after the resurrection and Jesus promises Thomas he'll see her again. Which doesn't resolve the central problem the show has had with violence against women -- that it's all about men.