God Awful Movies - 515: Mary: Mother of Jesus

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

This week, Dan and Dan from Data Over Dogma join us for to review Mary: Mother of Jesus, a movie with the same approximate attention to historicity as the Muppet Christmas Carol. --- Hear more from Cool Dan on Thank God I’m Atheist and Data Over Dogma Find more of Smart Dan on Data Over Dogma and his TikTok Channel, or check out his book.  --- 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/

Thermometer Swollen calls for watermelon! Thirst-quenching watermelon smoothies are bursting for another fun-filled summer at Booster Deuce. The watermelon wave and watermelon explosion are back at Booster Deuce all summer long. Download the Booster Rewards app today. dealer or enjoy over 3,000 games to choose from like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz, make instant deposits or same day withdrawals. Download the BenMGM Ontario app today. Visit BenMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to

you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BenMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. to an advisor free of charge. BenMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Well, I was annoyed by how he's kind of like, man, I'm above all that political crap you guys. He was, all right. He was an annoying centrist douchebag. Yes. Yeah. They're all corrupt. It literally was an argument between a Jill Stein voter and a Kamala voter. And then Joseph is just the deciding voice with all the parties are corrupt so I Yes!

refuse to vote. You're gonna both sides the Roman Empire? So, also a Jill Stein voter, got it. God Awful Movie Movie God-awful movies! Welcome back to the GAMCast, where each week we sample another selection from Christian Cinema because fuck happiness. I'm your host, No Illusions, and setting 700 miles to my immediate left is my good friend Heath Enright. Heath, welcome back. Let's get biblical. Oh yeah, sort of. Biblical. And Eli is off this week, but we're excited to welcome in a

pair of guest masochists in his place. You know, GAM guest masochist, Hall of Famer Dan Beecher from Thank God I'm Atheist and Data Over Dogma, which he co-hosts with less experienced guest masochist and biblical scholar Dan McClellan, who you also know from his TikTok and from his new book, The Bible Says So, What We Get Right and Wrong About Scripture's Most Controversial Issues. Dan, Dan, welcome to the show.

I appreciate you putting me first and thank you for having me here, I appreciate it. Hey, you bet, you bet. You're first in the list of Dan and Dan? Yeah. Okay. You can tell by the comma. Yeah. So tell us could tell by the comma.

So tell us, Heath, what will we be breaking down today? We watched Mary, mother of Jesus. It's the story of the greatest. Pedophile ghost story ever. Good news for you. And just to save the confusion, I've noted you guys in the notes as Smart Dan and Cool Dan. We actually had a fight about who was which.

Oh, did you? Well, no, look, I appreciate you finding a good moniker for each of us, but I frankly just don't think Dan is that cool. I mean, I appreciate it. I told Eli, I said I put him down as Smart Dan and cool Dan. So they'd both be like flattered, but also upset. So, but I almost did smart Dan and other Dan to see what would happen. We all know I'm other Dan. Eli said, you fucking coward, you fucking cowards. The muscle in the brains. So cool, Dan, how bad was this movie?

Well, well, if you know me, I'm cool, Dan. Well, if you like spin off movies where a peripheral character gets her own time to shine, but you hate when that character takes an active role in her own life or makes choices or really does anything other than obey men, you will love this movie. Oh, man, I know a lot of people like that. By the way, hey, Dan, great. Well, thank you. Holy shit. Eli himself couldn't have well better than that. Look, I aspire to Eli levels of well. It's just something I work on. There you go. It cracked at just the right time too. Yeah, to be Eli-esque.

And Smart Dan, how, and I'm genuinely curious about this one, how biblically accurate was this movie? Not. There's very little biblical about this movie. Obviously there are characters, there are events that we know from the Bible and from extra biblical history. For instance, we're recreating a lot

based on Josephus' texts, but a lot of the characters and the events are being shuffled around in the service of creating more drama and advancing the narrative. But the overwhelming majority of the narrative, kind of the main outline, is being taken from a second century pseudepigraphical text.

And pseudepigraphical is a $2 word that means false writing, meaning it wasn't written by who it claims to be written by. Oh, like the Bible. Yes, there are a bunch of pseudepigraphy in the Bible. And the text was known as the Protovangelium of James or the Proto Gospel of James. It's also sometimes called the Infancy Gospel of James.

And this is actually where a lot of the traditions that we have about Mary come from. So if you've seen paintings or video or whatever where Mary's riding a donkey down to Bethlehem, that's the Protovangelium of James. What, they didn't even do the donkey. I'm ripped off. I feel ripped off in this movie.

I did too. I was so ready for the donkey the whole fucking time for her to be in her signature outfit She's never in that when she's like an adult at least yeah. I feel like they tried a donkey and it went really badly No notoriously hard to work with the donkey Yeah And there's an idea that is very common that Joseph was an older man, that he had children from a previous marriage. That comes from the proto-gospel of James as well. So you're saying that their main primary resource, they didn't even do most of the things from it. Yes. Because when you're trying to tell a story about Mary the mother of Jesus,

you've got like the Magnificat, you've got the beginning of Matthew and that's it. Sure. And so if you're gonna make up a whole biography, a whole story and you need it to be Netflix level epic, you gotta find some material. And so they went to this for portions of it. The skeleton of this narrative comes from the Proto-Mangelium of James.

But there is obviously a lot that's changed in the movie, but the broad narrative outline is from the second century text, which is not historical at all, and includes some really crazy stuff that you don't see in the movie. For instance, the midwife shows up too late. She has already given birth. And so she checks Mary's vagina to check to see

if the hymen is still intact and God sets her hand on fire. Whoa! Because of that, yes. Holy shit, how did they skip that? Like while checking? Yes, so like she pulls out her hand, fire. And then she has to pray to God to have the fire go out. But where did the fire come from?

Why did they skip all the good things? This movie was so boring. And then she has to pray to God to have the fire go out. But where did the fire come from? Why did they skip all the good things? This movie was so boring, Firehand would have at least spiced things up a little bit. That would have been amazing. Yes, no, I certainly wouldn't have seen that coming, yeah. Is there a like a pseudepigraphical list of bad action beats by any chance

that they were also doing. Yeah, that's the thing. That's the thing is that honestly, I assume that most of this was just coming out of the writer's ass. It's interesting to find out it was coming from any kind of a source. So, all right. So is there anything we want to nominate this one for being the best at being the worst at? Best best hat. Oh my God.

The crazy priest hat. They have serious hat game in ancient Israel apparently. This was such a bizarre part of the movie. I was like, when did we get to Arrakis? This movie references Dune all the time. Like throughout the whole thing there's Dune references everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. It's got a lot of dune.

It's got like one in particular, one of the priests has, I'm going to say a sumo jockstrap made of checks mix. I was thinking it was Berber carpet. It looks like something I would buy for my cats to scratch on or something, right? Yeah. Oh Yeah, no, they and his his was the best hat but like there was a top ten crazy hats in this Oh, man, it gets good a lot of good hat work Oh, man

I think the best worst depiction of Jerusalem at the turn of the era was every everything I saw Like the you know, it opens up in the Judean desert. It's like, that's 100% not the Judean desert. That is the Sahara. These people have never seen the Judean desert. It doesn't look like that. And they got Jerusalem where the temple for some reason is outside of town. Yeah, way outside of town.

Is being built from scratch evidently rather than just being renovated and being expanded which is what actually happened and they they show the fortress that Herod lives in but That fortress was literally connected to the Temple Mount, but they have them like two dunes away More dune references. Yeah, what do you what do you got like a shuttle service from? Yeah, what do you what do you got like a shuttle service from? I'm gonna go with best worst use of an international treasure Uh-huh because this movie has the great

Anthony Hopkins This is two-time best actor Academy Award winner countless other awards over 150 IMDB credits to his name. Hannibal Lecter himself. Yes. Has the great honor of speaking the words written by the inimitable Timothy Michael Hayes. Anthony Hopkins is so mad. It's the best. Oh my God.

He went to the same school as Eli and has fewer IMDB credits than I do. The writer of this film. I am 100% positive they had Anthony Hopkins' grandchild hostage to get him to do this. Because they purposefully torture him and us throughout the entire movie. And I think in retaliation, he acts like a lunatic through most of it. Yeah, it felt like he was mad at the movie after a tiny amount of time on the set.

And so it was either like the grandchild hostage, like you said, or sometimes maybe it felt like a different vibe, like maybe they, I don't know, snuck him a little bit of mushrooms or something, because he was just Crazy fugue state for some stuff too almost the entire time 90% of his monologues are two inanimate objects. It's crazy So and I was gonna go with best-worst

Just being able to sense it. So like 37 times in this fucking movie, somebody will see Mary and go, oh, that's the mother of God right there. I can just tell, I can just tell when I'm around a mother of God. That's how lazily written, what was his name? Timothy Michael Hayes, man of the serum. All right, well, I'll tell you what,

we've kept the audience waiting too long for this one, so we're gonna keep the break brief. When we come back, we'll dive into all the edgier seed action that is Mary, mother of God. Come on thunderclap, come on thunderclap, no? Perfect! Hey there Heath, what's with the uh... outfit? Oh this? Well to be honest Noah, at the last show you showed up looking so snazzy that I got a little jealous. So I figured it was time to up my style game. And this is the result?

Yeah. I figured the wider the lapels, the thinner I look in comparison, right? Oh, those are lapels. Yeah. Yeah. Lapels. What did you think they were? Front wings, maybe, because of how they flap. Flap,els. Yeah. Yeah. The lapels. What did you think they were? Front wings, maybe, because of how they flap. Flap, sure. Yeah. But Heath, if you're looking to up your style game without breaking the bank, you should do what I did and check out Quince.

What's Quince? It's the reason I was getting so many compliments on my style at the Portland Live Show. Quince has the kind of stuff you actually want to wear on repeat, like breathable flow-knit polos, crisp cotton shirts, and comfortable lightweight pants that somehow look good whether you're dressing up or hanging out. I don't know, being fashionable is expensive and I've got a family to think about now.

Yeah, it's true, you do, but no worries. The best thing about Quince is that they cut out the middleman and worked directly with top artisans so they can give you luxury pieces without the markups. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. All right, Noah, I'm sold. Where should I go? Stick to staples that last with elevated essentials from Quince. Go to quince.com slash awful for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.

That's Q U I N C E dot com slash awful to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash awful. Awesome. I guess I won't be needing these lapels anymore. No, so have you checked to see if you can glide with them like in breath of the wild? Oh, no.

Yeah, you should probably double check that before you get rid of them. Yeah, good call. Dan McClellan, come on in. Thank you. Yeah, have a seat. So I loved your book. The Bible says so.

What we get right and wrong about scripture's most controversial issues. Available now at fine retailers everywhere. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. What are you doing? I did love his book. Okay, so as you know, we here at Netflix are committed to cashing in on Jesus. Uh-uh-uh-uh. Sharing the good word of our Lord and Savior or whatever.

So anyway, we're going to do a movie on Mary, and we're running into some issues that we thought only a biblical scholar of your caliber could help us with. Yeah, what kind of problems? The story's boring. It's boring. Boring as hell. Oh my God. I'm sorry, you find the story of the birth of Jesus, the single most significant occurrence in human history, boring?

Yeah, of course. Where's the action? Where are the dance numbers? Where's the sex? You're asking where the sex is in the story of the Virgin Mary. Okay, okay, maybe not sex, but there's gotta be at least a sword fight in there somewhere, right? There you go.

No, there are no sword fights in the nativity. I feel like there's probably at least one sword fight. Not a one, sorry. Okay, all right. Well, what if she were to have to fight a crocodile? Oh nice, or an army of crocodiles. Because they captured the baby Jesus. Oh, she's gotta get him back. Okay, okay. Awesome. So much better than the original story. Okay fine Maybe there's one sword fight. I suppose it's possible They might have been attacked by bandits on the road at some point or something like all right there We go and Joseph could stab Satan in the back with a gladius too far Henry

Maybe not That's really gonna happen in the movie isn't it? Oh, yeah, absolutely Move too far, Henry. Maybe not. That's really going to happen in the movie, isn't it? Oh yeah, absolutely. And we're back to the breakdown and we're going to open up on the world's silliest production logo that aloe logo. I was expecting Vera to come out. Is that the woman walking up the stairs?

Yes. Uh huh. So yeah, so we get our, our production logos and then we see a couple on a horse just hauling it. A title card comes up and tells us that we're in the Sinai Peninsula, AD1. And the problems begin. And then it says, Anno Domini, the year of our Lord. It spells out the year of, like, oh, well, okay, I Domini. Yeah. The year of our Lord. Yes, in case we didn't. It spells out the year of, like, oh, okay, I get it. Yeah, we definitely need to emphasize that. Nobody knew what was going on here. Yeah, it wasn't that at the time.

It was just like a year. They're like, Anno Domini was going to 525 CE, I'm pretty sure. Seems like the Lord, the Domini, would know about zero being a thing. I don't know, I'm just saying. Seems like you'd have the Domine, would know about zero being a thing. I don't know, I'm just saying. Seems like you'd have got that. I love the cartoon with the,

oh, there I go again, signing BC on my checks. Yeah. But we've already got a problem, though. Yes, AD 1 is a good four years after the death of King Herod. Jesus was supposed to have been born during the life of King Herod. Jesus was supposed to have been born during the life of King Herod. And we see what seems to be an infant Jesus

who should be four to six years old by this time. He's really small for four to six, yeah. If the gospels are at all historically accurate, which they are not, but they're just, they're playing fast and loose with their sources here. So it's a problem. What?, they're playing fast and loose with their sources here, so it's a problem. Yeah. What? A Christian movie playing fast and loose?

Never heard of it. Yeah, so Mary cuts in as the narrator. She goes, I was chosen, and I'm like, eh, raped, to deliver a gift to the world. And then she says, you may think that you know my story, but you were just probably relying on the Bible and history and shit. So you are not ready for what you're about to see.

Well, when she said, you may think you know the story, you don't. I was like, uh, that's true because none of the people who actually know this stuff would watch this movie unless they were forced to. Hi Dan. It's a sore spot. It's okay. So we're going to back up 18 years and we're going to meet Mary's dad, Joachim. He's wandering in the Judean, the Saharan desert, I guess. He's wandering in the A desert. They're all the same. Apparently he's doing the 40 day fasting thing because God won't gift him with a child.

Yeah, I want to know how you present that to your wife. Like what's the approach there? Right? Like honey, I'm going to go out into the wilderness for a month or two. Just take care of everything at the house for me while I'm gone. Okay? It's going to be really good for my motility out there. I'm gonna bring my golf clubs, but that's just because I might need them to survive.

For beating off snakes. There'll be a lot of beating off. So yeah, but he cries to God to give him a child and then a voice in the wind goes, he hears you. And we're like, oh, like a subtle, we're going to do a subtle thing here where there's an age. And then just suddenly Gabriel appears looking all weird and half feline and his little blue teleporting scarf. Oh my God. He and he dressed like Ingmar Bergman's death.

Right. My god, he and he dressed like Ingmar Bergman's death Big hood on like and it's yet the flowing robes. I was I thought it was death. I thought sure Yeah, it was gonna die And he's giving like a pretty important message from God here and he's like, hey bud God's giving you a daughter Okay, poof and he's gone again Hey bud, God's given you a daughter. Okay, poof, and he's gone again. And so the joke is like, sorry, sorry, what? And Gabriel has to zoop back again and explain and be like, sorry, so I zooped back.

I should have spelled this out. Your family is gonna be like, in charge of the savior of the universe. Okay, poof again. I liked that it was like, you'll get a daughter and you could just see on his face, he's like, fuck. And he's like, no, a good daughter's like fuck and then I don't know what's going on with whatever's written on his hands right but that was definitely something stolen

from a 1970 sci-fi movie that was it's definitely not Aramaic or Hebrew or anything like that and it looks like it was written with a ballpoint pen like it was it was not it was hastily done whoever did that. He's got a Donald Trump weather forecast going on on his hands. He's got some weird cheek implants or something. I don't know what the hell they were going for there. I just want to point out that as the mother of Mary was walking through the desert, there was only one set of footprints in the sand because no Jesus yet. No, not yet.

Oh. was only one set of footprints in the sand because no Jesus yet. No, not yet. No. Oh. Well, actually there was a tiny little, there were these tiny little zygote prints, but you couldn't see them from where you were. You can't see those, no. So, okay, so, but meanwhile, so I guess Mary's mother,

and she's just been steady praying by a window for the 40 days or whatever that Joachim's been out in the desert, but he's back now. He is back and ready to fuck. First, Gabriel shows up in Ann's bedroom for a second. Oh, that's right, yeah. She smiles a little too much in anticipation of, I think, a sex thing, and she's like,

oh my God, it's like hot Skeletor, what's happening? Yeah. And they're like, no, no, no, cut, cut. And Joaquin's back. Hey, there is only Hot Skeletor, okay? We can all agree. He says, I heard there's a problem with Dinah Cable. Yeah.

I just think that it's so interesting because this is the depiction of the Immaculate Conception, right? The conception of Mary. Yes, the immaculate conception, right, the conception of Mary. Yes, the immaculate conception is not about Jesus's conception, it is Mary's conception. And they found a way to make it all about the man. So I think that's fantastic. Yep, they giggle in each other's arms or whatever,

and he says, our prayers have been answered. And then we cut to, this is such a weird cut. It says, Mary's birth home. Nine months later, we see Joachim helping Anne down onto a stool. And that is it for that scene. But then we immediately cut to Jerusalem. May have been the best scene in the movie. In case you were curious whether or not she occasionally sat down whilst pregnant,

we settled that for you. I mean, it was unlike the rest of the scenes of the movie, mercifully short. No, that's fair. That's my favorite scene. I think that's my favorite. Okay. And also, by the way,

that is not remotely what Nazareth looks like. No? At that new, no, no, no, no, no, no, they get none of the locations, the settings settings right Nazareth would have been a little tiny Hamlet on the side of a hill in Basically a little bowl basically mountains are coming up all around it, and it's just it would have been like five acres of Scattered buildings oh, okay, and so I get frustrated about this kind of stuff You're gonna see okay one of the one of those scattered buildings, though, was definitely a bed,

bath and beyond for everybody to get their clothes. I had to just a lobby at one of those hotels that Eli makes me stay at. Yeah. So but then we so then we immediately we do this super fast cut to this is the title card. They had such verbose titles at the bottom of the screen on this fucking movie. It says Jerusalem, Herod's Judah, 17 BC. And then we pan over like his castle and it looks so like a like a good indie video game would have had better graphics than the panning over this castle.

And why have we why have we gone forward in time and then back in time? It's such One okay, so whatever And this is where the start of my best worst happens because Anthony Hopkins first line is my people which Not exactly friends Romans countrymen. No. You know what I'm saying?

It's a, Hopkins must've really wanted a new boat. Yeah. Right. I genuinely, I was like, is that fucking Anthony Hopkins? For real? I actually Googled hoping it was a lookalike that they had. It's not, it's really him. Yeah. No, he's, he's no, honestly, he must be trying to see

if there is a string of movies bad enough for them to take back the knighthood. Also, history-wise, maybe Dan, you could tell me for sure, I thought Herod came from Arab descent. I know Sir Anthony Hopkins, perhaps also, but I didn't see him exactly right. So he was of Idemian descent. And there was-

Ha, in your face, he! I think that is him. You probably feel so stupid right now. He's obviously Idemian, duh. Sorry, Dan, you were saying? What we all already knew? But the, and they keep saying, oh, he's not even Jewish. The Idemians lived to the south of Judea.

And there was a time when during these wars where you have the Maccabean revolt and all this stuff, where they actually conquer the Idemians and forcibly convert them. So the Idemians become Jewish. So Herod is descended from a people that was forcibly convert them. So the Itamians become Jewish. So Herod is descended from a people that was forcibly converted to Judaism generations before. So he's, some people thought of him as only like half Jewish,

but they don't address that too much in the movie. They just dismiss him as not a Jew. He's Jewish, right, right. Yeah, right, right, yeah. So, okay, so, but he announces at this point that he's going to rebuild and enlarge the second temple. Right. Yes. I love that everybody's mad about this. He basically says, I'm going to do something to honor God, even though people will be mad, which isn't that what God continually tells everyone to do Temples didn't he

What a bad guy he is this guy who's building a bigger temple to the Lord Yeah, so then we get our first of I think something like 26 scenes of like a shit stir standing outside Rousing rabble. Yeah, I'm pretty sure this was the video of Zoran Mamdani from an Andrew Cuomo commercial. Looked very similar. But that's like, yeah, this is where we first get the whole, you know, he's not even Jewish. He doesn't go here. Lying from one of the Herod's enemies. Show me your dick right now. But he explains that they must follow Aristobulus, whose name I practice saying correctly this

morning, Aristobulus. Yes. And there was no Aristobulus who was a high priest in this time period. There was an Aristobulus III, who was appointed by Herod as high priest in 36 BCE, and then drowned a year later by Herod in Jericho at 35 BCE. So there was no Aristobulus who was a high priest in this time period. So this is just one of the things that historians are like, what the hell are they doing? Because they're just toying with stuff.

Cool sounding name, I guess. Okay. Follow up question. Did that Aristobulus have a white sister from Minnesota by any chance with like a thick Minnesota slash trying to do British, which means ancient Israel? If we're going to get into the accent, we we're gonna get into the accents of this movie We already have like a bunch of Americans and then Anthony Hopkins, but it gets much worse later on. Oh, yeah Especially when the dude comes in to warn them about the soldiers coming. Yeah But that's a lot later, but yes the guy from the Washington Heights area of The guy from the Washington Heights area of Jerusalem. But Aristobulus III was the brother of Herod's wife and who's in the movie, Mary Omni.

Oh, okay, yeah. So that is historical, but that is from almost 20 years prior to where they're setting this. And Herod started building the temple in 19 BCE, not 17 BCE. So like the timeline is all screwed up. We're all over the fucking place. They could just get it right if they want. It's like not changing anything. Do you get that right?

That's why Mary is like, you think you know my story? We're making everything up. So, okay. But this is where Minnesota Marianne comes into the synagogue and she's like, Aristotle, you have to go into hiding because there's a Roman heavy beating the crap out of the rabble rouser from the other scene, right?

Did they dress her like Princess Leia on purpose? There was a couple of times, couple of homages. A lot of Princess Leia. It had a very, help me, Aristopulus, you're my only hope to live. To live. To live. So, and this is also where we meet Marcellus. He is the like Anthony Hopkins main henchman throughout.

He'll be the main bad guy. He hentges pretty good. He's a he hentges okay. And I think I assume he's just here so that we can kill off a character that's like not a historical person or not somebody from the Bible who like we from the Bible who like we would have plot armor or whatever. And make sure Eric Adams is our next mayor in New York City. Because he's awesome. So, okay.

So meanwhile, Anthony Hopkins and his wife are sitting at a absurdly comically long table. Okay. I laughed so fucking hard. So they show us the table and it's like, okay, silly, like, royals have big tables. But then they give us a wide shot and it's fucking hilarious. They're so they're both like just out of the frame a little bit, a little bit and just a table. It's so good. They're landing jets on that thing.

Yeah. And just a table. It's so good. Yeah, they're landing jets on that thing. I was like, are you even allowed to do the either side of the extraordinarily long table trope as anything but a joke now? God, it's so tired. Since Bug Bunny, that's joke only for like sliding salt too far or whatever. Yeah, exactly. Also, I'm pretty sure they just recycled a Last Supper set from a different Gam movie. If you just imagine all of the apostles behind it, you know where they got this table. So, okay. So, but then Herod's like, I want to offer a toast to you being a bitch. And he does this whole stupid thing where he's telling her that he's killed her brother. And like,

we have this like inner cut with the brother getting killed. Right. And then he slowly walks over to her all menacingly and like glinting sword out and he's like, okay, you're still not getting it. Yeah, I'm killing you too right now. I'm killing you now. And this was she was so this really happened, well, at least she was killed by Herod,

but this happened around 29 BCE. So several years after her brother was killed by Herod and several years before any historical Mary would have been in utero. So again, they're just mushing it all up together. Gotcha. And there are traditions that say that he killed her in kind of a fit of jealous rage. He was paranoid because she was descended from the Hasmoneans.

That's the dynasty that was the part of the Maccabean revolt. And so her family was very, very popular. And so he was afraid that she would be able to raise opposition to him. So killed her, immediately regretted it. And then some traditions describe him trying to embalm her body in honey or something like that and preserving her body for several years. Why would they leave that out of the movie? Well here's the thing, I was horrified that they had not because later on she's gonna be

sitting at the table again and you don't see, she's not in focus, but Anthony Hopkins is clearly talking to her. And I was like, please do not let that be her corpse. Oh, the honey corpse. Yeah, but no, she just vanished. Yeah, right. Because it was him descending into madness, yes. Can I just say, ladies and gentlemen, listening at home,

Dan is gonna be clearly doing this throughout the entire thing. So I'm sure Noah and gentlemen, listening at home, Dan is going to be clearly doing this throughout the entire thing. So I'm sure Noah's going to cut most of it out. So if you want the four hour extended cut version, you have to become a patron of the show. We learned about a long feud between the has been Ian's and the it was like the whole It never was Ian's. It was like the whole thing. Robdingnagian. Get it right. So, okay. So then, so now we cut to Mary being born, right? Sure. And her mom looks at her after she's born and she's like, be strong. You've got a whole

movie to get through. You know, a lot of long time and very strange cinematography was spent on this delivery, which why do I always have to watch shows that pad for time when I come on this show? Well, because all Christian movies pad for time, man. There's just no other way to do it. Yeah, it's true. It's true. So yeah, so we get her being born. Can we do just like a Christian haiku one week or something?

One of the veggie tales, certainly. Those are what 20 minutes? Yeah, there you go. There you go. People have asked us for a lot of times why we don't do veggie tales. They're too good. That's the problem. So, okay, so now we've got Joe Akeem. He's overseeing the olive harvest. It's several years later. Mary's like 12 years

old or whatever. She's chasing butterflies. Yeah. Cause you know, of the innocence. Yeah. And, and, and because if you don't have, they were worried about running out of movie cliches. If they didn't, you know, kids chasing butterflies while their parents call to them to set up the fact that this is an idyllic life that won't last. Yeah. Also, they seem to think we wouldn't get that Mary is a good character in this. Right.

So they're like, they have her chase the butterfly and then she's like a butterfly whisperer. Yeah, yeah. They all come to her and flit around beautifully. Well, cause butterflies know the mother of God when they see one. Oh, okay. I wanted other animals,

like I wanted not attractive animals to also flock to her there. But no, it's only like the fun, beautiful thing. There's just a warthog who's just like, oh, she's great. Come to me, my spider friends. Okay, that's bees. It's a lot of bees now. So then we cut to Herod and Marcellus who have were 12 years later.

They have aged remarkably well over those 10 years. Right. Sure. Yeah. And Anthony Hopkins literally starts this scene with like, Lou, Lou, Lou, doing genocide Herod stuff. Genocide Herod stuff is my favorite stuff. Yeah, Marcellus is telling them that there's a lot of discontent these days. He says, you know, the Pharisees want you to take, to strike against the Hill Raiders.

He goes, Hill Raiders, huh? He's like, in case we need an action beat later. And then this lady, I don't know who this lady is supposed to be the sitting there as well, but she goes, there are also rumors of a savior. Yeah. Hey, Dan. Yes. Were there rumors of a savior before Mary was even pregnant? Oh gosh. For how many centuries?

Because it seems like it wouldn't have been that localized. But I don't know. Well, you have the Messiah stuff really is in vogue after Herod's death when Rome takes over because the direct rule of Rome is a lot more oppressive. And so you have a lot of folks who are trying to fight against that. And then you have a lot of folks who are trying to fight against that. And then you get these folks who pop up out of nowhere

and develop followings and then get brutally massacred by Rome. It was certainly there was discontent with Herod. And you had a lot of folks who the zealots, for instance, the Sicari were the group that would go around and target people for assassination. But there were talks of messiahs for many centuries going back to the Babylonian exile. So this was not something that was incredibly unusual, but it's also not something that had

anything to do with Jesus. So what you're saying is a Messiah is another thing that they stole from Dune in this. Get your own fucking shit guys. Okay. So, but yeah, she's like, there's a savior coming in and Anthony Hopkins is like, wait a minute, tell me about this savior. And he's a little suspicious. He also like stops to tell us that he's going to kill her husband because Stavros. Yes. He words it so great.

He's like, Hey, would it be terrible? You don't know. You don't. You wouldn't. You wouldn't be like, would it be like, does he need to finish the porch or anything before I just give me a sense of like one to 10? How bad would it be for you if I just go and kill your husband? Is that cool? And she's like, oh, that makes it so much easier. Yeah. God. And so this was a, this was also a real character. Costoborus was executed around 27 to 25 BCE because he protected an enemy of Herod's. But the thing that annoyed me about this movie is every time Anthony Hopkins was on screen,

it was like the director was like, remember your pure evil, go! Yes! Everything is just trying to paint them as just the epitome of evil. Like there's no nuance here. It's just these are good guys, these are bad guys. Yeah, sometimes he murders a bunch of babies, but sometimes he also played with the dogs. People come on. Did he murder a bunch of babies? Because we'll get to it. Oh gosh. He maybe didn't. What we're saying is that Netflix chicken the fuck out is what we're saying. Yeah. They were like, mate, what if he just brought them all to his palace for him to look at? Just kidnap him. A little mild kidnapping. That's fine.

Oh, we'll get there. Also, in terms of that rumor, that means like if there's a rumor just in town at this moment, that means like Joakim and Anne are walking around town being like, oh, nice, nice finger painting your kid made. Our daughter's going to birth the savior of humanity. Yeah. And people know that. Be our grandkid. And I want to know who did Gabriel visits to start spreading this rumor. Right. Because the rumor had to come from somewhere. It's not like somebody was just struck by Mary's je ne sais quoi and was like... Right. It's Joachim, it's Anne, or it's Gabriel.

Yeah, those are the three suspects. Yeah, speaking of which, so we cut to Ann and she's making a foreskin kebab. I don't know what the fuck she was doing. She's making something. They look to me like figs, like dried figs. Okay. That had been squished. All right, I've never squished a dried fig,

so I'll take your word for it. But you have kebabed foreskin in your day. You know what, we each do our own thing. Dan, I don't think this is really the appropriate venue to talk about it. So but suddenly Gabriel Batman's his way into the room, right. And gives her that knowing look. Yeah. So we cut back to Mary. She's racing dad home from the harvest giggly in her innocence.

And then she's like, hey, guys, that teleporting feline human angel hybrid stopped by today. So yeah, I like that as they were, you know, when, when Mary, as the young girl is running home, she races her dad home or whatever. And he says, she's very fast. And I was like, Oh good. I was worried that in a movie about a very important woman, we wouldn't learn anything substantive about her except what important men

she was in proximity to. Right, right, no, but she's fast. We got speed. Well, what's weird about this to me is that they set that up twice, right, because the little kid, Noam, her little friend, also talks about how fast she is, and I'm like, okay, well they're sloppily setting this up. She's going to have to run from the bad guys later or whatever.

But she does never comes up. No, it's just nothing. So all right. But so Mary's dad takes her up to the top of a scenic hill to give her the talk. OK, the talk being a teleporting angel guy made me pinky swear to give you to God when you were 12 years old. OK, Mary, how do I explain this? Um, so yeah, birds, bees, uh, you gotta fuck a ghost.

Uh, that's pretty much it. That's the talk, right? What's funny is she says, he says, I made a promise in exchange for your birth. And she starts crying. She was positive that he was going to sell her into sex slavery. Right? Yeah. Like that's a hundred percent what she was thinking. She was positive that he was going to sell her into sex slavery, right? Like that's 100% what she was thinking. Now here's the other problem with this.

This is in the Protoevangelium of James, the proto gospel, the idea that she was, because like she spends most of the rest of the time prior to giving birth to Jesus in the temple. That's not in the Bible. That's entirely in the proto gospel of James, but she's presented at the temple when she's three. Oh. And yes. So they were like, we'll just change it. Nobody cares. Yeah, I feel like that's probably

because otherwise there'd be a five-year-old scrubbing force in the temple. You'd be like, alright, that's awkward. We're doing like three-year-old Hogwarts now. It looks weird. You got to just change. Yeah. And this is where, like I've already, I'm already incensed about the settings of this movie, but then they bring her to a rachis with a lady with a, with a giant, a three foot potato chip on her head.

I love that. I'm glad that you saw it too, because it too because I have her in my notes as the Bene Gesserit for the rest of the note. She's absolutely the Bene Gesserit, yes. And when they had the guys with the different styled ribbons on their head, I was just flashing back to Kramer not wanting to wear the ribbon. And that guy goes, who? Who doesn't want to wear the ribbon, miss? Those three guys obviously were okay wearing the ribbon. And that guy goes, who? Who doesn't want to wear the ribbon?

Those three guys obviously were OK wearing the ribbon. Yeah, they were clearly. Here's what I hate. I hate that I'm not. I don't know history well enough because we see them on the road to the temple. And I hate that I don't know history well enough to know if that horse drawn surrey with the fringe on top is anachronistic or not. A little stage coach? It feels anachronistic.

I don't know. Profoundly anachronistic. Who's a fucking stage coach? I believe those started with the 1600s, 1700s or some shit. And also the temple is always outside of town again. I don't know why. The temple should have been right next to Herod's Palace, but I don't know who was in charge of set design, but I suppose I could look it up.

Don't bother. Boo. Get some 15 minute cities going. Come on. Yeah. It's real fucking communist. So this was also sort of as a personal one for me, that was a little bit weird because her mom's name is Anne and then the old, the Betty Jesoret lady, her name is Anna. And I'm like, man, if her next maternal figure is named Lucinda, that's going to start freaking me out a little bit. It's going to be a little weird at that point. So yeah. So, but then, oh, also like as she's walking through the temple, we see a lamb being

slaughtered, foreshadowing anyone, nailed it. And then they have this awkward scene where the priest questions her and they're very clearly they're trying to like evoke the like Gom Jabbar moment from Dune here. But he's just like, is she the vessel? And they're like. Uh, yes, yes. Yep. Or did the womb did the womb Jabbar vibes check?

Literally everybody seems to know exactly what's happening here, which just like How why why would does everybody know what's going on here? And also once again our protagonist is literally just a vessel. She has nothing going on herself right and Yeah, the you expect somebody to be the Lisanne Algaïb. Yeah. But at any moment.

Yeah. Well, and also I want to point out, because of course, this movie retcons Mary's age, right? We're very clear. Oh, this was 18 years ago. Oh, she was 12, six years, you know, all of this. So they're taking out the awkward part of her, you know, got impregnating or when she's a teenager and everything, or when she's 14 years old or whatever. all of this, so they're taking out the awkward part of her, you know, God impregnating her when she's a teenager and everything,

or when she's 14 years old or whatever, but now they've just made him into a groomer, right? Because they're like, she's been clearly like marked out since birth, which I don't know that they've fixed it, is all I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. I also love that they go and they drop off this kid. I will say this, always a safe bet to leave your children

unattended with the spiritual leader of the village. Oh yeah, how could that go wrong? That's never gone wrong in the history of anything. So, okay, so now we do another time jump and we finally get the final actor that is going to play Mary, right? We get like the adult Mary. She's washing floors

at the temple. She's doing embroidery. She's being without sin. Yeah. Because when you're, when you're running a temple and you have the future mother of the savior of all humanity hanging out, child labor, right? That's what you do with her. Well, you might as well get your floors washed out of the deal. Yes. But okay. So here's the thing that, that fucked with me on this, right? Literally the one thing that you absolutely had to do with this character to keep, you know, stay in keeping with the mythology is you had to make her without sin. So the first thing we see her do is lie to a priest about her indolence making her skip

prayer and then talk back to the priest after he calls her out on it. Yeah. I don't think that's very merry full of her. Is it? Well, you know, the idea of the old, the old misfit novitiate nun, it's, it's the classic, how do you solve a problem like Maria? I didn't want to get too Catholic about this. I think. Yeah, right.

There you go. So yeah, so when she talks back to priest chuckle, so we know it's all right. She's just charming and so on. Good thing you're pretty. Yeah. Oh God. Also, who are all these other girls there? Like, were there girls schools in the temples, Dan?

I don't know. Like, were these the other candidates for Mother of God? Like, is this like that scene in The Matrix where there are all the potential, the ones? The only thing I can assume is that there, because the temple would have been a place where the orphans would have ended up, and they probably would have been put to work.

So there probably was some kind of childcare institution of some kind going on there. But yeah, this is a little too, yeah, Handmaid's Tale for me. Very sure. Where they're showing up to, for these weird prayers and showing up to class or something like that. Yeah, it was a little weird.

But it felt like they were setting up some sort of like bracket tournament for mother Mary is way ahead. She's so she can like skip class sometimes. Right. Right. She's a one seed for sure. Yeah.

So there's also this point where like after class they're all walking along in this incredibly the hand mailed and like they don't have their heads covered. And I think that's only because it would have looked too handmade's tail if they did. Right. Oh, you know, they tried it. Yep. They shot it and they were like, oh, no, that's Gilead. We're in Gilead now. But she sees a beggar right on the streets. So that day after she's done eating, she looks around and she's like, hey,

are you going to finish that to a bunch of the girls around her? And she gathers food for the beggar. I just I want to point out she finished her own food. Right. She didn't give any of her food for the beggar. I just I want to point out she finished her own food. Right. She didn't give any of her food to the beggar. She just waited and saw whatever one of their girls didn't like that meal. That she's eventually with child Noah. She's eventually eating for two. That's called entrepreneurship, Noah.

Obviously, obviously making the most of it. Yeah, it's like putting on the mask first in the airplane before you help. Right. Yeah, it's important. So, yeah, but she goes out and feeds bread to all the beggars so that we know what a good person she is and everything. And then we so she's walking along when suddenly some creeper starts creeping at her. Right. And it plays like a proving scene, right? Like she's going to have to show off her kung fu skills at this point.

But no, this is Satan. He's come to pre-corrupt her, I guess. Ha ha ha. Point of order. This is Lucifer. Oh gosh. Dan, you want to go into Lucifer v. Satan? Because they're not the same person!

Oh, okay. Yeah, Lucifer's. Satan? Because they're not the same person. Oh, okay. Yeah, Lucifer's not identified as Satan until well after the Bible, but that's a long story. But the flies here, somebody noted that you get the buzzing of the fly in a bunch of places. And this is very clearly referencing the name Beelzebub, which is, again, a name that's not really associated with Satan until the New Testament, but Beelzebub would which is again a name that's not really associated with Satan until the New

Testament. But Beelzebub would mean Lord of Flies. And it is an editorialization of the Northwest Semitic Storm deity whose name was Baal. But sometimes they were referred to as Zebulbaal, which just means Prince Baal and Baal means Lord. So Prince Lord. And they're like, nah, we'll call you Prince of Flies. Balsable. Okay. So anytime you want to be like Beelzebub is near, you just have a little flag up. And that happens a dozen times in the movie. It really does. They really lean the fuck into that, don't they? I want there to be more entomological identifications of characters.

We got butterflies for Mary. I do like that. Yes. Yes, right? Flies for Lucifer. of characters. We got butterflies for Mary. I do like that. Yes. Yes, right? Flies for Lucifer. I think everybody gets their own bug. Why are we not doing this? No, right, right. Lean in, baby. The caterpillar. You got a lamb too. So there are mammals involved as well. Sure, sure.

I got an actual fly in my room while I was watching this and it freaked me out a little bit. It was Jeff Goldblum. So but yeah, but so he's trying to tempt her. He's like, do you think Herod is like the best? And she's like, no, God is the best. And he's like, gotcha. But then out of the darkness, a voice yells Lucifer. And I laughed until it fucking hurt.

Gabriel shows up and I'm like, karate fight! But no. No. It's pretty good. They don't do any kind of fight at all. They do like magic versus magic. So we just see both of them with their faces getting red being like magic magic magic. And then they both zoop away. They do the weird camera shutters that are also a reference to Dune. They do these weird things where it's like, brrrr, and the visual goes a little squiggledy. And like literally, everybody on set of this movie watched Dune right before they did literally anything. I think you're right. So okay, so then we get King Herod's procession

coming into town. He's come to put an eagle on the temple and the people of Jerusalem are looking at it like it's truck nuts, right? Okay, I laughed a lot at this giant eagle too because herod's it's supposed to be like a big like hail Caesar I don't know some big Impactful moment hoisting this thing up and he's got his soldiers carrying this huge metal bird And then they cut to like a close-up of the soldiers having so much trouble putting up Yeah, the best was like clearly the prop was too heavy. Yeah, right or either that or somebody was way over doing I just like that. They went with the Portlandia put a bird on it. I just like that they went with the Portlandia put a bird on it. I just think that's cute.

So yeah, so he tells the people we're going to put a bird on your temple and the people are like, I don't know about that. And so then the high priest that that questioned Mary earlier, he comes out. Do you mean Baba Ben Buddha? Baba Ben Buddha. His name is not silly. Yeah, nope, not at all. Baba Ben Buddha comes out and Baba Ben Buddha is like, hey, maybe, you know,

it'd be another great place for your ego would be out anywhere else than than that. And Anthony Hopkins is like, I'm glad you're here because I have prepared a porcupine stabby crown and it would be super fucking awkward if I had to send for you. This wakes up way cooler. Right. I just can I just reel it back just quickly and just point out that Herod in the scene was dressed in this ridiculous thick gold robe and a dumb ugly crown and clearly even Anthony Hopkins realized it because as soon as he's done addressing the crowd he just takes them both off and throws them on the ground.

He's like, too fucking hot out here for me to wear this. I'm just gonna fucking Burger King, I'm Anthony Hopkins assholes. And this is something that actually is supposed to have happened in real life. Josephus, a historian, talks about this. It's something that would have happened toward the end of his life,

around the time of the birth of Jesus, where he puts this Roman eagle on the temple and everybody's outraged. But Baba Van Buddha was not involved because he had been dead for like 20 years by this time. Quit ruining the movie, Dan! They're ruining the history. Neil deGrasse Tyson-ing our movie here.

He's dead. But honestly, I think that the reason that they resurrected this character is because Anthony Hopkins put in his writer, I get to say Baba Bambuda 11 times in a fucking row at some point in your movie, and they're like, well, we gotta write around it, guys. Yeah, and then he says it like 42 times in the movie, and they're like, yeah, all right,

we can't really do anything once. Sorry Anthony Hopkins. I feel like he was just unraveling on the set. Yes! I guarantee the script did not have him screaming, Baba Vem Buddha, Baba Vem Buddha, over and over. He just thought everything was so stupid he started incoherent yelling and they were like, it's Anthony Hopkins, he must be doing genius stuff. Leave it in.

This might be the first microdose of the mushrooms on the set that he sn it's Anthony Hopkins. He must be doing genius stuff. This might be the first micro dose of the mushrooms on the set. Anthony Hopkins, peanut butter or whatever. That is a macro dose, my friend. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, if we don't give them a break soon, Anthony Hopkins is going to start throwing poop around. So we're going to pause there, but we'll be back in a minute with even more of Mary, mother of Jesus.

Hey Noah, have you seen my kebab skewers? Like my good ones? Those aren't your good ones? Yeah, I need the extra long ones. Okay, so normally I'd ask why at this point but I think I got this one. Oh, okay. Based on that pile of wax on the floor, I'm assuming your cheesed based subscriptions are getting out of hand and you're putting your empty babybel waxes on sticks to keep track of them.

Well, yeah, yeah, I was doing that, but now I'm moving to an abacus to keep up so I need the long ones. Yeah, yeah, that tracks. But Heath, why don't you just try rocket money? What's Rocket Money? It's a great way to not do what you're doing now. See, a lot of people aren't aware of how much they spend each month. And it's not just cheese with most people. Do you know how many subscriptions you pay for? What about how much you spend on takeout or delivery?

It's probably more than you think. But that's what Rocket Money is for. It's a personal finance app designed to help you manage your money better. Okay. How does it work? Rocket Money helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so that you can grow your savings. It shows you all your expenses in one place, including subscriptions that you forgot about. And if you see a subscription that you no longer want, Rocket Money will help you cancel it. All right. Are a lot of people using it and saving money Indeed they are rocket money's five million members have saved a total of five hundred million dollars and cancelled subscriptions with members saving up to

$740 a year when they use all the apps premium features. You know what I'm sold. Where do I sign up? Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to rocketmoney.com slash awful movies today. That's rocketmoney.com slash awful movies. Rocketmoney.com slash awful movies. Great. Thanks. No problem. So I guess you can throw out all that empty wax, huh?

Actually I'm probably going to keep it. Maybe for an art project because I have all the colors, right? Wait, you have the green? The vegan one? No, no, gross. I melt the yellow and blue and I make my own. Oh, okay, yeah. Well, hello there, Mary.

Who are you, and how do you know my name? Oh, I know a lot about you, Mary. I know, for example, that you carry a great burden. Oh, everybody knows that. They can see me carry the water up from the river through the gardens every morning. No, no, no, no, not that burden. I mean a burden that you carry inside of you.

Oh. Oh, oh, that is actually a friend's Egg vibrator. I'm just holding on to what that fucking gross. No, no, no I mean the spiritual burden that you carry and I want you to know that there's a way That you can actually lose her Stop Oh, uh, hey. Hey, gabe. Um, what's that you can actually... Lucifer! Stop! Oh, uh, hey.

Hey, Gabe. Um, what's... Are you stationed over here now? Tempt not the vessel that God has marked out, for his mighty hand is upon her. Right, right. No, I wasn't doing that. I was just, like, making conversation. No, you weren't. You were trying to tempt her.

I saw you. No, I wasn't. Yes, you were. Hey, hey, you stay out of this! What seeketh thou, my fallen brother? She is still but the vessel. Would you corrupt the wine by defacing its urn? Would I corrupt it?

Can you just like talk normal? Ugh, okay, fine. Plain English. What the fuck is your plan here? She's not even pregnant yet. Right, yeah. I just thought that maybe if I like corrupted her... What?

Like... You thought that Jesus would come pre-corrupted then? Well, or I thought maybe I could corrupt the like... I don't know, the egg? Can you corrupt an egg? The egg? would come pre-corrupted then? Well, or I thought maybe I could corrupt the like, I don't know, the egg? Can you corrupt an egg? The egg? Are you serious?

Okay, yeah, no, it sounds silly when I say it out loud, I hear it. Yeah, you should go. I'm going, I'm going, sorry. Hey, Mary, really sorry to bother you. I'll be back when it makes like more sense. Sure. Oh, you meant the godbaby burden.

Yes, of course I meant the god baby. And we're back for more of this shit. We're going to rejoin the action with Mary tending Baba Bambuda's wounds, right? She's giving a little pep talk. She's like, hey, you know what else doesn't have any eyes in it? The word team, which is what we are now. Team. So she takes care of him, she walks off, and Marcellus accosts her. We didn't mention it before the break, but when Herod was addressing the crowd, he had a moment where he like stared at Mary,

and he knows a mother of God when he sees one, right? So it was a little weird flash for him. Was that it? Or, cause I feel like that was, he just slipped back into Hannibal Lecter and was like licking his chops. Like he was going to eat the shit out of it. Get a taste for some father beans.

Yeah, it felt like the film crew was just falling around Anthony Hopkins like David Attenborough. When he's staring at a girl, I bet he's doing it brilliantly. Yeah. But Marcellus wants to know what like weird Jewish spell she put on him or what, right? Didn't he say you threatened the king or something like that? And it's like, you got all of that from Anthony Hopkins pausing for a few seconds while looking at her.

I didn't understand how he interpreted all that as threats. Yeah. I didn't understand how he interpreted all that as threats. Yeah, but just as he's about to stab her in the face for being stared at by Anthony Hopkins, Anna shows up and she's like, uh, no face stabbing in this wing. And he's like, okay. No face stabbing. Benny Jesrit, I mean, let's be doing. She used the voice. Is that what it was?

Yeah. I don't want to go to the pain hole. She used the voice. Is that what it was? I don't want to go to the pain hole. But he vows, he says, I will stop. I will find out and stop whatever Jewish magic that you're using against Herod. Yeah. So now we obviously need ourselves a fucking Joseph. We've already taken the first break, right? So we cut to a construction site

where Some fucking rabble rouser is rousing rabble again. There's nobody ever talk about the weather in this universe Yeah, he just comes in hot like hey buddy hump day. I'm all right. We're plotting a revolution And I'm trying to figure out which one of these guys is Joseph you think it's gonna be the cutest guy But he's the one stirring up shit, so it's definitely not gonna be him right. I just think yeah a Joseph very famously I think we can all agree is a carpenter So why he is chiseling rocks for a Roman aqueduct. I do not understand well now He's like he's like sulkily making a knot in this moment,

like a Boy Scout practice thing or something. So Carpenter is actually not the best translation, probably something like Craftsperson or Handyman or something like that is a better rendering of Tecton. You're saying this movie got one right? No, I'm not saying that. How dare you. He's like, I am not on the record saying that.

Don't let this get out. But a lot of people think he would have been a stone mason because in this time and place there was not a ton of wood around to be used for carpentry. Building mostly took place with like mud, brick and stone. So it's likely he was just a handyman, just a jack of all trades. All right. Worked in whatever materials they had.

Can he come to my house? My oven's broken. Mary's just into my rice. Working. Well, I was annoyed by how he's kind of like, man, I'm above all that political crap you guys. He was the right. He was an annoying centrist douchebag. Yes. Yeah. They're all corrupt. It literally was an argument between a Jill Stein voter and a Kamala voter. And then Joseph is just the deciding voice with all the parties are corrupt. So I refuse to vote. You're going to both sides the Roman Empire. Also a Jill

Stein voter. Got it. I just like, I like that they're complaining about Roman taxes. Dude, where do you think your salary is coming from while you build that aqua dock? Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. And this is also just something that's going on in the background. Like you have these two are like muttering over Rome and then you have the one guy who's working in Nazareth for Joachim, who's just like, are

you going to let this happen? Don't you know? And then he turns him in because his daughter got pregnant before she got married or something like that. So that never pays off. The whole background of are we for or against the revolution never really pays off. We're the people's front of Judea. It's the Judean people's front.

You splitter. So, but yeah, but that's the thing. It's literally the only thing anybody ever talks about, and it never goes anywhere. OK, so now we get Joseph. He's he's hunting ducks with a sling. Mary's out doing her river wash, right? And he's about to like kill this duck when Gabriel appears in the way. And I wrote in my fucking notes, it would be hilarious if

he's just like, Hey, angel guy, could you get out of the way of my duck? But then he does. He does exactly that. He's like, can you nudge a little over? I got a little little left. I'm trying to sling a duck here. He's like, you're not going to believe this, but this duck is going to have duck Jesus. So I have to watch out for him. Phil Robertson walks up. Hey, I got the perfect thing. Can we just point out also that Gabriel at no time is comforting or like makes you feel safe or he is the creepiest

dude ever. Like he is no less creepy than the guy that they have playing Satan. Absolutely agree. He's the creepy guy in a movie where Anthony Hopkins is trying to be creepy. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. But then he's like, Hey, can you get, let me get the duck and he's like, no, the hunting is better around the bend. And he's like, I've got, but the duck is right. Fucking there. How bad are you lying? I can see. Have you ever had either duck because it is delicious. Oh, sure. Full fatty. So, but then he sees Mary just being beautiful. She's like standing there with a scarf

as though she's experiencing wind for the first time. Yeah. And the notion that this little girl would be on the side of the river in like an all yellow ensemble. Yes, right. With this lacy scarf is like, how wealthy do they want us

to think this family is? This is not how people got along back then. I don't think like today if you were going down to the river to do your wash, you wouldn't wear your yellows. Yeah. But yeah. I feel like it'd be a lot of earth tones.

They're working with a lot of bright like pastels with fancy dyes. Bed Bath and Beyond is what they're working with. And from across the river, this guy sees a girl pastels with ya see dies bed bath and beyond is what they're working and from across the river this guy sees a girl probably a teenager playing with her scarf in the wind so potentially developmentally disabled possibly and he just goes hey what's your name and jumps into the river I have sex with you a lot hey hey I think you're real cute what you want to do some with you a lot. Hey, hey, I think you're real cute.

What do you want to do? I got a duck sling. Okay. Are we just like making fun of each other now on the show? I thought, yeah, her weird scarf flows away into the water and Joseph immediately is like, I'm going to get it. I'm going to get it for you. And it was like genuinely felt attack.

I was like, this embodies my entire middle school and high school experience in 30 seconds of movement. Right, because he starts swimming across the river, she just fishes it out with a stick and she's like, you fucking idiot. And I wrote in my notes, aw, Heath, man, that's rough. I could have gotten for you though. She's gone.

When they come for you like. She's gone. What's your name? No, she's further away. Well, I don't know why I tried that. Well, yeah, what's your name? Now she's further away. Well, I don't know why I tried that. Well, yeah, he demands her name, but all she gives him is she says, I'm the daughter of Joachim of Nazareth. Right. Yeah.

I want to answer. What's your name with my dad's name from now on? So speaking of her dad, we go back to the olive orchard where the rabble rousers are out rousing rabble. I guess first century B.C.E. Jerusalem was basically fucking Russia in the 1910s. I don't know. But this is where we meet the NARC guy who comes up to Joe Kim and he's like, hey, man,

you need to stomp out this rebellion that's happening, you know, that's being promoted on your olive orchard. And Joe Kim's like, yeah, but you know, fuck Herod, right? There's a prophecy about a savior like nothing matters. There's no stakes, buddy. We're fine. Yeah, it doesn't matter. I get the sense of the movie like feels obligated to comment on class struggle, but is also

kind of like the freshmen who is like, gotta write an essay on this but doesn't really care And doesn't isn't about to do any research. They don't feel strongly about this at all, but they're like I gotta put it in there Yeah, well and also they don't want to risk being woke Right like I don't want to be too like yeah, right You know by the way I spent so much fucking time trying to figure out how to write an all Romans are bastards joke that didn't just come out as the word Arab. So, so many jokes. All right. So, okay. We're back in the temple. Marriott stirring a pot and chopping veggies that we get. This is my favorite scene in the whole fucking movie, right? Because Mary is trying to find a delicate way of asking

Anna what she does for dick. Right? Absolutely. That's what's happening. Yeah. I just like that. Anna says, I haven't left the temple in 47 years. Herod literally just built this temple. We saw it. We saw it happen.

In the flashback. But Mary's lobbying hard for this, like, rum spring, as best she can. She's like, hey, listen, Betty Jesire, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna birth a savior, I think you know about the magic too. Can I get like, I don't know, like a gap year before that? I wanna do stuff. It took a long time to get to this pivot in the narrative,

because it's like, Mary, the mother of Jesus, what happens, she gives birth to Jesus, and it's like Mary, the mother of Jesus, what happens? She gives birth to Jesus. And it's like, I kept thinking of the scene from a mystery science theater 3000 movie, the touch of Satan, where the guy's like, well, I suppose this plot's not going to unfold itself. Finally, something is happening in this movie that is, is not just somebody creeping. Yeah. She's like, Hey, you know, I bet I could probably do more good if I went out there where all the penises are. Anyway, so then we cut to Joseph. He shows up at Mary's dad's house asking

if he can marry her. Right. And dad gets all shotgun in the background of the prom photo about it. Point of order. He doesn't just show up and ask if he can marry her. He literally doesn't introduce himself at all. He just knocks on the door and goes, Hey, can I have your daughter? What a fucker. I mean, it's, it's idiotic, but ballsy. I'll give him that. Hey, it works. It totally works. So what do we do? Yeah. And he didn't know her name and he gets Joaquin to say it.

He's like, oh, you want to marry Mary? And he's like, Mary, ha, tricked you. Now I know her name. Literally, literally. Not a great start, man. You're trying to get this, you know, okay here from dad. Also, Dan, wouldn't that have, wouldn't the opening gambit here be a monetary offer? Isn't that how this worked back then? Oh, that absolutely was a part of it. There was a bride price that would have been paid in exchange because they're basically

purchasing the procreative capacities and the sexual availability of another man's daughter. Wow. Why wouldn't Netflix have left that part in, you think? I'm a craftsman. I brought you this sheep shank Is this helpful and I love how the the writers are just punting to Gabriel for everything. Yes, like this is how are we gonna get them to accept this? Who cares blue angel? I saw a guy in a blue robe and mom goes a blue robe

But I'm like a lot of people have blue robes At least ask if he had anything weird about his knuckles. Yeah. Right. Or his cheeks. Was he creepy as hell? Yeah. Something. It's technically not deus ex machina. It's an angel of deus ex machina. Don't be an animal. This is good writing. So we cut to Mary. Mom shows up at the temple and she's like, Hey, good news. You're getting married. But Mary, who is, I guess, fresh from the 20th century is like, what you're selling me off like a prize steed. And she's like, do the bride.

That's how marriage works. Yeah, exactly. That's what it is. Yeah. Whoever wrote this scene has definitely never read the Bible because it's very clear about how marriage works. Oh, she's like, yeah, no, we didn't even get money, but Hey, you're upset. You haven't seen how fuckable this guy is. She says he's serious and very handsome. Serious. Yeah.

What all I've seen is a dopey 20 something goofball who sees a pretty girl and jumps in a river. Like literally, he has all the seriousness of a golden retriever. And he's like, he's like Pete Davidson handsome. So like, yeah, right. At best. Movie star, typical handsome. Although I, you know, credit to Pete Davidson. Yeah, sure.

He's making it work. So, and then we cut to their, I guess this is like their pre-marriage. So back then you would have had a atroval ceremony and then like as much as a year later, you would have had the consummation of the actual marriage. So, so this is standard. Now it did not take place in front of the, the nitrecerate.

It did not take place with the ribbon hats and the big potato chips. Does that even count? Does the clock start on that waiting period for do you do you wear the princess Leia hairdo that whole time though? When that during that ceremony, that's the important thing Yeah, also do you have a messy whisper fight while everybody's like, hey, we can all hear you. We're trying to do the- You're standing right in front of a big crowd of people who are all looking at you and you're having a-

I'm blind now. I have extra hearing. We're right there. It wouldn't matter. I was just thinking of the space ball scene at the end. It was like, he didn't take the money. He didn't take the money. Yeah. The money. But as this is all going on, right as they're like seeing that she's seeing her parents

or whatever, Marcellus watches on sure that she's up to some shit. Right. Marcellus is such a weird MacGuffin. Right. Because it was like we got if we don't have Herod coming after her, we got nothing. Really? So we got to find a way to have Harrod coming after her, we got nothing. Really. So we got to find a way to have Harrod coming after her. And it's like we can't have Harrod directly engaging this chick.

So we got to get a henchman to be like, something's up with this lady. I don't know what it is, but I'm going to find out. Anthony Hopkins is flying a drone over the scene. That's not really, that doesn't make sense as a. But no, you're actually, you're absolutely right though. That that's the, that's the impetus for it, right? Because they have to have him coming after her before he's coming after her. Otherwise, what the hell would this movie be about? Yeah. Right. So, okay. So now she's somber and pious. You can tell cause she's staring at the moon. Oh my God. Again, in cliche movie trope, bingo, looking at the moon as the universal cliche

for discontent is, you definitely get a square there. Yes. I got the impression maybe it's like, you know, if you hear that prophecy from your dad that a ghost from heaven is going to impregnate you, you're staring up a lot, just like checking. That makes sense. That makes sense. But then also filling out some more spaces on your bingo card there, Dan, she goes into the room with an absurd number of lit candles. Like one of those candles would be out by the time you lit the last one. She goes in there and she's got to pray. And she says she's like, hey, God, you've sent literally every named character in this movie, an angel,

except me at this point. And I'm the one that's going to carry your kid. That seems weird, right? Maybe I'll just hang out with that Lucifer guy. He never makes me do anything I don't want to. And he talks to me. Yeah, there you go. And she's doing this to this like weird shrine in front of the scroll of the law, which is not at all how things

Worked back then. No, it is kind of creepy, but it works Yeah, clearly because then we have the blue man crew shows up Yeah, he cut he pops in and he's like don't be afraid you found favor with God and I'm like Well, that might be a reason to be afraid Given how this works out. I want her to be like I have sir. I have never been more afraid in my entire life But here this is where he tells her that she's gonna have God's kid Right. There's a point where she's like I that's impossible and he stops the rain and starts it again He says all things are possible with God and And I'm like, well, you have teleport powers.

I think that's more impressive because rain sometimes just stops and starts again. So teleportation doesn't happen. Well, she said that's not possible. I can't have a child. And at first I was like, why not? Did she think she was infertile? And then I realized she's probably saying I'm only a child myself Which means that even the movie knows how not okay this is well She's she's supposed to be like 17 or 18 by this time

Which would have been she would have been the the biological clock would have been ticking for her Yeah, but at the same time like what he says is exactly is you are to become a mother and have a son and Like okay, you can say that to somebody and they're not gonna be like today what? This is not chronologically bounded like this Few clicks down the road like you're betrothed and everything. So yeah, this does make a lot of sense at this point Yeah, so I don't I don't know what was going on in between the lines there, but it still doesn't make sense to me. Yeah.

But he tells her about the coming God, baby. She smiles. This is my favorite retcon in the whole movie, right? She smiles and she looks up and she says, let it be me. Boom. Consent. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. It's not quite the Magnificat of the New Testament, but they've got a tone to strike here. You can't be all giddy and singing praises on Arrakis. It just doesn't work. God, I hope I get it. I hope I get it. There's already a prophecy. There's an angel now confirming it.

You don't need to sing the chorus line wishing song. So then so now like somebody at Netflix says this should be an explosion or something. So the big bridge that we saw in the background earlier blows up for no reason. It has nothing to do. Aqueduct. Okay. That has nothing to do with the rest of the fucking movie. There's no not going to be like a water shortage that we have to explain or whatever.

Yeah. Herod is mad. Herod's not mad, he's just disappointed, right? And his revenge for them blowing up his aqueduct is taking a census. The census thing, they acknowledge and don't acknowledge this. It is Schrodinger's census because it's happening. Oh, it's not happening. Oh, it is happening. Oh, it's not like, oh, it's just taxes. Oh, it's a set like they, I mean, obviously the census is like one of the weakest parts of this story because that's not how anything works. Yeah. And we know when the census has happened because they tend to keep real good track of census.

Usually you write down what you figure out in a census. Generates a lot of paperwork. It's another way the movie's just like, well, we got to fold it in somewhere. And like, all right, have to give it to Hopkins to do. But, and it totally screws up the plot because this is, you're supposed to be like, oh yeah, the census that required Joseph and Mary to come down from Nazareth to Bethlehem so Jesus could

be born in Bethlehem. Right. But Nazareth wasn't a part of Herod's kingdom. Yeah, it wasn't Herod that called the census. Yeah, and he's the king of Judea and Nazareth is not in Judea. It was in an entirely different part of the Roman Empire. And ultimately this stupid movie doesn't even make them go to Bethlehem because of the fucking

census. It's just, it's nuts. Yeah, they're like, we got to skirt around the people doing the census and get to Bethlehem. What? Yeah. So, okay. So now we're back at the temple. Mary has just told Anna about the baby, about the, well, I guess not the Immaculate Conception. Let me cross that out of my notes so that I don't look like an idiot. And Anna's like, or Anna's like, yeah, no, I believe you. Everyone else is just going to assume you fucked gay. Right? Because he's pretty fucked.

And I'm not going to say a word. Yeah, right. Yeah. But Dan, is it like the next like 3000 minutes of this movie are gonna be everybody mad that she's pregnant? Right. Would it have been a big deal for a betrothed woman to be pregnant? Because it doesn't seem like that would be like this big, huge against the law deal. Well they wouldn't have, I think they would have known when she entered Joseph's household.

That would have been when it would have been consummated. And in the text of the New Testament, they're already betrothed and it says she was discovered to be with child and not wanting to make a public example of her he thought to divorce her privately. So there is, at least in the New Testament, they're trying to keep it on the down low. Nobody would have known, but yeah, there would have been concern if that had happened. Now in the movie, they're going with the proto gospel

of James where people do find out about it, only they don't give her a hard time. They give Joseph a hard time. Yeah. Oh, interesting. Like my thought is just that like, this is his issue. Like, if he's not mad, no, it's not like, it's not a criminal issue. And you can imagine if they- It's a torches and fucking pitchforks issue, man.

Okay? Well, yeah, and this one it is for sure. Yeah, if they come to him, he's like, I'm just as upset as you are! Why are you giving me a hard time about this? But in the proto gospel of James, they get upset at Joseph, but then they make Mary undergo the trial of bitter waters or the Sota, which is in Numbers five.

This is the thing that a lot of people today imagine incorrectly was a recipe for an abortifacient. I still think you're wrong about that. Okay, you can think that all you want. But they make her undergo this ordeal and she passes with flying colors. And so everybody's like, all right, well, cool. Seems like another good thing to put in the movie.

Yeah, it's like a witch trial thingy. Well, they gotta spend the time talking about this revolt that nobody cares about. Right, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Gotta make room for that. Well, right, so, and they have, here's the part where it would have gone. Right. Because they like somebody overhears her telling Anna about it and tells on her.

Right. And then the priests bring her in and they're like, we have to kick you out for being pregnant. Like, you know, a modern day Christian school might. Because we're the bad guys. You're being fired from being enslaved here. Deal with it. She's like, okay. Right. Well, she was already engaged to be married though. Right. So like she was leaving. Any. So yeah.

So, but Anna's like, I don't know why she's like, don't worry. This is all part of the plot. And then she goes back home for very awkward explanation with mom. Right. Yeah. But she's like, I was told by a very awkward explanation with mom. Right? Yeah. But she's like, I was told by a man in blue and mom's like, man in blue? Well, I have to believe anything that you say from now on. Everyone's immediately on board.

If you say the word blue or scarf or anything, they're like, oh my God, the guy with the scarf and the thing. He's awesome. It's like Cobra Commander kind of too, and Skeletor. Oh, Ronnie Malik. I would have picked up quite quickly on that. I would have been like, hey, you gotta get him money to go to the movies, cause there was a guy.

A man in blue, yes, right, yeah, you're fucking, that was your mom's trigger, yes, you'd know. So, but mom's like, no, don't worry about it, and you'll do great, with great power comes great, oh, fuck, that's taken, wait, come back to me, no, don't worry about it. You'll do great with great power comes great. Oh, fuck, that's taken. Wait, come back to me. Come back to me. Yeah. Yeah.

Mary goes, I should tell dad. And then goes, nope, no, you would get rocks thrown at you to death, apparently is what we're going with. So she sends Mary off to live with John the Baptist's parents-to-be. And when she gets there, of course, Elizabeth can tell she's pregnant because she knows a mother of God when she sees one. I love that there's the moment where she goes to Elizabeth and Elizabeth says, the child

in my womb jumps at the sound of your voice and therefore abortion is bad. Oh gosh. She's like, yeah, oh, you have a kid too. your voice and therefore abortion is bad. Oh, gosh. She's like, yeah, oh, you have a kid, too. Wow. My kid would be lucky to even be your kid's sidekick. I can tell your kid is going to be better than mine. She literally says that. Although, could I just say something? And this is shocking in a movie that has Anthony Hopkins in it, but the woman who plays Elizabeth is the best actor in the movie by far. She's

actually really great. Good acting job. Yeah. No, yeah. She, she, she nailed it. She nailed it. So, and then we cut to Anthony Hopkins talking to the would have been a honey corpse if they'd had the guts for it or if they'd had, if they'd hired Dan as their historical consultant, although I think he'd have shot himself in the face right now. I don't want my name associated with this Netflix property. So much that we actually had to black out the part where we set his name on this podcast. It's crazy. They are literally making Hopkins monologue to inanimate objects

like he's holding a plate. Like he's talking to a chair that's full and then not like this is the yeah, they are punishing this man. They did this guy. Well, and also they've got him telling his own backstory to

the chair. I'm like, my God, this is so late. Yeah, this is the mushrooms full on at this moment. He's like looking at his hand for a while and then his face in the mirror and he's like making himself cry at himself. It's fucking awesome. So then, okay, so we fast forward now, John the Baptist has been born, Mary's holding the baby and she goes, oh, you're a natural mother, like the proto mother. And then I love this moment too, because like Zachariah says, honey, we got to go over to the grocery store, whatever, you know.

Oh, and by the way, he looks genuinely terrified to go to the market. Doesn't he? Yeah, he's like, and tears off. Okay. This was one of my favorite moments too. So we talked about some accents. Zachariah went pretty close to crazy drunk Boston guy. Yes. Just being like, babe, we gotta go and fucking stop and shop. Let's go. Yes. And she goes, after he does that accent, she goes, ah, that voice, right? Because they wanted to nod at the bit where Gabriel goes all Ursula from Little Mermaid on him, but they didn't want to get all into all of that because that's a whole thing,

I guess. Yeah. I did enjoy all the stupid men in the story who are not helping at all and are completely unaware of the like magic that's allegedly happening. They're just yelling stuff and getting in weird fights about nothing. That doesn't matter. And all the women are just blissfully being subjugated to them. With their magical intuition where they know everything that's going on.

They're like, hey, you're pregnant. I know. I can tell. Yeah. Oh, look at this. You're a natural mother. The women are all just divinely intuitive about everything, and the men are like, we gotta go to the market!

Is this, is this Christian feminism? Do you think they made a Christian feminist betrayal of a God impregnating a teenage girl in a movie? Yep, I think they did. So then we go back to the construction site where everybody's laughing at what a cuck Joseph is. Right.

Now we're doing the construction workers are coarse and always give each other shit cliches. Yes. Right. The movie might take place in New Jersey. I'm not sure. I did look like the New Jersey desert to me. Yeah. But just like, hey, what is everybody pointing and laughing at me for?

What's going on? Is there a joke or something? And the dude's like, Oh no, your fiance is knocked up. And he's like, you know, he's like, Oh, take that back. Okay. And they get into a fight, right? When it comes to shit talk, that is pretty weak. It is like, yeah, take it back. Oh, though. Also, they're like, hey, everybody knows your girl's knocked up. Why do they not? Why do they all also know it's not his?

Right. Like, that would be the reason to it. Like, oh, hey, you got some before the marriage happened. Good on you or whatever. But like, no, it's like, ha ha, you're just a cock. Look what happened. Yeah. And he's like, no, I'm not a cock. Take it back. Yeah. It doesn't work. Take it back guys. Yeah. So he gets into a fight. Somebody knocks him out with a brick or some shit. And then he comes to he's in the desert and Gabriel is hovering over him going, all right, I probably should have told you before your coworker. That's that's right. I can teleport. It's not like I didn't have time to get there.

Hey, buddy. You remember when you walked in and I was like smoking a cigarette on the bed in your house? You gotta check out the ethical slut. It's important. Learn some compersion. I'm an angel. And then so, so then we got Mary and she has to confront her dad and she's like nine and a half months pregnant at this point. So he's going to know pretty quick. And also, I guess he's heard from whoever the construction workers heard from too. Can I just say that she walks in and her dad is there kind of doing the dishes and he turns around and he's got this long dish towel around his neck and it looks vaguely like a tallit and it is the closest anyone in this movie comes

to looking Jewish. So yeah, she's like, so I'm pregnant with the, uh, with the Messiah and he goes, Oh, you're pregnant with a, with a mooch or kid. And he's like, she's like, fucking what? Have you tried praying about this? And he's like, I would at least started the fucking movie with me out for 40 goddamn days. And I invented praying. Have I tried fucking praying? But then he warns her. He's like, you know, all of the the townspeople could gather together and try

to stone you to death for this in the next scene, to which I wrote like, wow, your universal code of ethics must really suck. That doesn't sound very divinely dictated to me. But just then there's an assistant pounding at the door. It's Joseph. He wants to know about this her being pregnant shit. Yeah. He's literally like, Hey, it's Joseph.

I just got beat up and I had a hallucination. Let me in. But no, they will not. And they're like, no, actually, as it turns out, they tell him that she's not there. So he leaves, but she chases after him. Nine and a half months pregnant and all. So now we've got her, she's running down this crowded street, but damn it, if Lucifer isn't there at the head of a literal goddamn torches and pitchforks mob.

Yeah, they're in downtown Jerusalem and all three of them happen to run into each other. Yes, right. Yeah. Jerusalem's a pretty big place. It's like New York in that way. Yeah, yeah. And the most frustrating thing about this is like, all she had to do was be like, hey, I was praying in front of this creepy ass shrine and blue robe guys showed up and said, "'Zap, you're pregnant.'" And they should have been like,

"'Oh, all right, well I get that.'" Well in that case. This is one of those movies where, if they just explained what happened, that would have resolved the tension. Right. They gotta ratchet up the tension. So they're like, and then Joseph runs after

and so annoyed with the writing here. Yeah. When Lucifer sees her, he goes, ah, the temple whore, I've been looking for you. And I thought, I mean, who isn't? Defiling a holy site. That's not just a tab on my computer. That's a whole window. Everybody's looking for the temple whore.

Yeah. But Lucifer's trying to get him to like to attack her, but he's doing it like a guy who's trying to coax a crowd into singing him happy birthday, right? It's not his idea. He's just trying to make somebody else come up with that idea. Trying to start slow claps that don't work. And shouldn't he just be able to like inspire everybody you would think supernaturally kind of his thing Yeah, and since he can just kind of appear in the temple to confront her you would think he doesn't need to look for her

Yeah, fair don't know why he's just like oh shit. There she is Guys be cool be cool. I got a whole thing It felt like the movie just zooped him back to be like, hey, still the main bad guy for later, just so you know. Okay. And Lucifer's hood gets pulled back just enough to reveal that he is Heath. Okay. Is it me? That was Heath. He wasn't that tall. But so they get her and they get Joseph, right? And they're like,

hey, you should throw the first rock at her, you know, because she's your fiance. And he thinks about it, but he just can't throw a rock at her to death. So he throws this rocket Satan. He picks up a hammer and waves it around to the 63 people that have them completely surrounded. So they all back off and he and Mary run off and escape. It's so good.

She is again, nine and a half Yeah, he just he throws one rock at a demon to be clear But like regardless just one rock and just a hundred more people surrounding you in a mob like he thought he you know Through a smoke bomb and everybody's like We're still a mob right here. Pull up your hood. But they get away. I don't know how.

Assassin's Creed style. They won't know it's you. You just have to get two blocks away. But yeah, so they run through the crowd and then we've got this bit where like they're hiding in a cellar. They can hear the crowd still looking for him or whatever. And then they just share a very awkward silence. Okay, I laughed at this too.

So they're in their hiding spot and they're both like filing their nails and somehow like eating clicky food with like proud. Long, long, long pause. Finally, she looks over and she's like, seriously, it's a ghost, baby. It was a ghost. And Joseph quite unbiblically is like, no, I'm already over it, believe it or not. I am, I'm good, I am good, I am.

Well, he says, I will love this child as best as I can, and I will love you as best as I can. Oh, that's fair, yeah. Which could mean, eh. Yeah, it was like, obviously you're lying, but I'm gonna be cool about it. I'm probably gonna hate both of you forever, but I'll do my damnedest. I'll do my best.

I can't good loophole. Good Heath loophole. Yeah. Now in the, in the new Testament, we do have the angel coming and visiting Joseph and letting him know this is actually God's child. What the one time he actually is supposed to show up. He doesn't show up. He doesn't show up.

Yeah. It's an outrage, I tell you. Yeah. But now Joseph's got a fucking unofficial step kid situation, which is awesome. Right. It's good thing. Mary's just looking around waiting for Gabriel to pop in to like confirm it. She's like, I don't know. It's a fucking no call, no show. You got to be kidding me. Any minute now, Gabe. Come on.

All right. Well, it looks like the plot is about to start. So let me give Act three the hard sell. Will there be a sword fight? Will the bad guys be like, she will the good guys be all like, oh, they got me. Find out the answers to these sound effects and more when we return for the also a Messiah is born conclusion of Mary, mother of Jesus. Oh, how I love summer.

I said, Oh, how I love summer. Hey, Hey, Heath. You just walked in and said that out of nowhere. It wasn't clear. I was supposed to respond right away. Okay. So, so what makes you love summer so much? So glad you asked.

Thank you for asking. Something about summer just makes me feel my best. And that's why I'm creating healthy meal habits for myself, healthy meal habits that last. Okay, but like 30 minutes ago, you were making an abacus out of empty baby bell waxes to keep track of your runaway cheese budget. That is accurate. Yes. Yeah. So I'm thinking you might need some help. You should try Green Chef. What's Green Chef? Green Chef makes it easy to spend less time in the kitchen and more time enjoying summer. And with their new heat and eat meals, you can enjoy a delicious wholesome meal in just three minutes.

It's perfect for supporting your wellness journey. Their recipes feature fresh organic seasonal produce and 100% responsibly sourced proteins to help you feel your best. All right. Well, as you know, from my wide variety of empty wax colors, I enjoy variety. Does Green Chef have variety? They do indeed. With 80 plus dietitian approved weekly meal options, Green Chef makes it easy to find meals that fit your lifestyle. Pick from Mediterranean, gluten free, plant based and protein heavy.

They even have calorie smart choices too. The recipes change every week and with week to week flexibility, you can adjust your plan to match your mood and your schedule. But have you actually tried it? I have and it's been great. One of my favorites is the panko chicken and bacon with lemon aioli, toasted pearl couscous, sun dried tomatoes and roasted broccoli. That sounds amazing. Where do I sign up? Make this summer your healthiest yet with Green Chef. Head to greenchef.com slash 50 awful and use the code 50 awful to get 50% off your first month, then 20% off for two months with free shipping. That's code 50 awful at greenchef.com slash 50 awful.

All right. Thanks, Noah. No problem. So how's the art project with the baby boy wax going? Pretty good. Good. You ever see the stuff people make with those felt crown royal bags? Yeah, yeah, sure.

Yeah, so I upholstered a couch. You want to check it out? I, no, I don't. It's a cheesester field. Okay. Cheesester? Yeah. Come on.

All right, nah, that's pretty good. So my Davey scored two goals in a soccer game yesterday. Oh, that's great. You must be so proud. What up bitches? Oh, hey Ann. Hey, what you talking about? What's the hot goss?

Give me the deets. I was just saying that Davey scored two goals in a soccer game. Cool. Cool. Two goals. They still lost that game, I'm pretty sure. But that's cool. That's cool. saying that Davey scored two goals in a soccer game. Cool! Cool two goals! I mean, they still lost that game, I'm pretty sure. But that's cool. That's cool. My Mary's gonna birth a savior, BT dubs.

I'm sorry, what? Yeah, yeah, she's gonna be the mother of the savior of humanity. Yeah, just repeating it doesn't help. Yeah, how would you know that? Oh, an angel told me. Fucking awesome, right? You got visited by an angel? Yeah, yeah. Super cool guy.

Got an emo looking infinity scarf. He did a sweet trick with a teleport. Wait, was it a blue scarf? Kind of like tealish matching robe, whole outfit thing? It was like a cerulean I think it's a weirdly good guess it was close to what you said yeah so hate to break it to you what that's not an angel that's Chad the farmhand sorry what did he call himself Gabriel it yeah yeah that's Chad I fucked him too. Yeah me too same girl

What what are you talking about? I didn't fuck him. Oh, come on, Ann. Yeah, you did be honest It's it's just us here. Yes Fine fine. Yeah, I fucked him So he did this thing with the scarf? Yes! So good! Oh no, yeah, worst sex possible. Go sploosh!

Don't tell Joachim. And we're back for still more of this shit and we're going to rejoin the action with Joseph and Mary getting hitched. Right? They both put on their prettiest head scarves. They do. And we see Joachim, father of the bride, just drinking. That's like the first thing standing next to them.

He's just drinking and he's like, oh, it's a, it's a ritual cup for everyone. No, I know. I know. I know know I'm passing it And of course they they pass it to her the Nine months pregnant woman which feels like you're given wine to should she be drinking Jesus fetal alcohol syndrome. Yeah Jesus comes back So but they also I find this funny that like, they speak Hebrew for the purposes of the wedding.

Well, well, if you can call it that. Okay. Well, yeah, I was gonna say, I don't think I'm in a place to judge, but they go for Hebrew anyway. But it's like, that's just what they'd have been speaking, isn't it? Or would it have been Aramaic and they got it wrong, double wrong? It would have been Aramaic and that's going to come up in the next scene as well. Oh, interesting.

But yeah, they're kind of muttering the blessing is being muttered in Hebrew and not very clearly or well. So they decided to go with the translation and then still messed it up. Yeah. Although it was English at the betrothal. It was, yeah, right. Yes. And there was a lot of overlap between what was being said at the betrothal. It was, yeah, right. Yes, and there was a lot of overlap between what was being said at the betrothal and what they would say at the actual wedding.

So you would think, yeah. So he said they share the marital wine, they share the marital blankie that they both get under. Everybody rejoices. And then all the musicians play, not together, just at the same time. Yeah Genuinely sounds like they doled out some drums and rudimentary pipes and flutes and said here you extras Just sort of do what you can with these. Hey guys, you want to just jam

Jam literally for the wedding party and then you got a lot of the six people who try to start the dancing at the wedding That is apparently timeless and then you got the guy who thinks Joakim is a traitor off in the corner just kind of Yes, just sit there just like I'm gonna narc later on in this act. Yeah So gonna narc on you He's plotting his betrayal I'm so going to narc on you. He's plotting his betrayal. So Mary and Joseph, they head back to their house, but damn it, if the townsfolk, the angry zealots haven't trashed it for like her transgressions against God.

Right. Oh, I was wondering if that was just the Jewish version of decorating the car for the wedding. You know, you kill everybody's rabbits and trash their house. Mom and dad follow you home on your wedding night. It's fun. Yeah, what? What was going to happen there if the house wasn't? And they've written Zona on the wall in red, which is Hebrew for harlot or whore, but not

Aramaic. Which is what normally graffiti in this time period is written in Aramaic. Well the graffiti that they should have had is for the next scene, which is when they literally say, Romans get away from our God, which should have been written as Romans go home. Go home. Yes, yes. Romanes e uns domus.

In six foot high letters, yeah. So but then that night at the temple, everybody's like starting shit. They turn it, they pull the eagle off from before and throw it to the ground. It's even funnier this time when the angry mob guys are like, rabble, rabble, wait, turn, turn to my left, turn, everybody stop rambling for a second. Turn it. Pivot, pivot. Well, then they go to throw it down and they're like, you guys have to back back up more.

We don't know how much it's going to bounce. Guys. Guys. Howie, my fucking fingers pinched by fingers pinched. Pick it up. Okay. Rabble now. I wasn't lying.

They do say Romans get away from our God. That's an actual line from the movie. But I just think they're not thinking long-term enough. Just wait a few centuries and the Romans will take your God to a whole nother level. Yeah, that's true. So with the Romans, they, they're fighting back against this insurrection, but then Narc guy just comes to Marcellus cause he knows the main bad guy when he sees one and he stops him mid pogrom and he's like, Hey man, the Joachim is up to some shit. His daughter's up to some shit.

Two days away, by the way, like Nazareth is not two dunes away. This is, this is a long way away. This is a two day hike. Wow. So, but then Mary and Joseph find out that like people are coming from them. Right? So they escaped via their proto stage coach. Yeah.

I was going gonna say, how long is it in covered wagon, David? Yeah. Yeah. And again, outside of Herod's jurisdiction, Marcellus has no jurisdiction in Nazareth. He's actually going and invading Roman territory by heading into Nazareth.

I feel like they'd notice. You'd think, yeah, you're stepping on some toes there, Marcellus. So yeah, and so at this point, like Marcellus, he hears that there's a daughter who's up to some shit. He knows which daughter it is, right? Because he stared angrily at her. Why would he know that?

He's like, oh, a woman in this movie? I know, it must be. So he goes to her house, and he like threatens her house made with a candle. Yeah. To tell her what the superpowers are. I would just I was waiting for her to just go. Yeah. Well, fuck, I'm just going to relight it. Now I'm going to relight it.

Bro, candles aren't that menacing. Now I'm going to put some wax on you. It's a little bit warm. Tell me now. Kind of kinky. Are you trying to wax board me? That's nothing. And then she starts talking about there's going to be a star. Yes. It's like, how does she know about the star? Yeah? Did she hear the song? Is she a Zoroastrian Magus? What's happening? So Joseph and Mary were like,

hey, servant lady, yeah, so we're about to take off. We're gonna follow a wandering star, probably higher and brighter, you know what I mean? Than all the others? Okay, bye. Don't say anything about it. What would higher mean? Yeah, Marcellus is like, that's not how stars work.

Brighter, I guess. You're lying to me. You can't follow them. They're all up. I guess. Unless you're in space. If you're in space, I guess you could follow one. So, yeah. So meanwhile, so Mary's monologuing to unborn Jesus. They're they're riding like they're to safety or whatever.

And at one point, as they're riding to the safety, one of the guys says, be careful. There are hill raiders out this way. Just so we know. Hill Raiders. Yeah, hill raiders. So that we know when the action beat shows up, oh, this must be hill raider. There might be Jawas. Yeah, right. Yes, yes.

But the sand people go in single file numbers. The guy dude shows up in fucking Hollywood's version of Native American war paint. Yeah. Right. To attack their Oh my God. It was like this weird thing. He's suddenly peeking up like a frog man just barely coming out of the water or something like that. Yeah, right. Yeah.

But he's got mud all over his face like he's hiding from the predator. I don't know what was happening. I'm going to try to steal Nancy Pelosi's gavel or something. So and then so they attack and Joe Akeem pulls out his actual fucking sword and actually fucking sword fights the Raiders. I had been making jokes all through my notes about how there was going to be a fucking sword fight actually fucking sword fights. The Raiders, I had been making jokes all through my notes about how there was going to be a fucking sword fight before we were over.

There are going to be two, possibly three, depending on how you count them. Yeah. And the mug faced frog man ended up killing Jokeem and then leave. Yeah. Like everybody else is just, it's cool. We only really wanted to kill the one guy. Well, they leave the Yeah. Like everybody else is just it's cool. We only really wanted to kill the one guy.

Well, they leave the horses. They like they steal a modest amount of their stuff and run off. And I'm like, wow, that wasn't worth dying over. I should have just offered him that stuff. Hey, do you want to take the horses to know? All right. What about the Cybertruck? Let's take the Cybertruck. I feel like we should take that. Hey, you guys, I just found that temple whore

that literally everybody was after. No, we don't care about her anymore? Fine, okay. These are hill folk. They don't get that. Yeah, right, the hill raiders don't know about that kind of stuff. So now it's morning, they buried Joachim now,

and Anne lays a flower on his grave, and then they have this weird, stupid conversation, which just, they back out of the very stupid shit that they'd been setting up this whole time, right? Because he goes, well, you know, the Roman soldiers are ahead collecting the tax. So Anne, you go that way and distract them, while me and Mary go to Bethlehem.

How does that distract them, for one thing? I don't know. From what does that distract them for what? I don't know. From what? Distract them from what? They can't see us from here, right? So like, you just go in different ways. They don't need to be distracted.

It makes no sense. Step. I feel like he's just coming up with an excuse to get rid of his mother-in-law. Well, right. Yeah. You know what? Go pay your taxes. You've been skirting him for a while Yeah. You know what? Go pay your taxes.

You've been skirting him for a while now. You really should go pay them. What if we all just go the other way, like right now? No, no, no. I think you should go. I think you should go probably to the Romans. And make a diversion? And guess where they're also going to be?

In Bethlehem. Well, right, right. Well, and then so and that's the dumbest thing about it, right? Because they haven't established where they're going anyway. Right, we just know that they were trying to escape. And then he says his family's from Bethlehem, and I'm like, well, first of all,

why the fuck would you have to sleep at a barn at that point? But secondly, like, well, then that would be the place to go then, wouldn't it? Just all of them, yeah. Apparently the Bible is a side-scroller for side characters I guess Around cuz and even tells us at this point like well, I'll go to Bethlehem the long way around and I'll meet you there. Why?

Yeah, you don't know where they'll be staying and again and owes no taxes to Herod because she does not live in Herod's Kingdom So right now they don't know what they're doing with this. He basically says Mary and I will go to Bethlehem and he all but says, but not because of a census. That would be, yeah, that would make any sense to avoid those soldiers. If you had two parents, it would be fucking all up. They each had two parents. And then, okay, so now we're back at the temple. Herod hears about, or sorry, the palace that is miles away from the temple, and Herod hears about the We Three Kings' kings, and that they're out and about looking for a star that's above a place.

All of them are above places. But they're above all places. Or below, depending on the time of day. Yeah. And for some reason, like in the Bible, they come to Herod, and he's like, oh, well, tell us, let's find out where this prophecy says Jesus would be from. But in the movie, he's like, do you know who I am? I'm the king of the thing.

The king of the thing? Sounds real dirty. It does. I don't know what... Right? Yeah. And he just roasts religion like from an atheist point of view here. It was kind of fun. Cause it's Sir Anthony Hopkins.

Okay, idiot messenger. You believe in the dust blown on the wind of dreams across the waters of the moon? Idiot. It's you. That's what you sound like. Yes. This messenger is doing who knows what accent like this is this is an accent I couldn't

even place. But but like foreign right. It's supposed he's supposed to be foreign and he knows about the the wise men or whatever. I know that there's a tradition of one of the wise men being black, but like he's supposed to be Persian, right? Yeah. Like why is he black? Yeah. The idea is that they're from the East, which would have overwhelmingly been associated with the Persians. So don't, I, I can't answer questions about this movie. They're just making crap up.

Yeah, this is getting, we've already asked so much. So meanwhile, Mary and Joseph, they're stage coaching away to Bethlehem, right? Because they apparently had so many horses that they could still split up leftover after the Hill Raiders took care of them. And they get to Bethlehem. Now, so I do want to ask you this one, Dan, because my understanding is Bethlehem would have been a little tiny place at this time, not like this megalopolis that they wind up in, right? Yeah, no, it would have been a pretty small village, not nearly as small as Nazareth,

but nothing compared to Jerusalem. It's about six miles south of Jerusalem. And the most annoying part is everybody represents Joseph going from like house to house. And they're like, no, we're all full up here, try down the road. And that is a misunderstanding of the text. Cause in Luke, all it says is there was not enough room in the, and then it uses a word that means guest room. And so most scholars today are pretty sure

that they were already in a house, and it just means the guest room where most people were sleeping was already full. they had to sleep downstairs where the animals were kept. So they were would have been in their family's home. So this whole part where he goes to like the Motel 6 and then the Red Roof Inn and then the days in November where that's that's not that's not either. He's just going literally from house to house and they're all like nope we're full because

let me tell you something, Airbnb is ruining better. There's also, before he does that, he like, he turns to this old lady and he's like, hey, watch my pregnant wife. And he gives her a coin. I'm like, what's she going to do if something happens? The crowd starts to fucking try to stoner and that old lady is going to do some fucking karate or something. Yeah.

She's going to watch her. And they just got robbed something. Yeah. She's gonna watch her. Yeah. And they just got robbed too. Right. What are they gonna pay for this with? Yeah. They were loaded apparently. Yeah. So and then he said he turns to somebody he's like, Hey, why are there so many I know that the census and everything but but but the movie is like underplay and that why is everybody here? And somebody says, Oh, you know, there's, there's supposed to be a Messiah born in this town in the next couple of days. So everybody, everybody's like, wanted to get a look. Yeah. I love. And can we just point out that apparently everybody is aware that the Messiah is coming as a baby like right now, but nobody's bothering this pregnant lady to be like, Hey,

is it possible that you're the one? Right. Like, yeah, let's say we should probably set aside a couple of extra guest beds in case them. Yeah. Right. Also that's, that's not fucking people. Because there was Bethlehem full of Jesus paparazzi at the time of his birth. I don't remember that. No, there was none of that. There was none of that going on. That's, that made up because they've brought up the census, but then they spend the rest of the movie trying to avoid the census. Yeah. And inventing a bunch of other crap so that they don't have to address the census that

they for some reason brought up. Right. And also, is Gabriel moonlighting again as the rumor spreader? Right. Is Gabriel moonlighting again as the rumor spreader? Everybody knows except for the family of the Messiah, that the Messiah is coming. You've got an entire Bethlehem full of people who know about this and yet three scenes ago we had mobs coming after her to murder her. Get your story straight everybody.

Come on. So, but then we cut back to the old lake. It's like, you know, Mary's having a hard go of it. She's in labor at this point. And the old lady that's supposed to be watching her turns out to have been Satan this whole time. Don't. Oh, my God. This was the best part of the movie.

I wanted the whole movie to be this. They decided to punch it up a bit. Yeah. Because you know that like those words were said. Somebody looked at the Bible and said, well, punch this up. So yeah, so he says, Wow, you know, looks like God's going really hard on you. And Mary's like, well, you know, the Catholics say he just slipped out like a fiber full turd. So I don't know. It's really maybe maybe maybe not. But then she passes out. He gives her some water and it's evil magic water So she passes out and then he starts carrying her off, but he's levitating her

Remember that part in the Bible where Lucifer carries Mary away by levitating Yes, go off the rails movie. This is what we needed from the beginning. All right. So no, it's the second best thing ever. Light as a feather, stiff as a board. The best thing ever is when Joseph sees this, grabs a sword from the fucking holster or whatever of a nearby Roman soldier and then runs and stabs Satan in the fucking ass with it.

Oh my God. Well, I don't know exactly where he stabbed him because it seems like it comes out his chest but it's like, hey, Mary's levitating right in front of the chest. Yeah, right. It felt very dangerous. He is very clearly not trained on sword safety. Yeah, right. I feel like the sword should have poked out in the levitation space, if anything, right?

Should have just carried her regular. Why wouldn't you just carry her regular? Because like then like the townspeople would be like, Hey, is he levitating that lady? He could have just carried her or maybe Satan's just like, I'm not going to carry this whole fucking thing. She's pregnant. This is a heavy weight. I come up with weird plans. I should just kill the baby right after. I just killed her right there in the square when he gave me the nickel. Fuck.

Where was I even taking her? I don't know. Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. So but he stabs her in the heart, just like in the Bible. And then she wakes up from the dream and the movie's like, see, see, we're still like the Bible didn't say she didn't have that dream. That could happen. But now, so now they're in Bethlehem. They're not in a barn. Are there?

There's no manger here. Yeah, it's it looks like the ruins of an old castle like World War Two or something. And the Germans have bombed the city and they're like, huddled into the corner of this, I wouldn't call it shelter, there's no roof to this thing. It all feels very weird. Yeah, and Mary's mom is there too. So that diversion happened, I guess. She looped back around, yeah.

So mom, like, went ahead, paid taxes, and then just like turned back and walked back past the tax people. Paid taxes after she got robbed. Yes. Yeah. Right. Right.

Exactly. And then she found them in this overcrowded city where every hotel was full and they're staying in a bombed out fucking castle from the goddamn Blitzkrieg. Right. But she's in labor now. And apparently this part pissed off a lot of people, a lot of a lot of Christians because Mary's I guess Not supposed to like she has no original since so she's not supposed to have labor pains, but in the movie They showed her having labor pains. Yeah, which by the way screaming mama giving birth. That's movie trope number

Whatever. I think that's bingo. Yeah So but I feel so sorry for this director right because he had to go out and explain this But he wasn't allowed to just point out how silly it would fucking look if they just had her having a baby and going Huh, would you look at that? Yeah, baby, you know Jesus gets born here to be clear Jesus the Messiah It's like oh oh it's kind of just like a regular baby so I thought it would be like you know like shiny or something huh right yeah I said halo or something speaking of which so they

they Brett con the whole the star being above it doesn't make any sense thing by having the stars shine a spotlight directly on Jesus a point of order beams plural pointing in two different directions. Who was the other guy? Was that the backup? Was that the Leia Skywalker of Christianity? Craig Christ in the next. But it creates another problem because if the star is actually that easy to follow,

Herod just gets to end the movie early. Right. Yep. Sure can. So they needed to have it. Have Craig the diversionary Christ. Also such a stupid thing. Like Anna, we cut back to Anna, the Benny Gesserit.

Like she knows to save your birth when she senses one or whatever. Yeah. So then and so now Herod is getting word that there's been some kind of miraculous birth in Bethlehem. He's like, yeah, there's a spotlight star and everything. Right. At this point, I wrote in my notes, I'm surprised Anthony Hopkins isn't just holding up his

paycheck at this point. It's almost that. He's so fucking bored. He's just playing with like a metal mask thingy that he found on set. Makes no sense. They show it for a while. He's literally like, did you guys see this thing? I just got it from Amazon. It was Prime Day in the Eyes Wide shut store on Amazon. So yeah, but they explain it all to some dude has come in to tell him some some like goat herder or whatever has told him come in to tell the king that there was a Messiah born and that their pilgrims already gathering to see the manger where he will I guess the

fucking the bombed out blitzkrieg building where he was born. Right. Yeah. I was going to say squirt it out. I wrote squirt it out and on my notes, but Dan, I changed it to born for you. You're welcome. So he sends away the shepherd that told him about Jesus. And then he tells Marcellus to kill all the newborn man, children and the whole town. Well, yeah, he says that he He says kill all the baby boys and then he says but bring the special one to me which means that he just wanted to kill him some babies. Right because

the whole point of killing all the babies is he didn't know which one it was. So the next morning Mary's looking over her godbaby. Joseph's sitting off to the back. Like, he's not sure. Like, he's like, it's not my kid. Am I, is that, am I cool? Like holding it or whatever. Right. There's a long moment of that. She's like, Hey, thanks for not breaking up with me. He's like, never crossed my mind.

She's like, really? Cause in the book it says that it did. I just like that this is an intimate moment with a mother her child her husband and an oddly respectful Standing 20 feet away Zoo or something it's amazing he comes over to see the kids like that's got God's eyes, you know, whatever And it's not just it's not just swaddling clothes She's got like baby's breath and there are a bunch of sequins in a pattern and the world stuff going on to baby's first bib Yeah, yeah, the the most ostentatious parents I've ever met would not wrap their baby in

Are those the regulator sheets from my sheets rock And and Joseph says, you know, what shall we name him? And she's like, oh, you know, his dad, I mean, the angel of the Lord was super insistent. We call him Jesus. And I thought at the very fucking least this movie would call him, would have named the kid, Yeshua. But no, no, his name is Jesus. So, OK, so meanwhile, Marcellus and the fucking Nazgul are charging towards Bethlehem at top speed,

right? We see our shitty Beth, CGI Bethlehem, the perspective isn't even right. It's like squirting up the side of the mountain in a way that just doesn't make any sense. And that's not what the mountains of that area look like either. And this is where we get the inexplicable accent, the Bronx horsemen riding up to warn Mary that the King's men are coming. Hey Mary, I'm a pug a pig a corn and I've got something to warn you about. And also, Joseph was supposed to have been warned in a dream that Herod was coming after

him go to Egypt and they take off. And this movie loves doing dreams. Yeah. Yet again, the thing that they do the most, they just decide not to do when it's the most appropriate to do it. When it would make fucking sense. Yeah. So yeah, but they, so they get back in their stagecoach and they head out.

Meanwhile, the Romans are just mowing through town murder and babies. Now here's the thing. Except almost exclusively adults. Right. What I'm watching. Netflix was not about to show a baby murder on their fucking movie, right? There's no way in hell they were gonna show,

they were gonna get anywhere close to, so we just see like people like, I'm gonna defend the babies, murder you. And that's what we see instead, right? Yeah. And they're gonna double, triple, quintuple down on that in the greatest possible way. Yes. So, okay. So we cut to Mary and Joe, they're on the road to Egypt and she's like, Oh, we, you know, we should find some place

to sleep. And he's like, okay, we have a covered wagon. I mean, I guess we could just pull off the side of the road. She's like, no, I think we should endanger the lives of some random strangers who are going to immediately get killed for helping us. And he's like, OK. She's like, she's like, hey, let's go find shelter at literally the creepiest house in the middle of nowhere that we've ever seen in our lives. What could go wrong? So they're like, hey, do you have a place to put us up? And they're like, yeah, we sure do.

I feel like you're supposed to say also, by the way, there are the fucking nine writers are hot on our heels Or in and they're in a baby murdering rage Yeah, but they don't have to worry because the all the bad guys horses run in dramatic slow motion. Well, that's true Yeah, they have a head start This place looks great. There's a guy in like a grandma shirt dress. He's in a rock and share up there Let's just hop right in there Grandma shirt dress. He's in a rock and share up there.

Let's just hop right in there. So, okay. So they take refuge in this house, but immediately Marcellus comes across them, right? Because he's following their tracks. So dumb. And they have the best moment, which is I'm sorry to cut this off, but they're like, all right, we know for sure that the baby is in that tiny two, maybe three room house. So here's the plan.

We'll set everything on fire around the house. Including the extremely dry vegetation that goes right up to the house. And then we'll all go into the house. Wait, then we go in? So don't let anyone in, including you. Yeah, no, it's right. So they walk in after setting a circle of fire around themselves.

They walk into the house. Marcellus is like, I don't need this helmet anymore. It's just the final battle. Right. So he throws his helmet off, needed it for the ride. You fall, you hurt yourself. But Mary and Joe are hiding in the loft. They're like, where's the baby?

And this couple that they've just endangered is like, there's no baby. We caught up to Jesus and Jesus is cooing and we're like, shut up, baby Jesus. You're in danger. I just love that they're like, like they're like, there's no baby here as though they probably should have asked. Hey, wait a minute. Is your intention to search the whole house? Because if that's it, then yeah, they're upstairs. As soon as you look at the one place, you can't see the smallest place in the world. How were we to know that they were going to search? Baby just chomps down on a Dorito really loud. So Marcellus starts stabbing the C's like they're obviously in here. It's the only place in the house. So he starts stabbing the ceiling.

Joey falls. He stabs, I guess, around Joey in a circle, right? So now Joseph falls through. He starts a sword fight with the bad guys. This is sword fight number two, three, if you count the stabbing Satan one, right? I don't remember this many sword fights in the Bible. I gotta be honest with you. But Mary escapes through the upstairs window that peasants houses often had back in those

times and she, but she finds herself on the roof and there's fire everywhere. What will she do? Right? Yeah. I, by, by the way, like when the bad guys came in, the interrogation is like, he stabs the woman in, like basically I think in the genitals, is that what happened? It feels like he's, and then he's like, the next one's in her heart.

Yeah. And I, I, I gotta say, God chooses the weirdest times not to intervene. I'm just going to point that out. Well, it's also like the idea that he's like, I stabbed her in a non-fatal place. Now it's like, given the medicine that they had in the dead, there are no non-fatal

stabbing to the heel. If he just like bonked her on the shin and it was just like, ah, there aren't a lot of non-fatal splinters in that. Yeah, right. Yes, exactly. So, okay. So, but she's off, she's on the roof with baby Jesus trying to escape. Joseph gets away. He gets outside, he sees her up there. He tosses up a basket. He's like, here,

lower the baby in the basket so that we don't have to deal with the whole, you just throwing him to me thing. Oh my God. He got that basket and I thought, and my heart leapt. I really thought they were about to invent the sport of Basket Christ. I thought he was going to hold it open and they were just going to toss her in. I was so excited, but it didn't happen. It was so sad. Air ball. No. Yes. A bunch of popsicle sticks and rubber bands for an egg. So, okay. But the random guy that they stopped and sentenced to death for helping them, he fights really hard, but ultimately he's killed. So Marcellus gets

away. He's charging towards Mary, but Joseph side tackles him. Yes, side tackles him. Actual side tackle. Only way it could have been more apropos to this movie is if he'd gotten him with wrist control. I shit you not. Eucharist control. So the two of them fight. He ultimately Joseph traps Marcellus in like a flaming net. Yeah, he gets caught and that dies.

I'm pretty sure this was the origin story for the Hound. Oh, interesting. Oh, and by the way, his death was the most pathetic death I've seen, because he's being burned alive, but he just kind of lets out a few weak groans and just kind of resigns himself to quietly being burned alive. Oh, shucks. He's kind of like, eh, eh.

I would, it would be a whole thing to try to untie this. It would be... This will be in the Bible probably. It's like really movie? Now's the time you're not going to go with an obvious cliched trope of someone screaming as they burn? Right. Yeah.

Fine. And you got to have them running either through a door while they're on fire or into a lake. And there's a lake right next to the house. But no, he just kind of goes, eh, eh, and dies. But Mary and Joseph and Jesus charged right through the fire on their horse because God's protecting them from the fire. And how did that not end up in the Bible? Joseph and Mary with baby Jesus in tow galloping on a horse through a wall of fire to escape the legions.

You think somebody would have wrote that down. Yeah, and I wanted to see the meeting that took place at Netflix where they were like, all right, imagine this, this is the climax. They're on a horse, they're galloping through a wall of fire. Marcellus is pitifully dying. And they were like, love it. Here's a million dollars.

Yes, right. They charge into the sunset. And I'm like, really? I mean, I know that is the way Egypt would have been. But still. So, okay. So, but so that we cut to them galloping way too fast for there to be a baby on that fucking horse.

This is where we've basically caught up with the opening scene now. Well, there's the back and forth between the wider shot where they're galloping through the water and then the close up slow motion where they're just barely moving and then back to the galloping and then back to the slow motion where they're barely moving. I was very disappointed in the effects through there. But this is where Mary's like, you know, we need to take the baby to the temple to get him blessed. And Joseph's like, wow, there's so many soldiers. And she's like, doesn't matter. We are blessed, which is the closest I have ever seen a movie get to just having a character say, we have plot armor. We're going to put on the full plot armor of God.

Were they not just blessed when they were hiding in the house? Yes, fight for their lives and almost died. They were blessed then too, right? She's just like man turns out we'll get away Why are we doing diversions if we're blessed everything that's happened so far? Right, did they actually go back to the tip like in the Bible Dan? Do they go back to the temple do they they're like halfway to Egypt and then they're like Well, here's the thing The Nativity accounts in Matthew and Luke entirely contradict each other Because it is only in Matthew that they have to flee Herod and Luke that doesn't happen

Oh, okay They're just they're just hanging out in Judea and Luke and so at 40 days They present Jesus in the temple and that's what it is So yeah, and simeons get to meet Jesus So anytime you try to to harmonize the two different nativity accounts, you've got to Find answers to stupid questions. So this is their answer to this stupid question. Mary going, we're blessed. Yeah. Mary's like, we got to go back. We didn't get the guys in the big hats to say their magic Jew words at our baby and

cut off part of his dick. Right, exactly. So they go back to do that and them showing back up at the temple is gonna be intercut with this amazing fucking scene where now Marcellus has brought,, I guess not Marcellus, his his minions or whatever, have brought back all the newborn babies from Bethlehem. And apparently, Bethlehem had a fucking Cincinnati, Ohio worth of newborn babies. It is a smorgas baby. It is a smorgasbabe. Yeah. Like, I don't know, how many people in Bethlehem? Like maybe a thousand, two thousand normally census call it more?

There would have been about two thousand. Yeah. Okay. So let's say it was like a hundred thousand people because of the census. That's still like one baby boy born yesterday in. Right. Yes. Right.

But they've got a hundred and forty six of them. They've lined them up everywhere. Like when you bring in groceries, but you brought too many and you can't put them on the table anymore. Right. So they've got just spilling out all over the fucking place. All of them are crying. So it's hilarious. It's like like me getting on an airplane or whatever.

And and here it's like, man, what the fuck is this? I told you to kill the babies. Not bring them all here. Listen, you said to kill all of them and then also bring the Messiah. I feel like I was doing the best thing to synthesize all that stuff. I didn't know which one.

Can you put the mask down that you're playing with so we can talk for a second? Except that he's not because he's already talked to the mask. So this time the scene opens with him monologuing to a baby, which I suppose doesn't technically count. He's interrogating the baby. It doesn't count as an inanimate object, but close enough. Okay.

This was 100% just the film Crübe and like Anthony Hopkins is like yelling at a baby or something. I don't know So yeah, so all the babies are crying to tell them oh we didn't get the right baby But we brought all these babies anyway He goes to stab the baby But he can't cuz Netflix is not gonna have that shit on their fucking show So everybody has to sort of walk out on him like they don't respect him anymore Everybody has to sort of walk out on him like they don't respect him anymore or whatever. By the way, were we clear that they do say we slaughtered all the male children except

the newborns that are here now? Like what? Why did you kill the male children that aren't newborns? This was a newborn thing. I just wanted to be extra extra on it because new is kind, you know, I feel like you could have interpreted it and you would have been very clear. This was newborn. Can you put the mask on one more time?

Mask down. So yeah, so so then as all of this is happening, he is like he's rolling around on the floor and this is intercut with Mary just standing there triumphantly like I won the movie, right? So So then we get Mary and Joe bringing their baby to the temple danger be damned And Anna gets him in past the guards again because she knows a messiah baby when she sees one She brings him to Baba Ben Buddha who knows a messiah baby when he smells one I guess as well, right? goes up a Messiah baby when he smells one, I guess as well. Right. Yeah. It's funny because as they approach the guard is like, first of all, there are randos walking in and out in a steady stream here at the temple, but the guard steps in

front of her, right. Them. Yes. And me and like Ben and Jesuit just does her like come in Mary and he's like, Oh, I should have killed her when I had the chance. Yeah. Right. Right. So they bring her in and Mary in the narration, she's learned something here today or whatever. Right. She gives us her little monologue and then she looks directly at the camera at the end, which is a weird fucking choice. And that's it. She says, sorry, she says in the end, And that's it. She says, sorry, she says, in the end, love will save the world. And I wanna know when.

Because she's been waiting. It's been 2,000 years. Yep, yep. It's such a good ending. Literally Mary looking at the camera, like you said, being like, and nothing is gonna happen that's bad to my baby. Whee!

Yes. And yeah, and then fucking Tinkerbell comes in with her fucking wand and closes it up. All right. Well, Dan, Dan, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having us. Thanks for having us. This is a lot of fun. Always a pleasure. And real quick, while we still have you here, remind our listeners where to go to hear more from you

guys. You can go to I mean, Data Over Dogma, it's on YouTube and it's on anywhere that you get your, wherever you get your podcasts. So go check that out. And I'm on, thank God I'm atheist over, it's a worst version of skating atheist. So check that out if you want to. And then I'm at McClellan, M-A-K-L-E-L-A-N, that's a phonetic spelling of my last name, on a bunch of places, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter,

or whatever the hell they're calling it. Go follow him, he's almost got a million followers on TikTok, not quite there yet. Oh shit, all right. Maybe I'll start doing the TikTok. Hey, by the way, if I have any troop movements that Xi Jinping needs to know about, do you know who I should talk to?

No? Okay. So I like to check when I talk to people. All right. And well, that does it for our review of Mary Mother of Jesus. That's not going to do it for the episode just yet because we still need to reel ourselves back in next week. So Heath, tell us what's on deck.

We've got Leap 3. Very exciting leap, a tale of the Last Days. Live from Cleveland, Ohio. All right. Well, I'm excited as hell for that, but I feel like Mormon Movie Month just keeps slipping deeper into the earth the more we dig. But with that to look forward to, we're going to bring episode 515 to a merciful close once again. A huge thanks to the Dan's for helping out today. Be sure to check the show notes for links to their various podcasts and TikTok channels and books and whatnot. And an equally huge thanks to the Dan's for helping out today. Be sure to check the show notes for links to their various podcasts and TikTok channels and books and whatnot. And an equally huge thanks to all the Patreon donors that help make the show

go. If you'd like to count yourself among their ranks, you can make a per episode donation to patreon.com slash God awful and thereby earn early access to an ad free version of every episode. You can also help a ton 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 Atheist, Citation Ateist, D and D minus and the Scepticrat available wherever podcasts live. If you have questions, comments, or cinematic suggestions, check it out at gotoffamovies.gmail.com. Tim Robertson takes care of our social media. Our theme song was written and performed by Ryan Slott and Confidential 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 Heath Henwright and Eli Bosnik, I'm Noolution's Promise to work harder and earn another check next week. Until then, we'll leave you with the American Graffiti clothes. Mary would go on to have an impressive career in toast appearances. Joseph? That's it. 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.