God Awful Movies - 496: The Avenger

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

This week, Cara Santa Maria joins us for an atheist review of The Avenger, a copyright infringement based Easter play that is a new contender for weirdest thing we've ever watched. Check out more from Cara on the Talk Nerdy podcast 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 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/ Report instances of harassment or abuse connected to this show to the Creator Accountability Network here: https://creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org/

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please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Is there a moment in the Bible? Tell me more. Is where they didn't have a meeting with Peter beforehand about we're not resisting. So the guards come and Jesus is like, now is the time. And Peter cuts off a guy's ear and is like, yeah, I got you. Jesus. So wait, this is the, this is the Lee

Ron Jenkins. And the Bible grinds to a halt while Jesus heals the guy's ear and is like, I'm so sorry about this. And Peter's like, motherfucker! Yeah! No! God awful movies. Movies. Movies. Movies. Movies. Welcome back to the GAMCast, where each week we

sample another selection from Christian Cinema because we haven't yet been acted on by an outside force. I'm your host, Noah Lujans, and Heath won't be able to join us today, but sitting 900 miles to my northeast is my bad friend Eli Bosnik. Eli, how are you this fine afternoon, sir? I'm incredible, Noah. The hits just keep coming. Just take a moment.

Take a moment to soak in the gratitude that this is episode 496 and we are once again gathered to say, okay, this is the worst thing we've ever watched. Once again, once again, we have found another contender and boy, I'll tell you what, we had to dig a long fucking way to find it. I talk about the movies on this show the way couples who die holding hands talk about each other. And also joining us this week is triumphantly returning guest masochist and host of the Talk Nerdy podcast, Kara Santa Maria. Kara, welcome back.

Mm hmm. Yeah. So this movie was so bad that I literally got COVID. Like, no lie, you guys, I had to take a COVID test in the middle of watching this movie and it came back positive. So, fun times. I think you started this movie and then you ran out to like an anti-vaxxer market somewhere and just started, started grinding on people.

Oh, I must have. Called up RFK Jr. This is my guess because I'm, you know, I'm obviously vaccinated, like ultra vaccinated. I have the variant, Vax's and everything. My guess is that I was exposed to Covid at some point and it wasn't getting its way into my immune system. And then as I was watching this movie, my immune system gave up. Yes, it gave up.

It's like, what's the fucking point of keeping you alive if you're going to keep doing shit like this? Yeah. Exactly. Shut it down, boys. Shut it down. All right. So tell us, Kara, what will we be breaking down today? Okay. I think it's called the Avenger, maybe. It's an Easter service.

Maybe we're just watching the Church of the Rock. At some point, it's a full-on sermon. I'm not really sure what it is. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like the right answer shifts as we go. It sure does. And Eli, how bad was this Easter Service Church of the Rock full-on sermon? Well, if you loved watching your niece's elementary school musical, but you wish the principal came out at the end to explain that divorce is a passage of sorts and hasn't limited his options so much as created him as a brand new man.

You will love this movie. Podcast listener, when I first watched this movie, so I found it on the depths of the internet with, you know, the Epstein tapes or whatever the fuck is right there. Yeah, this movie was bad enough that Eli had to upload it for. Like, we would not have been able to find it able to find it You can't find this any this is next to the fucking angles of the Zabruder tape that we're not allowed to see it till 2087 I watched this and I saw at the end Oh, there's a sermon at the end and a little behind the scenes for you I usually avoid things that have sermons at the end because sermons are just boring, right?

We could kind of you know make fun of the things they say but they just talking. I watched this sermon and I was like, nope, this one stays. Thanks, Hila. You're welcome. Holy fucking shit. Yeah. So what we have here is like, okay, so a bunch of Christians weren't allowed to watch the Avengers because, you know, Thor is blasphemy or whatever. Fucking Scarlett Johansson wears a tight outfit. So this is a church cashing in on that by pretending that they wrote those lines, actually. They sure did. They sure did. They were all new to me. So this is going to be fun for you guys. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

All right. So is there anything you guys want to nominate this one for being the best at, being the worst at? Oh, yeah. Best worst Canadians. Right. By far. I have so much love for my northern neighbors, but this makes me rethink all of those relationships. Yes. My opinion of Canada as a country was lowered by this. Yeah. I feel like we're going to find out that like something at this church fell into a chemical vat. And that's why Jordan B.

Peterson exists. The founding elements of Jordan B. Peterson are in this building. You think so. The founding elements of Jordan Peterson are in this building. You're right. All right. So I was going to go with best worst shit to inflict on Kara. Right. It's like it's we haven't seen Kara in a while. So it's like we were doing like an exponential Kara hate movie because this is yes. Yes. You're making up for lost time. It's a church service. It's like it's bad music. It's bad singing. It's comic book. It's like it's everything that she hates.

Everything that I know she hates in the world is encapsulated in this stupid fucking movie. A hundred percent. Dear listener, if you don't listen to SGU, then you may not understand the depths of my distaste for like all things sci-fi, fantasy and comic book. But this was so painful at every turn. There was nothing redeeming about this for me. Right, because so much of it is just like,

hey, you guys remember that one scene from that one Marvel movie that came out 11 years ago and was like, it's their third lowest grossing film of all day, you know, whatever. Like it's all inside jokes and shit. Yeah, and I was like, it's their third lowest grossing film of all day, you know, whatever. Like it's all inside jokes and shit. Yeah. And I was like, no, no, I don't remember that. I've not seen that. The only way to make this movie a more direct attack on Kara would be to send it as an email to SGU complaining that she talks too much.

Show this to the girl. Yeah. It's just the tone of her voice that bothers me. That vocal fry, man. Yeah. This is the worst thing that happened to Kara this year. And I'll remind you that she was supposed to be here last month, but furry listeners burned down her town. So it's really...

Yes, my city was on fire. And now I have COVID. That's right. This is so much worse than COVID. You should have been nicer about the furries. Should have been nicer. That's all I have COVID. That's right. This is so much worse than COVID. You should have been nicer about the furries. Should have been nicer. That's all I'm saying. And of course, I'm going to go with best worst standup routine.

There is no doubt in my heart and my mind that this pastor, Mark, whatever the fuck his name is, wanted to be a standup comedian. I was wondering what standupup routine you were referencing. You're referencing the entire sermon. His entire sermon. It makes the Blue Collar Comedy Tour look like fucking... ...Lenny Bruce's set where he got arrested. It is somehow...

...more irritating than what's the deal with airline food and less interesting than the cat in the hat. It's truly astounding. It's pretty fucking bad. All right. Well, we have been hunting for this thing for almost a decade now. So we're going to keep the break brief when we come back. We'll dive into all the ridiculous bullshit that is Avenger. Or The Avenger. They change their mind midway through

This show is sponsored by better help and this is the time Kimberly Pemberton said she'd rather kiss a slug than go to the dance With me. Yep. Got it Okay, this is the election. This is the whole election. No, it's just the first bag Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that makes yeah. That makes sense. That makes sense. Hey guys, what you doing? Oh, hey, Kara. I was just weighing Noah down with my emotional baggage. Why are you doing that? Well, what else am I supposed to do with it?

Well, I mean, you could talk to your therapist. Who needs a therapist when I've got Noah? Look how strong he is. Actually, I'm pretty tired. I would love it. See? He's great. He's great.

Eli, incorporating an actual therapist into your support system is way healthier than saddling family and friends with your baggage. It is. I'm so tired. It is. And if you're thinking of giving therapy a try, you should try BetterHelp. What's BetterHelp? BetterHelp is fully online, making therapy affordable and convenient, serving over five million people worldwide. With BetterHelp, you can access a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties.

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All right, Kara. Thanks. Think I'm going to lie down for a second. Oh man, I feel bad that I made Noah pass out. Save it for your therapist. Right. Pastor Mark Hughes, step forward. Oh Lord, I cannot tell you how grateful I am to be in your embrace. Right, sure.

And I'm sure I don't have to tell you about the tens of thousands of souls I saved in your name, Lord. Yeah, no, you did do that. Something the matter, Lord? No, no, nothing. it's fine and enjoy having Mark. Okay well thank you Lord. Yeah whatever. Are you sure there isn't anything? Seriously dude? Avengers? Oh I knew this was gonna come up. And we're back for the breakdown and we're gonna open up on a Church of Rock logo

and some music that I can only describe as desperately rocking out. Before we get to our play proper online pastor, Tim Ham welcomes us to the video. No, we just, we just watch 45 seconds of a screen saver. Oh, well, yeah. The best church services have a loading screen, Kara. There's tips on there for how to do the triple jump. It's important. I get it if you're watching this live, but edit it out for the actual upload.

No reason to have this, especially for like 40 seconds. Yeah. Yeah. So then Tim Hamm comes on to tell us that their services are pretty edgy. Well, they are called the Church of the Rock. Yeah, because they rock. They rock. Yeah.

I get it. I get it. He goes, we're doing the Avenger. The truth is, I am Iron Man. And I'm like, dude, you're not even fucking Manganese, man. Don't even try. But he's going to tell us all about it. That was the first time I recognized we were going to do, we were doing Canadians in this

one. This one's all a boot. And I'm like, Oh, nice. Okay. All right. We don't. I didn't get into the next scene. That's what I wrote.

Is this a Canadian? It's like, it's like same, same, but different. Right. Yeah. So we've so often so rarely get a chance to make fun of Canucks because they're just better people than us Right. This is gonna be nice. It's part of what's wonderful about the Church of the Rock musicals, right? Because if this was some homophobic transphobic

American church that also happened to put on silly plays there would sort of be this Dark cloud of awfulness that we would also have to address at all times while they were talking. No, but this is pure. It's pure fifth grade. And we get to fully punch up the whole. Yes, exactly, terribleness, yes. So okay, so then the screen blacks out for, I'm gonna say like eight and a half goddamn minutes. Well, generic suspense music plays, right?

And then they show us, they've like actually ripped off the Marvel logo with all the like comics flipping through it or whatever. And they've used Marvel comic images to do so. Yeah, there's a reason why you can't find this thing on YouTube. I did write that. Why don't they have copyright violations? I forgot you uploaded it for us. Yeah, they actually did not get in trouble for these for years. And then they fucked with all the things to get in trouble about. Their Hamilton parody went viral. Like people found out about the Hamilton parody and that like the beast of Disney

woke up and was like, sorry, they've been doing what? Oh, yeah, we're going to have to fuck that little church to death. Every day, because they used to have an open Vimeo that you just go and watch all the previous Easter musicals and like he would be On there and be like this is stupid. They'd be like radical skateboard tricks. And then yeah, no One of my people from Disney was like hi Legal uh, can you set your computer on fire while I'm talking to you? It's gonna save us a bunch of time. Just set it on fire, baby. So all right, so we're gonna open up on a Superheroes Anonymous meeting. We've got

Captain Canada, Batman and Robin, a little skinny little Thor-let, Supper Man, and a lady in a smart blue jacket that's gonna turn out to be Pepper Potts later. And of course we've got Black Widow talking. She opens the whole play by going, my name's Natasha. And like, are all of these real? So like, Captain Canada is making, is it supposed to be Captain America? Yeah.

Okay, I'm just making sure because I don't know any of this. This is the point very early where I realized this is everything I hate. And this felt very intentional. And pointed and targeted. Oh no, I saved this for you. I will say the one thing that felt in keeping with a white nationalist church was the abject misogyny that lasts like 30 seconds in. Right, because here's the thing. This could be no fun to make fun of, right? We're not interested in some community church being like,

oh, the Lord is a lot like Iron Man if you think about it, right? But the fact that they open up with hard sexism, hard sex. I was like, ah, we're home. Oh yeah. And it happens throughout. Throughout. They also weirdly all hate each other. And maybe that's part of the lore. I don't know, but there's this through line where instead of being like, bro, I'm going

to fight you, they're literally saying things like, you're an idiot. They use all sorts of weird slurs. Yes. And they're mean sorts of weird slurs. And like they're mean to each other the whole time. Well, so in the Avengers movie, like there's a big part of the movie is the antagonist and between all the various heroes. But of course in the movie,

they like give it a reason to exist and stuff. You know, it's about something. And do they call each other a lot of names? Not really. Yeah, there's so much name calling on this stage. Well, that's the best part, right? Is they watched the banter in Avengers, and they were like, say mean things.

The Avengers sort of back and forth it, but they're just like, fuck you, Chris. I did it. I did in Avengers. Or sorry, I should say it's like, fart you, Chris. No, it's not really. It would be's like, fart you, Chris, but it has to be squeaky green. No, it's not really. It would be like flatulence you, Chris. But yeah. Yeah. I was, I was like vicariously bullied

the whole time I was watching it. I didn't like it. No, it was rough. It was rough. And also I have to point out that Natasha throughout the movie, I'm sorry, Natasha throughout the whole movie is going to have a gun in either hand. That's how we know that she's Black Widow. And at a certain point, she's just Plan 9 from outer space.

She's scratching itches, right? Oh, yeah. She's pulling her pants out of her butt. Picking things up with it. Yeah, yeah, right. It was rough. It was rough. We watch her eating sushi with it, like chopsticks at a certain point.

So now she's got this monologue that she's opening the movie with, and it's supposed to be comedy, right? She's doing the I've got red in my ledger bit, but she's overdoing it or whatever. And it's supposed to be funny, but the audience does not know that. There is the only sound from the audience is a is a quietly crying baby. That's the only way. Yeah. Yeah. That we know is it was there. Yeah. The audience does not engage with this entire play. Really? Yeah.

Yes. Now, I don't want to spoil the rest of the Church of the Rock musicals because we will be watching them again. But the thing that is, I'm going to say most magical about the Church of the Rock musicals is it is well known that the people who attend church at Church of the Rock do not like these. They do not like these. Church of the Rock is a giant 20,000 member church group that's like huge in Canada. They do not appreciate that this happens every Easter, but they're part of the cult, so they sit in fucking stony snipers.

So once a year Pastor Mark is like, this year I'm a spider. Spooky, spooky, scary. And they don't, they have to do it. Because here's the thing, if you're allowed to turn to your friends and family and go, I think that guy might be wrong about literally anything.

Yeah. It's the whole pyramid comes to tumble him down. There's, so there's an incredible essay about this by Jenny Nicholson has done an incredible essay on like the cinematic universe of it and she focuses a tremendous amount on the audience shots that are rare. We didn't get, I don't think we got any. There's only at the end did they like pan the camera and you catch them a little bit. Yeah, but there is one where they did like a full pan

and you see that everyone is dressed in their Easter best fucking. I think it's like Beauty and the Beast. They're just fucking 80. They're hating it as much as anyone. Any other devout religious person would hate this experience. And it makes it so much better. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So Black Widow finishes her monologue and then we go immediately to the name calling that Kara was talking about, right? Captain Amer- or Captain Canuck is arguing with Thor and they get into a fight and this is- they're so dumb. They do the whole like, what's that over there trick? Like Thor does the what's that over there trick to Captain America. But there is something over there, right? They there is the villain.

The villain is actually walking in. So and that villain, of course, would be Loki. He comes in and he starts talking and I'm like, oh, good. He's doing a British accent. He sure is, baby. Lucky us. Also, I know it's just a tiny moment, but I do have to talk about it. At one point, Thor says, we have no qual with you, brother.

Qual? Yep. So I think what was written in his script was qualm. Quarrel is the line from the movie. Yeah, or quarrel. Yeah, that could have been it too. But qual is definitely what God said. And I can promise you one thing about this movie. No second takes. No, no, that could have been it too. But qual is definitely what God said. And I can promise you one thing about this movie,

no second takes. No, no, no second takes. This is the point in my notes where I wrote that I am watching this at like midnight and I just tested positive for COVID and took a bunch of cough medicine. So this is extra weird right now. Yeah, right.

Oh yeah, no, this is the shit you want to hit at the same time as hydrocoding. Oh yeah, I'm also realizing that I don't know any of the lore. So I do not understand any of the references and I don't know who any of the characters are. This has to make so little sense to you because okay, so then they start doing... They're just directly lifting lines from the movie, which they'll do several times. And they're also the worst lines in the whole fucking movie. They're doing the Loki kneel before me scene.

Right. But they're also mixing it with weird music. Did they do this in the movie? Are they playing a lot of Ozzy Osbourne in the background in the actual movie? No. Making sure. No, I have a whole fan theory about one particular guitarist who I'm going to get to later in the film. And I think he's why we hear a lot of the rock music that we hear. But I do want to talk about the differences between the Avengers and these Avengers rip

off because it's so telling that they don't understand it, right? So in the movie, the Avengers, Kara, I apologize for telling you about the Avengers. No, I need to know. I'm very confused. I know this was on your Will Won't Want list. Firmly underwhelmed was Eli describes the plot of the Avengers. In the Avengers, Lucky has a magic stick, he makes everybody kneel, and the person who stands up to Loki

is a very obviously Jewish-coded man who says, there are always men like you. Get it? You're talking about a hand mark. Okay? What happens in this church musical is that Thor goes, what is your deal? Yes. Exactly.

Yes. I think you might have missed what that scene was about. So OK. And now possibly the best thing in the entire fucking movies happened, because Iron Man has to come to the rescue, right? Yeah. I love this. And they've got the guy playing Iron Man.

They're lowering him on some little fucking crane thing and it is so hilariously, impossibly, indescribably slow. And off kilter with where they've got the video for his little jet thing. Yes, yes, that little video behind him has the little hand jets, but like immediately the two things are not aligned up anymore. So you're just like, is he farting bad? What's going on here? Podcast listener. Again, I hope you find this on the deep web the way that I did. But if you have not seen this, just picture what the perfect comedian would

find it as. And that's what it is. It's so slow. It's so slow that it stops being funny, but has time to start being funny. Yes, it comes around. It comes around. That's so rare. I was weeping. I was weeping. I have to admit, there were a couple times in this where I was like, I get it. Yeah. I get it. You got it.

Right, right. So, okay. So, but he finally, finally gets, remember he's supposed to be riding to the rescue here, but three minutes later he fucking lands and then the Pepper Potts lady comes over and they have like an attempt at stealing some lines from the Iron Man movies that make no fucking sense. But eventually it leads to this very clumsy, I still need to be unhooked from the fucking thing that lowered me moment. Oh my God. It's incredible.

I felt like he went off script and was just like, you have to unhook me from the thing. You have to unhook me. Also, the reason why the lines are awkward is that in Iron Man, for those unaware, and again, Kara, I am aware that I owe you another hundred dollars. Okay, I'm keeping track on my end. I'll take it. In Iron Man, there is romantic tension between Iron Man and Pepper Potts because they are the same age. They are both attractive movie stars, right?

We get it. Their Iron Man is like the gym teacher of their softball league and 100% their choir teacher. I cannot promise you much in the world, but I can promise you the woman who plays this choir teacher is their like choir instructor. A hundred percent. But can you, can you guys help me understand who Miss Potts is in the, in the universe? Yeah.

So Pepper Potts started off as Iron Man's like assistant, like a professional assistant and became his love interest and eventually his wife. She is a Gwyneth Paltrow. And then he married her. So this woman is supposed to be Gwyneth Paltrow? Yes. This is their Gwyneth Paltrow. Okay. And then he married her. So this woman is supposed to be Gwyneth Paltrow? Yes. This is their Gwyneth Paltrow. Yes it is. Well right. And that's what, so Eli kind of stumbled over his words here, but the contrast

here is insane because that woman is like 50 years old, right? And the Iron Man guy is like... And she's wearing a very smart pantsuit. Yeah, right, right. Exactly. And the whole like natural sexual attention thing doesn't really work out because this woman looks like this guy's mom. It's just it's kind of it's kind of weird. Whoa, they're supposed to be sexual tension. Yes, I think so.

That was completely lost. Well, if it's supposed to be Iron Man and Pepper Potts. And then again, the lines don't make sense without it, right. When he's asking like, how small are your hands or whatever? It doesn't. Yeah. Does it come off the same way? Oh, yeah, it was completely lost. By the the way for those of you who were wondering why Heath isn't on this week's episode he actually was until this point and when we said

there wasn't sexual tension he stormed off I don't know coming back to the show it was a pretty ugly fight we'll let you know so now finally Iron Man's loosened from his lowering thing and he can go confront Loki's they steal more lines from the movie this is where we get the first genuine laugh from the audience when he says you know does mother knowest that they wear the her drapes or whatever it is stolen from Avengers okay yeah the audience genuinely unless you can hear one guy in the audience at that point say very audibly I like that they at one point steal the wrong line, which is really funny.

So I note that you both noticed it in your lines where he says, I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like the bellboy from the Holiday Inn Express. And then you all wrote some variation of what? Because in the scene where Loki has that conversation, he's wearing a red jacket that buttons across him. It does, in fact, make sense in the Avengers. It does not, in fact, make sense in this Easter musical because they bought the one Spirit Halloween costume for the actor who plays Loki. I feel like this is the point where I'm starting to recognize that anytime I don't really understand

something, it was probably lifted from the film. But then later I realized, no, just nothing makes sense. Right. Even if you know the films, it doesn't make any sense. Yeah. There is a great moment though where they can't quite use the line because he's giving the whole like, if we can't protect the Earth monologue at this point, he says, if we can't protect the Earth, you can be blessed. Sure, we'll avenge it Because they can't say damn. Can't say damn. That's what he wants.

He does use the word recompense, recompense. Yes. I was kind of impressed. Well, again, he stole that one from them. That's that's a movie. Oh, he stole it from a movie. And the movie is actually very well written. So, you know, as comic book movies go. But now, oh, and you think you're thinking to yourself, well, surely it can't get worse than this.

And then. Then in all caps, I wrote OMG, are they going to sing? It's a musical. So local. It's sort of a musical because sometimes they just lip sync and dance. Yeah. Yeah. Here's the best I could.

I really spent some time podcast listener on trying to come up with a metaphor for you. And what I can do is this you ever like there's a family event and everyone has decided they're planning a song and there's one aunt who can't sing but then she stands up and sort of talks to the rhythm of what everyone else did for grandma's 100th birthday, right? And everyone applauds real loud for her. It's like that. But that's everyone in the musical all the time. Plus there are 11 year old children doing very basic cartwheels behind them.

So, yeah, so we get these first of all, there are giant subtitles for some reason over this song and only this song, right? Or they do it once again at the very end. They've got giant subtitles. The subtitles guy wakes up towards the end. And look, if this actor was improvising this song, the rhymes would be shit. I just, I could have written down all of them, but here's the worst one. He goes, this scepter I'm holding will destroy the

earth you're knowing. Think about what a tortured construction of a sentence that is to get to that shitty ass half ass rhyme. It's so good. Jesus. I didn't even recognize until like a full verse in that this was call me maybe. I never figured that out. I noticed that in your notes and I was like, was it? Mm-hmm. Oh, oh, and the whole time he was like rap rocking, call me maybe.

There's somebody in the background just going like, Yes, yes, you can hear somebody sort of singing along that doesn't know the lyrics in the back. It's like completely out of tune. Well, what happened is, he's so out of tune that it's very clearly like choir director being like, it's okay, I'll like kind of sing behind you. I just met you. And he's like, hello, I just met you. It's like so painful.

Also they do all the verses, which is so funny. Oh, it's lucky us. Going, and the backup dancers appear to be under duress the entire time. We gotta talk about the backup dancers. So we've got all of the other superhero characters are just sort of standing around and they've been given nothing to do but sort of sway. And at one point, it's at 10 minutes and 35 seconds in the video, if you can find it, the guy playing Thor is trying to do the bet you can't pick up my hammer thing to the actor

playing Robin. But the actor playing Robin is all like, dude, I am not bending over for this stupid fucking play. So he just doesn't do it. And Thor gets like visibly mad. Rick, we said in rehearsal it was a good bit. We could watch this thing like five times and just focus on each character and it would be a totally different movie.

It's so important. Yes! Because this is also where we meet my favorite character, which is backup dancer who can't do a cartwheel. What does she have? The spirit of the Lord. That's what she has. So when everyone else does a cartwheel, she, who is two rows back, just moves her arms

in a circular motion like she was doing the beginning of a cartwheel, she who is two rows back just moves her arms in a circular motion like she was doing the beginning of a cartwheel and then scooches over a bit. Okay, I think you're getting ahead of us because I've got so many notes on the cartwheels. I think that's in a later song. Is that later? Yeah. I feel like it's omnipresent throughout the film. That's the thing really.

It's burned in. Well, no, this is where we meet those backup dancers though those and those two very enthusiastic Backup dancers and the sister that mom said they had had to come along they had to include Yeah, no, everyone gets into the church color guard. Yeah, whatever it is. What are they wearing? What are their costumes? I don't know. They are they are dressed like the putty patrol from Power Rangers. They're like was confusing They're in like gray muscle man costumes, right? Okay. I had no idea what the buck that was.

Okay. So, okay. So, so Loki leaves and Iron Man has to chat with the crew now. Now, the star of this scene clearly is Screeching Baby. The baby really takes it up a notch here. Screeching Baby is all of us in this moment. Screeching Baby is basically saying, this doesn't make sense and is sacrilegious.

It's so much fun. That atheist baby is offended. For sure. He has yet to be fully indoctrinated. Right, right. But so what we're doing now is that Iron Man is doing the Jesus Fishers of men scene with the other superheroes. Oh really?

But it's like mad libs with superheroes. Right. Right, it's like you took the fishers of men speech from the Bible and then you inserted words like Superman and Batman and age of Ultron. Right, you know I wrote my notes and not for the last time here. They're honestly not taking the Jesus source material any more seriously than the Marvel

stuff. No. Right. Right. It's just mixed together in a bag. Yeah. I would argue that they are taking the Jesus stuff way less seriously than they are. Ultimately, yes.

Absolutely. Oh, they also do some more misogyny here. They offend. I can't remember who says it. Is it Iron Man? Is it Loki? I don't remember. But call the woman in the leather jacket who is who again?

That's Black Widow, yeah. They call Black Widow Natasha the only real man there. And that's somehow supposed to, somehow he offends everybody in that sentence. Yeah. It's so weird because Iron Man is the Jesus character in this. And they're making him a complete fucking douchebag. Right. Right.

Jesus wasn't mean. Well, what's funny is they also keep having him do the I am Iron Man thing. Yeah. What is that? I thought it was so weird because it's like a dad who only knows that Batman says I am Batman. Yeah. But what I realize is they're trying to do Jesus constantly saying I am the Lord God, right?

Oh boy, I am the Alpha Omega, which Jesus does all the time. And it would be, when said out loud, as awkward and off-putting as saying I am Iron Man at the beginning of every scene is. But by switching the line out, they prove how weird it is to just announce your title every so often. Makes no sense. He's like a Pokemon. So but ultimately, he shuffles off all the DC superheroes and just keeps the Marvel ones.

And then wait, wait, which are which? Tell me, tell me. I'm learning. So Superman, Batman and Robin, they all have to go. Those are DC properties. Oh, and so they don't come back until the very end. Yeah, they don't come back till the curtain call. But why did Batman sound like RFK Jr.? Because Batman sounds like RFK Jr. That's part of the lore. Oh, thank you, thank you.

Yeah, no problem. I can help you out with this. I'm learning so much. There are not many times when I'm an expert in the thing, Kara, but you hit on one of them with this one. So, all right. So then Captain Canada comes up to ask how much he's going to get paid to be an Avenger. And they're doing this because they want to shoehorn in a song, but I really wanted that to be Peter's first question too.

You know? How much does a disciple make after taxes? But when you say fish, like get it from the mouth of it. All right, that's weird. That is a weird way to get our money for Caesar. There's also a weird moment where he like Iron Man does a Jesus quote here, but he just substitutes in the word Playboy Mansion at one point for one of the phrases as a means of slut shaming Black Widow. And I'm like, this is your religion, people. Like I would probably do that in a room full of Christians.

No, I wouldn't do any. I have, we create Bible Peace Theater once a month. And I think if we had created this ripoff, we would have been like, it's a little insensitive to the story. Don't you think? I think we can just, we can tell it and give our thoughts. So, okay. So, but all of this was set up so that Captain Canada could sing us this song about having bills to pay. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

What is, yeah. Has nothing to do with anything. This is just his go-to karaoke song, apparently. And he was like, look, I'll do it, but I get to sing work, work, work at some point. So then that wraps up, we get this polite, at least it's over, applause at the end of it. Oh yeah. The anemic applause this whole time is giving me life.

Right. Like, yeah. It was nice to know that no one was having any more fun with this than we were. Of course. Yeah. Comradery. Except for the lady playing Pepper Potts. She was fucking loved. Ohts. She was fucking loved.

She was floating in the lid. She was in it. It was the best moments of her life. She is. Best moments of her life. The karaoke queen. Avengers Easter play, her wedding day, the day her children were born, the day she died. So, okay.

Count them. So then we cut to Iron Man doing some computer stuff and Nick Fury shows up and it's this little kid and I'm sure that's because this is the only black person that any of them know is this 11 year old kid. Oh okay. It's the only black person in Canada. Yeah they found the black guy. It's played by Samuel L Jackson in the film. Yeah but he's 12 on the stage. Yes and by far the best actor in this entire goddamn play. Right yeah I mean I don't know if he actually has talent, but he is giving a thousand percent and I'm here for it.

He's giving it his all. And it's also very clear that he has been given instruction to do a Samuel L. Jackson impersonation and he is ignoring that instruction. So help me understand this whole interaction because from what I gathered, he's an insurance agent there to collect premiums? Like I was very confused by what was happening here. So look, in your defense, nothing this kid said ever made sense at all, whether or not

you know everything there is to know about the Nick Fury character. I don't know what the hell the kid was talking about. Did you figure that out, Eli? No fucking chance, man. I feel like a lot of it was inside jokes about like that part of Manitoba or wherever the fuck they are. Right, yeah. Or, or, or like Mad Lib of a Mad Lib situation, right? Like they, they substituted a bunch of the words, but then they had to substitute even more words last minute. And so we just, we just lost all sense of the script.

Yeah. Yeah. But eventually he leaves and Pepper Potts comes in and it's time for her to sing us her first song. She's going to sing Heartbreaker and she's going to fucking rock it. OK. Oh, yeah, she is. Wow. This is the only part of this that was not fun because what is undoubtedly true is that this mom of three choir director had talent yes at some point yep and patriarchy squished it squished it into the confines of Pepper Potts in this church Easter play

and we're watching just the tiny, just the teeniest, tiniest moment of freedom for her before she goes back to the jail cell that is her life. And it is, in point of fact, a heartbreaker. That's all she's saying. Dude, you ruined it for me because this was the only part that I really enjoyed. Yeah.

I also enjoyed it. I wrote in my notes, if the rest of this movie was just her doing karaoke, I'd be thrilled by that. You say that. And if she had pulled a gun out of her waistband and shot her husband in the chest, kissed a female band member on the mouth with tongue

and then walked off into the distance, it'd be my f— But I know how this story ends, and it's with a fourth pregnancy. It is. It's so fucking sad, man. All right, well, now Eli's got me all depressed, so we need another break. But we'll be back in a minute with even more of The Avenger. What about keto? Do you think I could do keto? Eli, I'm not keto.

You're like super keto. One of those like it's raw. Hey guys, what's going on? Eli's asking me for, I don't know, health advice, I think. He keeps yelling, where are the cubes? Matt Damon has cubes, I've heard. Eli, if you want to eat well without breaking the bank, why don't you just try Factor? What's Factor? Factor has chef-made gourmet meals that make eating well easy. They're dietitian approved and ready to heat meat in just two minutes so you can feel right

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That's code factorpodcast at factormeals.com slash factorpodcast to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping. That's code factor podcast at factor meals dot com slash factor podcast to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. All right. Thanks. Eli, you going to give up about the cubes now? Fine. Fine. Still don't know how your parents figured it out so fast.

Yeah, man. I don't have a twin sister. Ah, that's it. There it is. All right, everybody. I'm pleased to say the Avengers have assembled. Black Widow. Reporting for duty.

Hawkeye. I'm here. The Hulk, Thor, Captain America and myself. And of course, Brian. Hi. Hi, everybody. Sorry, why is he here? Oh, I just wanted to help, you know, do him a part. But you don't have any superpowers. So? Neither do you. I am a highly trained spy. Yeah, but like if we were fighting humans I'd agree that that

would be useful, but since both you and I are comparing ourselves to the Incredible Hulk right here, kind of seems like. It shouldn't be a problem. You know what I'm saying? Come on, man. Do you even have any skills? Oh, you mean like a bow and arrow? I have a gun, so you know, already better than you.

I could also do tricks. Tricks. Got it. Look, look, look. This isn't about comparing ourselves here. It's just that we're superheroes and you aren't, okay? Okay. Can I borrow your suit then? Because I feel like I'd be a superhero if I was allowed to wear your suit. No, it's my suit and I'm the only one who can use it. Are you? No, my wife has one too. Okay. Hey folks, cutting in with a quick apology for reasons that we still have not been able to determine. My track for this next section of the show was severely corrupted. Our audio wizard

Morgan Clark did the best possible job of tidying it up so it wasn't a complete loss, but for the next 20 minutes or so my audio is gonna be shit. Sorry about that. It will get better again later, I promise. And we're back for more of this shit. We're gonna rejoin the action with Iron Jesus, Captain Canada, their little Thorlet, and Natasha marching into battle or whatever. And they, okay, so there's just all these moments where they're trying to like substitute

in the church equivalent to the thing they say in the movie. And every time it's more insane than the last, right? Cause this is where he's like, look, we can bust delinquent church members all we want. Wait, so your Avengers walk around punishing apostasy? What the fuck, man? Yep. Seems like you guys are late for church. Are you the god of thunder? No. Pastor Mark has something really cool this week. Also check it out.

They used they fucking lift the he's adopted line at this point from from Avengers a line which the writers apologize for is like the least funny thing in the whole fucking movie. Right. And they also they screw it up. Right. So so here's the line in the movie again, Kara with apologies. Yeah. You know, they say, Oh, you know, Loki is evil and he's twisted. And Thor says, Hey, that's my brother you're talking about. And Black Widow says, well, you know,

he's killed 80 people in the last two days. And he goes, he's adopted. Yeah, I didn't get it. Help me understand this. Well, right. So in the movie, it's as if to say, well, I've just not that much my brother, you know, as if he's backing away from this. Because you know how adopted people aren't really people. Yeah, that's that's after the movie. It is. It was a lot of controversy about that line when the movie came out and like the Marvel came out and apologized for it and everything. And they're like, yeah, that was actually pretty, pretty thoughtless as a line. And after all of that, after that controversy, this stupid fucking church is like, you know, it was really funny as when they made fun of adopted people.

Yep. Are we not allowed to roast adopted people anymore? Because I got a bunch of adopto jokes. No, you have an adopted sister. It's okay. It's okay if you do it. Yeah, exactly. No, I'm one of them. You're okay. Exactly. Yes. I have a ton of adopted siblings and I'm, I am offended, but I myself am not adopted. Oh, well, then you can't say it.

I can't say it. No, I can't say DAPTO. Well, you say DAPTO, but yeah. But also they fuck up the line too because in the movie, Natasha says, well, he's killed 80 people in the last two days. But in this movie, she says, well, you know, he's killed millions of people. I'm like, God, what did their Loki do? But of course, their Loki is supposed to be Lucifer. So I guess that's what she's referencing. Of course, sure.

It was God that killed all the people. Lucifer doesn't kill anybody in that fucking book. Okay. But then the guitarist that Eli loves so much comes out. Oh yeah. And he starts playing an almost but not quite at speed version of Thunderstruck. This guy. There's something here. There's a renouncing homosexuality or something. There's just a he's just a little too good at guitar to have not tasted freedom for at least a second. Okay, but he's not so good at guitar to have not tasted freedom for at least a second.

Okay, but he's not so good at guitar that he can play Thunderstruck at the speed that the goddamn drummer can. He sure can. So throughout this movie, we will listen to him fall progressively further and further behind both the lyrics and the drum track to Thunderstruck. And I love it so goddamn much. You got to get those in your monitors, man. I know they're annoying at first, but they're so important.

So important. You got to hear the click. Yeah, yeah, I know. You can't hear them. So yeah. And then so Iron Man is going to sing this and he sounds like, so again, we just heard a genuinely talented person sing a song right before this, right? Yeah.

And Iron Man sounds like the guy who's been trying to talk somebody into trying to talk him into doing karaoke all night. Right? I don't think I want to do it. He's that guy. It's so fucking bad. And as if to make him look better by comparison, this is where we get the fucking cartwheels. Yeah!

God, I love those cartwheels. Oh yeah. We all wrote about the cartwheels. Yeah! God, I love those cartwheels. Oh yeah. We all wrote about the cartwheels. I mean, I only wrote the word cartwheels because I think that encapsulates. I want to say something from my heart. I think I would do a cartwheel as good as these cartwheels if I tried to do a cartwheel right now. Okay, so here's the thing that happens, right?

So girl one comes in and she does a pretty mediocre cartwheel. The other two come in right behind her and both simultaneously do the no-handed cartwheel thing, which is really very impressive. Or I mean to me it's very impressive. It is. I can't do an aerial. Yeah, that's a hard. So, but they fuck it all up because the one that we can see clearly is the mediocre cartwheel that Eli could do and then by the time you get to the real, the talented bit, we're all just going like, what the fuck was that? And we can barely even see it. So Simone Biles is in the back being blocked by a piece of set. Also, we should point out that guitar guy, they wanted him wearing a mask so as to like

kind of fit in with the theme of the whole thing, but he has to see his hands to play the guitar. Oh yeah. So he's just got the mask flipped off. So why have it? What would purpose? Not the best look. Not the best look. So, all right.

So we listened to that whole fucking song. That ends and Loki shows back up. He's not wearing the horns this time. I thought they'd broken them backstage, but they come back later, so. Oh no, yeah, he takes off the, I remember that, because that's when we see his full on alt-right haircut. Yeah.

It's not good. Yeah. So, and this is where, like, they're, again, going to steal some lines from the movie. They call themselves a prayer support team of America's mightiest heroes. Again, all of their mad lib substitutions are insane and just underscore what a pathetic thing their church really is.

Just Carol and Kelly elbowing each other. That's us. We're the prayer support team. For those of you not born inside a terrible cult, prayer support teams are a phone chain that churches do instead of helping people. Yeah, exactly. It is literally, it is the state, it's the work from home version of helping people. Yeah.

And they're trying now to do the, you know, I have an army, you know, let's do the roll call line from the Avengers. And of course, this famously ends with, I have a Hulk, but they don't have anybody playing Hulk. And of course this famously ends with I have a Hulk, but they don't have anybody playing Hulk So instead they have this terrible they have a CGI Hulk that Ang Lee would be embarrassed at that stops through behind them Yeah, it's a ps1 level graphics back there. Yeah so, okay, so then

The intro to Led Zeppelin's immigrant songrant song comes on and we all just die inside a little bit. Hell yeah. Yeah. It's so sad. This is what the Zepp wanted. At first I was like, if they sing this song. But then luckily, luckily they just play the actual song as it is.

Yeah. Yeah. And they're going to do some fight choreography while this play is just kidding. Yeah. This was so weird. Eli, did you like have to take any medicine or look away? Don't use the thing with the flashing lights. No, this is how I wanted to go. This is how I wanted to go.

I pressed my eye to the screen. This is like that euthanasia roller coaster for Eli. Yes. No, this is my Hailey Joel Osment bikes into a bunch of bees moment. Yeah, so Runk it but yeah So what they do here is that they they're doing like the lights will black out and then come back up for a second each Time they'll be at some other point in the fight or at least that's like what they're going for They're not very good at it

So in every single instance like at least two of the people are still getting into position when the lights come back This is this is a runner-up freeze tag is what we're watching right now. It's so fucking bad, but it also goes on for like nine fucking years. Oh my God. It's so painful. It's so long and stupid. And you can't make sense of what you're seeing. No.

Each time it like flashes on. You're like, okay, now they're all laying in a slightly different position. Right? No, this was like a pretty like the the prelude to an orgy. It would make just as much sense. Yeah. But at the end, the Avengers all lost and Loki and his team won. Right? We see them walking away. So the lights come back on and they all pick themselves off off the stage and they spend about I'm going to say a minute and a half minute and 45 seconds making shawarma jokes Yep, I love the thought of Kara's experience here assuming that she has no fucking clue

Yeah, and can I say I would like to not share it with her I would like Kara to go the rest of her life and just you know She's in the middle of a shower six years from now and she's like wait. Why are they having? No, yeah, I still don't know. I wrote, I'm assuming that the shwarma references mean something because you guys wrote that Kara is probably really confused right now. We did. So they get done with that. Then we get some, they directly steal some footage from Thor of the Bifrost opening up

and then we get Odin. Odin, in their estimation, is the midway point between Super Mario and Dr. Robotnik with an accent like he's trying to pick a fight with Cecil. Okay. So what's happened here is Odin is played by Pastor Mark, who is the head of this church. And if anyone had the ability to give feedback to pastor mark none of this would be So he showed up the first day and he was like hello, it's a me Odin and everyone was like that's Okay, Odin is Norse. That's not how Hi Odin! How's it going? Where are the Italians? This whole thing was so confusing. Like somehow it was so racist.

How did they make it so racist? Against the wrong race. Like if you think of it, if it was racist against Norwegians or something, I would understand it. Yeah, it's like they tried to do the accent and they were like, I can't pull it off. What do we do? Right, right. Yeah.

And he's just here, I guess, to warn Iron Man that the plot we've already established is happening is happening. Yeah. A scene that is not in the Avengers, by the way. Oh, really? Okay. Nope. This is a whole cloth.

I guess they just had to find a spot for Pastor Hughes to do his Mario voice. So then he goes to the Schwarmer restaurant to check in on the gang. And he does the whole, like, this is the last supper moment, right? Where he's telling them, you know, one of you will betray me. But no one betrays him. Not in this one. No, there's no Judas. Yeah.

So, so it's a really weird scene then, huh? Well, also, it's the most obvious, like like the audience is not enjoying this moment as well because there's actually a kind of funny line here because they have iron jesus do his whole like i will be mocked and tortured and killed and three days later i will rest and captain canada stands up and he goes hold on a second that's the worst plan ever that's actually a funny line unless of course your entire religion is built on the reverence of that single goddamn month. Wow.

I'm getting, like I'm so enlightened right now because as I was watching this, I had no idea what was going on. I still didn't understand the plot. And I was just hung up on the fact that they were fake eating. They were pantomime eating. They were pantomime eating. It was very distracting. Like they couldn't afford crop food? Apparently not. just hung up on the fact that they were fake eating. They were pantomime. They were pantomime eating. They couldn't afford crop food.

Apparently not. No. All the money went into the muscle suits for all of the guys. And I don't think anyone in that province knows what Schwarm is, let alone in this play. Now, I caught a reference here that I think I like imagined. Right. You know how like people walking through the desert imagine like water bodies and stuff like that so when Loki shows up they come up and they knock off one of his horns I imagine that to be a Peter reference but I think that's too clever for something this church group could have thought of it's absolutely because um later iron Jesus restores it that is absolutely what they were and let's give them credit

that was genuinely fucking clever that's good only time they were and let's give them credit. That was genuinely fucking clever That's good only time they were ever clever in this entire fucking I'll give it to him Karen. That's my favorite moment in the whole Bible. Do you know that moment in the Bible? Tell me more is where they didn't have a meeting with Peter beforehand about we're not resisting So the guards come and Jesus is like now is the time and Peter cuts off a guy's ear and is like So wait, this is the this is the LeRoy Jenkins Rhymes to a halt while Jesus heals the guys here and is like, I'm so sorry about is like, I'm so sorry about this. And Peter's like, MOTHERFUCKER! They're all like, oh fuck.

And it's in history forever. I'm not going to hell. Because I'll get to the gates of heaven and he'll be like, you jerked off on all those graves. And I'll be like, yeah, you cut off that guy's ear though. And he'd be like, oh, all right, you got me. In you go. Like, I've got him. You got me. In you go. I've got him. I've got him. So, okay. Now it is time to crucify Jesus. What? Okay folks. I knew they were going to crucify Iron Man in this. The whole reason we're watching this is because of the meme of this image from the fucking play where they're crucifying Jesus. But literally nothing could

have prepared me for them actually goddamn doing it. Right? And also, in my defense, when you see the picture in the meme, you don't realize that they're doing it to a minor key medley of pop tunes. Sure are, baby. Sure are. It's the end of the world. Uh huh. And, oh, what's the other one? When I get knocked down, yeah. When I get knocked down. So is it really a medley if it's just two songs? No, actually at a certain point it's just they couldn't decide on which of the two songs

they were going to sing. No, yeah, it's just a really bad mashup. Yeah. That's what they're trying to do. Yeah. And it's not good. And they're singing, they're actually singing it. Mm hmm.

Oh yeah. For a what? Like during the crucifixion, he's up there being like, it's the end of the world. Yeah. Uh-huh. It's so weird. Yep. They do give them like the scepter to the side as they pull them up there. So, they get it. Huh? They know all of the wounds.

And then, okay, so now he's crucified. And Pepper Potts is going to sing sing I'll Be There to us. What, why? Why? Because she said she gets two songs. She gets, because they were in rehearsal and she sang Heartbreaker and she felt alive for the first time in her entire life. And she was like, can I please do that again?

Can I please do that again? I would like to sing another song, please. And they were like, okay. And she does it in its entirety. In its entirety. Fully earnestly. Oh yeah. And he is in so much pain.

He's so obvious he feels uncomfortable. Because even the comfortable form of crucifixion is wildly uncomfortable. Yeah, like his arms are out to the side and he's mostly just holding them up himself. And he's not very strong. I have placed a photograph of his face. I took a little screenshot. It's in our notes. And it just gets worse and worse the whole time. It's like he also has to shit. But there's also like there's also a very fuck you for singing so much better than me. Judy looked to us.

Yup. Right? There was like he's very. Genuinely podcast listener, if you're not a patron I'll make sure Tim comes and steals this and puts it on the patreon for those who deserve it But if you're not a patron and you're wondering what you should be picturing genuinely grumpy cat Holy shit, and then he dies with a... You know?

You could only describe it as sarcastic. It's just hilarious. The only reason all of his fucking feet and his legs and arms don't go straight up in the air is because he's crucified. Yeah. It's amazing. I bet he shat himself in the first couple of rehearsals for realism and they were like, no, Greg.

So then we hear the earth rumble as they get iron. Jesus off the cross that takes a while Mm-hmm. We also get our best worst. I almost went with best worst song intro So he's come off the cross and she's taking him off and she goes I can't get his foot loose What is this? Cuz then they play foot that's the intro to this song foot lose I so People this is what genuinely happens in this honest-to-god church That is not just a thing that we've made up to fuck with you for April Fool's Day They get Jesus off the fucking cross and he sits up and he goes actually I'm fine and they all sing

and they all I Footloose! And they all sing Footloose. What is happening? I can't, again, like if an atheist group did this, I'd be like, not okay everybody, like, you know, look, let's do, let's have fun. But if they did this in front of Christians, I'd be like, this is a little far. Yes! Also, I just have to point out that the subtitles guy woke up during Footloose. Yep, yep. So he was like, ah fuck, and Footloose.

But why? That's the thing. They just during Footloose. Yep. Yeah. So he was like, oh, fuck it. But why? That's the thing. They just sing Footloose. Well, I think they changed like two of the lyrics in there somewhere. But yes, I don't, I honestly, I don't know the lyrics to Footloose well enough to know. No, it's not clever. No, it's definitely not clever.

Watching, watching these full grown adults do the hand jive to Footloose gave big I don't want to be around anymore dot gif vibes. Like real. There's a real. Everyone was on a watch. The pair chain was doing a lot of work. So also like this is they're doing the passion play, right? They were leaving out the whole part where Jesus goes to the tomb and then rises three

days later. Like they get him off the cross, they sin footloose, and that's it. We're fucking done. I'm like, who the hell is ministering to the sinners in hell, dude? Shwarma. Needed a shwarma scene. I... So yeah, no, they all take their fucking vows. They do their curtain calls at this point.

Yeah, I can't believe they do a curtain call. Like, it doesn't, it's not necessary. And Pepper didn't even get her own bow. She should have gotten a song. Very sad. She should have gotten her own bow. But I get excited at this point. I'm like, oh good, it's over.

Right. And then I look, I look and it's only scrubbed halfway through. Yes. Halfway. Yeah, no, I wrote my notes. I'm like, they're taking their vows. What the fuck guys?

We've got a lot of show left to do. Yeah, half of the show is left after this. Yeah. To be fair, I pressed that little forward 10 seconds a lot from here on out. Yeah, yeah. All right, well, tell you what. That's over and we've still got a third of the show and a third of the video left to break down. So let me give act three of a two-act play the hard sell somehow, I guess.

What will we talk about? Will Kara have any interesting anecdotes to fill the time? Have either of you guys been watching season three of Reacher? Find out the answers to something, I'm sure, when we return for the holy shit, it's just a goddamn sermon now conclusion of The Adventure. Dude, just look at the photo. I have to call 911, Eli. They're going to hang up on you again. They've blocked our numbers.

Hey guys, what is with the pre-ad shenanigans? Eli won't stop showing me his gains. His gains? My gains, Kara. Honestly, you're not ready. I'm sure I'm not. So this feels like an odd question, but why is he showing you his gains? Well, because I recommended FitBod. What's FitBod? FitBod is a fitness app that customizes every workout and adapts as you improve to avoid

boredom and plateaus on your journey. That sounds great, but have you actually tried it? I sure have. I love that FitBod works with the equipment I have on hand so I can get a workout whether I'm in a hotel room or a fully stocked gym. Okay, so next you're going to tell me that people can get 25% off or something. As a matter of fact, they can level up your workout. Join FitBod today to get your personalized workout plan.

Get 25% off your subscription or try the app for free for seven days at FitBod.me slash gam. That's F I T B O D dot M E slash gam. Thanks. Now, what are these gains you're talking about anyway, Eli? OK, so Kara, you know how the body has a surprising amount of medically defined sphincters? You know what? Forget I asked. Yeah, that's what I said. That's what I said.

Hey, pastor. Do you have a second? Chris! Absolutely. What's up, dude? You could just... You know what? Sorry.

I wanted to talk to you about your sermon this week. Oh, you're talking about Jesus has the reasons. Yep. That is what you called it. Look, I understand that we want to make faith relatable, but I worry that maybe you're overdoing it. Really? How so?

Well, so for instance, the first 11 minutes of your sermon this week, they were, what's the deal with airline food? It's so bad. Why is it so bad? Well, no, it is. It is. I just don't think that God is also in the sky

is quite the transition you needed to draw the things together. Wait a minute, Chris. Is this about cutting my segment about how black guys talk? Because that's a firm no, Chris. I told you. No, sir. It's standard.

It's just it's it. Look, so if the message that we have is salvation, you understand how a bunch of pop culture references and jokes kind of minimizes that importance, right? I mean, gosh darn it, I think so, Chris. I'll write something more serious. Okay. All right.

Well, I'm glad. It's no problem. Pastor, your ghost rider motorcycle just arrived. Oh, excellent. Chris and I were just talking about that. No, we weren't. And we're back for more of this shit. And now it's time for fucking Mark Hughes to preach at us for a bit.

Well, pre-preach. Yes. Well. Okay, look, look, I get it. You're a church production. So for those of you who were never churchgoers, there's this little thing that happens before the sermon where the pastor kind of vamps while the parents all take their kids to free childcare aka the reason one joins a religion

But they kept it in their fucking movie. We watch him be like, I will have fun yeah, no kid care is room B and C today for the under fives and while everyone stands up and grabs their coats our and while everyone stands up and grabs their coats our Cast is just gonna come out and sing another song for no reason right well so okay first we have to complement the band Right he's like this music was all played live by our band And then the camera cuts to just fucking Susan looking confused for like 30 seconds and then the man Why is the camera pointed at me Jeremy? and then the band. Why is the camera pointed at me, Jeremy?

By the way, the band is in complete darkness, so it's completely on this. So we can't really see. But I think it's I think it's just one guy. I think it's an evil giraffes on Mars kind of a situation. 100 percent. Yeah. Just like a lady with a keyboard or whatever. But yeah, then he does his who's drinking tonight shit for like three fucking minutes. The vamp is so painful.

He's like he does this thing. I love it so much because every theater director does it. They go, hey, and you know what? How about a hand for the tech guys? Huh? They're real. They're the ones who make keep us in the light. They're all smoking. They're all smoking indoors.

And he's like, but yes, but while I'm doing my vamp, please entrust your kids to people who haven't been vetted in any meaningful way that belong to the world's child rapist profession, if you don't mind. It's free, Noah. It's fucking free. There is that. Yeah.

And you get what you pay for. He doesn't get it. The parents in our audience get it. Right. Parents in our audience are like, wait, when is the free child? How do I get? I'll join the Jesus whatever. And then she's like and she's like and he's like, we got another song to sing and then we're going to get an abbreviated Easter message.

And I'm like, I bet it's not very abbreviated at all. Sure isn't. But first, I would say now we have a song. This we have our actual Jesus song for the first time. Oh, right. Yeah. The first time it's like, is it a song that's well known or did they write this song? I don't know. I can't imagine that they wrote it. Can't help but notice that your notes here, Carol, were, I can't watch this. I'm fast forward.

I mean, someone's Paxilovan hit. Yeah. Well, you didn't miss the lyrics of this were just like, Jesus, I would lick your butt hole so hard. I mean, if that's what you were into, you'd't miss the lyrics of this were just like, Jesus, I would lick your butt hole so hard. I mean, if that's what you were into, you'd enjoy it the way I do. But if you were you, I would ask your permission for it, but I would lick it so hard. That's the lyrics to this whole stupid fucking song. Right.

You can't you can't watch them say just sing the same thing over and over. You have to just move forward. You get nothing from it. Yeah. No self-preservation. So then we cut back to that smarmy can not that started the whole damn thing So he could basically do an ad for their church, right? There's no question that Chris this guy like he's the one who finally put them on Facebook

And so he has to insert himself to into every online presentation to be like and hey guys We I bought a lot of cameras for the church and and pastor Mark gives me a pretty hard time about us not getting a lot of Twitter followers. So if you could. And I love this because we've talked about this before, but there's always a point in Kara's notes where she just gives up, right? This is it. Because like the last scene she just wrote, I can't watch this. I'm fast forwarding to it.

And then in this ad, she just wrote, nobody wants to go to your shitty church. Yup. Top but fair. And it just gets worse from there, guys. Yeah. You guys write a lot during the sermon and I don't. I sure did. I have like five times as much notes as any. Like I have like this first segment, Eli's got like a half a page, Kara's got like a

third of a page. I've got like a page and a half of shit on this. At one point, and I know I'm jumping ahead, but it doesn't matter. At one point, literally I wrote, I'm so lost, nothing matters. I care not at all about anything he's saying. It's like astute analysis. So, okay, so now we're gonna get our sermon.

Well, first they play their, we dare you to sue a church Avengers logo again. Yep. Right. And then Mark's going to tell us the true meaning of Easter. And I wrote in my notes, okay, the fact that we made Carol watch a sermon is almost as funny as the fact that we made her watch a superhero passion play musical. Oh, yeah. And by the way, the theme of this sermon is going to be, if you think about it, Jesus

is pretty Avengers. Yes. Oh, 100%. Literally, this whole sermon is he went to his digital Bible and did a control F for the word avenge. Yes, absolutely. That's all he did. And then he wrote a sermon about it.

Right. Because he says, you know, this week we're going to we're going to preach about Isaiah 63, four through five. And I'm like, oh, I guess you're going to use one, two, and three, because that's the part that makes it clear that this is the portion of the Bible wherein God stomps so many people to death, Kaiju style, that his clothes looks like he's been working a wine press. That's what happens in this chapter of the Bible. But that's his like wet dream. Look, he showed that picture of New York and was like, look how badass it is that they

destroyed New York in the movie. Yep. But he does, he does have a pretty strong opening here, right? He's like, some people would ask why we would tell the message of our religion, the consequences of which are again, infinite damnation. And that is because I'm stupid. And I was like, I'm listening, Pastor Mark. Yes.

Yeah, he explains how when he was a kid, he didn't do no reading or nothing. But it wasn't it wasn't until he discovered comic books that he figured out that, you know, how to learn things. So basically, we get his tight five here. He laments about the fact that he's 60 And he's still talking about superheroes, and I'm like yeah, man I didn't I didn't think you and I would have a moment together, but I turned 49 next week. I feel you, bro Pulls out an old Nintendo this one played so many fun So but he wants to tell us about another comic book aficionado. Maybe you've heard of a guy named Josh Weeden.

Nope, I sure have. Nor have I. Hey, Pastor, anything else we should Google about Josh Weeden? Is there anything else? Do you mean the racist, sexist, abusive director that once fired an actress for getting pregnant? That's Joss Weeden. This Joss-sot guy sounds pretty cool.

I'm actually interested to hear what he's got to say. Yeah. So so he tells this story of Joss Whedon, I guess when he was a kid, he got mugged on the streets in New York in broad daylight on his way to a comic book store. And that was like a formative moment for him. Yeah. I just wrote, maybe they knew in advance what a piece of shit he was going to turn out to be. This was by Michelle Trachenberg. Oh yeah, stop it. Fetish Michelle Trachenberg punched me in the stomach.

So yeah, but he's like, actually, you know, you might not know this about Joss Whedon, but he actually puts biblical references into his movies all the time. Right? Like, remember that line where Captain America says there's only one God and he doesn't dress like that? That's a Bible reference. Because you remember the part of the Bible with Captain America in it? Captain America, the time traveler whose entire characterization is that he does not understand maternity believes in my God. Yes, right. Right. Exactly.

Pretty cool. And then he goes, it gets even fucking worse, guys. He goes, well, you know, in Age of Ultron in the second Avengers movie, he actually uses the Bible quote, upon this rock, I will build my church. Weird. And I'm like, dude, in the movie, the bad guy who's trying to wipe out humankind says that in reference to the giant rock that he's about to drop on earth to wipe out humanity. Well, it doesn't matter. He quotes my book. He quotes my favorite book. He quotes my favorite book. That's all that matters. He goes, Joss Whedon is an atheist. He speaks at atheist events. And I'm like, I bet he doesn't do that anymore.

He does not. He does not. No. It's gonna be on Psycon this year. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So also there's that there's's a, he quotes Napoleon. Yeah, what is that? I don't know. You don't want to do that at church. Right.

Because this is the quote that he got it wrong. But here's the quote. Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. Religion is what keeps the poor man from murdering the rich. Yeah, that's not like he gets he right. Why would a rich religious guy say that to poor religious people? You're fucking up the whole bit, man. You're a mega pastor.

He's saying the quiet part out loud to his congregate and then literally he's like, and I'm going to pass around the collection. Yes, right. I want you to think about that while I pass around the collection. Yes, right. I want you to think about that while I pass around the collection. Only when the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last clergyman. So, okay, so now he's got three bullet points for us to talk about the Easter message and how it relates to the Avengers movie. The three bullet points are the villain, the Avenger, and the Avenge.

So first, let's talk about the villain. That is, of course, Satan. He says it this way. He's like, the Avengers have stolen from the Bible, like that Loki character, obviously based on Satan. Yeah, because he's bad. I have so many notes on that, because the accusation then would just be they stole the same thing that we stole, but also like Loki is a different religion's God. Right.

He's based on a, like he's just genuinely based on a God from a different, the only less accurate character you could call a Satan character is Jesus. But like it's all the same, right? And that's really like, it's like he's getting it without getting it. Like this is why I don't like these kinds of movies. Sorry. I feel like the quintessential why I don't like these kinds of movies. Sorry. I feel like the quintessential... You don't enjoy your trips here?

Good versus evil. It's so boring. Oh, you don't like superhero movies. Yeah, right. Right. No, yeah. What did you think I was talking about? Movies that you watch with us. I thought you make Christian films. Yeah. No, I don't like those either.

It is a damagingly simplistic narrative. Right? films. I don't like those either. It is a damagingly simplistic narrative, right? It is. And it's bad even just as like the primary narrative that we're giving to children through fiction. It's even worse as a worldview that you base your religion on. Guys, I don't want to argue on the podcast, but I grew up on these movies and comic books and all of my opinions have always been all right Yes, all of you had that came from those were pretty fucking money

Yeah, I think we can all agree that I am NOT on record having any bad Ever at any point perhaps burned into the digital record. No, I have always had good ideas all the time Yep, you sure have this is how I feel watching Star Wars 2. I have always had good ideas all the time. Yep, you sure have. This is how I feel watching Star Wars 2. I'm so sorry. Oh, so you're alienating everyone. I also feel genocidal when I watch the new Star Wars films. It's okay, Kara, I get it. But here's the thing. It's literally just those guys are good, those guys are bad.

But wait, here's a complicated situation in which the good guy did a bad thing. And here's a complicated situation in which the bad guy did a good thing. And isn't that just the whole Bible too? Yep. Yeah. No, it is. Absolutely. Okay. Okay. Just making sure. Yeah. He talks more about how Lucifer is like, look, at one point he goes, is it Lucifer? Is it Loki-ver? I can't even tell. Oh my God. It's so painful. Oh, oh, oh do we get to do the Jim Carrey part? Yeah My god, okay, so excited to do his Jim Carrey. So he has a Jim Carrey impersonation. What is it you ask? It's him yelling the word smoking. Yep

And he he's like, you know, Tom Hiddleston was great in this movie, but they were thinking Jim Carrey would play it. You guys wonder what that would look like? Speaking of Jim Carrey. Oh my God. And he literally goes, you know, Jim Carrey from the mask. Yes. Yeah. From the mask.

Smoking. I turned into dust from age because I fucking loved the mask and me and the pastor both being like, I remember the mask. That was such a funny, like we simultaneously drank from the wrong cup. Yeah. So, okay. So then he starts talking about, he's trying to make sense of the whole Satan mythology. He's like, Hey, you know, why would God give Satan a furlough on earth before condemning him to hell? That's a great question. Well, it turns out free will. And I'm like, take me there, man.

He's like, well, you know, would it really be free will if there wasn't a goat demon tempting you into sin? And I'm like, why wouldn't it be free will then? Yeah, he's like, it's like Russian democracy. And I wrote in my notes, your religion, not a great start. So but that's what he said. He says, if God didn't make a Satan there to tempt you to do evil shit, then you wouldn't really be making a decision.

It would be like voting in Russia. Now in the present day, that's so goddamn funny. Like the man could be literally arguing with Donald Trump when he starts talking about how democratic Russia isn't at this point. Like the fact that that's just the go-to example of a strong-armed dictator even among conservatives. Yeah. It's just fucking hilarious in the modern world given the news cycle. Now I will point out that because he has literalized Satan dwells but for a little while on

earth that's the funniest fucking picture because with the image he has now created is not like hey Satan's time is short, Jesus is coming, salvation is coming, right? Which is what that context is in the Bible. It's that Satan had his argument with God and then for a couple thousand years before humans were made, Satan was just fucking schlumpfing around Earth like a teenager in his room being like, fucking stupid stupid volcanoes. Volcanoes everywhere. What's up dinosaurs? You guys want to fuck the same? Ah, they're not listening. They're basically birds. I can't wait for people to get here so I can turn them gay.

Make the people so gay. Walking around going, smoking. So wait, I'm just curious because clearly I'm learning a lot listening to the two of you. Thank you. You don't say that enough. I know. I know.

So hold on to it, Eli. Suck the marrow out of this moment. Morgan, send me that clip. So I'm learning a lot listening to the two of you really breaking this down in a way that kind of gives this guy a little more credit than he deserves. But I'm curious as I'm watching this and I'm completely lost and having an existential crisis. Do you think that the people in the audience are also just like slap-jawed mouth breathing going like, Of course!

I don't know what you're talking about at all. Yeah. But when you say amen, I clap. Yeah. Okay. Just making sure. Absolutely. These people came for a religious service. They sang call me maybe while dressed as Iron Man and now he's like so how about that eternal salvation and war against the devil and they're just like you gotta pick a lane

man. Here's the thing though. I genuinely think that the problem is that the people in the audience do understand what he's talking about. Do you think they do? Yeah. Do you think most religious people have actually read the Bible? No, I don't think that. Right. Okay. He's using like basically code words and shorthand for images or ideas that have been drilled

into them so often that they just know, you know, when you say these words, you're talking about this other thing, this other greater concept, right? So it's almost symbolic language. And because it's symbolic language, it comes off like listening to people talk about a sport that you don't know anything about. That's how I feel. Yeah. Yeah.

Talking about football. Right, right. Or not even football. I know about football. It's like they're talking about curling. Yes, exactly. Exactly. It's like people are really into crime.

Or it's like when you listen to people talk jargon about their job, right? Like that when normies listen to doctors talk or whatever, because you're using these phrases that are like, you know, it's two words for you, but there's years of education behind your understanding of those two words, right? But my question is, are the people listening in on it? Or are they also just hearing key words every like 17 words? And they're like, oh, that's a Jesus thing. I'm with you there.

But here's the thing, Carys, I don't think there's a difference because that's all he's doing. Right. Right. There is no deeper meaning here. It is just stringing together these code words, these Jesus code words with Avengers imagery. That's literally all there is. So it doesn't make sense. So I get it just as much as anyone else. There's no deeper meaning in it. Oh. No, it's turtles all the way down. That was really validating for me, Noah.

No, seriously, the only deeper meaning that comes from this is what you bring to it. Right? So it's like a Rorschach. Yeah, exactly. Yes. Exactly. How is it a painting of my parents having sex? Makes perfect sense for you.

So glad I fired that doctor. So, but then this eventually we land on Satan tempting Eve in the garden and he explains to us that Eve ate the apple and that's why Joss Whedon got mugged 7000 years later. Okay, bringing it full circle. Now that was the moment where I knew he was really hurting Kara. Cause when he was like, and that's why Josh Whedon got mugged. He lost even me and Kara at that point, I assume was just across the room from her television

with a gun being like, I have to stop it somehow. Well yeah, you guys, at this point, I was doing the dishes, I think. Just sort of listening over my shoulder. The new bingo card for Gam is Kara has left the room. Yeah, exactly. It's right in the middle. So but yeah, he does this.

I don't get this at all. He's like, you know that only 30 something percent of the people in Canada believe in the devil. So who's doing all these bad things? I'm like, what? I mean, like statistically speaking, it's mostly Christians, but so what? What are you fucking talking about? So okay, that's the villain.

Now we move on to bullet point two, the Avenger. That would be God, of course. Now this is where he actually gets to Isaiah four. I want, I have to read this is, this is Isaiah three, right? These are the words immediately before this God talking about him being the Avenger. Okay. This is from the KJV quote. I have trodden the wine press alone and of the people there were none with me for I will

tread them in mine anger and Trample them in my fury and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments and I will stain all my raiment All right, get it God, right? That's some serial killer shit And again like the metaphor that he is using here is, hey, you know, God looked down at a world full of sinners and thought, who can possibly make this better? The best person for the job is me. And I wrote my notes, yes, God and the director of every community theater who casts him.

So, yes. Right, right. Uh-huh. He goes, yeah, you know, that's why I love Marvel superheroes so much, because they have weaknesses. Like, you ever notice how Superman has no weaknesses at all, except for the weakness that is almost certainly the most famous of all the weaknesses in all the history of fiction, which has become just a shorthand for one's weakness? I would like to point out that Superman's real weakness, and we don't talk about it

enough, is that sometimes he pretends to be a newspaper reporter while rapes happen. That's actually a great point. But now he's going to go through and he's going to explain to us all of the Avengers' various weaknesses. And he's going to try to turn this into the Seven Deadly Sins, which is stupid because he doesn't have seven of them and there's no gluttonousous avenger or whatever. But anyway, he goes, you know all the Marvel characters have profound human weaknesses and I'm like do they? What is Thor's profound? Tell me the Hulk's profound human weakness. How about it? Anger? Anger management? Anger management. Yeah, I don't know how profound that is. Like that's his power. That's his power

I think the prob- Actually, if you look at the series, and if you've watched all the movies and read all the comic books like me and Geraf, he actually can't get his anger up for most of that series. It's a problem. He can't get his anger up. No, yeah, he can't.

He literally can't. He can't take up like a little blue pill. Yeah, right. It was a little green pill, but yeah. It's chewable now. So, wait, this is at the point where I literally wrote, somehow after watching this, I know less about both superheroes and the Bible. Right. Yeah, exactly. I love that he goes, you know, Iron Man has one flaw, his ego. And I'm

like, he was an alcoholic misogynist that made billions of dollars off of war crimes, dude. That's the character. His one flaw is his ego. You think he sees those as flaws? No, that's a good point. That's a good point. He's his black widow's weakness is guilt. Not finger guns. My God. Captain America's weakness is not understanding topical references. His actual thing is Captain America's weakness is he's irrelevant like Christianity. Yes, right.

He's like, yeah, well, yeah, that's actually kind of an interesting moment, right? Where he's like, and don't we all kind of feel like Captain America sometimes? Like we've all been frozen in ice for 80 years and then thawed out and thinking, wow, everything that we believe is 80 years out of date. Jesus, he keeps saying the quiet part out loud. They always do this. There's this great moment, because again, this church fucking hates him. It's so wonderful. He goes, raise your hand if you have some of those weaknesses. And what very obviously happens is nobody in this stone cold church full of morally superior,

fuddy duddies raises their hand. So he's like, Oh, just me guys were supposed to admit that we have flaws. That's not part of the religion. I also, I want to point out that as he's going through the, uh, the Avengers and he's listing all their weaknesses, he completely leaves off Hawkeye because fuck Hawkeye. His weakness is snowplows, by the way. His weakness is that he doesn't have any fucking power. Well, that's yeah. Black, he had black widow on there though. But then he explains he doesn't have any fucking power. Yeah, well, that's black. He had black widow on there, though.

But then, yeah, he explains that we also have weaknesses. And then he starts telling the story. This has nothing to do with any fucking thing. All right. I guess this is him being humbled, right? Oh, God. The story about when he was preaching at the football stadium. No, but this is him being told like full of hubris. This is a humble brag. Right, right.

Exactly. That's the thing is that he's going to tell us this story about when he was humbled by the world and it's going to start off with, yeah, we did a stadium and 16,000 people came out and they were screaming and cheering for me and people wanted to interview me. I'm like, this is you're doing it wrong, man. Yeah. He literally tells a story about getting mistaken by a reporter for a professional athlete. I do not believe that for a goddamn second.

No, nobody ever thought this guy was an athlete. And also that is not a story you tell. A football player. An African-American football player. No, and that is not a story you tell to be humble. That's a story you tell. That's like a Trump level narcissistic thing to say, where everybody goes, I don't think that happened. Right. Yes, exactly. Exactly. He's trying to tell a story about how humble he needs to be. And it's like, so first of all, I want to point out that 16,000 people, he says 16,000 people came out to our football stadium thing. I'm like, that is such a small crowd in a

football stadium. Also, Milt Stegall is black. Yes. Right. Right. And then somebody mistook him for this famous football player. Yes, this famous African-American football player. She's an African-Canadian football player. I don't know. It's still part of America, I guess. But yeah. And so, yeah, his humble story is like I was in a crowd at an event where I was the main speaker and thousands of people were cheering for me. And someone mistook me for an elite athlete.

I sure was humbled. It's like if Kara told us how humble she was because sometimes she drops her Emmy. So and then this ends with a story about a carpet layer smashing a canary to death with a hammer. Yeah, what was that supposed to teach us? No, I don't. He ends every segment with a street joke and every street joke goes worse than the last. So the last street joke was men hate their wives. Classic.

Oh yeah, I left that one out. How did I miss it? This one is murdering the canary and no one even pretends to laugh. It's just like, Well, because it's not funny. It's just weird. It's nothing. There's because it's not funny. Sure ain't. It's just weird. It's nothing. There's no punchline or any.

It's like he took a family circus cartoon and read a description of each panel and was hoping it would kill. And then we move on to our final bullet point, the avenged, where he's gonna give us a verse from Luke because that also came up when he control F'd the word avenge. Yeah, and this is the part of Luke where Jesus explains that he'll get to saving

the world when he gets to it. Yes. Your dad with a shitty stack of wood in the garage. God damn it. Elizabeth, I said I'd get to it. I'll save the earth when I can. So yeah, so he's going to tell us the story now of his recently deceased 99 year old father in law, so he's going to tell us the story now of his recently deceased 99-year-old father-in-law who he had spent presumably like the last 40 fucking years hounding to change religion. 36 years.

This is the hero of the movie. Oh, what's that podcast, Lister? You didn't think you'd get to learn about a real superhero? Oh, we're about to learn about a real superhero who for 36 years looked at his daughter's husband every week and was like, no thanks. The Mega Pastor. This guy is like Canadian Joel Osteen. And every Sunday for 36 years, you can hit two kids with your car and get out of prison earlier than 36 years.

And every Sunday, this mega pastor came to his house with his daughter full of his cum and was like, you sure you don't want to be my religion? And this guy who of course was born and raised in the most Christo centric place on earth was like, no thanks man, I'll see you afterwards for lunch. Not feeling it. I love it so goddamn much. But unfortunately they hounded him a little too long

and on his deathbed, he did accept Jesus or at least that's Pastor Mark's story and he's sticking to it, right? Right. Yeah. Can't prove me wrong. Nobody saw it. Nobody saw it. Yeah.

It's so close to him not converting though. When they go and they're like, they try and convert him when he's like garbling on his own lungs and he's like, no. I was like, oh my God. Oh my God. I'm almost there. Yes. I was like, oh my God, I'm almost there. Yes! Do you guys think it's a little weird that he did an Avengers Bible presentation play the week his dad died?

That's what, like, I don't think he's telling us the truth, but yes. Right. Yes, I was thinking, wow, that really paints a really dark light over all of this doesn't I know Really didn't give a shit about this man. Did you know it's beautiful because they had already rehearsed the musical and then Mark came in Friday before the Sunday right and he was like hey guys, I'm Carol's wife passed away and they were like, oh, okay Are we I I Are we still doing the superhero? Because we have this, we built the set. I don't know that we can...

We can't change the graphics all the way. We promised Carol she could sing a song. She's gonna kill herself. It's what he would have wanted. No, no, we could still do the Avengers musical, which means he turned to his wife and her wife, because she's a Christian, right? And her dad just died.

Yeah. And she's like, are you going to talk about daddy at the service? And he was like, I am, but first. But first. Iron Man is going to sing his parody of Call Me Maybe. And she was like, okay. And now she listens to our podcast.

Yeah, right, right. Hi, Carol. So, yeah, so he tricks us into thinking it's over. But then he's like, nah, I want you to all bow your heads. And that's where Screeching Baby shows up again and goes, no! He's just like, you know, if anybody wants to become Christian, now would be the time. I'm not going to call you forward because, well, that would demonstrate the futility of everything that we're doing here.

It does things! Okay, I have to point out that this is literally a method for several magic tricks. It's like, and okay, how many of you had a red card? Wow, a lot of you! Yeah, but they all need to pray. They all thank Jesus for dying. What was that weird thing where he's like, and Confucius is dead, and Buddha is dead, and Muhammad is dead, and Elvis is dead. But Jesus has risen, and he is the Avenger. Is Jesus, Jesus is dead? I'm pretty sure he's dead.

No, no, no. Is he alive up there? Jesus rose from the dead, and then he rose bodily into heaven. So there's just a living 2000 year old guy up there. Just walking around on a cloud. You've got to wonder, is he the one person in heaven who still needs to shit? Yeah. This raises a lot of questions.

Yeah, no. Because he was made out of flesh. And 2000 years, that'll go bad. Oh, mummy Jesus. Mummy Jesus. Mommy Jesus. Yeah! Like, how many Christians burst through the gates of heaven and are like, I'm so sorry. Can I meet Christ?

And they're like, um, hey, he's actually, and then, no, please, I waited my whole life and I was on my ministry and that, you know, those villagers found me and they beat me to death with rocks. Can I just embrace the Lord? And they're like, okay, here he is. And it's just like, air passing over the fucking husk flash. We tried to get it. It's actually pretty warm up here.

He rotted so fast. Do you want to go see the blowjob fountain? Yeah, he was going to the blowjob. So yeah, so, and he's doing this prayer where he's got everybody like he's doing a call and response and it's terrifying that the people like calling back to him are like literally it's the horror noise and control, right? It's like absolutely terrifying. And then Pastor Tim pops in one one more time and congratulates us on loving Jesus so well. Yep. Yeah, and if you if you took Jesus into your heart, follow us on TikTok.

Alright well Kara, thank you so much for suffering through possibly the weirdest shit we've ever watched. And a quick reminder to check the show notes for links to Kara's other stuff. She does serious stuff too, y'all, and she's really good at that and and then we bring her on to's other stuff. She does serious stuff too, y'all, and she's really good at that. And then we bring her on to do this shit. She's sorry to the furries. Please don't light her city on fire again. And well, that's going to do it for our review of Avengers.

That's not going to do it for the episode just yet because we still need to rise again in seven days. So Eli, tell us what's on deck. A down and out law student sues Satan for $8 trillion. Satan appears to defend himself with seven of the greatest trial lawyers. And the trial of the century begins. We'll be watching, suing the devil. I practically don't believe you, Eli.

Oh yeah, baby. To be treasure. So with that to look forward to, we're going to bring episode 496 to a merciful close. Once again, a huge thanks to Kara for all her help today and perhaps even a huger thanks to all the Patreon donors that helped make the show go. If you'd like to count yourself among their ranks, you can make a per episode donation to patreon.com. com.

And thereby earn early access to an ad for every episode. You can also help attend 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 Scathing A, The Acidation A, The DND Minus and The Skeptocrat available wherever podcasts live. If you have questions, comments or cinematic suggestions, you can can email Goddalf from movies.gmail.com. Tim Robertson takes care of our social media. Our theme song was written and performed by Ryan Slavik, who wrote Drafts on Mars.

All the other music was written and performed by our audio engineer Morgan Clark and was used with permission. Thanks again for giving us a check of your life this week. For Heathen, I'm Neal Ibbosnick. I'm No Illusion's brother. Still work hard to earn another check. Until next week, we'll leave you with the Breakfast Club clothes. I don't know or hair.

Pastor Mark spent all the loonies and toonies in his collection played on Halloween costumes for next year's rendition of The Lord of the Rings. Get it? Because, you know, it's almost certainly actually true. Probably. It probably did happen. Robin went on to lay an egg in the song. These movies get significantly more insane than Crucifying Iron Man. Lord, I cannot tell you how grateful I am to be in your embrace. You sure you don't want to do that a little more Canadian, Eli? Eli, I'm usually very hesitant to give you notes on the air like that, but I'm so glad that I...

Canadian voice added quite a bit. What a quick switch, too. You had that just like waiting. That's how good he is. That's the other thing. I wouldn't ask if I didn't know how good he is. Marlon Brando. First take. I have like 27 of these fucking things.

I just won't let anyone else use them. I won't let anyone else use them. It's so fucking weird. And they're autonomous, so I could just deploy them and stay home. Wait, so wait, is Black Widow actually have superpowers or does she just have finger guns? She's just a lady. Yeah, she's just a lady with a gun in each hand because that's helpful. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. You gotta get that dual wield going.

Yeah. She can do flips. A lot of flips. She does flips. It's crazy. Not in this movie. Death with her thighs. Yeah. A lot. A lot of flips. She does flips. It's crazy. Not in this movie. With her death with her thighs. Yep. A lot.

She does that. A lot. Okay. All right. Factor it. There it is. I love how you said breaking your back chopping. Yeah, no, that's a lot of...

A lot of... Back breaking chopping knives. Back breaking. I use a lot of very, very large knives. He only cooks with axes. And that one sword from Final Fantasy VII. Yeah. That's cool.

This content is canned credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm at their hotline at 617-249-4255 or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and the Thunderstorm LLC copyright 2025, all rights reserved. Nom nom nom nom. So this is shawarma, huh? Yeah, pretty good, right? No. I mean, it's kind of like a hot pocket.