God Awful Movies - 525: Day of Defense

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

We're joined by Rebecca and Landon from the Mormonish Podcast for a review of Day of Defense. --- Check out more from Rebecca and Landon HERE. --- This episode is sponsored by Mint Mobile and Greenlight. Use the links below to help support the show and get some deals. mintmobile.com/gam greenlight.com/awful --- If you’d like to make a per episode donation and get monthly bonus episodes, please check us out on Patreon: 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.

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And they're going to sit there until Thomas shows up. I can confirm as a missionary of two years that they had nothing else to do. Nobody wanted to hear them. So sitting in the park was an enjoyable thing. Yeah, what are they going to do? reread that same copy of Charlie that was left in their mission now. Oh, they've already.

God-awful movie. Movies. Movies. Welcome back to God-awful movies. We're each week we watch another terrible movie so you don't have to. I'm your host, Keith Enright, and I'm joined by the Eli Bosnick, Eli. How's it going, buddy? Mormon movie insertion.

Mormon movie something. Yeah, absolutely. This one's got some Mormonism happening. And speaking of which, we also have two brand new guest masochists, Rebecca and Landon from the Mormonish podcast. Rebecca Landon, welcome to the show. Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much.

We cannot believe we're here. Can we, Landon? This is a dream come true. It's a dream come true. And I do have to say, between the two of us, we have over a hundred. and 10 years of lived Mormon experience. That's right. Ask us anything.

Solid. And that's not even counting pre-existence where you've probably got a way more. No, who can count that? Who knows? That's just like known Mormon. Okay. And tell us a little bit about the Mormonish podcast. Oh, yeah.

We'd be happy to you. I first have to apologize. I sound kind of raspy. We are in Utah, of course, where else would be located? And everybody gets the fall of Utah cold right now. So a little raspy here, but we are a Mormon podcast in the post-Merman space. And we kind of turned a critical eye to Mormonism and just kind of watch that. We've been up and running for about three years.

Anything to add, Landon? Yeah, we just like to make fun of ourselves. As post-Mormons, we like to laugh at what we used to think and look towards new options and new ways of approaching life. Well, I can't imagine anything you could think of about the Mormon faith that would be, you know, laugh-worthy. That's pretty coherent. It's pretty straightforward. And really you shouldn't joke about that. It's a pretty serious business here.

Yeah, nothing to see here. Nothing to see here. You're right. All right. Let's get right into this movie. Rebecca, what are we going to be breaking down today? Oh, my goodness. Day of Defense.

And this is sort of universally known as one of the worst movies in Mormondom, if you can believe that. Certainly to me. Yeah. A lot of competition, but it's pretty much. I was going to say there is a lot of competition. And this is the story of two LDS missionaries who are dropped into a town where it's run

by a Christian town council and they get arrested and they go on trial, the trial of the century to determine if Mormons are Christian, because if they're not, they need to be run out of town. It's pretty dramatic. Okay. So I know you are new. So I will just sort of fill you in. We do a Mormon movie month every single month on this show, which, means we've watched dozens and dozens of Mormon movies.

Not only had I not heard of this movie before y'all introduced us to it, I was not aware of the Mormons are pretty sensitive about the fact that some people don't think they're Christian controversy. So when I Googled it while watching this movie, I was barraged with 182 websites that were like, Mormons are 2christian.com. I was like, all right. Yeah, it's huge. It's a huge issue.

Just the idea that we, of course, the name. of the church is the church of Jesus Christ, right, of Latter-day Saints. They're sort of self-identifying Christians, but there are many hard stops in the religion where you would say, okay, that's not really Christian, but they consider themselves Christian and they're very sensitive about it. Is it the part where everyone gets their own planet? Because I feel like that screams a little bit. That's definitely one of the showstoppers there. That's like one of the best parts. But yeah, Christian, I feel like it's, you know, Christ, that's. pretty much it. They're going to argue about it in a whole trial, though. And, okay, Landon,

how Mormon-ish was this movie in your estimation? Oh, this movie is every Mormonish missionary's wet dream. I was a Mormon missionary, and this is what you dream of. You go into a town, everybody persecute you. You end up in jail for the cause, for God, and then you get to go out and have a Bible bash with all of the Christians, and eventually you prevail, and you, you, you win them all over to your side. This is every Mormon missionary's dream. All right. Mormon isish-ish-ish.

And Eli, how bad was this movie? Well, if you love the rote recitation of a homesick teenager who hasn't pooped with the door closed for almost a year, but you wish they had the stakes of a mental patient who once overheard the plot of footloose being described through a wall, you will love this movie. my friends, we never get to say this to our guest masochists, right? Because usually we are introducing our guest massacist to Christian cinema,

and we sort of begin every show with deep apologies. Mormon-ish brought this movie to us. So I can truly say from my heart how deeply I resent you in this experience. Yes, we should be apologizing to you. I'm truly sorry, but I think your listeners are going to really love it. So it's going to be good. We're editing your plug for your show out of the beginning of the podcast. Just, you know, that's how we're playing.

And they're just going to be like, who are those people? Fair, fair, that's fair. All right, is there anything y'all would like to nominate this one for being the best at being the worst at? I do. I think this is the best Mormon missionary love story ever. They are a delightful couple. Yeah, I would agree.

Yeah, but we're going to meet the missionaries, Elder Burke and Elder Davis. They are in a delightful bromance throughout. Oh, that's who you were talking about the two elders. It's okay. No, I was talking about the gal at the end. Yeah, you were talking about Landon was talking about honey-hawk girl I was just immediately assuming a gay romance

between the two out there may be a little on both. There could be that in there. They're tight. Heath, what did we say about projecting in front of the guests? Interesting triangle. It's Shakespearean, Midsummer Night's Dream. There's a lot of triangles happening. Anyway, I was going to say,

best worst, failure of the Bechdel test. And it's an aggressive fail. Yeah. If I had to nominate it for something, I would say best, worst telephone, ripped off the wall and slam dunked into a trash can. I thought that was extremely dramatic. There is a lot of pent up angst and anger in missionaries because of the restrictions that they live under. I mean, they are just squeezed to death with rules and restrictions. And so moments like that, that really is not far-fetched.

They're a little outbursts. You know, you have to let it out somehow. Oh, he wanted that throwaway of the phone to be dramatic and it kind of wasn't. It was just like, oh, okay, well, now it's just... No, I was actually going to go with a similar one. My best is best, best, best bag throws. There will be two positively splendid bag throws throughout the film.

We'll talk about it when we get... Truly made up for the entire long, bad movie. These two terrible back throws. Okay. Well, we're going to take a quick break. And then we'll be back to tell you all about... out. Day of Defense. All right, everybody. Welcome to the first ever writer's room meeting for Day of Defense. Ooh. Yeah. All right. I love the enthusiasm. So I'm thinking a legal drama

about Mormon missionaries who come to town and have to defend their faith to stay. Oh, I love that. Yeah, like at a trial. Is it illegal to be a Mormon? In this town, it would be yes, yes. doesn't seem very realistic. Oh, it doesn't? Not really. Okay. Okay, what about the municipality has a Christian town council that grants people a license to preach?

And when they learn the Mormons are in town, a local judge orders a jury trial prosecuted and actively run by that Christian council. Okay, well, that's more illegal. Yeah, that doesn't make sense for so many reasons. And, and, let me finish, a kid dies. I feel like we should say yes, just so he stops talking. Thank you, Craig, positivity. Wait, what?

And then we could get a tofu chutney at grass, grapes, and kale. Yeah, that sounds fun. Yeah. Awesome. Hey, guys, you're ready to get started? Yeah, I was just planning to take Landon and Rebecca out for some raw, macrobiotic vegan pizza after we record. They're really looking forward to it.

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Is that slang? Sadly, no, it's a legal requirement. Yeah, got it. And we're back. And we're going to start the movie with a cowboy, taking a nap, while standing up leaning against a pile of hay bales. So vibes established of this very Christian town where I think it's called Marysville in some kind of county.

And Sweetwater County, I actually remembered it. And then we cut to a pair of Mormon missionaries in a truck arguing about the new town where they're going to be spread in the word. Yeah. And I just want to say, before we even get into the content of this movie, the To Be video we found of this thing maxes out at 480P. like the archival footage of a UFO. It is, you can count the pixels on the screen at any given moment.

We paid the 99 cents and rented it on Prime. Yeah, we did. It's just available on Prime. Yeah, we went for it. Any of your listeners can watch this. And, you know, this was based on a book, so that's kind of interesting. Oh. Yeah.

Did they have the option for like 8K resolution or is just like the best they could do? Did you get to watch this in Ultra HD that we missed out on? Yeah, it was SD and we could have purchased it to own forever for $2.99, we opted no. Okay. Fair enough. Missed out. Right. So they're entering this new town and one of the elders is worried about getting this new assignment. And the other one tells him to have faith, which, correct me if I'm wrong, Mormonish squad. Have faith is Mormon for go fuck yourself? Something like that? Pretty much. Pretty much. Well, and it's so interesting because no missionary would fight like that or get angry. All missionaries get transferred pretty much every six weeks there's an option to be transferred.

You would know this was happening and you also wouldn't be angry that you had a new person to train. That's kind of a badge of honor. You want to be the senior companion. So right away, not realistic as far as mission culture. Okay. Got it. So that senior missionary is Elder Burke and he's going to be. training a rook named Elder Davis.

Yeah. And as a podcast that's had a few former missionaries on, the relationship between a senior and a junior elder is a lot less let me show you the Robs Kid and a lot more. Did you get to call your mom yet this year? I would imagine, yeah. You're not wrong.

Although they have done away with that. They can have called your mom every day. Yes, yes. But when I was out, yes, we could only call twice a year. So one of our favorite guests, guys who actually had a podcast for a while. They called themselves the how-to heretics, our uncles. One of them had to save the other one from his mission.

And so they're both secular now. They both live in Utah. They both live around the Salt Lake City area. And he admits whatever he sees a missionary these days, he's like, these kids don't know how good they have it with their cell phones and their toilets. Look twice if you need me to swoop in, I'll do it. So then we cut over to, I think the break room at that

town's courthouse, and we meet two of our main characters, Thomas, the public defender in this town, and James, the DA in this town. Yeah. And they are going to establish themselves as the towns like prosecutor and DA, but their, they're like catchphrase is plea bargain, which I guess the movie intends to be like a comedy beat, but when you consider that there are crimes like murder and rape, it takes on a really dark town. Yeah. I don't. So I don't consider that. It does. It does.

But yeah, they're like, that's their thing. They plea bargain stuff and then it just makes it nice and easy. This whole seat is really just to characterize the two of them. And they do that by showing us a woman who works at the courthouse named Lisa. And she's wearing, she's wearing like a Halloween costume called slutty paralegal or something like that. It's just like very, very revealing. And the point is Thomas is a good, reasonable person who doesn't womanize at all. And James is going to be.

the bad guy who hates Mormons and prosecutes the Mormons pretty soon. But the weird thing is, like, James' womanizing never pays off. I thought we were going to find out about an affair or making a move on the other guy's wife. But it's just this first scene for us to, like, shake our fingers at him and be like, how dare he look a second time at a woman in short sleeves? Mormon certainly know how to know their audience. And so they have to set it up. They know this is going to be a Mormon audience watching this Mormon movie.

So, you know, the whole scene of them coming into town is to make it set up so that the town is a bunch of hicks. They're non-educated. That's why they haven't accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ yet. Right. And obviously, you've got to have, you've got to set the tone that the bad guy, you know, he's a womanizer and he's going to cheat on his wife, set that tone right off the bat so that immediately the Mormon audience hates this man. Yeah, exactly. He's a typical Baptist Lothario that would hate Mormons. Yeah, that's what you're going to do. No, and it's full of stereotypes. I mean, here's a woman working outside of the home, and you're right. She's wearing a very short skirt.

She bends over a lot as she's making the coffee. You know, everybody in that scene is a complete stereotype that a Mormon audience is going to recognize. Yeah, it works for the characterization. And then from there, we're going to see Elder Burke and Elder Davis, and they're on the street doing their first try at preaching to this town. And it's not going great. A little bit of high. jinks. Yeah. The first woman they

approached, she's like, oh, aren't you guys the ones with all the wives? And again, because this is significantly before Mormon when it started pretending that never happened, they're like, it's complicated. Yeah, it's very hard to get around that. They try everything they can, but that still exists. And that's the

first thing out of almost everybody's mouth when they hear Mormon. Right. Yeah. The first person that talks, she's like, oh, polygamy, gross, and runs away. Yeah. Yep, that's it. And then it's so fun. This, I left because they do, I don't know, like four seconds of talking to one person and then immediately a cop puts on a siren and rolls right up next to them for breaking the law of preaching without a license in Sweetwater County. Yeah, this is playing right to the Mormon

audience. Mormonism 101 is you are the most persecuted people on earth because you're persecuted because you have the truth. And so here they're going to proceed to break every constitutional law that Mormons have always been taught that they've been persecuted and everyone hates them and they proceed to break every law in the book to arrest them and haul them away, just as every Mormon suspected would happen. Yes, exactly. Right. And we learned from this cop that the CTC, which is the Christian Town Council,

approves all licenses to do any kind of religious preaching. And of course, that's just going to be for like regular Christians, not Mormons, which are gross. So Elder Burke is like, we have every right to be here and he's immediately arrested, which may be up again. You're under arrest. Yeah. And by the way, if you're like, oh, my gosh, what an unbelievable plot, don't worry, it will only get less believable from here.

The hard part here is what they're describing as every Utah town. Yeah. If you turn it around in Utah, the church runs every town. They run the state legislator. It's 80%. The governor, you know, is pretty. much handpicked by the prophet of the Mormon church and then the people just

vote him in. So they're really showing a Mormon town in reflection just making it a Christian town. Yeah, a lot of projecting in this movie is what it felt like. From the church that brought you the mall where gay people can't hold hands comes a day of defense.

By the way, again, regular listeners to the show will know that, but when my co-host who's not here this week found out that they will kick you out of that mall for holding hands, he immediately grabbed me and Heath's hands and insisted on walking around with us holding hands for, I think

the rest of the air, I think once we left the mall, he still held our hands. One of my favorite videos that's on like four phones ago is a montage of us holding hands and just very happily kind of like skipping around that mall, yeah, we had a good time. Was that the mall in Provo?

No, the one in Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City. City. Right next to the Temple Square. The one by the church. Yeah, so by the church. The one where a former prophet, President Monson, when he cut that ribbon, said, let's go shopping, which is what all prophets say, right? He did a big ribbon cutting and he said, let's go shopping. Yes, he did. Yes, he did.

Okay, I love that. All right. Well, anyway, they're under arrest here in Sweetwater County. And then we go back to the courthouse. We see public defender Thomas defending, I think, street cows, cows in the street. It doesn't matter. The cop who arrested. the missionaries shows up to just do a hearing on the spot for your honor i'm sorry to interrupt

what we are supposed to believe is another trial but i'd like to do this trial now and she's like i'll allow it yeah pop-up trial parenthetical trial yeah and james and thomas explain to the judge how the town keeps out the Mormons because it's a new judge and they're like oh just so you know by the way we have this council and like we keep they're they're gross and they're that we have a whole thing to keep them out. And the judge is like, okay, I'm, I got to do a recess and figure this out. And then we see Burke and Davis, they're back outside of the courtroom, kind of sitting on one of those benches in the hallway of the courthouse. And they're just like worried about going to jail. And they're talking about, I don't know, Mormon, Book of Mormon names. Yes.

Yeah. We get some deep cuts here. He says, we're not Alma and Amulek. And I wrote in my notes, I don't know, you seem pretty boring to me. I recognized Alma, not Amulek. Yeah, and these names would obviously be known by the Mormon audience that this is meant for. And, you know, the Mormons would think, oh, this town doesn't even know who Alma and Amulik are. It's another way to show how ignorant the town is because they don't understand. Sure, sure. They even sneak in an inside joke because they say, we certainly don't want to be Abinidae. Yes.

For those who know Mormonism, Abinidae was burned at the stake for forgiving his beliefs. Yes, I wrote my notes. I hate that I get that reference. should have made different choices in my life. It's supposed to be a New York Jew, damn it. Okay, so it was like... I was supposed to know about bagels and Hanukkah. We don't want to be a bin and I don't want to get burned at the steak, classic, like

a joke at the end, I suppose... Okay, and then Burke is like, don't worry though, we're fine. We're not a cult. We're going to be fine. And I was like, you're not going to be fine. Okay, good luck. From there, we cut over to the judge's chamber. And a reverend shows up in addition to Thomas and James, and they're all going to

explain the theocracy law of this county to the new judge. Yes. And the judge's response to that, by the way, is, are you saying I'm a bad judge? Which is a fucking bizarre reaction to have to. We are a theocracy. I'm sorry, no one told you. Clearly didn't read the memo when she got in as the new judge.

Yeah, we're doing a theocracy in this town. Yeah. She's like, you can't run people out of town. I don't think that's the thing you're allowed to do. And then they're like, yeah, well, actually we are. We're protecting the flock. Mormons are gross. We have this whole town council that does it, the Christian town council.

In order to get a preaching license, you have to be a recognized Christian religion. So that's going to be the argument in the upcoming trial. Yeah. And when she argues with that, he says he's not going to let her turn the town into, quote, a left-wing free rights non-Christian ruin. I was aggressive. That felt like a bunch of slur stuff was about. Yeah, I felt like New York was in the Cough Cough, New York.

Yeah, I got the feeling this was New York versus Texas. Right. For sure. So, of course, Thomas and James are like, oh, well, our catchphrase is plea bargain. We'll exile them, but we'll set up a plea bargain and they get exiled and everybody's happy. And the judge is like, no, no, we're going to have, we're going to have laws here. I'm pretty sure you're breaking so many. I'm the judge.

We're going to do some kind of trial here. So then we go back to the courtroom for the first piece of the case of deporting Mormons. And it's decided that you have to prove your Christian to stay in town. Yeah. Okay. So this judge has them stand up. And then without speaking to their lawyers, without anything, she just declares that they're going to do a trial, which we will later find out is a fucking jury trial to defend that Mormonism is a Christian. religion. That's correct. The fact that it's a jury trial is insane, but yes, that's right. That is the argument.

That would be like if you got caught jaywalking and the judge decided that you are going to defend the existence of Toyota as a company. But again, this is the dream of many Mormons because it's really hard to live up to the persecution of the past, right? The mobs in Joseph Smith's time, the hand carts and the deaths across the plane, we don't have that opportunity. Right. So this kind of a moment where you could stand up in court, be persecuted to the extent of the law, and then defend your faith. This is something people are waiting for. Yes. And it's worth pointing out for those of you who aren't ex-missionaries or unfortunate Jewish podcasters who chose to learn way too much about Mormons. This movie is also modeled after the six discussions, the first one specifically, which is we are two Christian. Right. So all of this is this weird Mormon fantasy in pamphlet form that we're handing to. post-pubescent boys before college. And every Mormon who has served a mission will recognize those pamphlets and the flip charts that they had. Oh yeah, the four planets. I got excited. I got excited at the four layers of planets. And then we see Davis and Burke back at their house and they want to

check in with the mission president to maybe explain that they got arrested, but they argue about that a little bit. Well, they have to. Number one, every missionary knows the number one rule. when something happens is you call the mission president. So a big plot hole here is that they don't seem to call their zone leaders or the mission president for 10 days, and yet nobody notices that they are missing. Yeah. But anyone who knows LDS knows that if they made one folk called Curtin McConkey, the church's law firm that's directly across the street from the church office building, would have hundreds

of lawyers there for their defense immediately. Yeah, look, there aren't a lot of positive things to say about the, the Mormon church, but they will sue the fuck out of you. Yeah, 100%. Okay. Well, they decide they're not going to be calling the president eventually because Burke is like, no, I wanted, we're going to do it ourselves. And this is where he throws out the phone. But it's just kind of like, it doesn't even unplug.

He just like puts a phone into a semi-full garbage and you just see it there. And he's like, oh, that was less impactful than I was hoping, but we're not calling. So they're planning to fight this, at least. for now. Then we're going to meet the, I think, Baptist or Catholic Church here. I think it's a Catholic church, but they have a choir that seems very Baptist, and they're singing this little light of mine, like way too well, actually. It was like a pretty good rendition. This was almost my best worst in the movie, which is best worst understanding of the other Christian denominations. So this is supposed to be a Catholic church. We'll learn later that this is a Catholic church,

but they are very much singing like a Baptist church. Yeah. What you're seeing is how more men's view, other denominations, they don't understand. They don't see the nuance. They don't know the difference. They don't really understand what happens at other churches or what they would be like. Yeah, that tracks with this entire movie for sure. Okay. So this is where we're meeting Sharon, the wife of Thomas and Jess, the wife of James. They're both in this Catholic church together and they're in the choir. And we see them sitting outside the church after a little bit of singing. And this is where they fail the Bechtel test really hard. Wilford, the cop, walks right up to them as they just barely start talking to each other. And he's like, your husbands are in trouble.

Let's talk about that now. Ladies, I enjoy your matching Mormon mom haircuts, but it's time for us to focus on the men. Yeah. And the point is from Wilford, the cop, that these two husbands are being pitted against each other because public defender and DA, which should have been known to, you know, everybody involved, especially spouses. But he's a little pain. panicked about that. So he tells Sharon and Jess. Yeah, he says she, and he's talking about the judge here, he goes, she's ordered a mock trial. And I wrote in my notes, I think that's just a regular trial when a judge orders it. I think that's just a normal trial. Those are called trial. A mocking trial. Oh, that's what it is. Yeah. So then we see Thomas and James, we cut back to them

after that crazy little hearing that happened and they're going to discuss a little bit of the upcoming plot. James wants Thomas to convince the heathen Mormon clients to take a plea deal. Okay, but the best thing about this scene is that James never actually makes any points. All he says is like, come on, friends, throw these teenagers in jail. Like every time Thomas said he'd be like, well, the judge said that we agree, come on, please. Neither of them have heard of due process or anything like that. No, definitely not. Certainly not. I was beginning to question if either one of them had gone to law school.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, seems like mostly no. Certainly nobody who wrote this movie has done anything close to that. And this is where Thomas finally agrees, like, okay, I'll think about trying the plea deal thing, but I am going to represent my clients kind of harumphily. And then this was kind of fun. James is like, okay, well, your wife makes great pot roast. Don't fuck this up for me by putting a rift between us.

And I was like, okay. those are the steaks now, the pot roast dinners. This was foreshadowing. I knew at this moment that the wife was going to be taught by the Mormon missionaries because she had Relief Society written all over her. They couldn't make this more Mormon if she made a green jello salad. I was going to say there are major personal conflicts I would overlook for a solid funeral potatoes recipe, right?

If someone's got the good ones with the crispy on the top, you know what I'm talking about. The best, they're the best. Oh, I've made many of those. I'll send you some. Bad funeral potatoes, on the other hand, dead to me, dead for life. Can you just make that when it's not somebody died? It feels like a really good dish, but it's sad if that's the actual name. Yeah, there's a lot of association with it.

If you bring it to an event, people are like, oh, you know, it's a bad moment. First question. Okay. Just seems like that's a good casserole right there. Anyway, it's a fantastic casserole. Okay. So from there, we cut over to Burke and David. They're going to have their first meeting with their defender.

Thomas is just kind of mad at him at first. He's like, listen, I'm not religious. I support our local theocracy, though. So you're going to have to, like, really talk me into working for you. I think I'm not religious. That's LDS code for, oh, so we can convert this guy. Yes, exactly. He's ready to be prophylatized, too.

We also get a hallmark of bad movies here that we see in Christian movies all the time, which is the, I'll meet you in the next scene to continue this conference. conversation ending. He's like, okay, well, you've said four sentences. I'd like to hear six more, but I need us to be on a park bench to do it. See you boys tomorrow. Yeah. And they just agree to vaguely meet in the park sometime tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. The missionaries have nothing else to do. So they're just going to show up probably at 7 a.m. and they're going to sit there until Thomas shows up. I can confirm as a missionary of two years that they had nothing else to do. Nobody wanted to hear them.

So sitting in the park was an enjoyable thing. Yeah, what are they going to do? Re-read that same copy of Charlie that was left in their mission house. That's right. And if you're wondering, yeah, we've reviewed Charlie. Oh, gosh. So they agree to meet the park. From there, we cut over to Thomas and Sharon's house,

and we see their little daughter, Kelly, too. And this is where we learn that Sharon is, like, extra anti-Morman. She's mad right away. She's like, the judge can't make you do a trial about that. And he's like, she can, though. She can. That's her whole thing.

There is a trial. I have to do it. Yeah, it's my job. That's what I don't understand. Does no one understand that it's Thomas's job as a public defender? It makes no sense. No, nobody seems to understand that. And we also learn she's extra, extra evil because this little delightful,

adorable little girl is like, hey, mom, can I have a little dessert? And she's like, not right now. we're talking about how Mormons are gross. Rebecca really had a problem with Sharon at this point. Did you guys notice that there seemed to be a sort of large age difference between Sharon and Thomas? To me, at first I thought he'd gone home to his mom's house. Oh, yeah. I would say he's a young looking guy.

A very young looking guy. And she, yeah, she definitely looks older. I was confused at first. He looks like the big boy mascot decided to like straighten up and get a job as a lawyer. took some ozempick got a little thin down yeah exactly yes exactly yeah it's like a Mormon Russell crow but kind of like shrunk down a little bit yeah for sure yeah but that definitely showed to the Mormon audience you know an unhappy family that needs the gospel because there are raised voices there's yelling there's contention in the home they need those missionaries

more than they know right for sure and Sharon yells at the little daughter again a second time because she's like extra, extra evil. Then we see Thomas playing outside with Kelly for a second. They're just throwing the football around. They have a little tickle fight. Okay, all we're learning here is that they're supposed to meet the Mormons in the park. And the movie addresses the fact that it was like, oh, yeah, I never set a time for that. I guess I'll go now.

Oh, I should probably head over there. I actually took this scene as they were setting up that Thomas was a good father. And because he's a good father, he's going to make a good church member. And so everyone needs to start cheering for him. Oh, all right. Yeah, right. It felt like they were trying to turn him positive as much as possible throughout the movie. This is like an early part of that, for sure.

So he meets them in the park. Thomas goes to the park. They were just waiting there vaguely for some time in the park that day. I don't know. And this is great. They're going to show Thomas the entire Mormon missionary sales pitch. Like they've got the books and the pamphlets. But they're not going to actually do that.

We're not going to hear them do that. It's going to be a montage. So the music kicks in and it's a long, like, showing little pamphlets. Yeah. And can I say, I need to do this with my own arguments more, right? Like when I'm starting to lose a conversation, I need the music to just cut in. And then when it cuts out again, I've already made all the arguments I need to make. Seems way easier.

It's really effective with that sweeping orchestral music because the looks on their face, the music, it makes it seem really important. But they really don't have to say anything. So it's very effective. I thought. And he finishes and he goes, well, I don't know about all that. I need evidence. I'm a Catholic. And I wrote in my notes, really, man? You're a big fan of evidence over there at the Catholic Church. But that's the idea. So the judge just told them they have to prove they are Christian in some sense. But they've decided in the movie they're going to prove that Mormonism is correct, like the truth of the universe. So that's what they'll be doing. Then we see James and Jess, and they're over at Thomas and Sharon's house, I'm assuming for that pot roast dinner, and they all get into kind of a crazy fight because James and Thomas are still at odds over how much you should actually defend Mormons. Yeah. It's weird because it feels like James said

an insane trap because he knew they were coming over. And like, if I was in a big fight with someone I knew they were coming over for dinner, I'd probably just call them and say like, hey, don't come over. I'm mad at you. But they get there. The children start to play with each other. And then James is like, By the way, I'm angry at you about this case that you've taken up that we already knew all the information about before this meeting. Come on, honey, we're going. Like the car's still air conditioned as they get into it? It's a very weird, incredibly fast fight.

The one thing I liked in the scene, they show us their dinner table for a second at the end of the fight. Like they, they yell each other for a second, leave. And then they're like, all right, well, it's just us for dinner. Sit down for a second. We see the table. It's just a chair. berry pie and a bottle of salad dressing right next to it, literally nothing else on the table.

Yep, that tracks. Totally tracks. Yeah, exactly. Okay. All right. From there, we cut over to the missionaries again at their house. Elder Davis is brushing his teeth and he's got a roll of toilet paper on the counter next to the sink while he's brushing his teeth, which was weird. And then in terrifying fashion, Elder Burke is like right behind him. Yes, it's the horror movie. Go down for the splash come up in the monsters behind you. Yeah. There's not a lot of privacy in a mission, and they definitely can't take phones into, you know, like the bathroom with the door shut.

And it depends on who your companion is, but I've heard horror stories of missionaries that have said, we're taking the bathroom door off, right? Oh, yeah. Because you're policing each other in case any behavior in the bathroom might get out of control. So this was a masturbation chaperone. moment. I didn't want to say it. Yes. Don't want anyone touching anything they shouldn't be. That's right.

Like, take the door off the hinges instead of just like leave it open. I've heard this story. And also putting up pictures of Jesus and inspiring messages like you can do it, don't do it. Oh, that's going to make it worse for me. In the shower. In the shower. That's not going to have the effect that they're hoping if I'm going to make it. Jokes on you. Exactly. If you give me ripped Catholic Jesus, that's.

That's just a prize. If anything, you're speeding up my showers. Yep, that's what I think, too. But yeah, and I'm not exaggerating. I know scenarios like this. So, yeah, they're trying really hard. Okay. Also, Elderberg was eating cereal in the bathroom, which was gross.

He carries his, like, half-eaten bowl of cereal. He's just, like, actively eating it in the bathroom, right behind him. He's brushing his teeth. That was weird. Anyway, they decide they're going to go to Catholic Mass to spread a little Mormonism, but not technically, preach because they're allowed to talk to people but they're not allowed to preach in the meantime

while the trial is ongoing. So fun fact about this scene, this is the most controversial scene in the movie. When I was looking it up, there is actually quite a bit of chatter about this scene because I guess at a certain point, missionaries were told you're not supposed to go to other churches even if you're going to like try and convince people to do a thing.

But then other people believe that it actually was okay to go to churches, especially if you were like doing a dinner meeting with people later. Anyways, when this came out, there was a big fight about this scene, apparently. Yeah, and I think it depends on when you were on your mission. You know, but they definitely, and my thought is this. I have a friend that was on a mission, and he said, okay, I'll go to your church, if you guys will come to my church.

When he went to these investigators church, he's like, yeah, this is awesome. There's coffee, there's donuts, there's music. This is super fun. Why would I even want to bring my investigators called Friends Now to my church. And so I think there is that sense. You can't find out what's going on on the other side. It might be more appealing. I think that singing is going to backfire on most Mormons because you start hearing that going, wow, that's really cool. That's not like the hymns we sing. And oddly enough, that song they were singing earlier, this light of mind, just got put in the

LDS hymn book, although at a much slower speed. They've slowed it down. Yeah, that is kind of the interesting thing about this whole movie. Let's tame that down. It felt a little a little fast with the Lamanite beat. Let's just get that nice. Yeah, no heavy-based beat. But it is interesting because this movie, let's see, 2003, the LDS Church heads move the needle way, way, way, mainstream Christian. They do sing songs like this now.

They do do a lot of things that in this movie, they're saying they don't do. So it's interesting to track. Okay. Interesting. Yeah, indeed. So they go to the church. And I thought this was funny, too. Burke and Davis, they show up at this Catholic Church.

And then right away, they're just like, okay, bail, this is going badly. And they're just out. They do nothing. All we see in this moment is James and Reverend Bad Guy is what I have in my notes as it's, I think, a Baptist reverend in town. Well, so here's the thing, right? James and Thomas, who go to the same church, will at various points declare themselves to be Catholic.

They will also talk to a Catholic priest in a Catholic priest uniform at certain points. But that's not this guy. Reverend Bad Guy appears to be a separate Baptist minister. who's here on a Sunday at a Catholic church? None of any sense. And it just shows that, you know, to, I think to Mormons, all other religions, it's just kind of an amalgam. They're just out there.

They're just other denominations. There's no rhyme or reason behind all of it in this film. Yeah, they actually were at two different churches. They went to the Catholic Church to meet the lawyer, but he was at the Baptist Church with his friends. That's what happened. So there were two choirs, but they kind of shared each other. at the funeral and everything, they went back and forth.

They seemed to just go to whatever church they felt like. Okay, that makes a little bit more sense. So we see Burke and Davis go to the Catholic Church and then they get scared, they panic, they bail. And then we cut to a different church where James, the DA, is meeting with Reverend Bad Guy, who's a Baptist Reverend. And they're planning the evil CTC, the Christian Town Council meeting that's coming up. It's just like, see you at the meeting of Theocracy, Moeha, ha, ha.

That's like the whole thing. That is it. Yeah. Okay. Well, it looks like D.A. James is going to go, I don't know. He looks like he's going to go murder someone in a pert plus commercial. That actor who plays James. That 90s, that 90s, Kurt Plus guy.

He did. He really did. And no fuss. And no fuss with the great hair. Absolutely. Well, he's going to do that. We're going to take quick break. And then we'll be back with more Day of Defense.

And so the government would just like take their IDs when they found out. man you've really thought this through like a lot hey guys you're ready to record the rest of the podcast yeah i was just walking us through his little spoon theory oh yeah okay that he thinks men who are the little spoon ever like in bed shouldn't be allowed to vote that's right actually they lose their citizenship heath it's way more than just voting right well that's a terrible idea so can we just get started oh is it heath explaining montage while i explain what i'm saying I explained and you are listening. I say what I say and then you listen

because I explain what I say in this mountain. What was that? Yeah, I'm hoping you learned a lot just now. A lot about what? You didn't say anything. I didn't do a super good job explaining my points in a way that you guys were like really impressed by. No, no, your eyes just kind of glazed over and did a crazy same thing.

And it smells like you shit yourself. Oh, well, never mind then. Are you going to go clean up? I'm waiting for a stasis situation. Got it, sure. Nobody look at him. This message is sponsored by Greenlight. Hey, podcast listener.

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Nothing? Okay. Don't wait to teach your kids real world money skills. Start your risk-free greenlight trial today at greenlight.com slash awful. That's greenlight.com slash awful to get started. Greenlight.com slash awful. So tired. Okay. And we're back. When we left off, the town was planning a very specific version of kind of a clan meeting just for being like anti-Mormon only. That's their main. Non-denational clan meeting. Yeah, exactly. And now we open on a Christian town council meeting where everyone decided to just kind of rabble, rabble, rabble at the person to their left all at the same time.

It appears that that was the stage direction. Look, we write sketches that opened with rabble, rabble, rabble on a regular enough basis that I have a lot of sympathy for rabble, rabble, rabble. This was some low-grade rabble-rappling. Let me tell you. And I love that they have to get out of the way that this is the judge's fault, right?

because the judge made them do the trial. The judge is the one who's making the lawyers to the thing. So everyone at the beginning of the scene just stands up and goes, look, the judge made her choice. That's not the plot of the movie. The plot of the movie is that we're mad at one lawyer and not the other for some reason. Right.

Yeah, they're mad, of course, at Thomas, the defense lawyer, and James is here at this meeting. Apparently, he's set up some questions for all these Christian town council people to ask during the trial as like gotcha stuff. Yeah, we were going to talk about this when it actually happens during the trial, but as insane and as illogical as this movie is, it actually gets way more insane because we're about to learn that it's not a trial conducted by lawyers with witnesses. The Christian Town Council will also at various points be lawyers, witnesses, and just random jury members at various points during the trial. Yeah, they seemed a little worried about whether they would win when everyone in the audience ended up being on the jury.

So we see them finish up their little meeting and James actually assigns them a little homework. He's like, I wrote some gotcha questions for you, but like think of your own too. We really got to get the Mormons in the trial. Then we see Thomas meeting with the missionaries to strategize how they're going to win the trial by proving they are, in fact, Christian.

Yeah, and he gives them this weird, like, how is your so-called true message going to help Farmer Brown with his kids? cows and lady elderly with a rosebuds. And I wrote my notes, sorry, are the other Christians on the Christian town council helping with cows and rosebuds? I think I found the one true religion if they are.

He clearly hasn't studied as Mormonism because we could call seagulls in to eat the crickets off of any of them. That's true. Yeah, no, it's good point, good point. Right. So they decide they're going to go out and meet some more people. Again, they're not allowed to preach, but they can kind of learn about the town. So they're going to do that.

Davis kind of wants to quit, but Burke urges him that like, no, we're going to, we're going to Mormon everybody. It's all good. You know what? I'm queuing another montage and we get another montage. Yeah, the trying to Mormon at people montage. Yeah, I like to call it the persecution montage. Yeah. That's very important because there's not one person that doesn't just treat them like shit. Everybody does worse and worse, you know, and that's the narrative, completely persecuted. even there's this moment where they want us to be like look even the homeless guy won't hang out with them and I'm like yeah no that's that's also a person I don't know why this movie shows to differentiate but yes he's also a human being yeah they make weird choices though because I'm watching this happen it's a montage there's like a jaunty fiddle playing and it's supposed to be like positive Mormonism happening in preaching form but they're just scaring the shit out of everybody like they're terrifying the way they kind of just jump in and accost people to sneak up behind them and like push onto the bench next to them when they're sitting in there. I was fully supporting the Christian Town Council based on this montage,

which is not great for the movie. I have to say I had a bit of a nervous laugh as I watched this montage, only because I know that any time you tried to say, oh, I'm going to go try to do some service. Everyone said, no, I don't need it. They knew what your motive was. They weren't having any of it. Yeah.

They do get hosed by the lady who's watering her garden, and they try to bother her over the fence and get immediately hooked. Ever got officially hosed, but it wouldn't surprise me if some had. Oh, okay, I was going to ask if you ever experienced that as a missionary, not quite the hose officially, but

Rejection? The same rejection was the name of the game. The vibes of the hosing was happening. The lives were real, yes. And Landon served his mission in Indiana, so it's similar, you know, small town, Christian, very similar. Got it.

Okay. Well, they go from there after the montage is starting to shut down. They walk into a barbershop. And when the Mormons walk into this barbershop, like record needle screeching is happening. And everybody's like staring over at them. Yeah, the guy in the barbershire might as well whip a wig off that he's been having cut and like zoom a human shaped hole out of the wall.

It was such an aggressive haircut. Did you notice that? The guy was just like grabbing handfuls of. a hair and just cutting it. Like, choked aggressively. Yeah, it goes very badly. They try to small talk the barber for a second. And that guy's like, already mad at them.

He's like, okay, please leave. No. Okay. We should look for the jury for a guy with a bad haircut. That would really. That would be it. That would be it. Yeah.

This was kind of like the opposite of an experience I had the other day, actually. So there's a group of, I think, yeah, Jehovah's Witnesses. and they set up shop on a corner near where I live. And on nice days, especially, they're out there all day. And as I walked past them, two days ago, they had a big box of beautiful-looking cherry tomatoes. And I love cherry tomatoes. And I was like, hey, can I have a cherry tomato?

And I was like, yeah, here, have one. I was like, oh, actually, can I have like 10? Because I really love these. And he's like, okay. And he gave me intended that he's like, so I'd like to. And I was like, nope. And I just walked away. You're the bank.

And there it is. Yeah. So I had fun with that. So they leave the barbershop. Sorry, I know we don't have our cameras on. I should explain that he's a raccoon. He's the talking raccoon. So they leave the barbershop.

And this is where we're going to meet a new character who made no sense. We meet a cowgirl. She was apparently in the barbershop. But she follows them out after seeing that interaction. And she like flirts slash entraps them into hanging out with her and learning about the town. This is the beginning of the love story. That's right. Yes. This is the movie being very confused because I thought, and apparently in the book, she like lures them into flirting with her so that the boyfriends can beat them up because they get beat up in the book, but I guess this

didn't happen in the movie. Right. But what I thought was happening, and perhaps this is just because I have that dirty of mind, I thought she was like the town sex worker. Like I thought She was trolling for clients. So I was very confused by her character for the post of the movie. Okay, but they decide that they're going to like follow her to the park and talk about stuff, but it's very clearly like an extremely sexual moment. It's got the Jessica Rabbock music following her out of the barbershop. She's wearing a cut off top, right?

So the Mormon audience right now, you know exactly what kind of a person she was. And a girl flirting with a Mormon missionary is like selling water in the desert. I mean, it's an easy job. Right. So they go off into the very obvious honeypot trap that's happening. We cut over to Jess and Sharon. They're on the porch at one of their houses drinking sweet tea with caffeine, I would imagine, because they're evil. And Sharon is still mad about this case. Yeah, it's something that they use in this kind of a film to show, you know, these are Christian, not Mormons.

drinking tea, you know, and they're having this conversation. One thing I thought was interesting is do neither of them realize the role of a public defender? This is your husband's job. This is what he is hired to do. If he really is being paid, I don't even know that. It's just so confusing the way they keep thinking that he could not do his job in defending the missionaries. It's a strange storyline, yeah. He could defend a sex offender or a murderer, but Mormons, heck no. That's where you'd Heck no. Heck no. Probably got a few of those first things on the Christetown Council. Right. So from there, we cut over to the park and we see Davison Burke hanging with Cowgirl Honeypot and her friend. Kimberly, I think, is the name of the main honeypot entrapper?

Yeah, I think it's Kimberly. Kimberly, yeah. And then the Catholic street tufts show up. I'm assuming that's Kimberly and her friend's two boyfriends and they're going to do some bullying. Yeah. I like that these two actors couldn't decide. which kind of street tufts they were going to be because one of them is very clearly a cowboy and the other is like a 1980s gangster. Yeah, just in different like village people outfits that don't match up at all. Yes, exactly.

They both showed up to set and they were like, well, I'm not going to change. Well, I'm not going to change. Oh, we're both the electrical worker. This is confusing now. So the bullying, by the way, in this movie is just like one little shove. That's it.

Yeah, they didn't need the PG rating. That would turn. Yeah, exactly. A lot of their audience. Yeah, that'll get you kicked out of BYU. Yeah, absolutely. So the point is, I guess it's established that some violence, violent persecution has happened against these delightful Mormon missionaries.

Then we see them back at Thomas's office for another lawyering meeting. They explained that their montage went very badly. They got hosed. A homeless guy was mean. They got kicked out of a barbershop and they got honeypotted it and possibly shoved as part of the honeypot thing. And Thomas is like, okay, I feel bad for you guys. This is where he invites them to come to the town barbecue.

Which shows that he's kind of softening up toward them. Yes, exactly. I kind of feel sorry for these guys. He's a good guy. How can you not have some empathy for these kids? Or this movie wanted another montage because that's what we're about to get. Oh, yes. Oh, right.

One quick detail. We do see Kelly, the little girl, being like, I want to ride a horse. And Thomas promises to ride horses all day Saturday. So that's going to happen eventually. But he does have to work on defending... Honey, you can wait. It's not going to kill you to wait for daddy to teach you how to ride a horse. Oh, gosh.

Yeah. But like Eli said, it's time for a barbecue montage this time. They're at the town barbecue and more persecution is going to happen. They're going to get yelled at by everybody. Yeah. So this is where the Christian town council is there and the mean boyfriends are there and they're like, hey, who invited you here? And Thomas is like, oh, I invited them.

And then they're just keep yelling at the kids. They're just like, no, well, his invite doesn't count. You're not supposed to be there. It's nuts. So every Christian barbecue you ever go to is completely unwelcoming, and nobody wants you there. Right. Again, it just flew in the face of what you would expect for a Christian barbecue. Yeah, this is where a mean Baptist minister who sometimes shows up at a Catholic church says,

Sharon, please tell your husband to banish these children from our town. Yeah. And then they all like, this is my favorite part of this scene. I wouldn't have even brought this scene up, except at the end, And they all, the kids run away, and then they like shake hands on her. They're like, hey, good job kicking out those children from our barbecue. Yeah, no, that was really good. You did it.

We did our Christian duty. Yeah, they're gone. There you go. Yeah. Yeah, they get kicked out. Thomas agrees to give them a ride home, the two missionaries, because everybody's mad. If that's me, by the way, I'm loading up on food from the barbecue before. Oh, yeah.

I'm like taking a armfuls into the car. I'm taking the whole funeral potatoes tints. I don't care how hot it is. I don't care. what it's been sitting on top of. I have an arm full of funeral potatoes. That's the missionary's downfall. They should have brought funeral potatoes to the barbecue. That's how you get on the Christian town. Yeah, absolutely. Christian Town Council and Christmas crack. Are you kidding? Right. So the missionaries get driven back home. They're all sad.

We also see Thomas coming home later that night. And then he decides he's going to read the book of Mormon. You cannot have a Mormon movie unless somebody reads the book. Book of Mormon. Yes, exactly. And usually in the middle of the night. Oh, 100%. Yeah. When they're like in mental turmoil or they're concerned about something and that's the moment. They decide to go read.

Oh, yeah. Center Square on the Christian movie Bingo Card. And we get a like a montage lit of a tiny bit of in the dark late at night, Book of Morning. It felt like the movie was sneaking in another montage. They were like, I know our last scene was pretty much a montage, but we're just

one more little montage here. It's just like, squir-a-da-da-da-da-na, book of Mormon. Okay, that's enough. Yeah. Well, it's time for day one of the proving Christianity trial. And the question is repeated to everybody. The question is, should they get a religion license, a preaching license? And this is James, the DA, the prosecutor of that question gets to do an opening statement first.

Yeah, and this is where we learned that there will be a jury trial at this council meeting, whatever it is. I was very confused. And this opening statement that James makes is so baffling because he says, our founding fathers came up with a plan. And then Revin Williams enacted that plan. And I was like, okay, so not our founding fathers. That guy's like 40. I just couldn't get past the DA's crazy eyes.

He just had crazy eyes every time he spoke, doesn't he? Yeah. That's because he murdered people in a Pert Plus universe very recently. Yeah. There's this great moment. Can we talk about the heckle? Oh, yeah, this is where we meet a very important character is the peanut gallery of this trial.

So James is in the middle of his opening statement. He says, are Mormons Christians and one of the boyfriends, cowboy boyfriend, goes, no more than Samuel's cows. And I wrote in my notes, fucking got him. They were kind of the Beavis and Butthead character. Yeah, they were.

Of the courtroom. Yeah. For sure. And Judge Nielsen, she has to be like, Billy, Jeff, quiet down. job guys we said no roasts we said no roasts so now's Thomas's term to do his opening statement and he's going to open with fucking hated here cool I wrote in my notes not a great open not a great open for a defense attorney yeah so correct me if I'm wrong as I understand his

opening statement argument here he's saying hey you guys all remember in the Bible when it was like just the Jewish people like the gross old testament part but then Christians have It happened, right? I think we need to be nice to mourns in case it's like that right now. I think that's his argument, right? Yeah, I think you nailed it. That's exactly what he was going with. It seems like at some point he would just be like, hey, do you guys believe in Christ? Yes, done. Cool. I win. We're done. It's crazy. Nobody thinks of that one. It's really, it's wild. He seemed to kind of be defending himself at the same time. I really didn't want to do this. I'm just here because I have to. But since I am, I'm going to kind of defend these boys. I'm just doing my job. Yeah. Right.

And he finishes up his little opening statement, and then the judge announces the real start of the trial. It's not going to be like, okay, time for calling witnesses and then any kind of meaningful cross-examination at times that makes sense. But immediately, Burke and Davis, the two missionaries, are sort of on the stand, and they're being cross-examined by Reverend Bad Guy, who's, I guess, also, he's a prosecutor, too. Yeah, Reverend Bad Guy.

just gets to start asking questions now for some reason. He had the same crazy eyes as James did. They must have both got that pert in their eyes that morning. This is also, so the point of this particular scene, right, where bad guy priest is going to ask these questions is a real contention between a lot of Christians and Mormonism, which is that Mormons do not believe in the triune God. They believe that the father, the son, and the Holy Ghost are separate entities. But because this movie is written by Mormons,

have no idea what the fucking triune god is supposed to mean. The pastor's like, so you're saying you have three gods? Because we've got one with multiple personality disorders. And the crowd is like, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, right. Absolutely true. Mormonism, we consider ourselves monotheists. I have no idea why, because we are polytheists all the way. Jesus, God, the Holy Ghost, three different people. God's married to multiple women gods. So you've got goddesses. And all of us when we end up on the other side, our ultimate goal is to all become gods ourselves. Yeah.

There's millions of gods. We are more polytheists than the polytheists are. Yeah. As they were getting into this minutia, I just wrote in my notes, oh my God, can I watch people argue about magic the gathering or something interesting instead?

Next, they're going to argue about the idea of whether you get saved by faith alone or by faith in good works. That's going to be the next big, important argument. And again, like, this is a very funny argument for the lady on the town council would be making because she is sitting next to a Catholic priest who disagrees with her on this question, who is on the council. I think that was part of what they were trying to show when they had the town council meet before is how all the other churches don't agree on anything either. So they're trying to get you by default that, hey, you think what we say is weird, but what you guys say is just as weird, therefore we must be correct. You should have been the defense attorney.

That was perfect. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah, it's so silly because they're just showing different parts of the Bible. And obviously, there's some contradictions in all of that. And it's nothing. It's just like, oh, look, right here it says faith without works is dead. And then, oh, but right here it says it's just about it.

It's like, well, yeah, Eli says like magic together. We're watching a trial about the rules of Calvin Ball. It's just nonsense. And everybody's a liar. And the funny thing about this whole grace. argument is yes, in 2003, you know, LDS people, grace was a dirty, dirty word. Flash forward 20 years, it's all about grace. Oh, yeah.

They are moving that needle toward mainstream Christianity. I think if this movie had been made now, they would not have been picked out of the town. They would have freaking been on the Christian town council. Oh, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. We have to remember who the audience is for this movie. They're trying to convince Mormons that, hey, our arguments are just as valid as their arguments, you know, they're all weird arguments, but ours are no weirder than theirs.

And that's the point they're trying to make to their believing membership. I guess that's right. I agree with that. They're all equally weird or some other word, for sure. Yeah. I liked when Elder Davis starts to mention the Book of Mormon to try to justify one of his arguments. And then Thomas, his own lawyer, is like, objection, my clients, doesn't know what he's talking about.

Shut up. Don't bring that in, do you. That's right. For God's sake, don't. Another definition of Christendom is you believe in only the Bible. So he knew immediately if you introduce other scripture, you're right away giving away the case. Right. Also funny was when DA James, the prosecutor's kind of like, objection to Thomas's objection,

let him cook, Your Honor. I'd like to hear about more. And then the next big argument, we get a new member of this insanely large prosecution team. So it's somebody from, I don't know, another Protestant church maybe. and they explain how the final revelation of God was way before Mormon stuff happened in the Book of Mormon, so therefore Mormonism has to be fake. So it's like a historical argument. Yeah, they like to pull out that I think it's the last book in Revelations.

It says no one should add to or take away from the scriptures. Mormon's argument to that is what that same thing has said in Deuteronomy, which is one of the first books in the, so therefore you're not allowing for future revelations. And so this was a big argument for Mormons that revelation must continue or God isn't, why would God reveal his word to some people and not to others? Okay. So Sweetwater County should have to be only Jewish people allowed. Exactly.

You really want to be tactical about it. That's pretty solid for dismantling their stupid Christian council. I'm sure they didn't like that. And that's a big argument showing that Mormons are not Christian is that, you know, they have additional revealed scripture and a living prophet, right? There are no more prophets. Those were all in the Bible. But, you know, Mormons believe there is a man on earth today who talks directly to God. And God just happens to order technology blackouts when his daughter's in trouble. You know, it works out for everybody. They clearly avoided the book

of Abraham, which he took from scrolls that were discovered before anyone could read Egyptian. But after the Rosetta Stone, we can now read Egyptian, and we know they were just Egyptian funerary, is that Joseph Smith translated and got completely wrong. Yeah, right. Minor detail, minor. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. This is also where we get the aliens controversy, right?

So this is like a big no-no within Mormonism, right? Because the four levels of planetariness don't take place in our universe, and it's very insulting to say everyone's going to get their own planet because they're not technically planets inside this universe. They're in the extra universe, which you could see in the pamphlet, if you just pay attention to the teenagers. Did Eli get all that right just now? Oh, it's crazy. The whole planet thing. And like I said, recently they have dialed way back on that

because it's such a, you know, crazy-ass teaching. Which makes Space Jesus make even less sense in his giant dome of stars. It's ridiculous to think Mormons believe in aliens. That's just, you know, completely off the wall. We believe in Bigfoot. That was Kane. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And doesn't Elder Burke essentially try to respond to this by being like, no, we don't believe in aliens. We believe in the multiverse. Yes, pretty much. Kind of the answer.

We get more of the peanut gallery laughing at everything. And then one of them, Jeff or Billy or whoever was yelling earlier, stands up and says, live long and prosper elders and does the like hand thingy and everybody goes, Buck Wild laugh. Star Trek burn, got them. Yeah. When you pull Star Trek out at trial, you've won.

Yeah, exactly. I think so. But Mormon's love. Star Trek. So, you know, they love him. Okay. And we get one last argument here. We don't see a new prosecutor. Same one. And she says, Moron E. Chapter 818. And because moron, it's Marona, I guess. She's quoted from the Book of Warbid. It says, God is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity. But they said God evolved from irregular humans. That's a contradiction. And they think they've won there. And actually, I think the prosecution rests on that.

it's a good thing to rest on that we're all going to become gods and get our own planet. I mean, if you want to leave them, hang in, leave it with that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's a better pitch. So that's when Judge Nielsen is like, okay, does the defense attorney want to try to do anything? Or are you just giving up? And he's like, I would like a turn. Can I do it next week?

And so they have a recess until Tuesday for him to have a turn. Did anyone wonder, what do these town people do for jobs? because they all seem to just, you know, oh, next Tuesday, sure. Yeah, I can come in. During the day. Well, yeah, all the crops get taken care of with the Catholic magical spells,

plenty of rain. Yeah, exactly, yeah. They're doing all their revelation, yeah. So now we see Elder Davis. He's kind of panicking and he doesn't want to come back to the trial. They walk out of the courthouse kind of angrily. Elvis has a bag of stuff,

and this is where we get the best, best angry. bag throws his bag against a tree. Oh, so good. I was so happy with this part of the movie. It just explodes into books and like letters and stuff that the actor very clearly was not planning on spilling. It made me so happy. It reminded me of me trying to get my remote control to work with a litany of throwing and curse words. Yeah, exactly.

The noise and then the like, dispirited. look of he's just like, oh, shit. I broke it. No. Didn't even make a sloppy noise. I do need these papers. Can you grab that one? That one's blowing away.

Oh, I dropped something else. I had my apples. They're rolling away. It's the best. There goes our baptismal recommend book, Elder. Yeah, that's right. Right. We also see just for a second,

DA James having a bit of sympathy about the Mormon. He's having a little bit of a turn. They want to show us that for a second because Act 3 is coming up. And then Honeypot Kimberly also has a similar moment, a little bit of sympathy for the Mormons, because, well, of course, Elder Davis is so beautiful and wise and everything he says makes perfect sense

if she really looks into her heart. But it doesn't matter. The bag throw is all that matters here. That's the important thing. So we're going to take a quick break to watch the bag throw over and over again. At least that's what I'm going to do. But first, let me give back three.

the hard sell. Has the movie seen throwing as a concept? I wonder how many takes that was for the one we did see. Is he going to need Tommy John surgery? Find out that we're going to see another bag throw. And it's going to be amazing when we return for the Mormon-tastic conclusion of Day of Defense. All right, everybody, if we could circle up real quick. First of all, I want to say that we're doing a great job on this movie. Yeah. Oh, thanks, Alan. Right, but I've noticed a little bit of a theme for us to maybe work on.

Yeah? Yeah. None of you can throw bags. That footage of the bag throwing, it looks just extremely silly. So we're just going to go over that real quick. Steve, you mind? No problem. Right.

So we all saw that. Looks good to me. Nice throw. No, no, not a good throw at all. So for starters, we don't need to spin our arm in a full circle. And second, we can just make a normal throwing noise. Like this? No, no.

Still, no, still no, still no. That's worse somehow, I think. If it's so easy, why don't you throw something and show us? Fine, fine, I will. Swim! Okay, that is trickier than I thought. See? Yeah, no, I see it.

And I heard myself. It was crazy. And we're back. When we left off, Elder Davis heard himself so very badly, throwing that bag. And now we open on Thomas getting home and doing a second best, best angry bag throw. It was like the actor was super sad in between takes. like, no, everyone's going to laugh at my bag throw.

And Thomas was like, hey, don't worry about it. I got it. They're going to think it's a cast-wide problem. If we all pee our pants, it's fine. Yeah, exactly. Felt like one of those. The entire house is dark for some reason, even though he's going to be talking to his wife Sharon for a minute,

which was strange. And he's decided he's not quitting the case no matter what anyone says. Hey, he says, Sharon, you know what the worst part of today was? And I wrote in my notes, The acting. And he goes, no, I just, I sat there and I wrote, I mean, you're supposed to take turns in a trial. I don't fucking know if the movie knows that, but you are supposed to just sit there while the other side is going. Right. Yeah, but he decides he's sticking with it and he's queuing a montage for the Mormon guys.

So we get a little montage. This time of at first, just Elder Davis taking out the garbage. And I was like, that's a weird montage they're going for here. Okay. But then Kimberly, Honeypot Kimberly shows up. So this is a montage of them having a relationship getting established of some sort. Now, I will admit, I think that she was supposed to walk up just as he was coming outside. But in my head, she was just waiting by the trash cans the entire time.

Okay. But yeah, she just wants to talk to him. She felt kind of bad about how it went with that shove. Kind of saying she's sorry for the entrapment that happened. And then he's just like, well, I'm done talking. by and he walks back inside there hadn't been any talking but he cuts it off right there and we see

Honeypot Kimberly be like I was about to read the book of Mormon and I was going to tell you about hi never mind and she's got the book in her hand and she's like ah fuck it and she throws it in the garbage yeah pin in that or it doesn't matter at all but they will

pull that pin out for a second at the end this was the entire love story you know there was the meeting where she she gets them as a honeypot she shows up at the garbage can and then at the end of the movie they practically ready to run away together. Yeah, I was so confused as to why this was

the romance of the... I kept expecting them to have another scene together as watching the movie get shorter and shorter watching the time from the film countdown and I got just more and more confused each time because I was like, when is this romance going to turn into anything except this weird conversation the two of them had. Yeah, that's all you need.

That'll be it, apparently. They're engaged. Yeah, exactly. You don't need anything else. You know what? I forgot about BYU romances. I should have known better. Yep, that was it.

Three weeks is all you need. Yeah, that was actually long. Yeah, for a BYU romance, there's downright old maids at that point. I actually had an elder on my mission who thought the bank teller was really cute, brought her back flowers. He was ending his mission in a couple of weeks. Ended up they got married.

Well, there you go. It happens. Well, Elder Davis angrily goes inside. This was kind of funny. the montage music you could like tell it was running out and you can see him the character seemed to be aware the montage music was running out so he like grabs the book of Mormon to like read a little bit get ready for the trial he's going to find his proof that he is a Christian for real like when Mario's about to die running out of time in the level yeah right it was the music speeds up yeah

then we cut to the next day we see Thomas heading to work on the case but he did promise Kelly's some horse riding this day and he's like, no, I got to have to do my work. So he has to disappoint the kid. And then what happens, Heath? Jesus fucking Christ. Oh, my God. So he gets in his car.

Kelly, the little girl, runs after the car. She gets hit by another car and dies. Why? This is the thing that I thought about the entire rest of the time. There is no reason for this to be a plot point in the movie. None. It doesn't have anything to do. do with the rest of the film it doesn't mean anything to the rest of the film it will just be it was

like genuinely i wondered if this actress died and they were like you know what guys people were going to ask where little kelly is for the rest of the film we've got to find a way to explain this away yeah no this has everything to do this is actually the point of the movie if you watch a lot of lDS movies which you guys do death is a huge part of it and there's a thing in mormandism called heart sell it's a marketing ploy basically where a death or something, a moment where somebody is in just the depths of despair. And that's where Mormonism steps in. The Mormons will be able to tell this family that they will see their little girl again. But I have to admit, I, you know, I did not expect this. I usually, I'm pretty jaded about it. There's death all over these Mormon movies. They like to have mothers die a lot.

Oh, yeah. We've seen quite a few that mothers. Yeah, but I was. this hit me. No pun intended, really out of the blue. I did not expect this. But as soon as Landon and I saw this, we're like, oh yeah, here we go. The missionaries can teach the family of salvation. They can teach the like planets of heaven where you get to see this little kid. But I mean, you know, Catholicism also has a heaven concept. This is just not on planets. I don't understand. Mormons don't think that way. They think no one else is going to be with their family. Only Mormonism allows you to be with your family in heaven. So the second that, girl got hit by the car, I said, oh, yeah, she's dead.

Here's where they're going to go with the story. Now, all Mormons know, they've got to convert this family so they can see their daughter again in heaven. Interesting. That was the whole point of that happening. I guess the little girl could have been like evil and then gone to Catholic hell. They could have played that up. Well, children under eight automatically go to heaven in Mormon.

That's right. Oh, is it eight? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Seven, you can do all the shit you want. And you're good.

You're good. Yeah. And this has come up. This has come up controversially in the church, believe it or not. And I will say that missionaries have been known to peruse the obituaries in newspapers and look for people that are in some of the worst moments of their life and to reach out. Yeah. So it exists.

Fucking yikes. Okay. Well, I guess they're doing, what is this called as the cinematic technique that makes us feel this extra? It's called. Heart cell. Heart cell. Yes.

It has to do with music. And really intense moments and it's an actual marketing ploy that they use. Yeah, that tracks. And almost every LDS movie that's not a comedy. If it's a serious movie, someone's going to die and they're going to play a lot of heartfelt music to get you to fill the joy that they're going to get to be with their daughter again after you feel all that heartbreak. Charlie is coming together more and more by the second. Yeah. Okay.

So Kelly is dead now. They cut straight to there's no like hospital. There's no paramedics. It's just she's died. It's implied. They're crying on the couch. Thomas is, of course, devastated that his daughter died. He grabs her teddy bear and he walks out of the house.

I guess it's implied that he's so sad that he's considering suicide because we see him much later that day. Like that night, he's still walking and he walks up onto a bridge and he steps up onto like the edge of the bridge, like almost suicide moment, right? that's what they were going for? Yes, definitely. This implies that he, being not a Mormon, doesn't understand he'll see her again. He's lost. He has no direction. He has no hope because he doesn't believe, as a Christian, a regular Christian, that he'll see her again. That's right. Okay, but they all do believe that. I know that. I don't know why they don't get that.

Yeah, but they don't get space families out of it. No, no. I thought an angel was going to come up and stop him. A wonderful life. Merry Christmas movie, house. Yeah, exactly. In this case, it's a mad life because it's a Mormon movie. Okay. So obviously it's a dark moment,

but I found it funny, not because of the moment itself in the movie, like, as a narrative, but because... I find dead kids funny. Yeah, that's not... Okay. Most colonic for this episode, everybody.

Look at the episode art. As he's walking up to the bridge, they accidentally show us that it's like 10 feet down and over water. Oh, yeah. No, he would have gotten his shins wet. Yeah. But he doesn't do it.

And he is holding the Book of Mormon at that exact moment that he decides he's not going to do it. So he's going to learn about the planet thing. And since the planet thing is the extra cool heaven, he's not going to kill himself now. Yeah, I suppose. It was the Angel Maronai and not George that saved him. That's it. You seem really delights some, George. Are you sure?

Right. So from there, we cut to a priest giving a sermon at the Catholic Church. of course, about a kid who has died and how that's in God's plan, but it's a mysterious way, like, really sorry. Honestly, I feel like of any religion must really wish they could just take a runner whenever a kid dies, right?

Like, look, I get it. Every Sunday you show up, Corinthians, this, Romans, that. But when you're doing baby funerals, it's got to be hard to sell the same old stick, huh? I would imagine. But this is Mormonism showing that the other religions don't have an answer for this.

Yeah. They try and it's not quite good enough. but we have the answers. You all know that. That's true. Okay. Yeah, I mean, the mysterious way excuse is bullshit, but Mormonism has a better answer because of the planets thing.

Yep, yep. We've got a whole plan and your kid is going to be in heaven and they're going to become a God and you're going to be together as a family forever. With multiple wives having babies. Still pretty fucking mysterious, I got to say, but okay. Hear him out on the multiple wives thing, Keith. Yeah.

Oh, that last part. It's the last post. Say that again. Say that again. Open your heart, Keith. This is our villain turn. We talked about this already. You're going to have just one wife when we turn villain?

Come on. I don't think we said that on air. It's actually the opposite. If you're villain, you lose all your man parts. You don't get to do anything. That's true. Oh, no. That's true, hell.

You get to be around the women, but you can't do anything. I'm into a lot of stuff that doesn't involve my man parts. I also just learned that my teen years were apparently the Mormon hell. Yeah, it's the great Mormon takeaway that they don't really talk about in the next life. Okay, that's pretty big deal. All right, well, they show us the Catholic version of this, which obviously isn't going to make you feel better about God's plan with your dead child. The Mormon one will, though, apparently.

One guy at this service has a backwards L.A. Dodgers hat at church for the service for the dead child. That was weird. It's his formal L.A. Dodgers hat? Oh, yeah, it's the home blue. Then Thomas does show up and they're showing us that he didn't jump off the bridge. He found Mormonism, apparently, and he's fine.

Then we cut to the cemetery and we watch the Mormon missionaries, Elder Davis and Elder Burke, crash the burial at the cemetery. Can you crash the funeral thing? I feel like you don't crash your funeral. I mean, look, I'm not here to tell people what to do at a baby's funeral, but I feel like crashing is the last. thing you want to do, right? Is that just me? Is it just me? Feels like it's not the move.

I think they wanted to offer a message, right? A message of hope because they have the truth. Maybe. Maybe. Okay. Are there missionaries doing that? I know they're looking up dead kids in the obituaries. They might as well just go to go around to cemeteries and be like, hey, anybody looking for a planet-based answer that's cooler than the one you have? They're just chasing an ambulance that's a kid with a broken arm. Damn it, wasted an afternoon. Yeah, you got to chase the hearse. That's when it really has an impact. Yep. Again, a great opportunity to bring those funeral potatoes. Oh, here we go again.

There you go. Exactly. Yeah, it's all coming together. Win, win. You're eating those potatoes either way. Yeah. So then we see the post burial scene. James walks over to Thomas.

Of course, Thomas is at the grave, grieving his child. James, I guess to characterize him as like taking that arc towards a little bit good, he tells Thomas, I had the judge move the trial ahead a little bit to next week because, you know, dead child you're welcome he's a good guy I guess they had to explain how they got to the trial on Tuesday from the girl being killed on Saturday so they had to answer why the trial

wasn't going to happen yeah his answer for his buddy losing his child was I'm going to go ahead and grant you a delay of game exactly because the trial must go on yes exactly look look I get it that your kid died but I'm going to kick your ass in this trial all right I gave you a chance to

Lee bargain. Okay. Well, Thomas and Sharon have a big hug at the end of this cemetery scene. And then we see Birken Davis show up at Thomas and Sharon's house to ask about the very important trial that's on Tuesday. It got bumped ahead a little bit, but they still need to talk. We heard we got a delay of game rather than a full cancellation. That's messed up. Well, I thought they were leaving town, right? They said, oh, someone got killed over this, so I guess we better leave town. Yeah. And can I just object? I know we have haven't talked about it yet. Can I object to the notion that someone got killed over this trial, okay? A lack of fencing at this woman's house is what killed this kid. Not a trial about Mormonism.

Yeah, and this is when Sharon asks them, she's angry and she said, I mean, justifiably, her child just died, but she's like, I have one question, why this town? Because here in this town, you murdered my child. And I mean, according to the rising music, Elder Davis has a a good answer here. But I didn't think it was that great. Yeah. He explains that he had a sister who died of leukemia at like age nine. You're wondering about the problem of evil. Well, I'll let you know that I know a dead child already. I've seen God be immeasurably cruel before. Right. That was the answer. He's dead kid bonds with Sharon here and that seems to be solving the conflict. No, and this was the big moment for the LDS audience when the grieving mother is at her most

vulnerable. This is when the 19-year-old kids step in. They know more than she does. They have the truth. They can tell her, you know, how to live her life going forward. This is the big moment. It's another heart cell. It's another huge heart cell. You bring in another dead kid to offset the dead kid and between the dead kids, you have a happy ending. And now Sharon likes them because they've dead kid bonded and that explanation about heaven, I guess. To Mormons, it makes God not look cruel. Yes, he took this girl, but he took her for a reason so that this other family could now join the church and have the same happiness and be together as a family. So God did it for a reason. It wasn't, it wasn't random or chance. Right. It's their answer to evil, basically, when something

terrible happens, it's their answer to evil, that it was for a higher purpose. Okay, but it's supposed to be in contrast to all the other Christian bullshit. And it's all the same. They're all just doing mysterious ways. It's all nonsense. But they're like, we have a pamphlet with planets. stuff and we get a montage of them bonding. Now, so Thomas walks in. So now Sharon Thomas and the missionaries are all bonding over looking at the pamphlets about Mormon heaven planets. Mormons don't believe that other people have an answer or have a, I remember on my mission, we used to do a survey. It wasn't a real survey like we were actually keeping track, but you'd ask people questions. And one of them was, do you believe that you're going to be together with

your family in heaven? And everybody answered yes. And then we'd go, no, you don't. Or no, you won't. Yeah, no, you won't. We've been talking to, no, no, their doctrine says you, there are no families. Nobody's married, nobody, well, okay, you may not, but you're together, but we'd always tell them, no, you don't believe that. Your church doesn't teach that. Do you just gaslight them out of it?

Oh, yeah, you'd tell them, no, actually your church doesn't believe that your husband and wife in heaven. We believe you'll be husband and wife in heaven, which a lot of husband and wives don't want to be husband and wife in heaven. So I don't know how big of us. Yeah, you're really going to disappoint some Catholics that way. But nobody's like, hold on, I'm Googling this. No, it's it.

Don't Google it. No Googling allowed. That's neither here nor there. Well, what the missionaries will tell you is that unless you go into the temple, paying your 10% of your income to get a temple recommend, unless you do the ceremonies in the temple, it's the only way families are together. So it's very specific what you have to do to be together forever. You specifically have to go into the temple and have a ceremony that says we will now be together forever.

There's a lot of stolen Masonic rituals that have to take place before you can be family forever. Either Masonic rituals or things that Joseph thought were Masonic rituals, depending on what the day is. Okay. So, yeah, they have that montage. We don't hear any of the cool stuff about the Mormon heaven again because they just montage it and they're done. And they're like, yep, great. Trust us, that conversation went really well. Yeah.

Right. Thanks for letting us do the Dead Kid pitch. we're all on the same page now. They get invited to stay for dinner by Thomas and Sharon and they're like, no, we've got to take off. We're actually leaving town. It totally was our plan to prove that Mormon is better and better than all the other Christianity's.

But then your kid died, so we figured it's not the time we're leaving down. And so they let them leave, but Sharon's like, I have an idea. And then we cut to her idea, which is going over to their house, Burke and Davis, they're like packing their stuff, getting ready to leave. Sharon Thomas show up to help them prove Mormonism and really do the trial. It's time for a buckle down and montage.

Did this seem off to anyone? I mean, this was the day of their child's burial. And that night they're over, let's get this case going and prove you guys are Christians. I know little Kelly would want you to win this trial and be on the Christian town council teenagers who've already said you're leaving. Yeah.

And they're like all energized and there's like, you know, the guitar stuff going. on and they're doing the thing. They've got a handbook of Christian apologetics and they've got Manila folders full of apparently evidence. They seem to think it's like dossiers of evidence that they're going to prove that it's both Christian and the right one, the real Christian. So they finish up their cram session and we cut to the courthouse the next day and it's

time to prove the Mormon. And so the judge announces that they're all still under oath, which is weird. It's like, okay, do you swear you're Christian? cool, end of case. Like, nobody's going to do that. Also, were they under oath like the whole time, where they under oath in their personal activities in between? It brings up a lot of questions. Did they swear on a Bible

or a book of Mormon? Ooh, these are the question. They didn't address that. That would have been interesting. Okay. Time for Thomas to get another speech and he's going to, I don't know, give his like intermediate statement that comes after his opening statement that you can't have a Christian town council because that's super

illegal. Oh, yeah. And this is where we get an objection, James, the DA, he objects because, yes, you're not supposed to have bureaucratic town councils, but that's not on trial here today. It's just about whether whether or not this trial is legal is not a matter before this jury. Right. And the judge is going to allow Thomas to keep going. But she does the like, your own thin ice McCoy thing. Oh, God, I love that. Look, I love that in all movies, let alone bad movies. But but I love it especially in this one because the objection is to her idea

and the trial is about her idea. So the idea that she'd be like, you know what? I was wrong to create this trial in the first place. Got me, me. Too late now. Let's go ahead. Yeah, exactly.

We do get a cross-examination of Reverend Bad Guy here. So apparently, without us seeing it, Thomas called Reverend Bad Guy to the stand and now he gets to cross-examine him. And then he just looks over at Elder Davis and he's like, please tell the court what book you're holding. So you can just do like prop stuff

outside of the witness. Oh, yeah, no, you get to do probably. But what kind of trial wouldn't let you do prop work? Yeah. And of course, this is where we get literally Webster's Dictionary defines Christianity as

because that's the book that Elder Davis was holding. He's holding Webster's Dictionary and he reads the definition of Christian or Christianity. And this priest's mind is blown by the Webster's dictionary definition of Christianity. Let me tell you, he was not ready for this, not even a little.

He knew he'd been vested. Oh, yeah, big time. His head exploded. You could see it right there. The definition, by the way, I'm sure everybody knows this, but it's anyone who believes in the teachings of Jesus Christ. It's just like pretty general. You're Christian, especially if the word Christ is in your name of your church.

You're probably Christian. Probably good chance for Christian. It's super wishy-washy, and I love it. It's like, you know, I'm Christian. Just don't think. Yeah. Christian-ish. Christian-ish.

Yes, exactly. Nice. So from there we get a cross-examination of another bad guy lawyer, Father Coleman. They're basically continuing the argument about that Trinity stuff. And it's all just like fancy word tricks about literal unity versus like figurative unity of purpose. Well, this is supposed to be the big Mormon gotcha, right?

Because they actually do really freak out about the James thing, right? which is like, my people should all be one. So this is supposed to be them delivering, like, the big haymaker blow to anti-Mormon bias, is that they don't mean unity as in they should all be the same religion. They mean unity as they should all be one in purpose. So this is Adrian for the Mormon apologists in the audience. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.

There are the big three, the big three arguments, and that's the Trinity, you know, grace instead of works, and also, you know, additional scripture. And they're just hammering. these three things in this trial. Okay. Right after this, they go back to the faith and good works thing. So they make one more argument about that.

And then Thomas calls his client to give a speech here. You get to do prop work. Sometimes you can just be like, my client gives a speech now. So Elder Burke gives a speech now. Yeah, my client gives a speech now is a key part of all trial movies, but especially this one. And I think most of his speech is about the lost right. that somehow prove that the book of Mormon does in fact line up with like divine revelation

from the Old Testament? Yeah, well, again, the three things, right? The Trinity and the grace and now this extra additional scripture. So he's saying original scripture were lost writings that showed up and the book of Mormon are lost writings that showed up. So equally as valid. Totally counts. And the timeline, of course, is that, well, how could.

Joseph Smith have known any of that stuff if it wasn't divinely inspired by God and written down on whatever thing he claimed he was writing it from? And they don't seem to be able to answer how writings from the King James Version of the Bible that didn't come about till, you know, 1600s ended up in the Book of Mormon word for word. With errors of that version of the Bible that is in his own. Interesting. Just a big coincidence. Yeah. Big coincidence. Exactly. All right. Well, I guess a lot of stuff got covered. Check, check, check. The defense rests. They believe they have won and prove Mormonism to be Christian and correct.

And then the jury's going to get a closing statement from DA prosecutor James here. Yeah, you know how you get to do your closing statement after you rest? Yeah, he rested a while ago. But DA James explains that they have a perfect, safe community here. It's because we don't let non-Christians into town. And I thought this was kind of smart. It's kind of fucked up. But he's like, listen, I know everybody knows that Thomas on the other team, his daughter just died.

But you're not allowed to just give him a free one because his daughter died. You have to do a regular jury. I have to be very clear that he is not exaggerating. That is exactly the statement James gives. He's like, look, we all feel bad for Thomas. But you can't just let Mormons into town because Thomas's kid went to, you know what I'm saying, okay? No sympathy vote.

Yeah, exactly. No sympathy vote here. Right. So then Thomas does get his closing statement, but he doesn't get it announced. He's like, okay, so I figured judge is going to, oh, no, you're not going to. All right, fuck me. I'll do my closing now. And he plays the dead daughter card, which was also smart.

He's like, okay, I'm a better person now because I don't know if you guys all heard, but my daughter died. My daughter died. So, yeah, whatever you want to do, base your trials, just based off the fact of whoever has the least amount of daughters. Like, don't get me to win for that, but like, I'm a dead daughter. Did any hands go up about, like, having this week a daughter die? It might as well, sadly, put on a birthday hat and go, did I not mention it's my birthday? Yeah, it's also my birthday.

Yeah, and then he keeps talking for a minute. I don't know. I stopped listening because I found that funny that he used the daughter card. but it ends with like Ergo LDS is Christian QED Yeah

we don't get to see the jury decide or the judge announce anything here we just cut straight to the Mormons at their house and they're leaving town

they're packing up their big pickup truck with all their stuff and they're done and they've lost right there was a lot baffling about this movie

right this movie provides us a dead child for absolutely no reason whatsoever but we just see the after effects of them having lost anyways. Why? I would love to know if our guests have any inclination. Why do they lose the trial?

It just furthers that narrative that there's persecution. People will not understand these wonderful young missionaries leave town. They probably dust to their feet, which means kind of curse the town as they go. But it's just that narrative that people will never understand. We're a peculiar separate It's because they think Jesus is an alien. That's not Christian. I get it. The persecution fantasy isn't fulfilled unless you lose. Right. Oh, yeah, that's what it is. But he did get the girl.

That's the important part. He got the girl. Oh, yeah. And he planted the seed in the heart of some of the people. And so there's this little like anticipation that perhaps, perhaps that seed will grow. And some of the people will seek out other missionaries. That is kind of what missionaries who have very little success. They all kind of tell themselves, you know what?

Maybe we did something. we won't know it. Maybe something will happen. That's kind of what they have to hang everything on. Oh, all right. I thought they were leaving it open for a sequel. Exactly. Oh, it feels like they were.

Because Honeypot Kimberly, like you said, she shows up and they have their little moment of like, oh, we're going to meet each other in California maybe. Read this Book of Mormon in the meantime. You'll be converted and we'll get married. Yep. That's the plan. Okay.

I like that he grabbed her book of Mormon that she threw in the garbage. He grabbed it out of the garbage at some point. And he was like, I grabbed this for you. Please don't throw this out again and actually read it. Please stop throwing away my religious texts. This is too. There's like garbage juice on it. She actually wipes her hand on his shirt.

Which is that it was fun. I liked how they got in the pickup truck at the end of the movie. Anyone who was raised back in the 70s knows that, you know, you get in the back of a pickup truck. And the second it goes over a bump, all the kids in the back go flying out of the truck. Yeah, exactly. No, exactly. That's the post-scripts of the story. Yeah, that they didn't mention, yeah. Well, and that's extremely unrealistic because if you know anything about missionaries, they have very strict driving rules. They can't even back up unless one of the elders gets out and stands behind the car and kind of guide you as you back up. You are not allowed to back up if, say, you were driving alone for whatever reason.

Honestly, that sounds like a good rule for our podcast. But if you run over a little child, she goes to heaven and it's part of God's playing. part of the thing. Yeah, exactly. The whole movie wouldn't have happened had they had someone backing up Thomas when he backed out of the driveway. Exactly. Exactly. There it is.

Lesson learned. All right. Well, Elder Davis and Elder Burke are like, all right, well, we're going to take off. We're going to keep bothering other towns. It's going to be awesome. And Thomas is like, yeah, cool, good luck. Sorry, I lost that trial for you. And they're like, yeah, it's cool.

We're going to keep bothering other times. No, it's all part of the persecution narrative. It kind of would have fucked it up if you want. right and they drive away into the sunset past literal tumbleweed for a second and elder burke says i'm worried about the bryant's you know tacitly because you know dead child there's no missionary there to teach him the gospel so now that's right yeah okay but elder davis is like have a little faith the end the end that's the movie okay was there a moral of the story for anybody? Did you catch an important moral in there? Dead kids are a great selling point.

Yeah. I'll agree to that one. I would say that the Mormon audience would know that that last scene, that last moment, have a little faith. That is actually a happy ending because they're alluding to someday the Bryantz will find the missionaries. Now we planted that seed. You know, it's a positive thing. It's not a reality, but it's a hope. And that's pretty much all they have. Yeah, it wasn't a waste of two years, Elder. Something. I'm sure something happened, yeah. Oh, so this is like, and now we wait. Yes, and now we wait the ending of a movie.

Yeah, fantastic. All right, well, that's going to do it for Day of Defense, but that's not going to do it for the episode just yet because we found another terrible movie for next week. So, Eli, what and where is on deck? In the early 1970s, a prestigious magician's association is baffled by an up-and-coming mentalist. the great Dexter, who can apparently read minds,

we'll be heading to New Orleans live to watch the Cristiano Brothers film, Mind Reader. Well, it's a Christiano? Fantastic. All right. With that to look forward to, we'll bring episode 525 to a merciful close. Huge thanks to Rebecca and Landon for joining us.

So where can everyone go to hear more from you? Oh, thanks so much for having us. This has been super fun. We are on YouTube, Mormonish podcast. We put out episodes every week, shorts, all kind of stuff. And also audio, wherever you find your audio podcast to enjoy, you can find us. Okay. You can also see more, Mormonish, fancy YouTube, no big deal.

Thank you very much. And the podcast on audio. Got it. And of course, a big thanks to our Patreon donors for all the generosity. If you'd like to help support the show, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash god awful that'll get your early access to an ad-free version of every episode and if you enjoyed this show be sure to check out our sibling shows the skating atheist citation needed the skeptocrat and d and d minus available in all the podcast places if you have questions comments or cinematic

suggestions you can email godawful movies at gmail.com tim Robertson takes care of our social media our theme song was written and performed by ryan slonick of evil giraffs on mars all other music was written and performed by our audio engineer morgan clark and was used with permission thanks again for giving us a chunk of your life this week for rebecca landin and eli i'm heath promising to work hard turn another chunk next week Until then, we'll leave you with the American graffiti clothes. The Christian Town Council was legally disbanded 44 seconds after the first Jews moved into town. Thomas went to Starbucks and cut the line using the dead child card. He kept using the dead child card.

Elder Davis and Kimberly were married three days after Elder Davis returned from his LDS mission. The Proceeding podcast was a production of Puzzle and Thunderstorm LLC, copyright 2025, all rights reserved.