God Awful Movies - 344: !Hero: The Rock Opera

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

This week, Cara Santa Maria joins us for an atheist review of !Hero: The Rock Opera, that asks the oft asked question "What if the Jesus myth happened in modern day America?" and answers it with all the uninspired gimmicks we've come to expect. But way more rap. --- If you’d like to make a per episode donation and get monthly bonus episodes, please check us out on Patreon: http://patreon.com/godawful Check out more from Cara on the Talk Nerdy podcast Check out our other shows, The Scathing Atheist, The Skepticrat, Citation Needed, and D&D Minus. Our theme music is written and performed by Ryan Slotnick of Evil Giraffes on Mars. If you’d like to hear more, check out their Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/EvilGiraffesOnMars/?fref=ts All our other music was written and performed by Morgan Clarke. To hear more from him, check him out here: https://www.morganclarkemusic.com/

But yeah, yeah, so we go to there's a there's been a car accident and Fast rapper guy is gonna RAP Ask that guy is gonna do he's gonna show us his stuff and at first you're like oh wow This guy can fucking rap and then you're like oh wait. No, I'm watching this on one and a half speed I'm sorry never I literally have it one point in my notes guys don't watch on one and a half speed. You'll think they're good at random. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be who will be my northeast is my bad friend Eli Bosnick Eli. How are you this fine afternoon, sir? I'm fantastic. No, or is will do this for seven minutes while Carol was being introduced.

All right, I've had cut it out anyway, so the end result is the same. I'm sitting 2400 miles to my west is the host of the talk nerdy podcast and science communicator extraordinaire, Cara Santa Maria. Carol, welcome back. Hey, I'm here. I sound slightly more excited today because we've delayed this by a day. So I've had a little bit of recovery time. Right, right, fair.

So tell us, Cara, what will we be breaking down today? I'm not 100% sure that the movie, I was really hoping you would be 100% sure. Yeah, I, it's at the top of the doc, Cara, come on. I don't know if I should call it a movie because it's not a movie, It was just like a it was like a home video of a stage show. Mm-hmm called exclamation point hero. How does one say that? He's. He's excited. He's excited. He's excited. He's like that. Exactly. Yeah. And Eli, how bad was hero? Well, if you love musicals,

nope, nope, not like this movie, sorry. Well, so, so hold on, so, Kara, you sing, Eli, you sing, I sing, if you're not being real particular about shit like, he, so you guys, you guys want to do the rest of this is a musical the rest of this episode. Finally, yes. Oh, this is the offer I've been second most anticipating

for you to make. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no worst at. Yeah, I feel like so far, and this is kind of a big bar, but granted I only see one fourth, one fifth of the films, and only after a certain point in time, I would say that this is maybe the best worst racist attempt at anti-racism. Woo! Okay, because you haven't seen Brother White, so yeah, no, I get it. So was Brother White trying to be, because I feel like this movie was trying to be anti-racist and they were so racist in their anti-racism. Yeah, oh yeah, no, it was fantastic.

I was gonna go with best worst random projected images. So, this is a stage show and apparently a high budget one, that's what it says on IMTB. But there are these two screens, and I'm exaggerating, there are two sheets, white sheets in the background and they're projecting images on them. And sometimes they're relevant to the story.

Sometimes they're just telling you what is supposed to be happening. But sometimes it's just bafflingly weird random shit. Yeah, it's a lot of stock like footage. Right. And it's like, why are we watching black and white Olympics shit? It makes no fucking sense now. Just a bunch of like public access stuff from the 19th.

Right, steamboat willy starts to play in the battle. Okay, we're just going to the catalog. Yeah, the best part was when they discovered that all of NASA's images are creative commons. So they're like, oh, we can get some good quality stuff up here now. Yeah, yeah, let's get some high tech out here. See, I was going to go with best worst unnecessary Jews. This might be the same as Scarris. I'm not sure. So, what guess, listen, this is the story of Jesus set in modern day whenever the fuck this thing was made. So everyone's wearing jeans and t-shirts. And

instead of the sermon on the mound, it's the sermon on the Empire State Building, except for the Jews. Yeah, who are still dressed like fucking Roman era, high priests of the Israeli temple. Yeah, so to whatever extent this movie was trying to be anti-racist, it was absolutely saying, but the Jews still killed Jesus though. Oh, no change to the Jews. Oh, for sure, but they weirdly made us distinction

as if Jesus was not Jewish also. Right, yeah. Like that was not Jewish also. Right. Yeah. Like that was a weird oversight of theirs. And they were like, yes, it was very anti-Semitic. I think I made that note multiple times. But also, Jesus is black in this musical, yet they still lynch him. Oh, wow.

Yeah. We're going to get to that. We are going to get to that. I have a note about that, but sure. Yeah, so it's, um, um, yeah. Also, all the white people think they're black in this musical. Have you noticed that? Yeah, a lot of uncomfortable cultural appropriation as well to look forward to. All right. Well, I'll tell you what, we've got 31 songs with all and nine tunes between all of them on the other side of the break. So we're going to make the most of it, but we're back in a flash with all the slap dash bullshit. It is

hero that is break so we're gonna make the most of it but we'll back in a flash with all the slap dash bullshit it is, hero. Thanks for coming shopping with me, Cara. Eli, you came shopping with me by hiding in the backseat of my car. Potato, potato. Not how that phrase works. Ooh, are these wine glasses? I totally need these. Dude, Eli, you are already $500 above your budget.

Okay, yeah, you're right. Jesus, Noah, where did you come from? Oh, I was in the trunk. I got in, it's kind of irresponsible that you didn't check there after you found me. Right? Yeah, so I'm helping Eli with his budget. I'm keeping track of his expenses for him.

So, you know, the usual. Which means he goes with me wherever I go. Eli, if you wanna keep track of your expenses in a smart way, why don't you just use True Bill? What's True Bill? True Bill's a new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions that you don't need, want, or simply forgot about.

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Go right now, truebill.com slash Awful Movies. It could save you thousands a year. That's truebill.com slash Awful Movies. All right, good to know. So what do you say Noah? Can I thank Kara by taking her to lunch today? It does the restaurant take rubles? Probably not.

Then no. Rubles? Probably not, then no. Rubles? That don't ask. Kara, are you aware of a financial term known as the Bounce? Never mind. All right guys, welcome to the first ever writers meeting for Hero the Rock of Fra. Woo! Hello!

Now, this thing has gotta be hip, cool, and really bring the story of our Lord and Savior to the modern day. Exactly because like great universally true stories always require modernization to be relevant. Exactly. Right. So what if it was set in New York City?

Oh, so do they. Like where in New York. So like all of the famous New York places, you know, like Times Square and the Empire State Building. Um, Sparrows Pizza. Oh, I love that place. I go there every time I'm in an airport. Right. Like how could you not? And, um, of course, everyone will be dressed in what like all the cool people are wearing these days. Yeah, which is jeans. Sure, yep, jeans, the coolest clothes ever. Yeah, and instead of Romans,

it's gonna be like a futuristic company called Icon. Yeah, yeah, and there will be rap, lots of rap. Yeah, tons of rap. And the Jews? All right, I think it's best that we don't make any changes to the Jews. I mean, how else will they know who to blame? No, that's a good point.

Yeah, I'm gonna get the message out there. And we're back for the breakdown. And we're gonna start off by setting the premise up here. Just we're gonna spell it out on the little projected screens, which is what if there wasn't a Jesus before and he showed up in the modern day. Yeah. And no, I really appreciate you taking notes at this point because my notes are two hours

Kara. That's right. Two hours is this. And like at this point, I'm realizing that this is a YouTube video, not a movie, but this is a a home movie of a stage show in what I'm assuming is a mega church. Well, so right. Yeah, but to be clear, this was like, you know, this is like a five camera setup, like way over edited big credits at the end. They sold this DVD blah, blah, blah. So, you know, it's not just somebody with the cell phone holding up in the back

corner, but yes. I think this is like pre cell phone footage. I was like, I, because look, what is modern day? I grappled with this question a lot during this performance. What, what day is it really? It must be the 90s because at one point, a woman on stage is wearing arm bands. Mm-hmm. I think it's the 90s. Yeah.

Yeah. I think you're right. So a little bit more exposition here via the projector screens. There is a evil worldwide government. They're called icon. Mm hmm. Because of icon of plastic. And also New York is riddled with their words, not mine.

Ethnic gangs and revolutionaries. Oh my God, they said that. Yeah, you're ethnic. I remember. Kings. Also, of course, there's no churches to see where it's never had Jesus, but there are synagogues, or should I say,

eh, synagogue. There's one synagogue. And all of Brooklyn. Wait, but now I'm really confused because all of the Jew, well not all of the Jewish people, but like the head rabbi guy is black. Jesus is black.

And all of the people who beat the shit out of everyone else are white. Yes. so what are the ethnic ethnic gang? Yeah, I don't even know what that word. Yeah, I think they were going for like a SAT score replacement thing right who's art to black people as Christians are to normal. So fuck. And at this point, they're giving us all this exposition at the top. So I know the premise. Yet I'm still lost for the first, I don't know, five scenes. Yeah.

I don't know what's happening. So you guys are going to have to help me get through this because most of my notes for the first, like, five pages are what is happening. What am I watching? I'm so lost. So like luckily this is like, I think our hundred and third, what if Jesus was born in the modern day movie? So we should be able to help you out here.

So we're gonna open off up our cheap ass stage show in a cage that's made of black painted lumber, where a newsboy is gonna expose it to us out loud now. He was an undercover agent for icon. I wrote my notes at this point. Honestly, if this turns out to be kiss of the spider woman, but with Jesus, I am fucking Ian. And to be fair, you can't just throw around the word

newsboy as if people know what that means. This is how you got me into watching the movie. I thought this was like a newsies movie. What's a newsboy? Kara, I protect you from so much of the insider knowledge on this podcast. I know. You've never met Carl the Pug of Pegacorn.

The Woldacher, you know who has never come after you. And then you're like, oh, who are the newsboys? Yes, explain. Explain for the people who are just now starting to listen to God awful movies. What is a news boys? Yes, explain. Explain for the people who are just now starting to listen to God awful movies. What is a news boy? Yes. So that was a popular Christian band in the 90s.

And it was made up entirely of like 38-year-old divorce dads. So this guy who is the like narrator guy who's singing from behind bars at the beginning is also in a band because he's using terrible singer. Yeah. So this isn't all just a diss voice. They brought together a number of Christian artists, but universally that what makes Christian artists Christian before their Christianity is their lack of talent, right?

Oh, right. Like that South Park episode. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. Okay. This whole beginning wrap of his, it's like the intro to a wrap, but they don't have anyone who can wrap.

Yes. So it's just that, right? It's like they heard the karaoke track behind a wrap and they were like, well, we can do that. Right. Yeah, exactly. Go Jesus, we're friends now. Go Jesus, you're awesome.

He's bringing full limpusca vibes to. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. He uses your awesome. He's bringing full lip biscuit vibes to this musical. He's got like a Mark Zuckerberg trying to do lip biscuit on karaoke night kind of a meal, doesn't he? Yeah. I just want to say I'm proud of the listeners who knew who the newsboys are. Then I am of the listeners who knew who live biscuit was. Well, I have a video.

And so and and they and also we should point out that as he's doing his little rap about, you know, this is how it was. Well, I have a video. And so and and they and also we should point out that as he's doing his little rap about, you know, this is how it happened, he's also trying to dance, but they have him in this tiny little cage. So he can't really do any of these dancing in a fucking phone booth. Yeah. So wait, what was he actually rapping about? He's he was rapping about the fact that the show was about to start basically. He was rapping about the fact that the show was about to start basically. He was rapping about the fact that he was going to tell us a story. Content. I am the narrator. Yep.

The whole song. That's how that really is the theme of this entire stage show is let's spend six minutes rapping about a transition. Yes. Yes. And also, let's not like, fucking up with a whole bunch of lyrics, right? This song is just him saying this is how it happened over and over like every single song like these songs are 93% Koda.

Yeah, oh for sure. Yeah. So, and this fades into another song where we're going to meet modern black Jesus who is going to be roping in his first couple of disciples. This is Peter and Judas or as this movie cleverly renames them to make a more modern day, Petrov and Jude. Guys, we need to modernize Peter Petrov. I had no idea that's what was going on because all I could see was two guys fake playing cards like

Card they're playing a game of hand cards back and forth. Yeah I wrote my notes. They seem to think cards is shoving paper back and forth across the table as fast as you can Yeah, but without paper, like pantomime, and then there's a guy, but I guess now I know that this was Petrov, who's wearing a Confederate flag shirt, and I can't tell if this is just like casual racism or if it's part of a plot. It was so that will be replaced by an American flag later, so you can see him becoming less of a rebel and more

of a patriot. I don't. Is that what was happening? I thought it was just an unnecessary costume change like all the rest of them. That could be it too. The Confederate flag had me with lots of questions about this alternative timeline in which there was no Jesus, but there was a Confederate. Yes.

I was wondering about that myself. And then why did they wait? Okay, at one point, there was a Mount Rushmore imagery in the back and a one way sign. What does it mean? Random Americana shit with whatever else was left over in the fucking stock. It was so weird. So it means nothing. Yeah. Oh, okay.

It was like the song. The song was, I wrote my notes. This is too platitudinous to be about anything. Yeah, what were they say? I don't remember the content of the song. I just remember Petrov and Jude. This is my first exposure to the character of this film that makes me the most uncomfortable.

That's, is that Jude? Absolutely. Yes. Yes. What a weirdo. Oh,, is that Jude? Absolutely. Yes. What a weirdo. Shiny Heathenray. Okay. Oh my God, he makes me so, he's like all up, it's like they were developing the character

and they listed all of the traits of a child molester. Yeah, and he also smears things the entire time. Yeah. He's got like a turtle neck situate. He's always like kind of bent over and like, like, crew knit, like, it's so uncomfortable. And also his shirt says Jude. All over.

He sure does say Jude. And he looked where four different shirts that all say Jude on them. It's amazing. So my theory is that this guy is the alternate universe Heath and right, right? Because he's short, like, like, heath has a beard. This guy doesn't.

This guy sings like every, he's the opposite of heath in every way. Oh, well, well, that, that means that, that's like a massive compliment to he. Right. It is. I, I, I, like, because I acknowledge him when he's not on the show. Um, but yeah. So the red that guy with the Confederate flag wants to follow Jesus and Jesus offers some spiritual rewards much like, you know, your corporate fucking overlord offering you

a pizza party. But the both character, the Jew, he's like, Hey, you know, this might be all right for me. So I also will follow Jesus. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And at this point, Eli is starting to slowly lose his mind because of the jump cuts. Yes. Oh, my God. So this, I was going to say, this is where we meet the main character of the movie, which is jump cuts.

Each camera shot in this fucking scene lasts a quarter of a second. And as I've mentioned on other episodes, my iPad has an app installed because one of my medications can cause seizures where it goes like, hey, you might have a seizure. Stop watching this. My iPad and I broke up during this movie. I literally had to uninstall seizure app for later points of the movie. I had to be like turn off and it sent up a warning It was like you might fucking die and I was like I'm dying to what I love Watching a news boy pretend to be 46 year old Jesus. Let's do this thing We was 38 year old mother. Yeah Speedway should ask the night scene right we go to according to the title, Williamsburg private home for a Jewish wedding.

What? Why? Okay. This, uh, Williams, I guess they're like, William, I heard a cool person once mentioned the word Williams. Yep. That's where the Jews are. Exactly. That's it. Yep. I see. But why does, why wouldn't it be Williamsburg event space? Right. Why are they having a wedding in a private home? Also, why is she wearing a wedding dress that looks like a high school play wasn't trying very hard? There's so many questions. Great question. Alternate future, all wedding dress.

So what we're to let to believe is that without Jesus wedding dresses don't have feelings on there. They're just great. Yeah, it's just like a cage skirt. Also, okay. They're just like, they're just like a cage skirt. Also, okay. So this is where we meet this large gentleman in the Yankee's jersey as well. Oh, no, not him.

So he's doing, he wants to do the fast wrapping thing, right? He wants to break out in some super fast rhymes. He doesn't have any super fast rhymes. So he's just going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Yippity, Yippity, or something like that over and over again. No, this is what he does and he does it for more time. You guys ready? Mimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimim that begins with that syllable that goes into a fucking wrap and it never does. Nope. It's amazing.

If at the end of this he had caught a torpedo that was heading for Jesus, I'd be like, Oh, okay, this guy's character makes a lot more sense now. I get it. He has a braid too, a long braid. You guys know that? Yeah. A very long braid. And he did also, and I love this so much. He does the whole clap your hands and the audience ignores him entirely.

Oh, the audience participation moments of this musical, because this was shot in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The audience participation moments of this musical are terrifying. I watched Spider-Man fall into a Broadway audience and die and it was way better Than watching these people be like everybody clap no on come on not on one and three Don't clap your hands hands in the air yeah, that'll do now of course the reason we're in this scene though is that we have to show Jesus doing his first miracle right? He's got to do the wedding. He's got he wedding. So he's got to turn water into wine.

And because that is such a lame ass, petty fucking use of his superpowers, this movie has to acknowledge it with like, because Mary, the fucking mother of Jesus who is clearly younger than the actor playing Jesus comes up and says, Hey, you know, why don't you turn some of this water into wine? We're out of wine. And he has to be like, are you fucking kidding me right now? I am just, I have a guy. God's like superpowers, and you want me to make wine with them?

Mom, every time we get together with people, you make me do magic for everybody, and I wrote my notes, I get it, Jesus, I get it. Do you also notice that they clearly didn't do any research on what a Jewish wedding looks like because there are no Jewish wedding rituals. Nope. No. The rabbi literally goes, can I get an A-man?

No, like, I don't. Oh, did he really have an A-man? Yeah, he does definitely. Oh, awesome, awesome. Yeah, I was thinking about that. When I was in a high school play about the Holocaust, at least we had somebody step on a paper cup at some point in a... Right, right.

Yeah. No. They didn't do any. It was just a Christian wedding with people wearing Yamaha. That's all it was. And then they also, so they have to do the water into wine tricks. So they go for the stage trick version of this, which is just, you know, put some fucking coolate at the bottom of the goddamn jug and then pour water into it. But that doesn't mix well. If you don't know what you're doing. I just read goo paris is up from the bottom of this jar. And the best part is they pour a like a hefty glass for fucking Yankee Jersey guys.

It's like, don't make me drink that. That's like half a cup of granite and please do not make me drink that. So yeah, but that's Jesus do it as miracle. It's like half a cup of granite and please do not make me drink that So yeah, but that's Jesus do it as miracle we get a quick scene of the Jews conspiring against them Again full like ancient temple dress Jews in the middle of this modern rock-off rush thrown that out there Yeah, like lighting candles. Yeah doing doing Jewish things like a lighting yeah Where this Brooklyn and and and and ominously lighting candles. Yeah, right. So we're at this Brooklyn and, and, and, and, and ominously lighting candles, right? Mm-hmm.

And this is the first time I realize that this movie, musical, whatever, is full of unnecessary costume changes, because Jesus has already changed his t-shirt by this point. Yep. And then I start realizing that all of the characters are constantly changing their clothes. And I'm like, why are you doing that? I'm only just now learning who these people are.

Right. Kara, would you like to know why they're constantly changing their clothes? Yes. Because all of those t-shirts were for sale at the merch table. Oh my goodness. Are you serious? So it will come later in this episode, but I will have horrifying revelation in my notes later on

about this merch. But yeah, I located genuinely every costume change for Jesus when I googled hero the musical merch. I found every shirt he wears on stage. Yeah, because some of them are just the same shirt in a different color. Yep. Well, not only that, but it's also part of their advertising, right? If you look at the advertising they were using at the time,

they said, you know, the Broadway-esque musical that uses dozens of costume changes, et cetera, it's as like a selling point of like how professional we brought a lot of t-shirts. Yeah, that's not a cut. Oh my god. Nope. No. So yeah, so Jesus goes to the synagogue where they're ominously lighting candles. He tries to convince them that he's okay, that he's a good guy, but they beat him up to a fucking epilepsy trigger. I get it.

Right. Which again, my iPad was like, stop it. Stop watching this. Yeah, I wasn't sure what this scene was about. So the lyrics are, it's the fire of love. What does that mean? That's what Jesus is saying. And none of it means anything.

It's like again, it's too platitudinous to have meaning. Yeah, and then on the screens behind them, it says hometown crowds can be the worst. And then it shows Olympic torch relay footage. It sure does. For like a while, a while. And also they forget or they don't care that Olympic torch carrying as cool as it is symbolically always looks super lame because you've got

a distance runner being like out, out hot thing. I got to keep the fire away from the rest of my body. So my arm is so goddamn tired now. Right, gingerly jogging while crowds try not to get too close. Yep. And, okay, at this point, I feel like we have to grapple quickly with the concept of the lead of this musical, because I just don't understand how a bunch of Christians wrote this and weren't't offended by their own writing. Like this is the part that I don't get. The God-Offal Movie Story.

Yeah, it's like, it was really cool that they had a black Jesus, but then I'm realizing, wouldn't they think that this was blasphemous? Yeah, I think there's a sort of a surface. Like as long as you're not being overtly racist, you're proving how racist Christianity isn't, right? Right.

Wait, what? Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, so it's just like, no, no, because look at how many of our best friends are black. It's one of those types of things. Yeah, we've even made Jesus black. Right, so there. Right, exactly.

So it's okay that I don't support this law and bitch about affirmative action every time I see a black person with a job or whatever, you know. Yeah, and it's not like they used any of the social commentaries as like plot points. Nope. It was just that Jesus was black, but also his nemesis is black.

Like the two main characters of this entire thing are black and it's the protagonist and the antagonist. Yeah, yeah. No, and I think that was probably intentional right? Because they didn't want anyone to think that this was a movie about white people persecuting black people or a show about that or trying to equate that with Jesus' persecution. Yeah, except that it is because all of the main guy, the antagonist minions are white. Yeah. Yeah. Care. You didn't get the program guy, the antagonist minions are white. Yeah, yeah.

Care, you didn't get the program, but the program was all about black on black violence. It was just like straight up. Oh my God. Yes, talking point. Okay, I get it now. I get the box you're talking in. All right.

So Jesus gets beat up at the synagogue. We get the Virgin Mary show up, right? His mom shows up and she sings about virginly birthing him and how she always knew he was going to grow up to get the shit kicked out of him and a synagogue. Oh, and she is by far the most talented person. Oh, yes. Oh my gosh. She's incredible. And everybody else is garbage next to her. It's so upsetting. Every time this woman comes on stage, she just blows everyone else. They don't do anything. By the way, every time this woman sings on stage, she just blows everyone else away. They don't do anything. By the way, every time this woman sings, everyone else sits down and has a fucking hamburger, because they're like,

you're fucking great. Oh, it's so bad for the fucking Jesus guy, right? Because they have to sing this duet, which is, we're, because it's like they're breaking up. It's a mother and a son, right? Oh, yeah. So it's like weirdly romantic, but they're supposed to be, yeah. Yeah, and they're the same age. So it's, it's not even more. But like he's just super duper average and she isn't an incredibly talented vocalist.

To the point where I felt bad for a newsboy as weird as that was, yeah. Absolutely. Well, I felt bad for me because at this point, I realized that there are only 15 minutes that happened. 15 and a two hour musical. So then our fucking tour of the two burrows continues in Spanish Harlem, where we catch back up with our undercover cop from the beginning, right? They know so little about New York at this point. I expected a guy to come through selling Mona Lisa's and mad hatters. I just like the locations, the landmarks of New York that they come up with are so increasingly I don't like I expected at a certain point for like one scene to start at yellow cab, you know, it was just fucking ridiculous. But yeah, he's wrapping about being undercover to find out what Jesus is up to and this is also where we introduce Mary Magdalene, but we have to modernize her name too

So she's mags Okay, but so here's the problem Mary Magdalene was a prostitute Yep, and so you can see the moment as she walks out as all these Christian terrified writers were like, we'll put her in a skirt with jeans under it. Yes, yes, that's, she'll probably want a horse wear. Yeah, she'll like, sentiously show her shoulder. Oh, it's so bad. And this is the point where I realized that like the people who made this were like,

what if it was like rent, but instead of heroin, it's Jesus. Yes, yup, yup, absolutely. Like that's what this is. Like they were so desperately trying to be, to do rent, except that like the woman who plays Mary Magdalene is not Daphne Rubenvega or Rosario Dawson. No, no, no, no, at all. And also they keep running up against these awkward it's the biblical story,

so you have to tell this story thing right? Because like dress it up all you want. What's happening here is Jesus is going, stop you at a fucking whore, right? That's what he's doing. Yeah. Also they added to Mary Magdalene's story unnecessarily. One of the lyrics is like, I know your father had sex with you.

Yes, what the fuck was that doing there? I'm like, hey, hero, Mark, hero. That's not in the Bible. You did not need to have that. Also, the thing I was trying to set up is that no, no, I've been there your whole life helping out. Like I was watching in your Paris abuse you sexually as a child is not a comforting thing to tell someone.

Right. But don't worry, I'm going to kill myself to forgive you for having been for that. Oh my God, it's so bad. But here's the thing, Mary does do like a little sexy dance at this point. I mean, look, it's not sexy, sexy, but she like moves her hips. And this is tall so Oklahoma. So I got to play one of my favorite games I watch while I watch our Christian movies, which is how many sexual awakenings did this scene?

And of the people who suggested this movie, I can assure you it was many men, women, non-binary pals. Lots of folks woke up at this moment. So, okay. So then we head over to Greenwich Village for a little miraculous healing. For no reason. Why is this in Greenwich Village? Oh, right. Because that's the other one they could come up with. And also, so this, he's gonna heal this homeless veteran who's supposed to be handicapped, you can't walk. And they've got him on a fucking furniture dolly. Yeah. And like, he's got his legs tucked under like, he's full, lieutenant dance. Yes. Yeah. Like, they're going for, it's like a really insulting representation of homelessness. He's basically like, they were like, let's dress him up like Oscar the Grouch.

Yep, yep. And then, and make him have no legs. Yeah. And then the song, the whole time, is about standing up. Right, getting up, getting up on your own two feet. Yes. But he doesn't have feet, I didn't think. Like it doesn't look like, they made him look like he's,

he had lower leg amputations. Right. But so here, but you're ignoring the most important part of this. And I think Kara, which is the fact that furniture dollies don't have breaks on them. So the entire time he's doing this bit about, oh, I'm a homeless crippled man and nobody will help me and blah, blah, blah. He's trying to stand still every time anyone moves on the stage, his thing starts turning away from the audience. Swinging around the stage. It's just like Leslie Neilsson in the back of a naked gun movie. And then do you guys did you catch when the when the rabbi I'm gonna call call him the rabbi, but who is he like the head of the Brooklyn synagogue?

I can't. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I just had to get people to do with the entire time. Yeah, I'm okay. So yeah, evil Jew rabbi, whatever. He he comes up and asks him. He asks Jesus if he has his healing permit. Yes. Oh, wait, what? Okay. Are you healing without a license? In a world without Jesus, you need all healing permits. Yep. I'm just picturing someone at one police plaza at the end of a really fucking long line,

just like, oh my god, this is gonna take for, they said I could do it online and they'd mail it to us. Yes. Ah. But of course, so he eventually heals this homeless guy with using nothing but his boots strap speech wrap. This poor guy who has no boots. Everything about this is so terrible.

But the guy gets up and he starts dancing and everything and he grows his legs. Yeah, Jesus causes him to grow legs. We're not that miracle doesn't happen now. But yeah, and then of course the guy yells, what's up Oklahoma, which was the funniest moment of 2022 for me. I think I said, no where we were yet, but yeah, I was delighted. Oh, he tries to get this Oklahoma audience to dance. And you watch this.

What character, just be like, okay, okay, we can't do tap touch. We can't do tap touch. Can everyone just jump? Can you? No, not me. Okay. Wow. Wow.

I'm out of movements. I'm out of movements. Everyone stand up. Just stand up. We'll say you were out of your chairs. This is all I can do. So, okay. So then we had back to that Brooklyn synagogue because they've only got so many

title cards, dammit. Kai the evil Jew is conspiring with the icon guy, right? The main icon government bad guy. Right. And it's really weird because it's like, this is when the anti-Semitic kind of stuff starts. And I'm really, well, maybe not. Yeah, I was like, I wasn't gonna call you. Yeah, so we're at ramps up certainly. Yeah, and like they have all the icon guys kind of dressed like Nazis. Kind of kind of weird.

So now you've got like the rabbi and like the Nazi like this firing against Jesus. I don't know what's happening. Well, and it's so stupid because they have nothing to sing about at this point, right? These two characters, all they need to communicate is like, well, I need your help dealing with this Jesus problem. And he's like, the icon guy has to be like, well, I don't want to help you with it. You deal with it yourself. And that's it.

But they have to fill a whole fucking song up here. So they just start singing about how corrupt they are and about how the Jewish guy only wants money. Right. Just to be clear, you're bribing me. Yes, I'm bribing you. I am glad that you guys took notes on this scene because I was distracted at the two young ladies attempting to improvise, search a slave behind. they found two young ladies who had completed their very first gymnastics class. We just have our actors in the foreground and you guys all fucking fake it for some assertion. So lay shit right. And they were like, absolutely cartwheel. Also, I have to point out just how uninspired the rhyming is and the last line of this song after the icon guy leaves is Kylie evil Jew realizing that he needs

a spy. So he says that he sings the last line is perhaps what we need is a spy. It's both the plot point and the final edit. So like, and he pauses for eight seconds between each syllable. That isn't rhymed with anything. Nope. Think, just think of all the words that rhyme with fucking spy. Uh, and they couldn't come up with anything.

Nope. All right, well, I'll tell you what, at the very least, I think we have a full-blown plot now. So I guess we can take a break, but we'll be back in a minute with even more. Ah, hero. And then next time, we're gonna have you watch this movie about a hospice nurse who won't stop telling her friend

about Jesus while she dies. Yeah, that sounds terrible. Oh, it is. He sent me the preview. Ooh, plus I found a bunch of crazy documentaries on this network, Gaia. I found an anti-psychology one I think will be really good for you. Oh wait one second potty break. Stupid cell phone. I'm sorry what do you mean stupid cell phone. Oh um that's why I watch all these movies. It's not because you enjoy our

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And I'm back. I was thinking while I was pooping, how would you feel about a crazy COVID documentary? Bad? You got it. It's on the schedule. Okay. Two from now. My disciples, listen to me.

On this very night, one of you will betray me. We would never. Okay. Who was it? Was it you Simon? You two named mother fucker. I will cut off your fucking ear, my dude. Peter, there is no need for violence. What's done is done. It is and was God's will. Yeah. God's will shit. Hey, everyone, help me barricade the door. Thomas, I want you to grab a wine bottle and I want you to stuff a rag into it. I'm not saying we're not going out, but we are taking some bitches with us if we do. Um, I, I don't. Oh my God, dude, give me your napkin. We do not have time for this. Paul,

Paul, will you go into the kitchen and see if they have knives? Why am I the only one taking this serious Peter Peter? Peter, may I speak to you for a second? Yeah, what's up, J-Dog? Look, I really appreciate your loyalty, but this is kind of a big, destined messiah thing. This way, it's my whole thing. I'm not really looking to get out of it. Oh, okay. So it's like a trap. We want them to catch you.

Well, it's kind of like that, sure. And that's when I slice off their fucking ear, right? It's because they can't hear you. But it's kind of like that, sure. And that's when I slice off their fucking ear, right? It's because they can't you. Maybe I shouldn't build the church on the rock. We just don't. He's got like an ear thing. What did you say, Thomas? Nothing. Cause I will slice off your ear. Sliced off my ear. Yeah, big eared. And we're back for more of this shit. And we're going to rejoin modern Jesus singing about how he loves you, even while you're dying of AIDS. Oh, yeah.

Right. Like, there's, I don't know what the song is supposed to be. I got it's rent. It's because they want this to be rent. Okay. Sure it is. Bear. Yeah.

A lot of ambulances in the background. But like, isn't there sort of a Jesus can cure your disease better than medicine can vibe to this? Oh, of course. Yeah, it does bring up the problem of modern Jesus not spending his entire time in the hospital, magic healing people. Right. True.

Yeah. I think they're also trying to be like edgy a little bit or like they're like we're inclusive. We don't even, I mean, we hate the center, but also we want to heal the center. Right, right. Yes, we're, yes, we're being inclusive because we're not being judgey about people having. Yeah, exactly. I think you're right. They're like, look at us. We're so progressive. I was just so overwhelmed by irony at this point because they have this big pause long moment where he was Blessed all the poor

I just wrote my notes sang the millionaire from the jumbo stage for which Yes, yeah to the people of Tulsa Oklahoma Yeah, also not to be a patent here, but is it poor the opposite of blessed? I just feel like But yeah, so but he's and his apostles are gathered. It looks like a fucking dead head party. It's like people left over that didn't realize that the show had already started at the fish concert, you know? Oh, yeah.

And so now and now we've got Confederate flag guy has changed into American Flag shirt. Yep. Which I don't know is that progress? I'm not sure. This show is not taking a stand on that issue. I promise you that. And then, oh, my favorite is when the guy with the sideways hat comes up. Yes.

Do you guys remember the sideways hat? I use the hoodlums. The hoodlums. Yes. I wrote in my notes, nobody on this stage doesn't have a teenage child. So true. And important plot point, I think the undercover cop icon Apostle narrator guy is flirting with Mary Magdalene now. They're apparently the two of them are falling in love. Yes, so we have to be clear. This guy has three different characters at this point.

Yes. He's the prisoner at the beginning. He's also like the narrator throughout. He kind of, I guess, keeps us abreast of what's happening, sort of. And then, yeah, he's also the undercover icon guy who is like pro Jesus. Right, but we also see him in his icon outfit later being

just like, dude, you don't look distinct enough to be doing that to me. I don't know. Get a Wario mustache, my man. Something. Yeah. You literally think he's three different people and just until they do like a really tight shot.

And it's, oh, it's that guy. It's generic ass looking fucking avatar I haven't started fucking with looking guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's every guy who thinks he could trade underage kids beer for whatever drugs they have. And he's falling in love with Mary Magdalene as the boy. Yes. Yes. Yes. Also, so that song wraps up and we have evil Jew come to chat with Jude about maybe recruiting him to his side. Okay. It's written in the Bible why Judas betrayed Jesus. Why did they feel the need to retcon this into like,

Jude was an influencer and he wasn't getting enough Instagram followers. Yeah. Because that makes it modern. Eli, that's more modern. Right, right. Yeah. That's, but that's the whole thing is that Judas following Jesus, you know, so you can get fucking more followers on his blog apparently.

And evil Jew is like, you know, I can get you a lot of YouTube views if you portray Jesus for me. He's like, let's talk again and act three, man. We'll talk again. I can get you trending on Jew talk. All right. I'm listening. I am listening. I can't believe you didn't go with YouTube there.

Oh, see, oh, YouTube. I was gonna go for circumcised prick talk. Jesus Christ. I like that one better. Thank you. You're welcome. All right, and then we come across the hilariously sloppy car accident. This is the best.

But yeah, yeah, so we go to, there's been a car accident. This is the best. But yeah, yeah. So we go to, there's been a car accident, and fast rapper guy is gonna rap. Man, man, man, man, man, man. That guy is gonna show us his stuff. And at first you're like, oh wow, this guy can fucking rap. And then you're like, oh wait, no, I'm watching this on one and a half speed.

I'm so, never mind. I literally have it one point in wait, no, I'm watching this on one and a half speed. I'm so nervous. I never mind. I literally have it one point in my notes, guys, don't watch on one and a half speed. You'll think they're good at wrap. That's amazing. Also, I just want to point out that the chorus of this particular rap song about raising his dead child

is I'm from Harlow. No, no, no, no, it's I was raised in Harlow. That's right. I was raised from the dead. They're really setting that up. But yes, the way it starts off is just he stops a couple of times. He's like Harlow, I'm represent. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

And so the whole point by the way of the scene is that he's raising this girl from the dead. Yes. And I guess now I'm realizing that she got hit by a car. Oh, yeah. Like I said, it was pretty sloppy. I thought that this was just a full scam artist situation where like basically by raising her from the dead, he just like gave her a Narcan.

Nice. Like, I really feel like that's what this scene was. She was just lying down. Yeah. Like, really feel like that's what this scene was. She was just lying down. Like she had just taken a little too much. And then he's like, here you go, we have drugs for that. And then she was like, Oh, I'm good now. Nice. At one point he goes, I'm going to need a minute alone with the body. And I wrote my notes, Oh, sure. But when I ask, I'm not allowed at the funeral. The people's princess anymore. It was awkward a little. This I need to be alone with this dead girl.

Especially when one of the lines in the rap is just touch my daughter hero. What the fuck? And can I say Hillsong Church took that lyric to heart? Yeah, okay. You just grew up in a real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real real what that means. There's a lucky you. So I have to point this out right. So Jesus heals this girl and she stands up and there is one single member of the audience that reacts as though she had actually been dead up to that point, right? One audience member is like, oh my fucking god, what's happening? Somebody call the police.

Stop, relax. Oh, by the way, and just in case you didn't catch that fucking double meaning in the raised in a Harlem thing, as we fade away from that song, there's a news anchor that's like, so you could say that she was raised in a Harlem. The dead girl that is. It's from the dead, we mean. We're saying it in white voices. You made a joke, homo.

You see how it's like, yeah. But the key here is though is that after that dead girl raising, Jesus is getting pretty famous and icon is getting pretty worried. Mmm. So the you see at the undercover cop guy, he's gonna come and rap at us a little bit more to sort of fill us in on all that. And boy, he's gonna just do a bang up job.

And me. At one point, he goes, people flock to his shows and I wrote in my notes, wait, I'm sorry, is Jesus doing shows? He does shows? He goes at one point from the city to the burrow. And I'm like, wait, what do you think that last word means? I would know.

Wait, which, this is the scene with the, with the narrator icon guy again. Yeah. This is like his 14th song. I just, I had to mute him. Yes. I didn't. He's so bad. He's trying to be Eminem, I think.

Yeah. It had a, an Eminem vibe to it this song. Yeah. This is where Kara starts to despair her notes at this point. Read to be honest, I'm not sure what he was rapping about to be more honest. I don't care. The darkness. Oh, I'm going to say, I'm not sure what he was rapping about to be more honest. I don't care. The darkness. I listened to it and I didn't know what he was fucking talking about.

But I know I noticed things like him pronouncing champion champion. Oh, to make it rhyme. I know this shit like that. But yeah, oh, and then we get by far the best moment in the show. We go to Times Square where they're gonna do the whole feeding the multitudes with just a couple of loaves thing and they're gonna do it. I shit you not with T-shirt guns filled with bread.

And the projector is showing hot dogs being made. So we're supposed to assume that Jesus is multiplying dirty water dogs. I was so confused. There would be an entire chapter of the Bible on food poisoning. They're piring wonder bread and giant fucking clouds that their audience think what are they gonna do with that shit? They're not gonna fucking eat it are they? He literally I literally my notes read this word for word. Okay, say what you will, but take this bread

and give it onto the meek, followed by firing a picture gun full of bread into the crowd. Is the peak of the show, Not this episode, this podcast. We did it, everybody. You can go, Kara, I'm taking all the websites down. You're free. You can do. They do.

They show like reverse shots after they shoot the bread into the arms and the audience just looks really confused. Yeah, they're like, why I don't, now I have bread on it. It just crumbs and shit. There'll be ants by the end of the show Oh and and this oh yeah, you know the venue was like what yes This is also like the weird Caribbean steel drum vibe song. Yeah, where the whole like song is them going hey You're hey, you're hey, you're hey, you're hey, you're hey, you're hey yo hey I actually wrote those lyrics down in my notes. Hey, oh, hey, oh, hey, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh It's just the whole song

I just want to point out I think it was on purpose as a quote unquote joke But Jude's t-shirt gun doesn't work and we get to watch a girl in the audience be sad Yes Yes, oh, Jude makes me so uncomfortable. All right shirt gun doesn't work and we get to watch a girl in the audience be sad. Yes. Yes. Oh, it makes me so uncomfortable. All right. So then we cut to evil Jew introducing Jude to icon cop. Now, icon has an undercover agent inside. Jesus is like inner circle like the guest that the show has forgotten about.

Yeah, the narrator guy. Right. Right. Exactly. circle like the guest that the show has forgotten about. Yeah, the narrator guy. Right, right, exactly. But they're like, oh, finally, a guy on the inside that we can deal with. Okay. So Jude explains that he can control Jesus. He's very, very much a close talker as well.

But he's also like borderline jive talking. Yes. Like he's speaking so racist. Like every time he talks to anybody of color on the show, he starts to like do like a black guy accent and it's like really. So uncomfortable. Yeah. So I feel like his T-shirt gun didn't work because someone shot him for the way he talks

before the show started. So yeah, but ultimately the evil Jew manages to convince icon that they need to help out with his Jesus problem. Then we cut this stupid ass throwaway scene where Jesus is chatting with a few of his disciples and Jesus says, so what do you guys think I am if you had to tell if you had to say what I was, what would you guys say I am? Oh yeah. And they say, I think you're the son of God and the crowd fucking lost it. They ate it the fuck because like the first person's like, well, some people say that

you're a lunatic. He's like, aha, and then some people say you're a liar. He's like, aha, a draw of what do you say I am? Yeah, crowd fucking ate it up. And then we had because they're nearly out of New York things they can think of to the Empire State Building. Oh, yeah. Of course. We had because they're nearly out of New York things they can think of to the Empire state building. Oh yeah, of course.

I, this one I was writing in my notes. Okay, next scene, Katz is daily. Yeah. Right. That building from Ghostbusters. Yeah. But this is, but it's finally time for Petrov to rock the fucking house for once. Oh, I guess worse than the worst of them.

He's the worst one. He is, he's trying to be kid rock, right? Like that's his goal. Guys, look at my notes. Look at my notes. It says, oh, no, too loud. I can't do this. Eli, I thought you were going to go easy on me.

No. No. After last time, you owned me. This was easy. For us, you could have the root canal documentary, Kara. I know it's my fault. I'm not having this fight on air. I chose poorly.

I chose. So yeah, but then we do an entire song that can just basically be summed up as Jesus is pretty awesome. Petroven and mags rock it out for us. And then Jesus sings to us, oh, and then the fucking title cards come up and say, act two. Oh yeah, oh, just to fuck with,

literally just to fuck with us. Yes. The title card might as well come up and say, come on, Akira, halfway there. I know. Oh yeah, like those running apps that are like, you can do it. Yeah.

So my YouTube have zombies getting closer I know. Yeah, like those running apps that are like you can do. Yeah. So my YouTube have zombies getting closer in the background. Okay. Oh God, the UC steps in. He's like, I'm still in there. I'd be like, and then I also want to put this out because Maggie comes out at this point again. And she has like the reverse Hollywood movie thing where her clothes get more and more conservative. Right. This is what she's wearing like a blazer over her tank top and shit by the end of it. She'll have a like an angle length address with the turtle neck or something. Yeah.

Yeah. I would like puffy sleeve. Yeah. Exactly. There's going to be a glow shot of her tossing her hair back and forth and it's somehow pinned up at the end. This is like the weird song where I feel like I think the lyrics are telling us that this is like a personal responsibility song, but then there's these grown women who sound like

children singing the refrain. Yeah. This one was weird for me. It made me, it gave me like squeamishness a little bit. I didn't know what it was about. And the right, so like this is like all the backup dancers are singing about how the Christians need to fuck the fuck off and get out of there. But they sound like like boy, like young boy coral singers.

So it took me a while to realize they were women. Yeah. It was weird. They're also doing ballet heckling. Yeah. They'll run up into Mary's face and like pirouette around a little bit. Yeah. It's a dance off.

Yeah. And yeah, but she argues with the backup dancers that like you said, that they need to take more personal responsibility. And then, and this I only figured out in retrospect, the undercover guy, the icon guy, comes and breaks it up. Up until now, icon is represented the bad guys. And because this guy is so generic looking, I didn't realize he was the same fucking guy. Right.

But icon guy comes and he's like, hey, break it up, stop fucking ballet fighting with Jesus. Yeah, because the idea here, right, just to clarify is that he's like a double agent. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, right. Right, he says he's undercover at a certain point, but yeah, I guess, yeah, that's the, yeah. Yeah, I think the idea is he works for icon, he's undercover trying to help put the kabosh, but actually he loves Jesus. Right, yeah.

Yeah, that's kind of like, okay, he's the good guy who in this world is viewed as a bad guy, just like Jesus. Right, okay. Yeah, and he's supposed to be an analog for Paul, but you know, because he's not exactly an apostle, but. Right, right.

And then we have to drill in, make sure that you caught that he and Mary Magdalene are love interests, right? And I can't tell. Yeah, for no reason. Well, so it's either because they don't want you to think that Jesus is a sexual being, and then the assumption would be that Jesus was with mags

if they didn't give her a love interest, or if they don't want Christians having to deal with the idea of the white girl and the black guy being together. Yeah, for the same reason. But I also, I don't even understand what. So if she doesn't have a love interest, she's useless.

Exactly. Oh. Her purpose is to pro-create with a man. People just kept raising their hands during rehearsals. I'm sorry, who owns Mary-Man? What? Is useless. Exactly. Perfect. Perfect. Is to procreate with a man. People just kept raising their hands during rehearsals. I'm sorry. Who owns Mary Madman? Right.

This is very confusing. Well, that's just the thing is that if you don't go out and put a love interest in there, everyone will assume, oh, she's the main characters, right? She belongs to the main character. You're so fucked up. Yeah. And if you needed proof that Christians don't buy their own story, imagine thinking that you needed to add a love story to the ultimate truth of the universe.

Can we punch it up? You guys punch it up with a little sex? This would be like if Darwin was like, but there was one finch that had a real big set of tits on it. Let me tell you, but dude, Finch, his name was Reginoed the Well and Doubt. Stay with me. He could do some tricks with his big. Let me tell you. So, but yeah, they're romantic together. They dance with a Bible and a book of Mormon between them. Oh my God. So uncultured. She could have bent him over and performed analingus on him during this music number and it would have been less uncomfortable than the series of choreographed Christian side hugs. Well, followed by that very steamy forehead

kissy forehead kiss forehead. guy, I was very sure. Christians do fuck eventually, right? There wouldn't be any if y'all didn't eventually fuck. Oh, I mean, if you were only half watching like I was, you would have full of thought that they were brother and sister. Yeah. It's a brother and sister romance song. Yeah, well, that's probably

pretty Christian too. Actually, no, but yeah, and so and then fucking Paul, the good icon guy, Mark Zuckerberg comes to warn Jesus that shit's about to go down and he's like, yeah, man, we were with this with this entire act has been about like beating me up earlier. It's obviously. This is also where I wrote my notes like, wow, if they didn't endlessly repeat refrains in every song, this would be a 16 minute movie. Exactly. Yeah. This would be like this would fit into those ads that you can skip at the beginning.

Oh, yeah. This was a weird uncomfortable song. I mean, they're all terrible and uncomfortable. So they're just trying to out-uncomfortable each other. But this is the song where the very, very white man like, fronts to black Jesus. Yup. He's like, battling with black Jesus and black Jesus

is like just shaking his head the whole time. He's just like, ah, man. He's doing a lot of like, hold the mic in one hand and we push the other hand forward. Yeah. yeah, with the other. What? What? What? So bad. And then in a fucking admission that they've completely run out of New York landmarks, we just cut to icon HQ so that Jude can sing about his upcoming betrayal. Yep. Now, this is the first time, like Jude has sung as part of other people's songs, but this is the first time Jude has to carry a song.

And I feel like he's there to make everyone else to make you like appreciate Mary Magdalene singing. Right. There is a moment where he goes, and I'm going to do my best not to exaggerate or hurt the listeners ears. Oh wow! In the middle of the song, I checked my baby monitor. Oh yeah, this is the song where while he's singing his tongue is sticking out, I don't know how he does that, and he's singing into a pocket mirror.

Yeah. Like he's holding into a pocket mirror. Yeah. Like he's holding a pocket mirror up, looking into it, singing with his tongue sticking out. And you know he had to practice really hard to pronounce coup de gras. Like he says coup de gras, what, what? And you can see him like, okay, I can do this, I can do this.

And there were so many jump cuts at this scene. Again, I hate to keep going back to my narrative of battling my iPad. But one of the things the app does is it calls your emergency contact. If you get too many, because they think you're having a seizure and it's like, oh, shit, you're on the ground eating your own tongue.

So my iPad attempted to tell on me to my wife at this point. It was like, don't worry, we're getting you help. I was, yeah, they were, it was a, it was a cut every 15th of a second at this point. And I wrote my nose like, I can't understand what the fuck he's saying so I can only comment on peripheral shit like the lighting now.

You know, I'm sure it's about betraying Jesus or something, but like Cara said, he's got his tongue sticking out while he's singing. And then like the weird pocket mirror kind of just looks like a ping pong paddle. Like I don't know what the point of this prop is. So he's just dance around the stage like whipping it. No idea what's happening. Yeah, it's not as much fun as disner on stage whipping it around makes it sound, but yes.

So all right, well, I'll tell you what, we clearly all need a minute to recover from those speed cuts. So we're gonna pause for another break here, but first let me have act three the hard sell. Who wants this to exist? Why are those people allowed to vote? Will this movie run so long that they have to tack the crucifixion and resurrection on real quick at the end

like to try to finish a poorly thought out letter before they run out of age, find out the answers to these questions and more. We'll return for the atonal conclusion of... AHH hero! This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy. And it turned out to be super helpful. I told you. Hey guys, what are you talking about? Oh, uh, Kara actually convinced me to go to therapy. She did

Why wait? What's wrong with you? Nothing has to be wrong with you to go to therapy therapy Therapies just a great way to talk about the stress of everyday life with a neutral third party and they didn't like wrap you in a straight jacket Dr. Brain or no, they didn't do either of those things weird that that sounds good But it seems hard to get out there and find a therapist. Well, that's why there's better help. What's better help? Better help is online therapy that offers video phone and even live chat sessions with your therapist.

So you don't have to see anyone on camera if you don't want to. It's much more affordable than in-person therapy, and you can be matched with a therapist in under 48 hours. Plus, you can even message your therapist on the app so you can get thoughtful replies on the go. Wow, that sounds super useful. It is. Give it a try and see why over 2 million people have used BetterHelp online therapy.

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp and got awful movies listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash awful. That's BET, T-E-R-H-E-L-P, dot com slash awful. So what do you say Noah gonna give it a try? I sure will. I mean, you know, if I ever find myself with any mental or emotional problems that is. Oh yeah, if that happens, sure. Was that you screaming in the kitchen earlier? I threw the stove out the window. kept sticking. Hmm. Reasonable.

Help. Oh, won't the great holy man and healer of our city help me? Hello, my child. What seems to be the problem? My older brother was hit by a car and is dead. Can you raise him? Indeed, I can. Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Someone call for the healer. It is a, God damn it Phil. Oh, I gotta go. Wait, you're the healer? Yes, yes, hi, I'm Jesus of Nazareth.

So that guy was just a butt cheek pervert. Got it. So you want me to raise your brother from the dad or? Honestly, I don't think he'd want you to at that point. No, that tracks. Okay. Pfft. Pfft. Pfft.

And we're back for still more of this shit. And apparently while we were doing the skits, they remembered another NYC landmark. So we're gonna rejoin the action at Yankee Stadium. Oh yeah. So that Jesus can give the sermon on the mound. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. It was so proud of themselves when they came up with that one. Actually, I'm kidding. I'm I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man.

I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man.

I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man.

I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. I'm not a man. Get on your feet for the Son of God. And don't forget, Nick's Friday is free, bent day. Right. And if you can't get on your feet, be sure to work your way to the very front. Yeah. Jesus. So the apostles all come on stage, hype, man, and for Jesus.

I also have to throw out here that this is where I made a horrifying discovery. One of the disciples is wearing a shirt that I own. Oh no, you really got him set by me. Oh no. My orange exclamation point shirt, which I have worn many times, many places, often publicly is a merch from heroes. It's the Jesus shirt. It's the main guy shirts. Oh, wow. I got it for free. I get things for free.

I got it for free. I get things for free. I love free shirts. I keep outfading my other shirts. Kara. What are you going to do with it now? I don't know. I'll probably outfade it again. Because it's a shirt I own. Right. Yeah. So I love there's this great moment to so that all the apostles come out and height man and then Jesus has to enter a stage. But the way it's supposed to work, he's going to go through the audience, right? He's coming in through the back and he's gonna come in through the audience, the audience is gonna be all excited. But the audience is not particularly excited

and it's Christian audience and Tulsa, Oklahoma, they don't really wanna touch a black guy, you know, whatever. So they have to kind of cajole the audience into like getting excited and reaching out for them. They're like, no, come on, it's like, imagine he's Jesus. So many of them go for a handshake. So many. There are so many people in this crowd are like, hello, Jesus.

Nice to meet you. I also couldn't tell. Did you notice that Jesus had this big dude behind him? Was he a character? Was he an actual bouncer? I think he was an actual bouncer because they were so convinced that people were going to mob him because of his celebrity. Yes. Right. It was so weird. But instead he walks lonely down through the audience.

I'm going to do it. You guys want to touch him. You can reach out and touch him. It'll look better for the cameras if you reach out. Like actual cannibal shy alabuff just alone in the theater. just alone in the theater. Oh, and at this point, the song is just Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna. Yes. And I googled what does Hosanna mean? Because I hear this often, and I'm like, where did this word come from?

What does it actually mean? And it auto-filled in my Google too. What does Hosanna mean? And why is it so powerful? What? No! No, I can gotta try that. No.

And why is, oh my God, it's right there. Oh, no, I got it too. That's amazing. Oh, okay. Fun fact, any guesses on how many, na na na, Hoseazanas they do in this song. Oh, I'm going to say 101. It's 12.

Jesus. Well, Na na na hozana. Not like genuinely I could not do it as a bit on our comedy podcast. No, it would go way too long. Because by time nine, no, it'd be like, we get the bit, man, it's not fun. Stop it. Stop it.

Oh, and why do they keep calling him here? I mean, here's like the call back, I guess, to the title of the musical. Is his name Jesus or is it hero? It's hero, because they don't want, it would be sacrilegious to be calling him Jesus to the whole thing, I think. So we never actually call him Jesus. I don't want it would be sacrilegious to be calling him Jesus to the whole thing, I think. So we never actually call him Jesus.

I don't think so, no, he's here. He's here, I wish. So hero is the euphemism for Jesus. Right, yeah. I see. Yeah. So, and then that song ends, Judas comes up and he's just like, hey man, Jesus, if you want,

I can get you trending on Instagram. Ah. I hate to like part the curtain here, but anyone who's ever wanted to know what it's like when I come to know with my stupid ideas, it's this conversation. What are you trying to tell me you're planning, Eli? Is someone coming for me?

There's just no one ever interested in getting you crucified. I see. Yeah, but Judas is very upset that Jesus won't help him like, you know, with a little razzle dazzle like, I guess like Judas wants to put on a big tour and make million heirs out of him. And of course the Jesus character stops you goes, no, no, I came to give my life for everyone and then the crowd goes nuts again.

Oh, they were so fucking into it. Ha ha ha ha. So we head back over to the synagogue for the just, I really can only go downhill from this moment, right? They do a song in the middle of this gazillion dollar bullshit musical about how Jesus is to commercialize these days. Okay.

I literally wrote like, how is it that every God awful movie has these super ironic moments where you're like they get it right They don't get it They use overt symbolism and words to paint a picture of organized religion as a monetary scam And they don't even see that they're doing it right in front of like to the people who paid for front row seats They're doing it right in front of like to the people who paid for fraud rose seeds to the show. They are within a hundred paces of their own merch table. Yes. It's fucking insane and the lyrics reflect that by the way. They're like it's that like blind. Have you ever seen one of those CNN interviews where they're gathered up a bunch of slack

jawed Trump supporters? And they're like, all right, goofess and galut. Here's proof that the sky is blue. What do you think? And they're just like, that's the lyrics of this song. It's just like Jesus flipped the tables because he did it like the direction that table was face. She's on a nut and a husband. Listen to that monopoly.

Why do we use all the nut and nut and nut and a husband on the list? And also by the way, so they set up that there's going to be like a big rap battle here between Jesus and the Pharisees, right, between Jesus and the evil Jew guy, but then they don't make with, they don't actually do it, right, between Jesus and the evil Jew guy, but then they don't make with, they don't actually do it, right? And they throw down the gauntlet and Jesus is like, oh, would you let me to pick that gauntlet up for you?

You assume to have dropped it. Now Noah, I hate to disagree with you on air, but I think this is a very realistic Jewish fight yelling at each other and shouting, who do you think you are? I can flirt. I don't know what temples you've been. All right. No, I just, I wasn't getting the cultural content. You're right. I apologize.

So yeah. And then the Paul character, Mark Zuckerberg, wraps his way in to tell us that we're very excited. And we've been having a great time so far. He's like, I know this has been a lot to take in. You know, I'm just like, it's not though, man. It's just, you guys are going for a lot of love. It's literally the most told story.

This is also where they have chest pieces behind him. Yeah. And this is when I realize that there are still four. I know. Minus left. That's just dangerous. Yeah. So it's time for the last supper, right?

We start, they're all frozen like the painting. Now they don't do this well, right? They don't actually recreate the painting or anything. No, they do it so bad. They did the Mary John swap from the fucking DaVinci code. Yep. They put Judas in the place where idiots think is Judas because Simon is mad about the why?

Yep. Yep. It is genuinely all the misunderstanding things you can have about the last supper of the painting recreated in this giant rock musical about the life of Jesus. And then I'm not sure if I made this up or if this actually happened, but I'm pretty sure that so they're trying to be frozen. And then when they break the freeze, somebody goes, barbecue's ready. Yes. That did happen. Okay. Just and the audience like last. They're like, oh, that must have been a joke. I didn't get it. It's clever. I bet it was funny. Well, yeah. And so they sing this song, the lyrics of this song are

party, party, party party. And it seems to be a song about putting one's hand in the air as though one did not care. Oh yeah with some me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me variant. Yeah. Well, hey, the break dancers legit good. Yes. Okay, but here's the problem. They did it in reverse order. They have a guy who can do flippy flips. But then the rest of the guys can absolutely not do something more impressive than a flippy flippy. No, nope. The first guy ruins it for everybody. Yeah. Then the next guy gets up and he's like, I'm sitting on my Chris Gross apple sauce and they're like, dude, who fucking kid here. Yeah. No, that honestly, that guy's break dancing. I had in my notes as the only entertaining sitting on my Chris Gross Apple sauce and they're like, dude, who fucking kid here. Yeah, no, honestly, that guy's break dancing.

I had in my notes as the only entertaining thing that ever happened on purpose in this movie. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the whole time everybody's having so much fun in Judas. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Like sitting at the table like me. Me. Yes. Silently bitchy Judas, I want in every Christian movie from now on ever. I just, I want at least one person sitting there all mopey and not enjoying this shit in every big dance number. I want Heath's analog in the dance number, right? Just go ahead and sit there. I didn't, there's no even said that there was going to be dancing at this.

Nobody has. So they get done singing about how it's time to get the party started an hour and a half into their fucking show. And then it resolves. They're like, oh, fuck, this is the last supper, though. We really have to tone this back down. So you guys want to do the last supper scene again, but solemnly. Yes, let's do it solemnly and let's make sure we have a comically large loaf of bread. Really, it's so fucking funny. It is huge. It's so weird. The whole blood of Christ and body cry. I mean, every time it, I just, I feel so weird about it

I guess it's like old hat to you guys, but like no, it's never stops being creepy though Yeah, yeah, and luckily for us we get past of aggressive bitchy Judas. Yes literally going like Yucky during the last fucking supper. He's like take this blood you blood He's like take this blood you blood. Yes. Yes. Shoot I can hear you. I love that so much. He literally at this point, June is interrupting so often he sends him away to go betray him. He's like, Hey, man, don't you go tell me out to the Romans or something? Yes. Yes. I just want to let you know that I know that you're going to betray me and I wish you'd go the fuck ahead. So then the title card comes up and it says,

icon HQ devlin's office and I'm like, oh you think I know who devlin is, that's cute. Fuck you. Oh yeah, who's devlin? Yeah, and then, but this is Judas heading back to the icon HQ to sing stupidly about betrayal some more. Yeah. The scream behind him at this point is the bonus stage

from Super Mario Bros. 3 where you have to line up the faces. Yeah. The scream behind him at this point is the photo stage from Super Mario Brothers 3. We have to line up the faces. Yeah. Click, click, click. That's the rhythm. Just click, click, click, and you'll get it every time, guys. Yeah. Not sure why he ended his song with a ghost trying to sing a nine inch snail song.

It wasn't over. It's still. What the fuck. It was so bad. So yeah, he's, he puts this little screaming outro thing at the end of his song and it feels like one of those things that's like, it was improvised. He regretted it right away, but he kept trying to lean into it to try to make it work. Like you can play through the fuck up somehow.

Oh, yeah. I literally, no lie, I fast forwarded through the song, but then I stopped fast forwarding too soon. Yeah. And I got him mid fast forwarding too soon. Yeah. And I got him mids and you heard that. And you heard that. Yeah. Yeah.

Sure. But I didn't need to listen to the song because I know it was about betrayal because they wrote the word. Yeah. The screen behind it. I could only imagine that like Mary came out and sung a song and has this incredible hip hop voice and Jude was like, well, I can do that. And three very tearful arguments later where he kept pointing at her and saying, you let her do it. This is what they agreed on letting him do. Right. Yeah. All right. So then we had to central park. They did know another one for a little rhythmic persecution and creepy

masks. Yeah. Oh, the creepy masks. I kind of liked them. Yeah. Okay. This is supposed to be the garden at Gilgamesh, where Jesus calls backsees, right? Sure. Okay. Cause he's like, it's so hard to be me and I'm fighting Satan. Right. And this is where we realize that Satan is a BDSM couple ready for the most hardcore game of chicken you've ever played. Yeah, all I know about this scene is that there's a bunch of white people beating the shit out of black guy Jesus and they tie a literal rope around his neck.

Yes, that happens. They have so little sensitivity about this. And then, so here's the thing too, that this is a live stage performance. And what they want is to have like four people have ropes around his neck and then walk around him like a maple, right? But it's really hard to do that on stage without killing that, man. Without strangling a news boy. Yeah. Right. Yes. Exactly. And so they're like moving so

gingerly and they stop every few steps. You go, okay, you're good, you're good. And like, good, right? But like, and he's singing. So every time they mess up, we hear it. Right? It's gonna be like, I'm so confused. Kyle. Kyle, that really hurt.

Okay. I'm mad at you. Talk to you after the show. So uncomfortable. I mean, Eli, like you wrote, hey guys, what's literally the only thing we can't do to our black Jesus. You're a legit montage. Litching montage, yeah.

What? This is how they won the part of the audience back that was mad about the black Jesus. They were like, Satan, I told you, honey, this is why this show's allowed in Tulsa. Yeah. Yeah. So, and then Jesus talks about how sometimes it's hard

to get crucified for the sins of mankind. Oh yeah, he ooze a lot here. It's just a lot of owing. Yes, yes, he oozed it us for quite a while. They don't write that many lyrics in this music. And I think the point of this song was like, yes, he oozed it us for quite a while. They don't write that many lyrics in this music. And I think the point of this song was like, look, sometimes you gotta hate gay people and trans people and people will be mad at you for this.

Yes, but. Yeah. This is also this was a real interesting moment for me because Eli and I were watching this at basically the same time. And so Eli messaged me and he's like, Hey man, how many X speed am I allowed to watch this on and still say I watch the movie? Right. And I messaged him back like, dude, I know shit literally just wrote in my notes. I could watch this at four times speed and miss nothing. I literally written right before he messaged that.

Yeah, the only thing you would miss is that gross kissing sound. Ooh, the double smooch. It was the double smooch, like the European double smooch, because it was like, who was it? Do you remember who he was? Shoot us, shoot us. Oh, shoot us. But it was literally like,

mm, yeah. Yeah. Mm, yeah. Like, it was like, why? Why did you make noise when you did it? You didn't have to do that. So everyone in the audience with miscellaneous, like puked a little.

Yeah. How many rehearsals did it take for Judas not to say no homo at the end of that case? No homo, no homo, no homo. So Jesus. No homo. Right. Well, I think there's a Tulsa city ordinance actually

that required him to say that. But yeah, and again, just shout out to my favorite character, the Bible. Petrov is just in the back fucking kicking ass. Yes, become the arrest Jesus and Petrov's like, I will kill him, motherfucker. Biblically accurate. Yep.

Oh god. Damn it. This movie is so slow and boring. I was like, oh god, they're just now arresting Jesus. Wasn't that what the lynching was? Was that not, oh. No, that was the pre-arrest lynching. I guess.

From the Bible. And then, so we head back to icon HQ for them to put Jesus on trial. Now, this is where we're going to meet our Pontius pilot character who is for some reason in a wheelchair and has an eye patch. It's literally claw from Inspector Gad. Oh my God it is.

Oh yeah, I wrote you guys, what are we watching? You calculated how much of your life you've spent doing this, like how many actual life hours you have dedicated. I actually did, I actually did care for a speech that I recently gave at an atheist convention and it's real close to 40 days and 40 nights and so we're not there yet. It's super super close. Take this cup from me.

So. By the way, pin in wheelchair guy because he is going to have the best worst bow, which is. Yeah, yes. So yes, but I patch guy is not sold on Jesus being evil though, like Pontius Pilate. He's like, no, it seems like a Jew problem. You guys take care of it. Wait, who is he, by the way, who is the guy in the wheelchair with an eye patch?

Is he his lawyer? No, he's like the head of icon or the like the regional manager assistant to the regional manager of icon or what? Yeah, assistant to the regional manager of icon or what happened. Yeah, I couldn't figure out what was going on in this scene. Yeah, well, the thing is is that they assume like, they assume that you don't know anything at all about anything except Christianity and that you know a lot about Christianity, right? So you're supposed to walk into this going, okay, Pontius Pilate gotcha.

Got it. Yeah. The minute he said wash his hands, the audience was like, oh, okay. Right. Yep. Yeah. Also, by the way, the graphic in the back is this bitty skull thing with lightning in it.

Yeah. I said, they got out the doom graphics for this one. Yeah. No, it's the graphical equivalent of a glory hammer song. Like nine people love that joke. Okay. So, but good icon guy comes up and he goes like, Hey, Jesus, they're

gonna try to kill you and Jesus is like, the chorus of this song is kill the hero. I know. I'm right. Fuck in here. Oh, and then they get full on seizure happy again. I again, this is where I turned off C safe. My notes are just, I'm flying without C safe guys. But this also felt like the most rock opera moment of the whole musical was where they're beating him up. And there's like Bohemian rap city faces on the big projectors and background. Yeah. Like big kind of stark faces singing along.

And honestly, and this was a low bar to clear. It was also the best song, right? Oh, maybe that's also why I felt that way. I was like, okay, this feels like a rock-off. Yeah, yeah. Like they had one scene at one hour and 47 minutes. And let's face it, the Spinney Lightning skull was pretty fucking cool.

I mean, yeah, let's do this on my cell at short. But yeah, but basically the end result here is, it's like, I won't kill Jesus, but I won't say anything if you guys kill him, right? Right. So then we go back outside the icon H you it literally says that on the fucking title card It just says outside icon H Yeah, but that's they still want to kill Jesus so they're gone, right? Yeah And Jesus gets crucified kind of off screen at this point.

In the silliest way. Yeah, that was weird. Yeah, we'll get to it post-crisifiction. Right. So just so you know, but first we have to cut back to Judas with a gun. Now, he's thinking about suicide. He's going to cry sing to us and show us just how and half the way he isn't. Oh, God. First of all, he is the largest, fakes looking gun possible. Oh, it's any valiant would be like, dude, that's a little silly. Actually, you look silly with that.

And he's rubbing it all over his ball. Like, I want it so badly to go off and defen him in one year. And he's like, he's moapsing on top of the speakers. Yep. Like it's so rock and roll. Oh, and he's still doing the tongue out sneer sing thing. When he's trying to do it quietly and sadly,

you can't even hear his ass. Oh, it's so bad. And then it blacks out, we get this comically exaggerated gunshot sound. Yeah. B-b-b way, Jesus has been crucified. See him up on the cross. They have leaned him on a cross street sign. Yes.

Yes. It's not a crucifix. It's like corner of a Dalantian mechelson. And they just sort of hooked him up there. And you can tell that it's hurting his arm because the, the signs are sharp, because Jesus will not stop wiggling and be like, oh, we, oh, yep. Okay, can't get comfy. Ah.

So yeah, but then, so he gets crucified and then mags is gonna lead us followers in a fucking reprise, right? Oh, yeah, oh, the sea. Well, but so, now this is also though, I will say, this is the one spot where they really let the Virgin Mary actor say Right, they let the best singer really go off in this moment. So that you know wait Virgin Mary actress Oh, you mean like his mom. Yeah, the mom. Yeah, not mad. Kara. I don't know if you are aware of this

But the Virgin Mary was actually Jesus's mom. Yeah Jesus' mom. Yeah. Okay. Just taking sure. Oh no, no, no, I'm not talking about Max. Yeah, these notes about Mary Magdalene and I'm thinking like, no, no, she could not say. No, no, very bad.

Yeah, no, the mom went up the office. She's amazing. Yeah. But so yeah, and then the good icon guy gets arrested, so it makes sense that he was in that cage earlier. He's like, oh, coming together. Yeah. I didn't catch that.

And then we get the worst possible version of the empty tomb. Oh, it's so stupid. Yes, they go, they're like, oh, it would come up. It's Easter Sunday and we're at the city morgue. Yeah. She shows up at the morgue and she's like, so where's Jesus' body? And they're like, what the fuck would you be here for that? Yeah.

That makes no sense. But who tells her Jesus is gone? Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. While mopping. Yep. He's a janitor now and he's wearing his morgue beanie.

And it says on the sign behind them three days later in case you were wondering. Yes, right. Yeah. He also thumbs up the audience at this point. Like he's like, it's really me. It's me, Jesus. I got away. You're right, everybody.

And I love for Tinkerbell. She goes back to all of her friends and she goes, the tomb is empty and they all are like, oh, he must have been resurrected. Not like, did somebody steal his body? Nope. It's even worse than that. She says, our hero's tomb is empty. I've been inside.

I'm like, it was a morgue. Yeah. You crawled into that little refrigerator drawer, looking for what the fuck are you even talking about? You nut? Oh. And then the song is is our savior is gone. He's not.

Yes. And I'm like, nobody is. He's mopping the floor. No more. The chorus is he's not here. And it took all the willpower I possess, not to write a parody of this song about Heathen right. I will tell you.

My willpower. But like the whole refrain at the end of your song about Heathen, right? I will tell you to call my willpower. But like the whole refrain at the end of your song about your savior is about him not being present. It's amazing that the irony of that does just entirely escapes them. The whole everybody's singing like, Jesus, but he ain't no word of me. Oh, T-shirt cannon. Brett. And we, uh, we catch back up with our, with our narrator. He's in the cell from the beginning. The spotlight kicks in before the cameraman wakes up.

There's a great jarring. Oh, fuck, I'm supposed to be stage left. Oh, uh, I'm here. It's okay. And he sings a song about any way that was our rock opera. Chen you in the fully in that like I'm not white. I'm not white voice. Yeah.

Oh, I'm comfortable. The final song really leans on the free at last lyrics here. Oh, I feel like you don't have your super white white guy lead off the free at last number. Yeah, you can't sing a slave spiritual here. It's not just because there's three black people in your musical does not make it okay. No, everything about this is gross. Yeah, yeah, no, but he sings a song about how he may be in prison, but boy, is he free. And then we get the bows, right?

Everybody comes out for their bows, which I normally wouldn't even bother to mention. But as Eli said, we get a really bad one in here. Okay. Oh, something else happens. Cause I just, I just wrote the curtain call is interminable. I kind of like tuned out completely at this point. Wheelchair pirate call from Inspector Gadget. When he comes out for his bow comes out in his wheelchair. And I was like, oh, they actually use the person who's a wheelchair. No, he leaps out of his chair like, surprise! I'm not no wheelchair.

I've been healed by Jesus tall. Yes. And then to make it worse, to make it worse, Jewish guy who bows next takes off his Jew hat and is like, surprise, I'm not Jewish. Yes. Also, and I have to mention this because it's so beautiful. next takes off his Jew hat and is like, surprise, I'm not Jewish. Yes. Also, and I have to mention this because it's so beautiful. Big, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, guy, the guy in the Yankee's jersey.

Uh-huh. He gets left hanging on his closing high five. You sure does. Every single person just walks by and going like, oh, you're Mexican or something. No, man. He roars. And because, and so he ends up picking up the main character

at the end and like walking around with him like, that's why my arm was in the air. Like my cat just fell off the table or something. It's just it's yeah, I think that last little moment to death. So all right, well, that's the end of it. I guess the question at the heart of the movie is, you know, what if the Jesus myth happened in the modern day,

a plot that we've only seen 103 times before? So my closing question for you is, what did they get the wrongest about if the Jesus myth happened today? Well, I'm pretty sure it just wouldn't have happened like that. Like, dude, would probably have a reality show not a moment rent situation.

I think they got wrong. How long it takes the NYPD to kill a black guy? Two hours? That's crazy. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. True. But that's not going to do it for the episode just yet because we still need to lure ourselves back into this trap next week. So Eli, tell us what's on deck in a world where Christianity is now, this is the actual blurb. Oh nice. In a world where Christianity is now illegal, a young street racer learns of his abusive alcoholic father's past and eventual conversion.

We'll be watching 2019's buying time. Wow, that sounds terrible. Amazing, yes. See? So if that to look forward to, we're gonna bring up episode 342 of Merciful Close. Once again, a huge thanks to Kara for helping us out and a reminder to check the show notes

for links to her other stuff. And of course, an equally huge thanks to all the Patreon donors to help make the show go. If you'd like to count yourself among their ranks, you can make a per episode of nation at patreon.com. So I've got Apple and thereby earn an access to an ad free version of every episode.

You can also help it to them by leaving a five-star review, and by sharing the show on all your various social media platforms. And if you enjoyed this show, be sure to check out our sibling shows, the Skating Aids, the Sitation Data, D&D Minus, and the Scepticrat available wherever podcast live. If you have questions, comments, just send them out a suggestion, check out your email God Opal, movies are gmail.com, leave the services to this podcast, provide it via the law, if this is a P Android Taurus, Timber opposite next year of our social media, our theme song was written and performed by Ryan Slotnik and people drafts on Mars

All of the music was written and performed by our audio engineer Morgan Clark and was used with permission Thanks again for giving us a check your life this week for Heathen right Neil I Bosnick. I'm no illusions promised to work hard to earn another check next week until then We'll leave you with a breakfast club close The cast did the whole thing all over again the next day and this time Judas brought a real whole thing all over again the next day. And this time, Judas brought a real gun. Oh God. Fuck. The male leads of this show went on to see their kids every other weekend. In Ocaro's defense, the Jews continued to dress like that for two thousand more years.

They did, though. Oh. Oh. I might look, my second's ran long there. The thing had the same cast ran started at the time and I just, I went ahead, I just charged ahead. All right. This is why March talks shit about you and your guy. I know, I know. I know. And then I hear about it and the out takes this rough.

He forgets I'm editing it. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle on the Thunderstorm LLC Copyright 2022. All right, preserved. gets I'm editing it. The proceeding podcast was a production of Buzzle North Understrum LLC, Copyright 2022, all rights reserved.