God Awful Movies - 517: Emma Smith: My Story

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

This week, the guys team up for an atheist review of Emma Smith: My Story. It's the story of how you're actually allowed to pretend whatever history you want. --- If you’d like to make a per episode donation and get monthly bonus episodes, please check us out on Patreon: http://patreon.com/godawful Check out our other shows, The Scathing Atheist, The Skepticrat, Citation Needed, and D&D Minus. Our theme music is written and performed by Ryan Slotnick of Evil Giraffes on Mars. If you’d like to hear more, check out their Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/EvilGiraffesOnMars/ Report instances of harassment or abuse connected to this show to the Creator Accountability Network here: https://creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org/

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Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Bid MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Checking off your to-do list? Here's an easy one from Pennzoil. Get up to a $30 MasterCard prepaid virtual card with the purchase of 10 litres of Pennzoil Ultra Platinum at Canadian Tire. Maximizing engine protection and getting a reward for it? That's two checks on your list. Pennzoil. Long may we drive. So here's a weird fucking moment where it occurred to me that at this point in the movie, Emma is telling Julia the story of Joey telling her the story of Moroni telling him the story

of Nephi carving out the story of the Book of Mormon. And I'm currently telling the listeners about that. Right? So this is deep. We're deep now. And that whole thing, the movie is like, oh, we're winning right now. We're establishing a clear trail of evidence on this. Yeah.

God awful movie. Movie. Movie. Movie. ["The Game Caster"] Welcome back to the Game Caster. Each week we sample another selection from Christian Cinema because I'm pretty sure that technically makes us a true crime podcast and those are popular. I'm your host, No Illusions, and sitting 700 miles to my immediate left is my good friend Heath Enright.

Heath, welcome back. Mormon Movie Month Capperpper let's do it. Oh well relax it's Mormons. Yeah right right yeah exactly. There you go. Acoustic. Yeah there you go. For fuck's sake.

I want 500 versions to sing this intro screaming in the air where it doesn't count. And that voice comes from 900 miles to my northeast and belongs to my bad friend, Eli Bosnick. Eli, how are you this fine afternoon, sir? I don't think the members of the Morbid tabernacle choir have to be virgins. I don't know. I hate the virgins. They're virgins. Come on. If you fucked a member of the Morbid tabernacle choir. Or Donnie and Marie. Right, man.

So tell us, Heath, what will we be breaking down today? We watched Emma Smith, My Story. It's the story of Catholic God, I'm pretty sure, getting mad about Joseph Smith starting a cult. Oh, interesting. And then that God proceeding to murder everyone in his family one by one for 90 straight minutes. And nobody takes the hint that like, hey, stop being a cult man. I kill so many of your family.

It's like a fucking horror movie. Yeah, right. Yes. But the killer is Emma Smith's womb. And Eli, how bad was this movie? Well, if you love the Joseph Smith pseudo-history, we get every single Mormon movie month. And I know you do, podcast listener, but you wish we got more movies about what a great husband Bill Clinton was. You will love this movie. Okay, so I just want to sort of get, you know what?

I'll save it for my best work. I'm gonna save it for my best work. All right, yep, yep. We got that coming around too. So, Heath, is there anything you would like to nominate this one for being the best at being the worst at first? Yeah, I'm gonna go with best worst failing the Bechdel test. Right.

So again, the title of the movie is Emma Smith, my story. And it's the story of Joseph Smith told by one of his like 40 wives. Well, the entire movie is framed as Emma talking to her adult daughter, Julia, and still I don't think it ever passes the goddamn bank account. It manages to fail. They have a narration scenario outside of the universe

where it's supposed to be just two women talking and they fail Yes, they did if one of them had called a timeout to take a shit But no So alright, so I was gonna go with best worst PNL according to IMDB this movie made $881,000 on a five million dollar budget $881,000 on a five million dollar budget The opening weekend was under a hundred grand and by the way, that's not that doesn't represent a failure, right? That represents how much money the Mormon Church has decided it is worth to have this Bullshit version of their history on film somewhere, right? Yeah, it was worth 4.1 million dollars to them. They can afford it

That's it. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, they get Absolutely. It's so funny because whenever we do a Mormon movie month, someone will be like, oh, they must be running out of Mormon movies by now. Podcast listener, we could do a whole other podcast of Mormon. Now we would lose Heathen right to the demon that is suicide on week three. So I can barely keep him in for two out of the five weeks in a month. It's not a good idea for company cohesion to do Mormon Movie Month, the podcast, but just know the materials. Yeah, no, it's not because we're running out of films. I'm going to go with best worst.

Are they going to talk about it? Because look, even in the modern sense of Joseph Smith, which is that he was like kind of a flawed prophet who wasn't perfect and made some mistakes. Nobody in the Mormon Church says Joseph Smith was a good husband. This only thing he is more than a bad husband is a liar, right? It is just provably, demonstrably that he is one of the worst husbands in history and most of the incredibly well maintained Communications between Emma Smith and Joseph Smith are dear Joe. God you fucking suck So to make it truly like the monitor the Bill Clinton joke is actually not apropos

He is a significantly worse husband than Bill Clinton joke is actually not apropos. He is a significantly worse husband than Bill Clinton. And I'm counting what we know about the F-scene files. Oh my God. Well, the thing is, is that when you wrote, are they going to talk about it? There was like 31 things you could have meant by that, right? Over and over again in this movie, because I know the history, I'm going like, oh, the movie's not going to, I'm going to mention why they're doing that, why they're running from that state, why they're upset at that bank. Nothing.

Yeah. Because the movie has to spend the whole time skipping the Joseph Smith files every time they come up in the movie. Right. Pam Bondi dives in front of them like Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard. Yeah. So, all right. I'll tell you what, we were just about to start the breakdown, but then you doubted us.

So it sank further into the podcast. So now we have to do an ad instead. It's your fault. Hey podcast listener, do you love God awful movies? Do you wish there was more of it like a hundred episodes more? Well, you're in luck because for as little as a buck a show, you can get access to over a hundred patron bonus episodes of secular movies like The Core, Pixels, Star Wars Episode 1, and much, much more. Just head over to patreon.com forward slash God awful. Give us as little as a dollar a show and start listening to hundreds of hours of bonus content right away.

That's patreon.com slash God awful. Patreon. You want more podcast? You can have more podcast. All right, everybody. Welcome to the first ever writer's room meeting for our Emma Smith biopic. I am so excited to tell the story of the First Lady of Mormonism. She endured so much.

Exactly like how at first her father didn't approve of Joseph. story of the first lady of Mormonism. Right? She endured so much. Exactly like how at first her father didn't approve of Joseph. Well, her father never approved of Joseph. Well, I'm sure he does now, like, you know, in heaven. Yeah, I guess so. And we could talk about the Mormons being driven out of New York and Ohio and Missouri and Illinois right? Yep, right for no reason though for for no reason we're gonna say it was for no reason Well, I you know because you know people hated them, right? Right, but

Why are we saying people hated no reason? Like that's what I said. OK, but what about the revelation of plural marriage? That was like a really huge part of Emma's life. Yeah, yeah, we can't really get around that one, can we? No, we cannot. OK, so I'll tell you what. Let's dedicate two sentences to how hard it was for Emma when he married other women and children

the children those were just spiritual marriages no they weren't no they weren't and we're back for the breakdown we're gonna open up on production companies that cancel out candlelight productions and morning dew pictures that's a fizzle and hey you know what it is. So yeah, so this is, this is a movie brought to us by the Joseph Smith Jr. and Emma Hale Smith Historical Society. Yeah, in case you're wondering about the objectivity we're going to get. Hey, if you're ever having a bad day at your job, imagine what it's like to grow up loving history your whole life, thinking maybe I want to become

a historian and then becoming a professional liar for another bad dude's marriage for your whole life. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. No kidding. It's also it's funny that like a Mormon movie is going to open up with a quote about how when you're kids, you don't see things how they really are. But then when you grow up, you do kids believe in insane, weird lies. Enjoy our Mormon movie about what we say at our historical society named after famous Mormons. About the revelation that Joseph Smith had at 14.

Yeah, exactly. So, OK, so we get our VO and there's going to be like a kind of a competing narration thing here because we're going to be like a kind of a competing narration thing here because we're going to get narration from old Emma Smith, but also from her adult daughter, Julia. Yes. And we get a narration from her adult daughter, Julia. I'm going to say 15 minutes before who the fuck she is is introduced to the movie. So I was very impressed.

Yeah. Hello. I'm not Emma Smith, but who am I Batman? Yeah, I'm literally sitting there looking at a genealogical tree going okay Well if they're counting the adopted kids this could be Julia or maybe one of the sons has a high-pitched voice They had me googling and looking I learned who Julia Murdoch Smith is and I learned like who Louis Vitamin is and some like details about all them. Yep. Yeah Well, it's a good play if that's what they're going into and that's the thing

We always have to keep in mind when you're watching these these Mormon movies is that this is Marvel movies for Kara, right? Like she just like no idea like to them. They're like, oh fuck. It's Julia. Holy shit. Whoa I love her fucking the thing she does with the cards Like to them they're like, oh fuck it's Julia! Holy shit! Whoa! I love her fucking, the things she does with the cards. But she goes, she's like, you know, mom could sense that dad was gonna die in jail. And I'm like, everyone who ever met that man could sense he was eventually gonna die in jail. Joe Smith was about to get killed by a mob like every day of his adult life.

Yes, exactly. So close, every day. Everybody knew. Yeah. So, but she's like, you know, but when he died, my mom was left as a widow with five children and that's when Lewis Bideman cozied up to her, the son of a bitch. I guess he stepped out on Emma and left her with another kid from his side piece. Yeah. And then the side piece was kind of like stupid or whatever, couldn't

handle and had had to give the kid to Emma to take over. Yes. So the side piece was Nancy Abercrombie, I believe again, in my weird Googling and Nancy Abercrombie, maybe not a great mom, but smart enough to smudge up the little boy for extra sympathy and then bring it over to Emma. Right? Just squeezed him through a couple of fucking chimneys on his way. Yeah.

He comes in there looking like a pig pen in Charlie Brown or whatever. And the movie really plays to us that Emma Smith had no previous experience with her husband's cheating on her. So this is really totally new territory for her. But she took in the kid. She took in the her husband's love child and and she was so saintly that she hired that kid's mom to work at her hotel. Wow.

That feels more like a spite hire. Yes. her hotel. Wow. OK, that feels more like a spite hire. Yes, exactly. That was like, all right. And now you watch me raise your fucking child. Well, and the thing is, is that like this was after Joseph Smith died and like the city of Nauvoo had pretty much emptied out and she owned almost the whole city. Like she could have just given the lady a place to stay, but she's like, no, you work for me now.

Like I get it. But like, let's just be honest. That was spite. Yeah. Yeah. And then we get the title that says Emma Smith, my story. And Julia, the voiceover goes, you know, my mother was always taking in strays. I was one of them. And this is where we sort of get the framing of the movie. Right. So the Julia, the voiceover lady, has come back to take care of mom in her dotage after her second marriage fell apart

Right and they're going to like sit there and reminisce about their lives together with no Connective tissue other than that's what happens next in the movie in a podcast narration studio Yeah, exactly. All they need is the can headphones and and everything's complete. Now, again, if you know anything about Smith family drama, you also understand that having Julia be like the doting companion to Emma is a little like if you did a documentary about the Menendez parents married or was one of the Menendez brothers. This is a person who tried to escape her family into a different religion Twice yeah, yeah twice Yeah, but you'll never know that from this movie also like this is where we introduced the fact that old Emma will speak only

in wisdom nuggets Yes, I wrote mom speaks entirely in slogans from the back of a bag of chocolate chips Yeah entirely in slogans from the back of a bag of chocolate chips. Yeah. But a couple times she fucks it up. Like right here she's like, lilacs are beautiful. Just, just like dying people. Yes. Like, all right, mom, like you fucked up that tollhouse one. You ever see a sign at the Cracker Barrel and you wonder who the fuck wants that in

their house? Emma Smith. Emma Smith is who wants that in her house, apparently. And she's going to tell us that. So yeah, but ultimately, like she flashes, we flashback, right? We fall into our first flashback, which is Pennsylvania in 1813. Now this is long before she met Joseph Smith. There's a legend amongst Mormons that her dad was straying from the faith when

she was a little kid. So she prayed to God to give him faith again. And then he came back to the religion. So we're going to see that play out. One of those famous atheist pioneers of the 1800s. Yes, right. 1813 America. Yeah. But yeah, but we start this off with him going like, there will be no prayer in my house, little seven-year-old girl, damn it, God does not intervene in our lives and is in fact, you know.

Gonna slap that Bible out of your hand. This is 1813 Pennsylvania, motherfucker, we are atheists. Also, you have to make a swastika cake for a Nazi if you have to. Right, you have to, it's important. That's how we are. So yeah, but Dad overhears her praying and that's enough to change him back into the religion he was born into and almost certainly was his entire life.

Because God listened to her prayer. And then we speed cut to grown up Emma meeting Joseph Smith. Now, obviously they're gonna revise a lot of Joseph Smith's history that's the whole point of the movie but one of the most important revisions that they want to make here is that Joseph Smith was a hard-working guy that was always working real hard right so every time we see him he's like covered in sweat from a hard day's work. Joseph Smith never did

a hard day's work in his fucking life, right? That was his defining characteristic. But we see him, he's holding the shovel. And here's the best part, because the way they actually met, right? Because we assume that he was hard at work in the potato fields. The way they actually met is he was doing his treasure con on her dad's property when he met Emma. Yes. That's why he has the shovel

He's had a hard day of going nah, you doubted me Here's the thing too is that he didn't actually do the digging right? He was the guy who looked at the magic rock and told him where the treasure was gonna be his buddies did the digging So even that is over selling what a piece of shit he was. Yeah, he should have just been holding a clipboard instead. Yes, right, yeah, exactly. But yeah, so, but we learn here that her dad did not approve of her budding romance

with this obvious con artist. Because like at this point, like he had conned her dad into a place to stay for like however many weeks they could pull off the no, no no it's down here somewhere act and then he had moved on to another farm right once his dad sent Joseph Smith packing he moved on to a different farm and started running the same con that's when this part of the movie is set yes so but of course we get a falling in love montage that is just damn near every falling in love cliche alphabetically

She out skips him in stones. I wanted to start hitting her. I don't know Hey the the prophet of Mormonism really bad at skipping stones really big Deal, but like he's coming in way too high at the end. Yeah, you gotta get low. Yes It's two hops you accidentally get to right Yes, obviously. He gets two hops. You accidentally get two hops. Right, right. But yeah, so she outskips him. She outplays him in chess because he's an idiot.

Like I mean, maybe Emma's real, real smart, but also he's an idiot. Hey, the prophet of Mormonism, not good at chess either. I think that's a little worse. Yeah, right. Really wanted a flash cut to God being like, what are you doing, man? Protect your vision?

So yeah, but then they have a snowball fight and they learn to dance and blah blah blah more love We say ride horses together. She's also better at that than he is He pushes her on a swing Yeah, and I gotta say Emma Smith for what is this 1813 ish Pennsylvania? Oh, no, we're a little bit further ahead Sorry, like 1820 something Pennsylvania. God he keep up. Yeah. All right. No, I'm with it I'm with it. She spends a lot of time on a very well coiffed like hair helmet thing. She's got going on Yes, all the time. No, she looks like the predator was like a judge in England Well, what's funny is cuz there's like three fucking pictures of her and she has her hair like that and all the pictures

So they're like she always wore her hair like that even to ride horses, you know always looked like a raggedy and all Right, right. So good, but that montage ends with them She's like he's helping her spool thread and she's talking about how her dad still doesn't approve and, you know, he won't let her marry him. I get like, it's tough when your job is podcaster. Yeah, right. Yeah. When you're talking to dad about something like that, be like, I'm going to be an eventual cult leader, gold ghost finder dig guy. Not great for talking to dad.

Well, after I'm dead. They'll have billions is crazy How much money though have but yeah, but they ultimately decide fuck dad's approval. They're just gonna get married anyway Yes, they get married without her dad's permission and look I know through like a modern feminist lens fuck it Mary whoever you want, but that was also an incredibly shameful thing at the time. So it speaks to the revisionism of this movie that Mormons have already settled on. But she was just one of those 1800s feminists who didn't like to be told what to do.

Yeah. Also, we should probably point out that because so little happens in this movie that we haven't talked about on the show before, the closed captioning is so weirdly lazy in this movie. At this point, the older Emma comes up in narration and she says, when you're in love, you come to rely on each other. And that's translated in the closed captioning as when you're in love, you come to be inaudible, inaudible. Well done, guys. OK, so now we're going to jump ahead to 1827.

We're in New York. They're sitting around, Emma and Joseph are sitting around the Smith family table talking about how much physical labor Joseph Smith always does and the family in general. He sure is hard working. Yeah. Darling, is that the sweat of your brow? I see why. Yes, it is. Yeah, right. You're a feminist.

I was just fixing my bootstraps. Yeah, right. Yeah. They get done eating and he goes like, let's go do more chores. Us hardworking Smiths that always work hard. So they go to leave. But on the way out, dad stops to tell Emma how hot she is or whatever. But in a nice way, he stops to tell Emma how hot she is or whatever, but in a nice way. He's like, you know, my, my son did good and married a hot chick. Right. So then once the, all the men leave, there's a moment here where Emma sits there talking

to Joey's mom about Joey, obviously at last we passed the Bechdel test. That was crazy. But mom explains that like, you know, the family's fractured by not all having the same religious beliefs. And she turns to Emma and she says, but you know, I keep praying that we'll all find one faith. And I know God will answer my prayers one of these days. Now what we're supposed to see is, well, yes, Mormonism will be the fulfillment of that promise.

But the reality of it is that there's like a 90 year old lady going one of these Days God will listen to me and that's fucking hilarious Yeah, also to be clear the religion they're going to settle on is Joseph's con. Yes, right, right Uh-huh because lest we forget our history these Smiths the family were a family of con people Yes, right. They're the fucking lies of Lachlan Mora were a family of con people. They're the fucking lies of Lachlan Mora of 1800s upstate New York. And the reason they didn't get along

is that his family were like, that's a bad con, Joe. We should just keep doing the treasure one. And he was like, I'm telling you guys, we're gonna have a trillion dollars in Utah. Right, but at this moment, all he's got is, I'm digging up a gold trapper keeper at some point. Eventually, that hasn't even happened yet.

Right. So and then we back out of the flashback long enough for like Emma, like old Emma, she makes a point about the power of prayer and how prayer fixes everything. And Julie is like, Hey, you know, my life sucks right now. So if God could fix it, he'd beat a real dick about it. But Emma's like, well, no, it's God's fault when it's good. When it's bad, it's your fault though. You know when a child doesn't want to be held and she's like, yeah, real pain in the ass.

She's like, that's you. You're like that for God. Little problematic pumpkin inside a problematic pumpkin. That was impressive. So okay, so meanwhile, in the flashback, Joey's telling Emma about when his brother Alvin died, and I guess the minister said he was going to go to hell because he wasn't baptized. Yeah. So one thing that we should point out, and if there is like an overarching theme of this

movie, it is that a lot of people credit Emma for influencing Joseph. Well, sorry, a lot of people credit Emma for influencing God who eventually spoke to Joseph about the idea of eternal families. So they're planting the seeds of that here, right? Yes. Which is the like, well, I just can't imagine God would ever make us go to heaven without our families, which we should point out in the early 20th century was one of the major appealing things about Mormonism is that you got a forever family.

Right, right. So yeah, but they talk about that and he takes her out to the spot like in the woods where he originally met Jesus and God, right? When he was a 14 year old who was supposed to be doing his chores at the time. And like Julia, like as the voice of the viewer, I guess, comes in like the older Julia comes in out of the flashback talking over it and goes like, hey, maybe dad who was 14 at the time, like didn't really meet God and Jesus in a forest clearing while he was supposed to be doing his chores.

Maybe he was lying or mistaken and shut up. No, no, It was true. Julia keeps doing that. Jumping in and being like, I think you were all lying to me like so much. Emma has to be like, we're doing a Mormon movie. Shut up. He had truthy eyes. Fuck you.

Right, right. You didn't look in his eyes and see how truthful they were. Shut up. Julia, get out of the podcast. Yeah. I really wanted Julia heckles to continue throughout the movie. Like he's lifting up the plates and Julia's just like 200 pounds. Yes. Right.

At least 200 pounds. Right. Well, so, okay. So here's a weird fucking moment where it occurred to me that at this point in the movie, Emma is telling Julia the story of Joey telling her the story of Moroni, telling him the story of Nephi carving him the story of Nephi carving out the story of the Book of Mormon and I'm currently telling the listeners about that right? So this is deep. We're deep now.

And that whole thing the movie is like, oh, we're winning right now. We're establishing a clear trail of evidence on this. Can I also say what's so obvious from this movie is that Emma wasn't part of the con and there's a little bit of sadness to that. When you read between the lines of like the Smith family you can see the moments where like the brothers were playing along and then like here's this person started playing along and then this guy gets in the con and Emma's just sitting at the bottom of the hill while Joseph pretends to dig up golden plates being like Hope he's warm up there with his real golden plates that I actually believe he has right right right so yeah

So we see that we see a brief shot of him carrying the 200 pound golden plates under one arm around or whatever Swinging them. It's the best in the narration you get Julia be like wait wait mom You were there when he found the golden plates Mama's to be like I Not almost well. I saw them right he let me shuffle and then I saw Plates after that his show is called the scathing atheist, but there's we're all equal How could you do that if you let me shuffle it doesn't make sense? I get to rape the ass But we're all equal. How could he do that if he let me shuffle? It doesn't make sense otherwise. It's real.

I get to rape the ants. I also, I love that there's like, as she's like waiting for him to show up with the gold plates, you can hear like these like demon voices in the woods going, he's not a prophet. It's all bullshit. You know, so that the viewer who's thinking that is like, oh, that's the devil whispering to me in my head, right?

Turns around, it's your dad. Dad! Oh, sorry, I just thought I'd come for a visit. Her dad hating Joe is the best. He's the hero of the rules. He's done so much throughout. They try to soft play it, but her dad hated Joe every second forever of his entire life.

And you got a great dad. His dying wish was fuck Joe. Like that was his dying words were like also Joseph Smith is a piece of shit. He's a fucking lying con artist. You're converting to the religion of that novel he's working on. That's nothing. So then we cut to the fucking ruffians that are planning to pre-persecute Joseph. There's even a shot where there's a guy lifting a gun to shoot Joseph from eight and a half feet away and another guy puts his hand on it and goes, not yet.

Smoke bomb. Yeah, right, so. But then we get, we see a pitchfork mob coming after his golden plates but they cleverly hid them in a barrel. Nobody thought of that. We get Isaac yelling at Emma and of course, and this is a big theme of this movie as well, right, because this movie will never admit why anybody hated Joseph Smith, why people hated the Mormons, why Isaac Hale, Emma's dad, didn't like Joseph Wright.

So in this moment, what we hear him say is, you married a dreamer, Emma. And I'm like, I don't think that was his issue with the guy. I think he's that word was a harsher language word in reality. Literally convicted con man. Yeah. Yeah. So there you go. Yeah. But then, and he also points out, he's like, also in your husband is too stupid to read a book. How the fuck is he going to translate a golden Bible? And the voiceover is like, he was though, he was too stupid to read a book. That actually proves that it's magic because he was that stupid, but somehow.

How could anyone? The gift of God. Write something as beautiful as the Book of Mormon. Alma? Are you kidding me? Unless they had the gift of God, write something as beautiful as the Book of Mormon. Alma, are you kidding me? Unless they had the gift of Shakespeare himself. Yeah, right. So, yeah. So but and then we start seeing the part where like Martin Harris is like acting as his scribe.

And this movie never shows the fact that Martin Harris can't see the plates. Now, right. Like eventually when they later on in the movie, when when she's scribing, they'll show that. But at this point in the movie, they leave out the fact that Martin Harris wasn't allowed to see what Joseph was looking at at the time, because of course, that's an eight year old lie. Look, that's the kind of the lie an eight year old would tell you. And an eight year old would be able to call bullshit on it.

So the movie doesn't want to show you that yet. Yeah. And a Mormon apologist will argue that Joseph didn't have his face in a hat for the entire translation, which is true. A lot of the time there was a curtain, but he had his face in a hat for some of the translation. Most of it, yes. I would have depicted it in my movie, is what I'm saying.

Okay. Like, just to be clear, if your argument is our prophet didn't have his face in a hat the whole time, the whole time, you're starting in a bad, you're very weak starting position. Yes. So, OK, so then we get Joey, she says, Em is pregnant. So Joey's singing and doting on her as he did as such a wonderful husband. But then there's rain and bad music, which means that the baby doesn't make it right. Yeah. And she has to come up at this point and she's like, yeah, you know, for somebody

specially favored by God, he killed a lot of our babies, like a lot. He killed a ton of our babies. And I guess since we're at rock bottom anyway, this is also the point in the movie. And this is one of the like Eli, you know, are they going to mention it moments? Are you going to talk about it moments? Right? Where they start talking about how Martin, how Martin wanted proof to show his wife of the golden Bible's power.

And so against God's wishes, Joseph let Martin take the pages to show him to his wife and then lost the pages. Now of course, again, if you've been listening to our show for a while, you know what really happened is Martin's wife stole them and said, regenerate one fucking page from this and I'll believe it. And Joseph couldn't do that because he was making it up as he went along, right? That's what really happened. This movie won't admit that and just says, oh, Martin lost it. It just, he spilled out of his car near the river. That's what really happened. This movie won't admit that and just says, oh, Martin lost it. It just, he spilled out of his car near the river.

Yeah. They don't even admit that they eventually got the pages back. Did they get the pages back? Yeah. No, she gives the pages back. And that's when Joseph is like, well, now we have to tell a different Nephites version of the story. Yeah.

I thought I thought it was because he couldn't reproduce them that, you know, right. Like I think the Mormon story on this is somebody who's like, okay Well, you could just translate that again, right? Like I guess the scribe would have said that to Joseph Yeah, Joseph was like, yeah, no, totally. Oh, hold on. Hold on bring. Did you hear that? I got another call from God Just give me a second. He said scrap Lehi. I'm gonna do like yes by an Omni now instead. Yes important. Yeah, it's cool. It's fine that we lost Right. I'm gonna write completely different shit lightly different. Yes, exactly. Yeah, cuz God's mad at me for letting you take the pages Yeah, so so yeah so so but again like it doesn't even make sense within this movie because the movie doesn't want to get into all of that shit cuz

That makes it so obvious that it's a fucking lie So the movie is just like he's lost the pages. And then like us, the viewer are like, well, yeah, but you're just, you're translating. What is that, a week of work if you're hustling? 116 pages, writing it out, you know? But yeah, but, but you know, of course they're devastated. And so Emma prays like she's never prayed before. Joey goes to do very hard physical labor,

which he was known for doing a lot of, damn it. They have this moment where she comes out to the garden and she's like, you've been working straight for 93 hours as you so often do. Please at least take a drink of water. She's like, don't want a drink of water. I want to work hard like I always do. No, I'm too tireless and fastidious and hardworking. I'm too penitent and yeah. And everyone hates me for no reason. And I have a normal relationship with social media. And it's actually, if you think about it, it's Twitter's fault.

I had to quit. Twitter was bad. I remained good and had a chill time. But Emma comes out, she gives him some Bible wisdom and he learns the important lesson to always listen to the voices in his head, right? He'll never doubt those again. But eventually, so God forgives him and lets him start translating different pages, right? But now Emma is his scribe because fuck Martin and fuck his wife.

You're bullshit. Also, Joseph can't translate or pee when you're looking. So we get to see the curtain because the plates in him and Emma as described on the other side of the table. Well, and this is a moment where

like they try to pretend that his ignorance proves he's being truthful, right? Because there's this moment where he's talking about the walls outside of Jerusalem and he stops and he looks over at at him and he goes, wait a minute, did was Jerusalem a walled city? And she goes, yeah.

And he goes, oh, I didn't know that. And we're supposed to be like, oh, wow, he was learning from the book he's translating so he can't be making it up. But like most large cities at the time were walled. That would be like guessing somebody's right handed. You know, you wouldn't like also you just lied about what you said. Was it a red card. No, yeah, I knew it was a black.

So, oh, it like there's another moment where they tried to do the same thing. He's like, well, I don't know how to pronounce this name, so I'm just going to spell it out. But like this was supposed to be written in a hieroglyphs. It's not a phonetic alphabet. You can't spell out something written in. It says owl snake upwards. I mean, come on. not a phonetic alphabet. You can't spell out something written in. Oh, it says, um, owl snake, upwards. To be clear, I would have loved if the name he was spelling out in that case was

anti-Nephi Lehi. Emma's just like, Hey, check again. Yeah. No, no, no, no. Check again. But yeah. But so, and then of course, as he's doing that, like we get old Emma's just like, hey, check again. Yeah. No, no, no, check again. But yeah. But so and then of course, as he's doing that, like we get old Emma's voiceover going, I never doubted him even a little bit. We sort of half-assed introduced Oliver Cowdery as his other scribe now at this point. And that she didn't get to see the plate. Yes, she was very upset about that.

Oh, this was the best because yeah, I was like, yeah, so Joey was dead. I was I was the scot. I was definitely going to be allowed to see the plates. And then the movie has to be like, fuck, no, he was a dick about it. And then we find out that he let some other lady in town, Mary Whitmer. Yeah. See the plates and Emma's furious, which I get it. OK, it is actually the only story that is funnier than that. So this is Mary Whitmer and the exmos in our audience will know how this story works.

So he was conning the Whitmers and of course one of the Whitmers, if not both of the Whitners, are two of the three witnesses. Not the eight, not to be confused with the eight witnesses. Right, they just felt the place through their pants. Right, that were just like, yeah, no, it it's there i bet you i i sure fucking bet the three witnesses so one of them was a witness mary is their mom and mary walks into the house this is the real story mary walks into the house one day and goes hey i was just outside and there was an old man who turns out to be the angel moroni and i saw the plates and that is how Mary Wicker saw them. She fucking improv gamed her way.

Yes. And forced them to yes and her yes and and they had to be like yes and Mary's in the fucking book now. Because they can't just go like oh bullshit Mary. Yeah. She heath catching me in a lie her way into Mormon history. Yep. Oh yeah. You didn't the text message didn't said but it would be on your side of the phone,

right? No. But this movie, this movie from the perspective of Emma plays it as Mary being this like young, hot woman in town. Yes, right. The whore that got to see the- And Emma's like, you let Mary see that bitch? Mary got to see the plates.

How was it, Joseph? Does she look at the plates better than me? You don't even know how I to see the plates. How was it, Joseph? Does she look at the plates better than me? You don't even know how I look at the plates. She asked how big it was when the plates were hard. But think about what a prick, like just stop for a second and think about what a prick you'd have to be to do this to your wife as well, right? Like, like your wife is devastated that she didn't get to see the plates while somebody else did and you don't at any point go, come no fucking plates lady, you know like she is the thing

There's a thing inside Joseph Smith's head that you have to empathize with where he must have been up some nights being like Practicing being like Mary. It's all fake. Um, but if you Say that I shoved the plate inside you, but you gotta be... she's not gonna be cool. She's not gonna be cool. I can't talk to her about it. Alright, well this movie seems entirely unaware of how unspeakably cruel all this shit is when you know that Joseph Smith is lying. So we need a minute to process that, but we'll be back after that with even more of Emma Smith. My Story. And then I said the treasure will be here soon.

Wow, Joseph, that's amazing. Hello boys. Can I get you anything? No thank you, Mrs. Whitmer. Thanks mom, we're good. Okay, well good luck on your little book. I'm a firm believer now that I've seen the plates. Sorry, Mary what?

Oh yeah, yeah, I just went out to milk the cows and I was approached by the angel Moroni. He said Mary, you have been waiting so long and you've been so faithful that I'm going to show you the plates. And then he did. He showed you the plates. Really? Really? What did they look like?

They had golden plates with ancient writing on them. What kind of ancient writing? Oh, are we locking down what the writing on the plates look like? No. Ancient is fine. Great. So, you know, just when you're listing the witnesses, quick reminder that I saw the plates too. Wouldn't want to leave me out because then people might think that I was lying about seeing the plates and there weren't any. Well what a miraculous moment for Mormonism this is. Yes, yes miraculous indeed. This is actually what happened in Mormon history.

Yep, sure is. Uh huh. Such fucking nuts. And we're back for more of this shit and we're going to rejoin the action with Isaac telling Emma what a transparent con artist Joseph is some more. He's the fucking best. So you haven't even seen the fucking plates? I wanted him to like start talking to Julia in the flash forward flashback? You get it.

She gets it right? This future woman gets it. I don't look at the fucking plates. I tell you that right now. Well, yeah, Julia. Yeah. So Julia's like, come on, mommy. You didn't you never peeked.

And so she's like, no, I never peaked to look at the plates. I could I did lift. It was heavy. I lifted it. I felt them through the cloth a couple of times. But could, I did lift, it was heavy. I lifted it. I felt them through the cloth a couple of times, but no, I trusted him. I'm like, well then why did you lift it and feel it through the cloth? But okay. Yeah. Yeah. Truly get out of that fucking narration room.

But then, okay. So back in the flashback, Joey brings home the first copy of the Book of Mormon, right? And I just, fun fact, when copy of the Book of Mormon. Right. And I just fun fact, when they brought the Book of Mormon to the printer, they were like, this is the divine word of God. Don't change anything. And he's like, do you want me to fix the atrocious spelling and punctuation at least? And they were like, well, fuck, let's let me, let me ask. I'll find out and I'll get back to you. God says that actually the comma that comma is optional. Yeah so it doesn't really have no strict rules. Yeah we'll run it through the Eli filter. Thank you. Sir Red Squiggle. So but then we see like this like montage and

this is of course this is part of Mormon movie bingo right where like people are reading the Book of Mormon and just wowed by its brilliance. So apparently he gave Emma her copy. She read it cover to cover while standing up in the woods. It was a weird choice. It was the first copy. It was like one. I wanted her to just grab the book and like tear out 116 pages and like dive into a pond. Well, I can reproduce those with stuff. But yeah, but she reads it and she loves it. And then we get Joey telling a room full of people that if they each recruit five people who recruit five people below them, it's free money. Then yeah, right. You can just sit back.

So but yeah, we watch some people get baptized. Joey baptizes his dad, right? Papa Smith gets gets baptized. And that feels I bet the Smiths when the when their dad agreed to be in on the scam, that probably feels like me and he feel when we've been doing an unfunny bit for 11 minutes and no, I acknowledges it and we know it's going to make it to the edit. Right. I can't roll this boat through the syrup anymore. Neither can I. Yeah. We're our own religion now. So. And then we're like syrup, syrup, syrup. You can't cut it. Yeah, right. Right. And so and then we get and this is another one of those Marvel movie moments where we get the elect lady revelation. So at a certain point after the church was

all started, Emma was like, Oh, you know, wow, like doesn't seem that God's given me much to do. It'd be a shame if I was upset and told everybody about, you know, what happened when I looked under the cloth and he's like, Oh, you know what? God just decided that there is a, you are an elect lady. Yes, you are. Yeah. I was like that bitch fucking Mary. Yes. And in her way into the book, her head is bullshit. I'm the elect lady. What does that mean? Did you write it down? Yeah. Joseph was like, yeah, that's you, babe. That's totally you're the you're the only wife for me forever. That's right. Elect. Yes. Lady. Elect lady.

She's asking. She's like, what does that mean? He's like, well, it means you have to stop with all your backs. That's that's literally in the revelation, by the way, that she couldn't. She couldn't talk back to him anymore. And so it's such transparent bullshit. You have to read it I really recommend reading the injury because if you sent it to your wife, she'd be like hey, hon what? Hey, fuck you though. It's also so clear that he was like and it's all the things that I think you're good at You could write sing the hymns. Yep. You get to write the hymns, huh? That's pretty good. No keeping the money you're good at. You can sing the hymns. Yep. You get to write the hymns.

That's pretty good. No keeping the money. You're being weird. Right. Yeah. You sign this NDA and you're in the book. It's really your church. I just it's just my name on the deeds and everything. She's pregnant again. We learned that here.

She thinks maybe she's got twins in there this time. They die too, though. They also die. Yeah, but not yet. She's like one of Elon Musk's, like brood mares. It's terrifying how similar that is. Yeah. So, but then we get her singing pregnantly out the window, you know, just thinking about her husband and all his wisdom.

And now they're moving to Ohio. No reason. Sometimes it's just nice there. You just want to change the air. Cleveland live show was lovely. It was. It was like very friendly city. Friendlier than I expected. Nice to see everybody. So.

Rock City. Nope. But yeah. So but her dad still does it. We learned that her dad still doesn't approve of Joseph Smith. There's this moment where like she tries to give her mom a copy of the Book of Mormon and her mom's like, oh, you know, I would love to to read that. I have to wash my hair. I can't, though, I guess not.

The dad would not allow it. He would never allow. You know how much your dad cares about religion, a topic we've already covered in this movie. That's why I can't read your boyfriend's novel. So she's like, this will be your last chance to be a Mormon. She's like, oh no. And then she leaves and the VO comes over and goes, I never saw my parents again.

I'm like, oh my God, that's so fucked up. But okay, so now we arrive in Ohio is 1831. Emma gives birth to the twins. They die. I can't tell if this midwife actress is just phoning it in or if she can tell that the twins aren't going to make it. And she's really kind of wasting her time there. I don't know.

Also, this is when Emma is baptized. And I'm so mad that we didn't get to see Emma's baptism because this is what happened during Emma's baptism according to Wikipedia quote Emma was baptized by Oliver Cowdery on June 28th at 1830 in Colesville, New York surrounded by a group of mocking people The three of us just over there.

Exactly. All right. So, but Joey like comforts her after her second and third miscarriages. They've got this, this element in this, in the movie where like every time one of the babies that she writes its name in the Bible or whatever. So we go back to that. Getting cramped. It is.

It is. She's doing the margins now. Okay. She's getting cramped! It is. She's doing the margins now. Okay, this Bible is completely full, every margin full of dead babies by the end of this book, because God is just murdering this family one by one. Just killing the fuck out of these babies. But luckily though, God was murdering other people too. It turns out that there was another lady on the very same day-ish that her twins died. Another lady died in childbirth and her husband didn't want the kids, so she gave them to

Emma and Joseph to raise as their own. This includes Julia, right? The one that we're telling the story to. Yeah. In the words of the prophet, dibs. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And old Emma comes in to be like, yeah, it was actually a blessing that they died,

those babies, if you think. God killed your mom, Julia, during birth, and I got you, so. Yep, so win the win. God's awesome. Really, if you think about it. And then, like, the movie just wants to get out of the way, and they go, and yeah, also one of those babies.

Well, we'll get to that baby diet in a minute, but then we cut into town, right? So we're at this shop in town where some local rabble rousers are stirring up some anti-mortem and sentiment with their pamphlets. And we got the yeah, this lady is like, hyping her new Mormonism unveiled podcast. Yes. Yeah. Xmo podcast. I liked her character throughout. She. Yes. Yeah. An exmo podcast. I liked her character throughout. She was fun.

Yeah. So, yeah, so she and we get another one of those moments where they can't actually admit what people's issues with Mormonism were, right? Because she like Emma comes into the store and this lady confronts her with a pamphlet and she goes, no good will ever come of talk of revelations. And I'm like, well, you're you like the Bible, though. So like, obviously, you don't think that. Right. But she can't be like, your husband is raping our daughters.

And that complicates the movie. So, yeah. Yeah. But the podcast lady does explain, like at the very end, she's like, also, the whole town is going to kill you. What? Nothing. Yeah, right, but the podcast lady does explain like at the very end. She's like also the whole town is gonna kill you what nothing Yeah, right nothing. I see just a pamphlet and then we smash cut to the mob For Joe. Yes, the way they tar and feather him Yes, which this movie is very sure is the fucking stations of the cross Well, yeah every time we watch a fucking Joseph Smith movie

We have to watch this and they always try to make it look terrible and dramatic But it's too silly for that because you look like a chicken at the end. It's just funny looking. Babe, do I look stupid right now? I guess a little bit. Do I look stupid? They're doing like attending to his wound scenes afterwards.

And the movie is going, you see that, everybody? It's pretty hard to get tar off because it's very sticky. Well so okay so here's the thing in tarring and feathering like people were very often injured like because they put hot tar on them sometimes that's not what happened to Joseph Smith but yeah like after that it's just it's a big pain in the ass right like maybe the solvents you used to get it off could burn you look it could be caustic or something like that but like generally speaking afterwards it's just like that. But like generally speaking afterwards, it's just like, it's not like, you don't have like huge open lesions like the guys in Chernobyl, right? Like.

It looks like they spread on room temperature tar with like a butter knife and he had some little spots. Yeah, rolled him around on some feathers. And feathers. Which, hey, you know what? He kinda had it coming. So, but chicken torture or no, Joseph preaches on. The next day,

Julia's brother died. Mormonism tries to make it seem like like it's the crowd's fault that the baby died because the baby had pneumonia and like the door was left open when they grabbed him and tarred and feathered him. It's like, yeah, but but Emma was there, you know, so I don't know. Refusing to mask up. Little too heavy for both. I'll just leave that one on the floor.

Right. Yeah. He's fine. That one's coffee as it is. I got a little space in the margins of the book. So but yeah, so then the brother dies. And then, of course, this backs us out of the flashback long enough for Julia to say, hey, hey, you know what, that's how about the problem of evil? That's my brother that we're talking about.

Right. Like, Julia, shut the fuck up. Yeah.'s, how about the problem of evil? That's my brother that we're talking about, right? Like God. Hey Julia, shut the fuck up. Yeah, right, right, which is old Emma's answer. What have I been saying this whole time? Right, she's like, well, you know, God's ways aren't our ways. She's like, oh, God's ways are murdering my baby brother.

And she's like, hey, shut the fuck up now. Way more than your baby brother, Julia. Pay attention to the story. Come on now. Are we still rolling? Why do we keep keeping these? Is it? And now this is where Brigham Young joins the story. Come on now. Are we still rolling? Why do we keep keeping these?

And now this is where Brigham Young joins the fold. It's weird how little of Brigham Young is in the Emma Smith story. Isn't that strange? Hey fellas, did Brigham Young and Emma Smith ever interact in a way that you think might be a Right. Good friends, good buddies. So and then we get I could bring up young ever so I guess anymore. So we get all the kids running around with Joseph Smith. He apparently invented jogging.

And then like once again, they can't admit what people's actual problems were. Right. So we see all the ladies, all the church ladies in the shop complaining about how impious her husband is. But the reason they're like the impiety they're talking about is the way he runs around like a child having such fun like a scamp not, you know, raping the children and living off of Haunting other people and shit. Yeah, right. The women in town are like, hey your husband's like fucking idiot prophet Look at him run around with the kids.

She's like, or maybe only idiots would listen. That's so close to the actual fucking line. Like almost quote, and then the movie was like, mic drop, we're winning right now. The movie was certain of it. She might as well say crazy like a fox and then walk out. Right. Right. Because what the lady says is like, you know, your husband says that he was like the word of God was revealed to him at 14 years old. Do you really think I would talk to a 14 year old? She says, well, maybe only a 14 year

old would listen. And I'm like, why? Right. Like, hey, like at any age, if God shows up, I feel like you'd listen. But so fucking dumb. So, okay. So Joey preaches more, which is boring for us, I guess. But I guess like for the Mormon audience watching, it's supposed to be a whole like, can you imagine seeing him back in his small venue days? Oh my God. Like they supposed to be that moment or whatever.

I remember when it was just Joseph Smith and that couple from that astronomer company will watch it in a garage somewhere. Yeah. So but then there's this moment where like I guess Joseph Smith is revealing his desire to build the temple in Kirtland, Ohio. But of course, women weren't allowed in the meetings. So she has to learn about it when Hiram comes out to get some tea or something mid meeting. Right. But she's she's worried. She's like, well, that's that seems really difficult to do. And we don't know what we're doing. And we keep getting angry mob. It seems like it's going to be a way we're going to like build it and then right away a mob again. And we have to run away. Building for them to sort of focus on seems like a bad plan. Yep, yep.

But they're like, no, we can do it because Joey's magical. And then there's this weird moment where like, Julia prompts the movie to tell us more about Joey's travels, right? She's like, hey, so when you miscarried the next kid, Joey was nowhere to be found. But that's totally normal and cool, right? It wasn't like Julia. You're fucking killing me over here Yes, okay miss carrot he was gone that all did happen I saw but let me finish a baby after that

Did not die one time did live yes, so God nailed it You know they gave me this big list of questions you were going to ask. And I don't remember this one being. Well, there's a very like two. She's like, but then the next one lived and there's a very like and it was a real baby. Not like you and your brother kind of a feel from old Emma's VO at that point. And now, OK, so now some of the church ladies, including pamphleteer lady, are starting to like maybe think there's

something to this Mormonism. Right. Yeah. Even the Mormonism exposed podcast lady. Yeah, she's into it. Hanging out at apparently Pier One Imports of Kirtland, Ohio, in 18, whatever. Or or modern day Cracker Barrel, whatever it might be.

It's one or the other, yeah. So, but yeah, and we see all the menfolk building the temple. We see Joey doting on Emma to her son. There's this great moment where he's like, yeah, you know, it was your mom that helped my lies be more believable because she kept asking me questions that God would obviously have thought of.

Right. This part I believe. Oh yeah. That she was just like, hey man, your book's fucking so dumb. You got to retcon a few things. I'll tell you. I'll tell you what to do. Here's some lies you can fix a little bit.

Yeah, that's what doctrines and covenants is. Oh yeah. Yeah. So yeah, and so of course all the while, like Emma's big thing is that she's writing the hymn book for Mormonism. And so now she's going to sing a bad song just because like they can't do a good song because they're stuck with the shit that Emma actually wrote. Well, that's the thing. Right. If you know anything about Mormon hymns, truly the biggest lie in this movie is what a gifted musical artist. Even devout Mormons will be like, yeah, no, I mean the hymns aren't good.

We put them on the fridge. They're in the book. So but then, so Joey tells the kids the bedtime stories about how God will not burn Emma's mom in hell forever for turning down that Book of Mormon. She'll get a second crack at it after she dies. Right. Very important. And then we get the whole temple. It's it's built now and all the congregates are just singing her shitty hymn.

And we see like a bunch of perfect two by fours with sealant on the end. Yeah, sure. To put together this perfect temple. Uh huh, sure do. So yeah, but now it's all done. They're ready to like inaugurate or whatever the fuck they call it

when they consecrate it or whatever. And we see our first like shot of the pews. And there's like a black dude sitting right behind Emma Smith. That's exactly what I was gonna say. There is a black guy in the crowd shot. I will remind you that the Mormon church acknowledged that black people have souls in 1977.

I think it's 1978 when they allowed them to have the priesthood. I think they were allowed to have souls way back in like the late 60s. But yeah, there was no chance in fucking hell. They were way more woke than you said, Eli. Yeah. Apologies. Exactly. Okay, no chance in fucking hell. They were way more woke than you said Eli Exactly also in this crazy temple we see I'm gonna describe it as

Like a game show set like a yeah like a raised pharmacy Counter, but like Hollywood squares above that with like spots for each of them ranked right like it was just it was yeah weird insane reflection of ego going on at the front of that goddamn church yeah but yeah so and then we get gardening wisdom this is where Julia learns about the importance of believing in people through a pumpkin or whatever and so fucking dumb. Oh, and come up for Mean Podcast Lady. Yes. Because now she gets it or whatever. So she's also doing pumpkin shit. And so Emma's like, even the smallest of seeds can grow.

It says in the book, My Husband and Her Husband. Mean Podcast Lady's like, yeah, no, I was mean in my show. I get it. I'm Mormon now. OK. But once the temple was finished, things just got worse. People were unhappy there in Kirtland. No reason, no reason at all. So and it certainly wasn't that Joseph Smith took everybody's money

and then started a bank with it and then bankrupted the bank. Then you had nothing to do with that. Everybody was just upset. Yeah. The movie says that, like, yeah, so everybody kind of got mad, even though the temple was there, but Joseph actually called it because he is a prophet. He called it that people would start doubting him.

And I was like, yeah, well, I mean, it's easy to make a prophecy about angry victims of bank fraud when you're doing the bank. Yes, right? Yes Perceive me fucking you guys over Yeah, but people were leaving left and right even Harley Pratt was gonna leave for a while and This is another fucking Marvel movie moment, right? Like where it's like Harley Pratt's going to leave and then she talks him out of it and then he doesn't. And it's like they have introduced and resolved an issue in one fucking minute

of movie time. But, you know, this is fucking Harley Pratt. That's fucking Mitt Romney's great, great granddad right there. You got to include him. Just me pointing to someone in Spider-Man across the universe. So that's Spider-Man's actually from a comic in the 1980s. He wasn't Peter Park. It's from a different ultimate universe. Yeah, exactly.

Cool. I wrote it down. I did. So then Emma and Joey, you know, they marvel over the temple they built, but they gotta leave now again. No reason just It's literally them standing over their fucking fields of gold and he's like we should get the fuck out of town Tar takes a while to heat up but not like forever She goes well things be better at Missouri goes, you know, what would be great would French toast. I'm in the mood for French toast. Are you in the mood? So, but then she, you know, like elderly Emma outside of the flashback waxes poetic about the mighty mighty Mississippi a little bit. Yeah. Very important. And then we cut to Missouri in 1838 and there's

this amazing exchange where voiceover Julia goes, well, wasn't Missouri supposed to be the promised land? And Emma, the old Emma is like, it was, but something went terribly wrong. And I'm like, with God's promise? God is not great at Google Maps. He's more of a MapQuest guy and nobody uses it anymore. So yeah, so, but the movie like kind of fast forwards through the time that the Mormons went to war against the state government of Missouri, right? The sentence they use for that, by the way, is false charges were raised and Joseph was betrayed. Yeah, they don't even way, is false charges were raised and Joseph was betrayed.

Yeah, they don't even mention what the false charges, the charges were. Stolen election. The charges were plotting to assassinate the governor, which he absolutely fucking did. Yeah, the movie fast forwards for obvious reasons, but it also accidentally makes it kind of funny. It was like Missouri, 1838, God's new plan, Posse on horses coming after us. He's in jail. Well, yeah, it's funny because like at this point I'm like, wait, was this the time they

tried to assassinate the governor? And I looked it up and it's really hard because like Joseph Smith was arrested apparently 42 goddamn times in the course of his life. So it's hard to pin down. I actually tried to Google it. There was no answers that were like just about this. It was very hard to find. Yeah.

Yeah. Chad GBT is just smoking a cigarette. Do you want to know about the times he wasn't trying to overthrow the government? That would actually make it easier. This is also where we get a very funny moment and I'll put this in the notes for our patrons. I'll make sure Tim grabs an image of this. This was the best worst accidental mistake for the subtitles here. So they're having this very dramatic scene. He's in jail. Remember last Mormon movie month

where we did that whole movie about the time he was in jail and then he grabbed his way out. Oh, I got a weird deja vu. I was like, I've seen this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think seven or eight times. It's the movie in the movie, yeah. So they're having a very dramatic talk during that flashback, and he says, can I get you anything?

And she, the actor goes, huh, huh. And the subtitles on Tooby.com, where we watched this film, thought it was the word hummus. So there's this very dramatic moment of the two of them by candlelight and the caption just says hummus. Can I get you anything hummus? I can go for some hummus. Babe, can I get some some pitas too? Little pita wedges. No, I'm not going to eat it with my hands. But she goes, she goes, has God forsaken us?

And he goes, hmm, hummus. So, you know, I just curiously doesn't have an answer for that. So then we see the Mormons getting run out of Missouri. He's still in jail. They're moving on to Illinois. And you can tell it's bad because everybody's coughing a lot, you know, and the Mormons in jail with Joseph are starting to lose faith in him as well. Right. Because he's supposed to be magical and he's not helping in any way.

Yeah. And we get a bunch of letters back and forth between Joseph and Emma, like while he's in jail. Apparently he's like getting letters. He's getting all the stationary he needs to send letters to. People are very, very serious about the human right of letter writing throughout this moment in history, I guess. Clearly. Yeah. And but the letter that he sends is like, he's like, read this to the congregation,

dear the congregation, don't worry, believe it or not, this is exactly how I drew this play up. This is supposed to happen. I wrote my notes. All part of the plan. All right. Well, we've already seen this story a dozen times before, so it's kind of hard to inject any suspense before the break, but I'm going to try anyway. Here we go. Will this movie explore the rift that plural marriage tour and Emma and Joseph's relationship? Will it confront the numerous public denials of Joseph's polygamy she made even after she knew about it? Will it detail the schism after Joseph's death where her opposition to Brigham Young tore

the young faith in twain? No. But stick around anyway for this sanitized to the point of dishonesty conclusion of Emma Smith, my story asterisk. Emma went on to story asterisk. Emma went on to be a senator from New York State. Emma Smith, you have been a true and faithful servant. Welcome to heaven. Welcome to heaven, Emma.

Oh, well, wait, who are you, child? Don't you recognize me? I'm your son who died in childbirth. Oh, what a blessing. I'm so glad to see you. And so am I. Me too! Me too! Oh, wow, I kind of forgot how many of you there are.

And we're just the infants. All the others are here as well. What a wonderful, wonderful miracle. And of course, Joseph is here with all his wives. All of his wives? Yep. Every single one. Feels like it might get a little crowded.

Indeed it is, Mother. Crowded with love. Together, all 50 plus of us forever and ever and ever. I think I might be a little Jewish. Nice try mom. Come on. They're fucked. And we're back for some more of this shit and we're going to rejoin the momos settling

into Navu, Illinois to build their theocracy. This is God's fourth take at a promised land. They don't even bother to say they moved to this time. They're just like, no, we're in Illinois now. You know, and and Joey's back. There's a great moment. She's like she looks behind her and Joey appears in a silhouette. She's like, you got away. And he says, they let us go. And she says, is there more to the story? He goes, nope, that's all there is to the story. Let us go. But she says, I shall never cross the Mississippi again. And he's like, well, what if the bulk of the church

up and leaves and goes west? She's like, well, I would probably have to like create a schism and just keep my group here. Okay, to be clear, that is what they are apologizing for in that absolutely bat shit piece of narration. Yeah. Right. What they are not saying is that me and Brigham Young had a schism that would split our church directly in half and lead to dozens and dozens of deaths and a war between our two clans. Right. She's like, I don't like rivers. Yeah, no, that's what it is.

Oceans, oceans with with attitude. That's what I call them. We see we see a bunch of mosquitoes. I thought at first they were just there to trigger Eli's mesophonia, but apparently they're there for us to know that like Navu, Illinois was a malarial swampland because Joseph got really sick at this point. He did.

Yeah. It's Hebrew for beautiful place, but also malaria. Malarial, beautifully malarial place. Yeah. And I think we have to establish that it's really malarial because really Joseph Smith's immune system could kick the shit out of almost anything. But you know, in this instance. So, but Emma comes to like nurse him to health and joke around about how much they love each other

very much and always do no questions asked. Right. So then we see Joseph Smith curing people's diseases with his God magic. Is that what was going on in this next scene? Yeah. He's laying on of hands. I think they wanted to show us as much of it as they could without having to make the claim as the movie and just like, what? Prophet can't give a few headpats. Yeah. He's assuming he's using anointed oils to cure disease. You said that it turns out an awful lot of Emma Smith story is her staring lovingly at

Joseph Smith. But then we watch it. He does more Hard manual labor. Okay at this point we are on the third Happy building our temple montage it had to wear thin even for them right to have the fucking violins in the background All right, you know we get it. We're gonna like at a certain point. The Mormons had to been like, so same plan as the last one. Yeah. Pass me that shingle from Home Depot with a sticker on it. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Like Romans setting up their camp at this point now.

Did we have plywood in this moment? Yeah, no, no, no. Pressboard. So, yeah. But then we get, oh, we get the point where Emma finds out that her dad. So when her mom told her that she couldn't come home anymore because of the Mormonism, she gave her a picture. Right. And now we see Emma drop the picture because she, and break it because she found out that her dad died. Yeah. And Joe comes over and he's like, hey, honey you seem seem a little down do you want me to? Let me see if God gives us space families feels like you might be cheered up

Family yeah, the transition there was great too cuz it's it's Joseph preaching and everybody's happy and he's like yeah God's plan It's amazing for us and then literal smash cut to literal picture for us and then literal smash cut to literal picture. Smash. Smash. Yeah. An actual smash. Emma's dad died. Fuck. Yeah. And then they glue the-

I still have malaria, I think too. They glue the picture back together though, because they can repair their things. They tell us that her mom died shortly thereafter. It's a space picture. You get all the free pictures. Yeah. You could fix other people's pictures.

There's a fucked up moment. She goes, Oh, you know, I really just wanted my dad to be proud of me at literally any point in my life. And Joey's like, Oh, you know, he'll be proud of you. Dad, like dad to him will be proud of you. Probably. He'll learn his lesson in heaven or hell or whatever. Yeah. Wherever he ends up.

Yeah, right. No, fun fact. Basically his last words were, I will never be proud of her because of that shit husband and his bullshit religion is how his story ends. But yeah, but and then her mom died like right after her dad. Yeah, they show they show the gluing the picture back together and meet like while that's happening. It's like and then my fucking mom died Mom's body comes flying down from the ceiling on to the pitcher. Oh Yeah, and and Julia the voiceover she was she's like, you know at this point something inside

My mother died from all the grief and I'm like, well, this was also around the same time that Joey started taking extra wives as well so maybe that had something to do with the mom and dad she was really sad about that picture had a cow on it two fields yeah so and then and then her baby gets sick and damn if God doesn't kill another one of her kids Okay, they have this fucking insane moment Are we gonna talk about it where she's talking to Joe the kid is sick and she's like promise me Joseph Promise me this child will not die and Joseph What so somebody called me from the other room.

I have to go and see who is in the other room. God, I gotta go look at the plates you can't see. Cut to the baby shattering on the floor. Oh no. Babe, should we glue it back together? Oh, fuck. I did have a moment of reflection here where the fourth child of the Smiths died where I was like, it's a good reminder. Like whenever your boomer mom acts out of turn, she is two generations

away from when people had 11 kids and four of them died. She might not be doing as bad a job. Right. Yeah, exactly. That was her grandma that you were talking about. Yeah. So then we, so we get Joey inaugurating the first Mormon women's club or whatever this is right where he's like God told me my wife had a very important lady job. Yeah Somebody an elect lady. Oh my what Emma? Yeah. Yeah. Emma is in charge of the ladies auxiliary in charge of the ladies auxiliary. Yes. I wanted one lady to be really disappointed.

She didn't get to just fuck one of the chances. She's the alleged lady. And oh man, next time God. So she gives a steps up to give her acceptance speech to God and that bleeds into her helping old dying people. Right. Because of her saintliness. Yeah. But then some ruffians, they come to the Smith household with a warrant. So not ruffians exactly. Police officers. Well, you know those ruffians that essentially US marshals

that are like, you did treason. Treason. Yeah. When you escape from jail. But they're supposed to be like bad guys, but it's like, that nuts. You're just. Right. You did treason. Right. Because her answer to them is, I was understanding that we are on base.

Yeah. And they're like, no, not for treason. Yeah. Yeah. They're like, you know, where's your husband? And she's like, well, he's not here. And they're like, why isn't he here? And she's like, no reason that the movie is going to admit he just is out now.

Having prophecy shit. Not hanging out with fucking Mary Whitner, that bitch. Very close to the 37 other wives at this point. We're normal. So, yeah, but she goes, but they say, like, we're coming from. She goes, are you quite finished? That's the exact delivery. I've been practicing it.

But then we cut to Joey, he's busy having new revelations about who he's allowed to fuck. And we get this moment where like, late that night, there's a sound at the door and she's like scared, but it turns out it's just Joseph coming in, like sneaking in to tell her how much he loves her again more. Right. Yeah. There's also like a moment where he's like, I have to give the kids all a blessing. And we get old Julia like backing out of the flashback going, I never knew he came and gave me an unconscious blessing in the night. And I'm like, why would you it's not that's nothing. Why would anyone tell you that?

So the next morning Joey has to leave in secret He's come to the house like to see her and now he's got to sneak off less the government that is After him, I think at this point for burning down a printing press and revenge for them printing the truth about him Unless they find him, you know, he doesn't want that to happen Right and he gives her a just in case I die letter and asks her to check the spelling, which to be fair, I do the same thing to Anna every time I leave the house. So I do get an answer to check the spelling. Yeah. And then we get her reading this letter to the congregation and it's fucking banal and pointless because it's a real letter from Joseph Smith. Right.

And he never said anything profound in his life, but they're stuck with what he's got, right? We see a montage here now where like, they're doing like whatever the double extra super marriage is. Yeah, space marriage. Space marriage, the death outer space marriage that they do. Oh, you got to get like doubled up. I think so, yeah. To really, really count.

Now it's included in the Mormon marriage ceremony, but that was a con that Joseph ran, is was like hey if you're married you're actually not space married so September and October are filling up everybody So you want to book your space marriage I did just build a temple where you could have it you could do a midweek space marriage But like nobody wants to go to that shit Well, and I'm thinking to myself. Oh, wow You know if you guys want a montage that involves marriage and Joseph Smith at this point in the movie

Do I have good news for you, but they leave out the other 30 to 40 here They couldn't hire all those kindergarteners Labor laws you can make make them work for like four hours. Fucking seventh graders, please. Sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah. So then the Ruffians come for Joseph, right?

They're going to take him back to Missouri where he's going to hang for his crimes. There's a moment where Emma comes out and she screamed, cries Joseph in slow motion and it looks just silly as all hell. Yeah. I had to mention that because people who watched along would be disappointed if I didn't. She weeps inconsolably as they take him away to prison. I don't know about you guys.

Did you watch this on to be as well? I paid a dollar 99 not to have to watch commercials. Not to have to watch it on to be okay. At this point to be was having some kind of frenzy where they were showing me the Billy Bob Thornton T-Mobile commercial every, I'm going to say six and a half seconds. And if you haven't seen that, I promise this is related to our watching of the film. The commercial is Billy Bob Thornton apparently lost in a field being like, they used to kick our ass at cell phone service, But these days Verizon could suck my ass

Suck my ass some Billy Bob Thornton and what it was crazy because it was always Apropos to what was going on in the movie So what happened is like he gets dragged away and she's like Joseph and then Billy Bob Thornton is like Goddamn Jew lovers over at Verizon. I'll fucking I'll fight every one of them. I lost my car. So yeah. So then, okay.

So then old Emma gives grownup Julia more river based wisdom, or actually, I'm sorry, she gives her the same river based wisdom, but she words it differently and thinks we're not going to notice. Right? Mom, you already use the river as a metaphor. You can't keep doing that. And then Julia goes, Hey, dad did be fucking a bunch of other ladies though. Right? Julia, I swear to fucking God, you're out of the movie. So wait, Heath doesn't live in the house with his new wife? Shut up, Julian!

They have room for activity! They see each other all the time! To pied-a-terre! An anarchy. So I guess what's good, because like I didn't expect that they would touch the plural marriage thing at all, but I guess we have to see Emma being OK with it. Yeah. Right. Which to be clear, she was not OK with it. And never at any point remotely OK with it in writing.

Yeah. Right. Right. Exactly. On paper in several instances. Yeah. But in this movie, Julia's like, well, you know, like, Ma, did that like bother you? And she's like, yes, it bothered both of us. Me and Joseph both hated that he had to have sex with all those other women. We hated it. First, Emma says we don't talk about it. And then Julia's like, OK, but we're the fucking narrators.

You have to. She goes, I I don't speak of it, but I never ignored it. And I'm like, but that's what ignoring means is not speaking of it. So that's what that word is now. Also, you spoke of it extensively. Yeah. First of all, you wrote a bunch of letters being like, fucking quit it to Joe. And then people were like, hey, is your husband married to a bunch of people?

And you were like, no, not at all. No, he didn't. But they land on like he got commanded by God. And of course, he obeyed. We were having this fight about the dishes. And then he was like, what's that magic hat rocks more wives? OK, I guess I'll have to do it. God says very unhappy. Yes.

And then we get we cut to like Joey telling Emma about his impending death, right? Because like, again, like this is very common in the Mormon rewriting of history that we have to make Joseph seem like a willing martyr, you know, that walked to his death, much like Jesus did, which makes it really weird that he shot back. But OK, so doing the St. Peter thing. Yeah.

Nobody told me we were doing back fighting. Yeah. So but so in the flashback, we got Joseph talking to Hiram. They're about to go to Carthage to turn themselves in. And he's confessing his undying and unrivaled love to Emma and

just Emma, just Emma, only a woman in his life. And then they're like, you know, they have the whole like, are you scared to go to the thing? And he's like, no, because I'm a willing martyr in this telling of it, which makes it really weird that I'm bringing my brother along with me. Jesus Christ, I'm evil. And they're telling to, huh?

But then we see like she, we see a moment where like she's staring at the picture, like she's loading it up for his death scene. I'm going to spike this thing on the floor so hard when I find out he's dead. Yeah. Also, they capture in this parting scene between them, they capture this great moment from Mormon history that I cannot believe they tried to play off as this great romantic moment because this is true. Emma said to Joseph right before you left for Carthage, will you bless me? And he said, you write it and I'll sign it, which is the least romantic thing.

It's the, he gave her cash as a gift version of a blessing. Do you want to tell me what you want? Actually just you buy the card and you sign it for me What I write you say whatever you want Jesus Christ? Yeah, she's like he's she's like I I should get a blessing She's a nice like right you should write a good one for you Can't give my wife's all very well, so I gotta give all my wives a blessing animal crackers and Paw Patrol. Oh, yes. But yeah, but then so he goes off to die.

The old Julia outside of the flashback sure wishes that her her dad didn't die. And then the fucking movie tries to play up. It tries to give us the same old lady wisdom again, acting like it didn't. Right. Because this is the whole time where she's like, you know, I wish I had your strength, mom. And Emma goes, strength isn't something you have. Strength is something you find already. You use that one, mom, like so recently.

Exact same one. God damn it, Julia. You're out of the podcast. But also like things that you find are things that you have once you found them, right? Like strength isn't something you find. Well, then you would have it once you found it, wouldn't you? That's not an either or type of situation. Okay. Sometimes your God of strength is something you don't know you have because someone sneaks it into your pocket.

And then we get Emma reading, like young Emma actor and old Emma actor are sort of tag teaming, reading the blessing that that they wrote that Joey signed and we're getting that over the shots of Joey getting killed. Yeah, and they're very much the blessing you would write if

you knew your husband wasn't magic, but you also knew that he had started a church that would eventually canonize this letter as an actual thing blessed by the prophet. It's like, I'd like to be happy. And super duper Mormon.

I wanna believe Mormonism really hard. The ups and downs, the ins and outs, the facts of life in there, yes. Come and step in. The magical power of eat, pray, love. Yeah, right. Right. I'll be there for you when the rain starts to pour.

But then we get we watch old Julia seeing old Emma walking into the light, you know, which I guess I guess Julia died first or something. I don't know. They go into a big weird thing where they're like, Julia got cancer in 1880 and died and we're like, who fucking cares about Julia? Yeah. Why did they feel the need to be like, oh, Julia also died relatively premature?

Yeah, right. Julia got side tackled out of the movie. Yeah, right. Julia got side tackled out of the movie. Yeah, right, right. They show pictures of all her kids, the ones that didn't die in childbirth, right? So that we could see like who's in the margins of their Bible now. And then we learned that when Emma died,

her last words were, Joseph, Joseph, I'm coming. Yeah. Only time she ever said it. Yep. Probably. Also a quote from two other wives at the same time at one point. And of course, despite the fact that this is the actual point where the Emma Smith story gets very interesting, the movie's over now, right? Nevermind what happened after that.

What she thinks of the church that funded the making of this film. Now is the story's over at this point. And we don't have to do it. University. Not a big deal. Yeah. Right. And well, that's going to do it for our review of Emma Smith. My story. That's not going to do it for the episode just yet, because we still need to predict what we're going to be watching next. We're not a hundred percent on that all the time, but Eli, tell us to the best of your knowledge. What's on deck? OK, first of all, sons of Provo was a mockumentary.

No, yeah, it was. Yeah, it would have been terrible. It would have just been us going, you are for an hour. A devout Christian woman tries to warn others that the end times are coming and an evil organization is conspiring to control the entire world. We'll be watching 1981's Early Warning. Oh, back when a film was a film. So, okay. So with that to look forward to, we're going to bring episode 517 to a merciful close. Once again, a 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 at patreon.com.com. So that's got offline there by your early access to an ad free version of every episode. You can also help a ton by leaving us a five star review and by sharing the show on all your various social media platforms. If you enjoyed this show, be sure to check out our sibling shows, the Scaling Avia Citation Needed D&D minus and the Skyford Grant available wherever podcasts live. If you have questions, comments or cinematic suggestions, you can email godoffinmovies.gmail.com. Tim Robertson takes care of our social media. Our theme song is written and performed by our Ancelot and we can be able to dress on Mars. All the other music was written and performed by our audio engineer

Morgan Clark and was used with permission. Thanks again for giving us a check of your life this week for Heathen, right? Neelay Bostic, I'm the Lucian's promise to work harder on the check next week. Until then, we'll leave you with the American graffiti clothes. God remained angry at the Mormons and he killed Paul Walker. Oh, Brian O'Connor. Emma went on to start a rival Mormonism with no beer and no hummus. It pretty much failed. Joseph Smith's space family planet was extremely crowded between Joseph and all his wives and

all his children. It's all a nine year old telling you a lie. That's the thing about Mormonism, right? You'll never convince me Mary Whitmer isn't Jewish. Catholicism is like a grownup telling you a lie, right? Christ. You know? But Mormonism, because with Catholicism, they're trying to confuse you with the Trinity and it's like quantum bullshit at a certain point or whatever.

And then centuries of grownups to like hone in the line. Yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly. But with Mormonism, it's just like, no, because you can't. When you look, I'm visible. But when you don't look, I can fly. I can't fly. Stupid. Sorry. Fuck you, Jimmy.

And Mary just yes, ended herself into Mormon history. Yeah. Yeah. Smart. Well done, Mary. All right. Interstitial 3. Heath would have made it into the Book of Mormon if he wanted to. Oh, absolutely. Yep. Me. I am.

Oh, sorry, I lost my train of thought. I'll get there. Leave this in. This is the... you have dementia. I do. Oh, it could be that. Could be that. This content is canned credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment,

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