God Awful Movies - 568: The RM

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

This week, Mark Hofeling joins us for an atheist look at "The RM." It's the story of all the things that make the Mormon missionary practice cruel and awful, made by people who somehow haven't realized that.Come see us live in Washington, DC on August 14th!: https://www.atlasarts.org/events/god-awful-movies/If you’d like to make a per episode donation and get monthly bonus episodes, please check us out on Patreon: http://patreon.com/godawfulCheck out our other shows, The Scathing Atheist, The Skepticrat, Citation Needed, and D&D Minus.Our theme music is written and performed by Ryan Slotnick of Evil Giraffes on Mars. If you’d like to hear more, check out their Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/EvilGiraffesOnMars/Report instances of harassment or abuse connected to this show to the Creator Accountability Network here: https://creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org/

No, I'm sure it's not just sexist because it's also racist. You're forgetting the racism, baby. Yes, exactly. I don't know which one to put first in that. For those of you who don't understand how much Mormons love this movie, I need you to imagine that every middle school showed birth of a nation and that it was like an inside joke. Like one out of four Halloween costumes was like,

what can I say? I went with birth of a nation. Yeah, I'm the Klansman. I went with Grand Cyclones. Yeah, right. Awful movie. Welcome back to the Gamcast, where each week we sample another selection from Christian cinema, unless you don't count Mormons as Christians,

in which case we're going to do something else entirely this month. I'm your host, No Illusions. Heath is off recovering from his vacation this week, but sitting 900 miles to my northeast is my bad friend, Eli Bostic. Eli, how are you this fine afternoon, sir? It's about goddamn time. And speaking of which, we're also excited to welcome back veteran gas maskist, X-Morman, SLC Native, and Emmy-winning production designer, Mark Hoffling.

Mark, welcome back. What's up, fellas? It's good to be back. Oh, we're so excited to have you here kicking off Mormon Movie Month with us. We're doing video now, so yikes. How do I see? Is this what we look like? You can't mute my face.

I know, I know. This is a grinder on a Tuesday, the podcast. Wait, one second. Let me just, let me get my head out of the frame. Oh, there it is, everybody. See, that's what I thought you would look like. Listeners who don't watch the YouTube videos, congratulations this week. Get on Grindr on a Tuesday.

Yeah, right, right. You pretty much figured it out. I'm sorry, all those dads called you bitch listeners. So before we jump in, I want to tell you a little personal story here real fast. And that is that when. you guys asked me about this movie, I looked up the director and I saw, huh, Kurt Hale. And that rang a bell. So I did a little way back machine action. My middle name is Nathan. I'm named after the person who baptized my grandmother, whose name was Nathan Hale. Turns out Nathan Hale is Kurt Hale's grandpappy.

So he was the original zombie bite in my family. So this is a little bit personal for me, fellas. Yeah. Really? Interesting. We're basically making you watch a movie by the vampire Lestat's grandson. I am his Van Helsing. That is correct.

Exactly. Yes. Yeah. So, okay, personal connection. Just like all of Mormonism, there's a family connection there somewhere. So tell us, Mark, what will we be breaking down? down today. Well, fellas, today we are breaking down 2003s, the R.M, capital R, capital M, a.k.a. the 100-minute fat joke, aka the imbearable dullness of being.

For those of you who have lived a happy normal life thus far, I regret to inform you that the RM means the return missionary. The Mormon return missionary. It's a hilarious romp through the tragic result of throwing two of the most important years of your life in the toilet to self-fund a two-year sentence of poverty, celibacy, and rejection. We're going to laugh a little, we're going to cry a little, and we're going to learn absolutely nothing about ourselves. It's fucking nuts, because do the whole movie, you're just like, oh, so you're explaining why this is a bad idea.

No? No. Really? No. Wow. And Eli, how bad was this movie? Well, if you love the horrifying lens of comedy, through which the Mormons like to talk about their cult,

but you wish you got to go on the journey. with Robert Evans after 11 martinis, you will be grateful that Mark is on this episode. Podcast is there before. Let me explain something. This episode without Mark would be what we like to call a dud. Right. It's a comedy.

It's not a particularly good comedy. But Mark's notes are like, chili cookoff, eh? The year was 1993. Three boys were dead and four more would be dead before the summer sunset. It's the fucking It's a fucking love it.

What's that guy? Hunter as Tom's a novel. While me and Noah are like, that's a dumb joke. I messaged Eli halfway through watching this and I'm like, man, if it wasn't for Mark's notes, I'd be worried about this episode.

Yes. There were times when I was writing stuff, I had to remind myself that this Google Doc is not my therapist. Disagree. Disagree. This is my. What's that thing? You know how they published the book of all of,

oh, fuck, I'm forgetting his names, including the letters to his wife about how much he wants to smell his farts. This is ours for Mark. When Mark goes out, we're going to put out a published hardbound version of these notes. I think that's RFK Jr. Yes, it's RFC Jr.

And it was his testimony before Congress, I just remembered it. Yeah, it was his cooking show, yeah. It'll be on a cooking show. All right, so is there anything you just want to nominate this for being the worst at? I think touching on everything we've just talked about, this is the best accidental indictment of the culture they're trying to celebrate.

There were more than a few moments throughout this movie where I thought, oh, the Gamp guys hired me to make this movie and I just forgot about it. It's a hundred minute own goal. And it's like done more damage to the veneer of happiness of Mormon culture than any of us could ever do. Well, right, because it's right in their living rooms that it's doing it. It's fucking brilliant if this is an end. Mormon film. I think it might be via stealth.

Yeah. It certainly plays like that an awful lot. So I was going to go with best worst pseudo profanity in the comments. The comments section for this movie were a fucking delight because so many of them were Mormon-owned goals going like, wow, that's exactly what it was like for me coming back for my mission. Good times. But as they were saying that, they were all thrown in these dangs everywhere there

was a dang. The second comment down on YouTube opened with O. my heck. Are we bleeping dangs or can we just Oh no. We can say dangs right out on this show. We're on YouTube now. We can DM minors. That's the thing. Holy shit. I keep telling you.

I feel like Mormon, George Carlin. Awesome. Yes. The seven words you can't say in seminary. I'm going to go with best, worst music. So the music, every piece of music in this movie is a Mormon attempt at late 90s rock band

version of Mormon hymns. And if you're not aware of Mormon hymns, they're worse than regular hymns. I think at one point, I'll remember because it's in my notes, but at one point there is a like, tonight, it's going to night of Water Fill the Cup, and I laughed for a solid three minutes. This is like going to a restaurant and they say they're Asian fusion twists on Wonderbread. For non-Mormon listeners, Mormon hymns, I, I, I, them as a funeral music for the human soul every week. Aren't they, though? Wow.

All right, well, some folks have been anxiously counting the days for 11 months for Mormon Movie Month, myself included. So we're going to keep the break brief. When we come back, we'll dive into all the mayonnaise sandwich that is the RM. All right, everyone, welcome to the first ever writer's room meeting for the RM. Burray! Hosanna. So it's going to just be a laugh, a minute comedy about all the crazy stuff that happens to returning missionaries.

Like what? Oh, you know, your girlfriend leaves you. You lose your job. Your friends get new friends. There's nowhere for you to fit in anymore. Oh, and the terrible isolation that you see, that you feel, you know, seeing that the world just so easily moved on without you for two years. That doesn't sound funny at all, man. Does it?

No, it actually sounds like really, really sad. Yeah, I think you might be minimizing one of the worst things about our like community and religion. Oh. All right, fine. You know what? If you guys are going to be like this, I'm not even going to tell you about my comedy movie idea for a Catholic altar boy. Does he get fucked by a priest? I said I'm not going to tell you guys about it.

He gets fucked by it. You guys are going to bleep that right. I want my bishop to hear it. Yeah. Don't worry. Don't worry. He's fucking, he's actually fucking a child. Oh, Jesus.

The church is ignoring it. I get it. I get it. And we're back for the breakdown. And we're going to open up on the title card so cheap I wanted to co-make one for them. You know? I said it looks like we're introducing an edgy PS1 video game, right? Bloods.

Finders. I instantly thought it's giving little rascal sending a ransom note. 100%. That's not a typeface found in nature. No. No. And then we get our title card.

And then we get a bunch of Mormons at an airport being sent off. I guess there's just like two being sent off before their missions. Yes. As is the grand tradition of every Mormon movie month, I find a new Mormon catchphrase that will stay in my soul forever.

In this scene, it would be, give them heaven, son. I'm going to say that at the worst possible. Like, if I'm ever with a man who's avenging his son's death, I'm going to lean forward right before he saws a man's head off at the neck and be like, give him heaven, man. He's going to be like, you've wrecked this.

Just fuck him up. Just give him. Oh, fuck. What? Give him heaven. Come on. Yeah, there's a quick little note, just a tiny design note here, is that the, did you catch the name of the airlines randomly?

No. The fake airline? It's FU Airlines. Really? Yeah. Snuck one by him. See, I think I did work on this movie. Yes, right, right.

So just back in the good years. I made a lot of bad movies. I can't remember. So, yeah, so, but his, his girlfriend is there. She promises she'll wait for him. We get an awkward Mormon hug. Mm-hmm. Which I think is, hugging before marriage.

I think it was, I think it's verboten for Mormons. Missionaries, once they've been like consecrated or whatever it's called, to hug anyone other than their mom. Other than your mom. Um, yep. Really? I think so. But it was like a hundred. I was, last time I was involved was a hundred years ago. So, Mark, I got to say, there is so much shit you can make up during this episode and I'll just go, really.

But I don't need to. Like Joseph Smith, yeah. He's like, you know, we have magic underwear. I mean, once you've got magic underwear, why make anything up? Exactly. You don't need to pretend anything. Yeah, the guy who killed Abel is Bigfoot. Everybody knows. Yeah.

So you're also seeing the thing that happens. that happened before September 11th. So I just want to say quickly that September 11th, we all agree, it was a pretty bad day. But if you ever had to get on or off a plane in Utah between Kitty Hawk and September 10th, 2001, you know what it was like when, like, getting off the plane and it was like a rugby scrum of floral print dresses

and just a penny suits. because there was a missionary coming home. And so you couldn't get on it. It was madness. And then 9-11 happened. Terrible. Agreed. Sure. I mean, it was our people's work.

So I'm kind of proud. It's crazy for you to criticize my people's work like that. It's like we all got together. We did something pretty special. But yeah, no, I guess it was sad for you. Silver lining. Silver lining. I was in Salt Lake Airport last week.

And the missionary families are now, corralled like a petting zoo outside the security area. We saw it. It actually turns out it was the Mormons who did 9-11, you know, to get around those fucking crowds. Well, because they're the real Jews, right? They're the true Hebrews.

Oh, interesting. The 13th trier. The real American Jews. The real American Jews. Wow, we're going to get so sidetracked. We were so excited to see this the first time we went to a Salt Lake City live show and we didn't see any when we were so disappointed. We're like, oh, but it turns out we were just on the wrong flight because on the way out, there was a genuine human, like, herd of them. I switched religions there and then.

Yes. It's okay. Now, so Jared the Mormon, he's going to be our lead character. He leaves. He gives the black power sign on his way out for some reason. Joseph Smith. Oh, is that a Joseph Smith thing? Joseph Smith.

We used his magic powers to stop bullets that didn't stop. Well, yeah, but he wasn't by going like this. It literally was. Oh, was that the symbol he made? I thought he did a whole big symbol. Correct. He didn't stop. He didn't stop.

didn't stop all of them. That's true. Maybe he can stop them. Just most of them. Just most of them, yeah. Yeah, he just needed to do more symbols. Where's that version of the Matrix where Neo stops the bullets, but like, freak it through and pull? Still pretty impressive, but he's dead.

That was pretty good, pretty good. So, okay. So then we get our credits over Jared, live in the missionary life. We have the little Polaroids on the bulletin board showing us the cast and whatnot. I actually love a clever title sequence. Like if you haven't seen, have you guys seen Delicatessen, they have one of the most, the old French film,

it's got one of the most genius title sequences you'll ever see. But it was in focus. It was. Yeah. This is also accompanied by the 90s pop version of In the Hollow of Thy Hand, which, so yeah,

so we get our Polaroid credits. And now, like, his mission's over, right? His mission was during the credits. And now we're going to get him coming home, ready to be reintegrated into normal life. So I just want to offer a general note, if I could here, really quickly, for anybody who doesn't know about the reality of Mormon missionaries, I think when you're making a parody of the childlike naivete and the earnestness that it seems unreal that young Mormon missionaries

on a mission from God actually have, it's a fine line between a cringe comedy about putting fed virgins on a mission and a disturbingly 1930-style eugenics positive movie where everyone is Martin short in that synchronized swimming sketch. Yes, exactly. It's a minefield because you don't think that this is real, but this is real. Yeah. Well, so we see him like with his, I don't know what the name of this religious leader is, but the guy who's supposed to like ease him back into reality.

Basically, he's telling him, hey, look, you know, try not to get too much ass when you go, all the ladies are going to be all over you, the returning missionary. That's his mission president. Yeah. And so he's the one who says you have six weeks to get married. Yeah. And Jared tells him, he's like, don't worry. I'm going to go to BYU.

My girlfriend is waiting for me. My job is waiting for me. And the rest of the movie will be everyone in his life disappointing him. Spoilers. Yeah. Yeah, no, we cut to like, he's like, no, I know what it'll be like. And we cut to his imagination of him returning. And there's a lot of blue and green balloons there for some reason.

He has better hair in his imagination. Yeah, and he's got, he's kind of a little too curvy in the hip for those that, that Billy Idol rock and roll leather pants look. Yeah. But the other, the other funny thing here is that he went to the Evanston South mission. And for anybody not in the Utah sphere, Evanston is. an hour and 40 minutes from the missionary training center in Provo by car. Going to the airport makes no sense, because I don't think they have an airport. But the other thing that's hilarious is that Evanston is, there's a hierarchy in missions, right?

And the rich kids go to London, they go to France, they go to Tokyo, and then everything else is way down the list, including below the non-Cocasian countries, the Western states. So it's barely leaving home, right? And Evanston is where fallen Mormons go to buy beer and fireworks just over the Wyoming state line. So it is like, it is an, I'm interpreting this movie for you. I'm not like doing jokes with you.

I am putting it. I appreciate it. I'm putting it into American cultural English. You're cutting through the forest, yes, with the machete of knowledge. So now you get the very, very, very funny Evanston joke. Yep, I appreciate that. There are a lot of jokes in this.

You're going to have to diagram for us. So he gets home for realsies, right? But there's no one there to meet him. So, you know, he's like, there's another nerdy kid coming back and his family's there. But Jared, our hero, comes to the airport, and it's, you know, devoid of welcomes. Yeah, this is, this is, I got to say, unimaginable.

Oh, yeah. The hero's journey that is built around the Mormon mission for boys is, you know, their judge dread taking the law to the, you know, out into the wilderness, to the barbarians or their Leonidas at Thermopyla, right? To come home from those two years to nobody would be, it's kind of unthinkable. Yeah. So he, like, he calls home and he just gets the answering machine. So now he's like sitting dejected on a bench, like he's just going to live at the airport now.

when wouldn't you know it, a beautiful woman happens upon him. It's so fun to see a woman who is late 90s, early 2000s hot, and for me to simultaneously, because I was raised on that aesthetic, go, oh my gosh, she's got the Rachel haircut. And also to go, huh, that's what we were going with, huh?

I mean, obviously she, like, when you get through the old scene, it's like, oh, she's a cougar who just hangs out at the airport. board for abandoned Mormon boys, right? Absolutely. So we need to address the fact that this actor, when this movie was made, was 35 years old, and the actor playing Jared was 22 and looks younger than that, right? Which I guess that's fine with me or whatever, but the movie plays it like they're the same fucking age or so, which is insane because she's 35 and looks 35.

She's lovely and all, right? But she doesn't exactly look appropriate with this naive 20-year-old. kid. Oh, she would have won my heart. No, I'm so glad you said that because I'm like in my late 50s. Everybody looks young to me, but I was like, I think she's at least 15 years old. Yeah, right, right. Yeah. But yeah, so she's like, hey, do you want me to take you to wherever it is that you're going? I can give you a right. And he's like, no, you're not going to be the love interest until a little later in the movie. It's not act two yet, damn. It's also foreshadowing of what an utterly helpless dope this kid is. His family didn't pick up with the airport. So he was just going to

sit there until he died. He starved to death. Yes, exactly. Right. But eventually he decides to take a bus because apparently there's a bus stop immediately in front of his house. Lucky, yeah.

Yeah. But nobody answers the door either. And I'm like, fuck, did his family all die in a plane crash? Is that where we're going? That's what I was hoping. Yeah. Yeah, right.

So he tries the door. It's locked. He goes around back and he's like, I guess I'm going to have to climb in through this upstairs window. And I'm like, yeah, no, I bet that goes, great for you, guy in a comedy movie.

So he climbs up and there's just a naked Asian gentleman in the bathroom upstairs taking a shower. And this is, I guess, where we're first introduced to this movie's racism. Yeah, baby. See, this is the thing, right? A lot of early 2000s comedies could have done some lame. Oh, no, I've broken into the wrong shower. But only the Mormons can accompany the appearance of an Asian person with what I'm going to call ethnic music as well as parochic. body noises.

I tensed up when you were going for whatever that was. So did I, man. So did I. My fingers on the button. But I had bathroom at Tiffany's. It was sick. Playing just an Asian person going about their day as a pop scare. It was like a wartime Warner Brothers movie where Hero Hito jumps out of a bush.

Yes, exactly. Karate kicks him four times, knocks him into the neighbors. pool, yeah. But now he's at the neighbor's house. The neighbor tells him that his family moved without telling him about it. Inconceivable. Right. And then mom and dad show up.

And so, okay, so we have to address this fact, too. The mom walks in and he goes, mom, you're pregnant. The lady play in the mom is too large for me to have noticed that. Yeah. I have, you know, to borrow Dorothy Parker's response. hearing President Coolidge and died, how can they tell? Yeah. Right.

Right. And, you know, this, this movie is like a run-on fat joke, but honestly, I was like, oh. Was she wearing her pregnancy hat? How could he tell? Yeah, exactly. Just a random guess based on how often mom is pregnant. Really honestly, you got a 50-50 shot. Is it raining out in Seattle situations?

Oh, yeah. Right. So, yeah, but it turns out that mom had the wrong. day for the end of his mission, darn it, and that's why nobody was there. So now he gets home proper and mom and dad have to introduce him to their fat joke. I mean, their Tongan exchange student. Yeah, I mean, we're 10 minutes in, and we're already at two spectacular, unforced racisms. Yep. Yeah. Right. Is it given the comically long racist name? Yeah. At this rate, it's going to be you know, Mississippi burning without swears and black people. Or maybe there will be black people. I don't know.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. They might need some bad guys later. Yeah. So, yeah, but the Tongan guy hugs too hard because he's a very large gentleman. And then mom and dad catch him up on what his 22 siblings are up to. They also tell him that they sold his car. Yes.

Yeah. Eventually, he does find out that they sold his car. Yeah. It's like they were just like, oh, he must be dead now. Yeah. And based on his incapability, I wouldn't be surprised if they came to that. conclusion. Yeah, really.

Well, so, okay, so here's the thing, though, about the car is that either it's a car that was like the family car that he drove, in which case it was insane for him to just assume that it would just still be in the garage for him, or it was a car that he bought and then they sold to pay for their other kids' mission, in which case, that's really fucked up and he underreacts to it quite a bit. Yes. The problem is everything truly horrific that happens in this movie that is like the source of an entire drama in another film.

will be a single beat of comedy in this one. He'll go, oh, shucks, no car. Yeah. Yeah, he's like, he's like the family in this Cape Fear series. Just the life. Yes, exactly. Life happening to them. And that's the problem.

You can't have a protagonist that everybody wants to see die. And we're just minutes into this. And I'm kind of like, hmm. Oh, good. Sell that bastard bastard's car. So, yeah, now he's got a tandem bike instead. So he tandem bikes over to see his girlfriend, Molly. But first, he stops at the jewelry store to buy an engagement ring.

Yeah. Pin in that. Nothing really happens there, but we're going to come back to that later. And then, so by the time he gets to Molly's, it's dark. And we have a big long, like they also thought he wasn't coming home until next week. I have to bring up the dad answering the door. Sure. that, you know, he's a minor character,

but the fact that they decided to put him in like a fright wig and a tape on mustache and a Tour de France outfit was so fucking weird that I couldn't even... What a weird short... I couldn't hear the dialogue. I would have been less... And it never came back? I thought, oh, this is going to go somewhere.

But it never came back. And I was like, it would have been less jarring if Robocop answered the door. Well, so here's the thing. And Eli's pointed in this out a number of times. It's like, this is what happens when you're trying to do comedy and you can't talk about sex, right? Is that you just end up in positions where you're like, well, how do we make this funny? And somebody goes, wacky wig, you know, and over and over again in this movie, that's what

they did. They needed comedy and they're like, well, you know, I'll tell you what, if he's in a funny enough shirt. Yeah. The wig budget for this movie matches the local drag show that they drove out of town with their home. Yeah, right. So yeah, but Molly has to explain to him that she actually sent him a go fuck yourself

letter that he didn't get because she didn't think he was coming home until the following week. And it turns out that she's already engaged to some other guy. And again, like all of this, I'm so glad Marcus here because all of this is played with this awshy. That's true. He is dissociating. So I don't know if he's on. But like all of this is played with like a gee whiz aw shucksness. That not only deescalates all the stakes, right? Because if you tried to care about this movie, every character turns to the screen after everything happened and goes, well, I don't know about that. So you're like, well, I guess I don't fucking care either. But then there's nothing. His girlfriend just broke up with him. His

presumably fiancee just broke up with him. And he turns to us like, hope you didn't hope that was part of the movie. And I'm like, well, then you tell me what to care about. Yeah. This thing of her holy ghosting him, you know, these. And it's obviously his first heartbreak. And that's not surprising. But sure. Mormon boys are raised on the idea that they're Tristan and their forever help meet and waiting is his old, right? And while he's eating mac and cheese three times a day with three other dudes in a cockroach-infested studio apartment in Pensacola that she's supposed to be at the tower window, you know, gazing at the horizon for his sale to come over it for two years. And it just, it never happens or it happens so rarely. Right.

But they're led into that slaughterhouse by this mythos of the hero's journey. And they're like, ha, ha, well, it happened to him too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's what's so bizarre to me is that this is actually just like a terribly traumatic thing that they put these poor children through, which is probably the better of the options, right? Because the other thing is that you end up marrying somebody you haven't seen in two years

over two of the most formative years of your goddamn life. So, you know, it's a complete crapshoot whether you even. get along. Yeah. Unless you need Mark to rescue you. And then it's, well, yeah. Because you've been dumping all your books of Mormon into a dumpster. You guys did meet my husband earlier, but he can't hear us now.

Anywho, sidebar. So he goes home now and his parents are leading like a Mormon Amway meeting. I'm going to talk about that a little later, but you guys go ahead. So, but Jared tells his mom about Molly's engagement. And there's an overweight guy who says his sister's. available, but he's overweight, so she's probably not sexually desirable, get it? She's unworthy of love.

Well, and don't worry, they've got a great tale. He goes, ever since she got the tapeworm, she lost a ton of weight. Yeah, that was, they hit the Mormon joke trifecta there. It was the cruel misogyny with a fat joke chaser, horrifying racism all

at the same time. It was like a... And parasites. Yeah, a quilt of bigotry. But there's one little note from the Utah film community here is not everybody in this movie got sucked into the terrible gravity of, you know, the Mormon Hollywood black hole. The tall nerd at the LD3 meeting is Jared Hess, who was a camera assistant on this show, but the year after this movie, he would go on to make a much more palatable and publicly accepted examination of small town Mormon culture called Napoleon Dynamite.

Really? That's right. Yeah, yeah. So that's that tall nerd made Nacho Libre and the Minecraft movie. And so... Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm not the only escapee from that terrible gravity. Nice. Yeah.

So, yeah. So, but Jared's all sad and pumped and everything. So he goes to his room, which I guess he's sharing now with the Tongan guy. Yeah. And he's on the top bunk, guys. Design note, they're bunking together in the holodeck. Apparently. Did you see the wallpaper is this hardcore grid?

And I'm like, uh-oh, what adventure are they going on? Yeah, right, right. So, yeah, so he lays down on the bunk bed, and of course the large Tonkin gentleman falls through and squishes him. Yeah. So now I guess he's got to sleep in the pantry on a bed of dried beans and shit. Yeah. And that's another very important thing I can interpret for you,

is that the Cold War Mormons got a little crazy. and said that everybody needed to have two years food storage. So this is a funny, hardy-har about hoping for the apocalypse. Oh, wow. He's sleeping on the prepper buckets. He's sleeping on the prepper buckets. Yes. Amazing.

So I wrote in my notes, it's like, oh, somebody in the writer's room just yelled beans. And they're like, he can be sleeping on them. So, but mom tells him that he's going to be fine. And then he goes to sleep on it. And then he wakes up and there's a baby in there crying because there's so many children in the house constantly. Again, like, I can't, it is so hard to fathom a mind where a good joke is an unattended child

sobs because it is alone and unattended. And they're like, no, guys, guys, I got a great joke. A three-legged puppy drowns in a lake pretty close to the shore. No? How about a lonely baby covered in stick? Yeah. This, and I was, it was so disconnected. I'm like, this baby's covered in red shit.

And I was hoping for a second that, that it had 28 latter day at its entire family. So that we could have, we could have some intentional zombie energy in this movie. Exactly. Yeah, as opposed to just the morale. The unintentional zombie energy. So, yeah, so mom comes in to get the kid. And there's another thing that they constantly play for laughs is how harried and overworked this mother is. Right? It's just a terribly cruel. We'll get more into that later because they really lean into that joke. But this is, I think, where they first introduced the fact that mom's always got 306 things to do. So then we go to, we got to breakfast where there's an absurd amount of food because there are 23 kids that live at the house. Mormons. Yeah, this is where she announces that she sold the car so that his brother could go on a mission. And I wrote in my notes, we raped your grandma so that we could throw nickels into a statue of Joseph Smith's mouth. You don't mind, do you?

And, you know, every food scene in this movie is like, cool hand, Luke. It's just like, that's too much food. But this goes back to something I want to talk about very quickly that is just endemic in this whole movie other than mom is a slave. But there is, and I've been part of this haplow group, my family has for 100 years now. But this sort of caloric intake, which is very common, leads to a certain regional phenotype in casserole country that I called built to quilt. And so you're going to see

a lot of quilters in this movie. They're hardy pioneer folk with a hearty cuisine. So just as you're aware that there's going to be a lot of that way. We'll be damned if the Wyoming's will starve us again. So yeah, so now he's got to go. Jared now has

to go and return the ring that he bought and then check on his old job. Make sure he can get his old job, right? So this is a very funny moment in the store that I'm sure Eli will talk about. But I want to quickly talk about something in that store that is very important culturally in Mormonism. And that is the hundreds of thousands of Yadro figurines that you see. And if you guys aren't familiar with Yadro figurines, they're little Spanish statuettes

that are the last word in elegance and status in the discerning Mormon home. Oh, are they? So, oh, yes. So that if you go into a Yodro home, you're like, oh, hello. Yeah, that's how you know they made it. That's how you know they made it. So I will say, in my estimation, this scene in the jewelry store is the sole clever scene in the movie. Right.

Because, like, he comes back to return the ring and the jeweler finds out that his girlfriend said no to him. And they play it off like, you know, he's. at the bar or whatever and this is the bartender and they have a bunch of bartender cliches. And it actually kind of works, I think, the way that they develop it. He pours him a diet, a caffeine-free diet Coke. Caffeine-free? You can tell it's caffeine-free because of the stripe. Yeah, yeah.

I laughed out. I left out. I left out loud. I was just like, oh, that is fucking funny. And it was. It was great. And they played it just like, you know, a guy pouring his soul out to a bartender. And I was like, how do they know about that?

Oh, right? Interesting. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, but the crux of it is that there's a no return policy at the jewelry store. So he can't get his money back for the right. Yeah. There won't be any jokes in this movie, let alone ones that run. But the closest we get to a running joke in the movie is it sure is hard to sell the engagement ring that you didn't get to use. Yeah.

Yeah, just another horrible reminder of how awful it is what they do to their fucking kids. Yeah. So, okay. So now he's going to go see his old. boss about his old job. And we obviously, we know that the old job won't still be there waiting for him. But don't worry, it's going to be funny because

the boss is wearing a funny wig. He is wearing a funny wig. The whole time. Why are they doing this? This is this rug is so bad. This is the one that 60 minutes puts on you before they ask you what you saw Sammy the bull do.

Right. It's so distracting. wasn't it like completely takes you out of the riveting narrative of the movie just to look at this thing. It's like when a child has to play a grandpa and a school play. This is what they put on top of his head. So weird. So they do.

And apparently his old boss has sold the old shop. He doesn't work there anymore. And now they do a wedding service. And him and his wife started like doing an impromptu infomercial about their wedding service, which like it's a bit that could have worked for. three seconds, so of course it's two full goddamn minutes long. Second time I laughed out loud. Yep. I have a question.

When he walks into the home, there is a child painting a woman, a live model who is dressed like a Greek god. That will never be acknowledged and no one will ever talk about it. It's just a thing he passes by. Yeah. That's a thing. That's more, that's Nouveau-Rish Mormons trying to, pretense to minor European gentry. I swear to God, it's a thing. The movie didn't acknowledge it, and I was like, oh, I'm having such a bad time watching this movie. I'm hallucinating other movies inside it.

Sure. I just see the card games from Rounders happening in the background of every scene. You know, the in-universe, Utah Weddings.com commercial was hilarious to me. And yes, it went on too long. But the other thing that it is a joke about, that they're joking about this terrible truth about Mormon culture is it's a fucking hustle. Everybody's selling everything to everybody else. And it's Utah leads the country in affinity fraud because everybody's too trusting. Yeah. Everybody gives too much the benefit of the doubt. So like Mormon mommy bloggers and now we've got the real housewives and the influencers and the influencers. It is, it is insane how much anyone you know is going to try to sell you something.

Well, it's so funny because when we talk about influencer culture, right? And if you know anything about Mormons, it's so clearly comes from the Mormon world, right? The Tradwife world, like all of that stuff. This is an old song. The Mormons just started singing it for everybody else. Yeah. Yeah, very much so. So, okay.

So now we've got Jared's welcome home picnic thing. This is where we meet his sister's fiancé, who's going to make a, late play at being the comic relief. Yeah, he's going to be there, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Yeah, right, right, exactly. Now, question, because they've got a return with honor banner. Did Uncle Doug get a return without honor picnic when you had to save him from South America? Yeah, so, no.

My family were the McPoyles of the Eighth Ward. And Doug's, Doug's just lucky that our house wasn't repossessed and towed away when he got back. So we didn't have a picnic, let alone that picnic, because picnics are like, you know, children having fun and eating. And that wasn't our vibe. No. Yeah. Yeah. So this is also where we reintroduce his best friend, Corey, to the story.

Now, we saw Corey when he was leaving pre credits to go on his mission and everything. And Corey said that he was going to go on his mission the following year. But wouldn't you know what? And Corey was full of fucking shit. And he stayed back to live the partying life. Yeah. and seems to be doing really well. It took me until about four and a half seconds before this movie was over to realize

Corey was supposed to be bad and sinful. Because Corey's just living a normal life. Right. That's what's bad and sinful. Right. He comes back and he's like, yeah, no, I have a job and I'm going to a normal college where I'm in a fraternity. And I at home was supposed to be like, hmm, three terrible choices right there.

Yes, exactly. You didn't get the visual cue of him being done up like a Puerto Rican pimp. Yeah, right, right, exactly. No, that's just how everyone looked in the 90s to me. That's true. So, yeah, he's like, you know, and Jared says, yeah, man, I can't. My old job isn't there for me. He's like, don't worry, I've got a job for you where you can make $50 an hour.

And he goes, I don't want to sell drugs. And I'm like, you'll be surprised to find that that is not a job with an hourly wage, man. Not until we unionize. I keep telling the other. drug dealers. Right, right. So, okay. So then he goes to, and they've got another bit here about the ring where he goes to a bulletin board to sell his ring.

But like there's a thousand other people trying to sell rings on the same bulletin board because this is what happens to every returning missionary. You get it? I think if you're a Mormon, you have to learn to knit comedy out of despair. And that's what, that's what this bullet board is. It's just like, yeah, man, this sucks. It sucks. No, so, okay. So then we head over to like the Mormon church here.

So for like church day, I don't know. Like they, I have no idea what the fuck is happening. The two study groups. Okay, now, again, as someone who's obsession with Mormons has now lasted more than a decade, the contrast between the women's study group and the men's study group is very real. Is it? Oh, that's a real thing. And did you notice the accidental passing of the Bechdel test?

Oh, no, I did not. Yeah, because men aren't allowed because the segregation of the genders, there were women talking to each other. It's a gam first. I don't know. I believe it has to be, I believe it has to be named characters. And, you know, you're right. You're right. They did name the lady who was at the front.

We had named some of the women she was talking to. Okay, there you go. Should we hold for applause? So, yeah, right? So, yeah. So, but the ladies are having a very advanced, very in-depth discussion with presentations and handouts. and everything. And the men just, they're all on their phones and they don't even know what's going on. And again, like, keep in mind what the subjects of the humor of this movie have been so far.

You return, your family doesn't love you. You don't have a job. There's no, and now you don't believe in your religion, right? Like, this isn't, this isn't like making jokes about your life. It's just acknowledging that everything your culture is built on is a lie. Really? Yeah, you're so close. You're so close. Yeah. Well, because, yeah, because they grabbed Jared and they're like, Jared, can you come talk to some of the kids about how much fun you had on your mission and how great it is? And then he goes into the classroom and he's like, well, yeah, actually, my girlfriend dumped me and I don't have a job. And my parents sold my car and no one loves me and I have no place in the world.

And we're like, oh, that's pretty wacky. Yeah, this movie, one more realization and it's Mormon Skynet, you know, it's going to just wake the fuck up. But I got to tell you, these scenes, you guys are like, oh, Mormons, these scenes, like, this wasn't fun for me. Yeah. Because this is, this was my entire youth getting filibustered in these fucking rooms. And they're just beige and empty. The buildings are beige and empty. Everything is just listless and lifeless and suffocating.

And you wouldn't know it by looking at my notes, but I don't think inspiration comes through word count. And that's what it was. You know, for me, it was 20 years. The boredom is violent because for 20 years, you know, especially for a young creative queer guy, I was stuck in the sensory deprivation chamber of those buildings with the same blah, blah, blah every week. And it's just... With a boombox and a doily on top of it.

We, that, we aspired to doily. So, you know, it's just beige words and beige buildings. and beige thoughts and beige people. It's just, it's, the boredom is deadly. And so this was super funny, Kurt Hale. Yeah. Sworn enemy. Well, clearly Mark needs a minute to recover,

so we're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, we'll subject him to even more of the RM. From the makers of the RM comes another hilarious comedy about life in a community that's a little bit different. My name is Haver, and I love being Jewish. Of course you do, Chava. Who wouldn't? But life for Hava is about to get a little more complicated.

Ooh, look a book. No, Chava. Girls are not allowed to read. Oh. Now, get ready for your wedding to a 55-year-old man. Who? I said, get ready. This summer. Hava Nagila.

And we're back for more of this shit. We're going to rejoin Jared getting shown around his new job with Corey as a telemarketer. Okay. Which is so much worse. than just dealing drugs. Man, just deal drugs if that was an option. Oh, my God, just deal drugs. Can I say this hits home for me because,

I don't know if I've ever talked about this on the air. So because of Mormon movie month, once a year, Puzzle on a Thunderstorm LLC, signs up for livingwaters.com, which is the Mormon Netflix, right? This is how we watch all the terrible Mormon movies that now that we've gone through all the public display ones. So once a year, we sign up for living waters,

which means once a month for the rest of, of the year, I get a call from a Mormon teenager being like, hello, Mr. Bosnick. It's Ashley from Living Waters. I noticed that your subscription has expired. And I just wanted to tell you about some of the great programming that has come to our new website. And I have to be like, Ashley, run, run, actually.

Run as fast and as far as you can. Save yourself, night is falling. So, yeah, right. And then the telemarketing job here, I guess, They sell a profanity filter, right? Something that beeps out all the swear words in your movies. Which was real, by the way. That is a real product.

It is a real thing. I don't know if it was real then, but it is real now. I know because they keep trying to advertise on our fucking podcast. They sure fucking do. You know, as a filmmaker, I see stuff like that. And I'm like, you know, maybe art's not for you. Yeah, right. Yeah.

Maybe if you find your calling to be getting the naughty words out of another person's movie or television show. Maybe you should do some kind of menial labor until you collapse in the hole you duck. And why do you need it? You guys make such good cinema. You don't need it. Obviously. You're killing it. Yeah. But telemarketing is just another one of those fucking hustles, right? And the companies in Utah Valley that sell this glop and, you know, Melaluka and Newskin and Tahitianoni and all that stuff, they love ex-missionary. because they're immune to humiliation. Rejection, yes.

And rejection because they've been maxing it for two years. And this is where Noah wrote in the notes, Jesus mark, your notes are so depressing. It's so funny because everything that happens in this movie, I'll write like, oh, here's a joke. I know about telemarking. And I would look down at his notes and he would have this dissertation on how this is actually

another real problem with the Mormon community. I'm like, well, fuck, it is. The first time they raped Carl McCurier. He cried. The sea was angry that day. The second time he was, he was silent. That's how he knew the man he once was was never meant to be. Welcome to God off of movies.

So I did love the moment where they're showing him like, they're showing Jared not being very good at his job. And they had one good line where he goes, which words would it bleep out? Uh, uh, well, which I thought was pretty funny. Credit where credit was due, right? I bet if I got that dig on Ogden, YouTube. that would have been funny too. You know, and it's also pretty hilarious that Elder Phelps is so horrified by his buddy's dishonesty because, you know, he was peddling the book of Mormon.

Right. Right. To the good people of Evanston South, he is like, only honesty in the marketplace of ideas, my friend. Yeah, right. Yeah, but he's not very good at that job. So now he goes out looking for another job. We're going to have a wacky him failing at other jobs.

bit of the movie here. So he gets a job at a car dealership, and I gather that this is a cameo of some sort. You guys don't even know the Starbauer in this movie. I have let so many incredible cameos go by, but not this one, because this heartbreaker of a canned ham is late Utah jazz owner and car dealership billionaire

Larry H. Miller. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay, I've actually heard of him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you have that card, you're good. Yeah, but the car dealership job doesn't work out because a guy drives too fast during a test drive and crashes the truck.

And so Jared gets fired apparently. Then he gets a job repossessing toilets instead. Repossessing children's beds. Yes. He repossesses a bed from a child. Again, there is no dark subject matter. The child might as well yell after them, but that's where I do my sex work as the fucking punch line of the side.

He has gone from an officer in God's Army to a repo man, right? If he falls one more rung of the latter, this is Wayne Grove's origin story in the heat sequel. That's Christ. Marvel's making that in the desperate hope that we pay

some money this year. They're doing a heat prequel, yeah. It's a new Spider-Man. They say, is God. All right. So then we come back to his house and this is we're going to really lean in on mom being overworked, right? Because she's outside chainsawing an ice sculpture for the centerpiece at some Mormon function. Yeah, she's taking some selfish moments to herself between apparently changing adult diapers. Yeah. To carve an ice centerpiece, ice Salt Lake Temple centerpiece for the Relief Society meeting.

Yes. Yeah, to do unpaid labor for the church. Get it. And then this is where Jared's sister tells him that there's actually a singles dance down in Logan this weekend. She says, it's in a real nice motel. And I'm like, I don't think it is.

Okay. Now look, Jaboy is deep in Mormon lore. Okay? I get all the Mormon references. And I was like, wait a second. Why would they get a hotel? Okay. So this is apparently a thing. I went, I was on the Exmo

Reddit being like, why are there hotel rooms and singles dances? They're supposed to fuck. What? Yeah. They're supposed to fuck after the dance. That, I don't, I think that the ex- was on this.

When did that story? When did that story? Yeah, okay. So apparently, this is what I found on the internet. Take it with a grain of salt because like many of the things I find on the internet, it is responding to my algorithm. But apparently the idea was like, you'd go to a singles dance and then get a hotel room in case it worked out so that you could get married and consummate.

your marriage. Oh, interesting. So you could get married just right then and there. Right then and there, yes. And get to procreate. So you're saying they cut the sex scene. Yeah, right? It's just like the Odyssey all over again.

Exactly. So, but then we cut to the fucking party, which is Johnny Lingo themed. Yeah. Now, if you've been listening to the show for long enough, you know who Johnny Lingo is, but it is an incredibly sexist short film that they showed in schools. No, I'm sure it's not just sexist because it's also racist.

You're forgetting the racism, baby. Yes, exactly. I don't know which one to put first in that. For those of you who don't understand how much Mormons love this movie, I need you to imagine that every middle school showed birth of a nation and that it was like an inside joke. Like one out of four Halloween costumes was like, what can I say?

I went with birth of a nation. Yeah, I'm the Klansman. I went with Grand Cyclops. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's pretty shocking. I have to say that the Mormon church's main core competency is making inconvenient shit about its own history disappear. Yeah. So why they took this horror show from 1969 and in 2003 said, look, gays upon our treasures.

Yes. Exactly. So, okay, but they go to the Johnny Lingo luau party at the really nice motel. It's a best Western. So, yeah, okay, that's pretty nice as far as motels go. And all the girls sure are impressed with everybody's mission story except for Jared's who had a boring mission, apparently. Because he was in Evanston, Wyoming.

Yes. And the lore we were filled in on. Yes. And, you know, the other guy, what, the guy killed an Anaconda and the other guy was in Greenland. Okay, great. But, you know, Elder Phelps was knocking doors on meth labs and Unabobbering. Yeah, exactly. He's a little more street than they're giving him credit for.

So, yeah, so then the girl from the meat cute, Kelly, she shows up, the one that he met at the airport. And it's just, you know, she knows the guy who knows the L. and she needs someone to ride home in her car with her tomorrow. I have a question. Sure. So brother-in-law character. but there, Philip Seymour Hoffman. While Kelly is talking, she's like,

I need someone to give me a ride home. He's doing a gesture behind her. Okay? I believe as a Christian, that gesture to be a blowjob gesture, right? But he's not... Can you duplicate it for me? He's going like...

All right, so, listener, I can't really explain that there's fingers on both sides of the mouth here. You tell me! You tell me, signatures of the world of truth. It's like he was trying to do a blowjob gesture. They stopped the movie. Everyone prayed. There was a lot of crying and apologizing.

And then we were like, we do want you to do an affirming sexual gesture behind her, but it can't be at all recognizable. Okay. It was like someone had a copyright on this. I like this theory. I should say quickly that that guy represents an actual phenomenon in Mormon culture. What was he, the brother-in-law? it is it's a real kind of person called a Provo All-Star.

And this is like a return missionary player, right? Who's got tons of over-the-close action. And so he's kind of like the cool guy, the cool virgin. Yeah, the one that can answer your questions about your virginity. Yeah. And make obvious blowjubs. I mean, look, I want the people to rise up. I want like a focus group.

I want people to tell me what the fuck this guy was doing. Are you sure he's not saying watch a Betty Boop cartoon? That's possible too. There you go. Okay. So yeah. So he meets Kelly and they chat and everything. And this is, by the way, I looked her up at this point because I needed to know how old she was.

She's currently on Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Really? What happened to this actress. Yeah. I bet that shows great and the morals in it are awesome. Oh, yeah. I'm sure. I'll never know.

So, and then. So apparently now he has to spend. the night here at this motel, but don't worry, there's a guy who has a spare bed that he can sleep in who's going to do some comedy, you know, some bad guy to share a motel room with comedy for us for the next three minutes or so. I was so desperate for something fun to happen in this movie that I fucking screamed at the physical comedy bit at the door. For me, it was like watching the fish slapping dance for the first time.

Yeah. I was like clapping like a seal. Something that isn't just tragedy through the lens of comedy. Yeah. I also don't like it when people eat Cheetos in bed. Hooray. Yeah. So the guy eats Cheetos in bed, get it.

And then when they're trying to sleep, he starts yelling, disturbing things in his sleep, right? Is the bit here. Hey, he says, leave the duck alone and then starts punching his bed and pillow. Now, I know it's just silly words, but I need to ask a question from my heart. Is he dreaming that someone's fucking a duck against its consent? Because it

really seems like that's what his night terror is about. He's doing something disturbing to the duck, right? There's no other way to interpret that. He's witnessing someone do something disturbing to the duck. He's rescuing the duck from something. He wasn't there to help the duck. That's his bridge to

Terribithia. Yeah. Why didn't they make that movie? Jesus. Right? Yeah. So, okay. So he doesn't get a very good night's sleep at all. And now he's riding back in Kelly's car with her. And they're going to have the most awkward lack of conversation imaginable. Right.

Like he's got nothing to say. She's teasing everything out of him. They talk only about him. He has no interest in her whatsoever. Right? Because the movie has no interest in her. He, Elder Phelps, is maybe a salt like four on his best day. Yes.

Absolutely. She's a Provo 9. She would be a Provo 10 if she was ever photographed in anything other than fluorescent light, which is not a possibility in Utah. Those are the devil's bulbs. He's wooing her by not asking a single fucking question of her in this entire movie. Right. It's like casual indifference, fellas, that's the way to her heart. What ladies love.

We never learn like what she's interested in, what she dreams about. Who gives this shit? Yeah. where she's from. Yeah, nothing. Yeah. But then, you know, they talk about his mission and how few converts he has. And then she takes him by the arm now because she's like, no, I'm, I'm the love interest at this point.

We're halfway through the fucking movie. We got to, you know, lean into this. Yeah. They've basically been paired up like they're in an English dance. Yeah, right. This is that famous scene of Angela Merkel in the Oval Office with Trump. She's like, don't you want to take a picture? Don't you want to speak?

just kidding her car breaks down and we try to break the lack of comedy with a wacky tow truck driver for a few minutes. Oh my gosh. It's like it's like improv for kids, right? Yeah. You've never seen someone who's like you've been hired to do improv for chill? That's what it feels like, right? Because the joke they have for the tow driver is coughing. Yes, cough at him. Yeah. And poodle. Yeah, he did have a poodle in the car. I remember that. He had a poodle. And a wig, I think. Yeah, I'm not the heck. I had a wacky wig. Yeah.

So, okay, so we get towed to Kelly's parents' house. And now we have to have the awkward meeting her parents scene. But the thing that makes it awkward is such Mormon inside baseball that I'm just standing there staring at it, mouth the gate going fucking what? Once again. Not in English. No. Once again, Mark was our Tonto leading us through the desert, our Moses, if you will.

Yeah, if Tonto means dumb, that was for sure. But first of all, yeah, I mean, it is just in such Mormonese. It's impenetrable. But just a quick design mistake. Kelly's is a Tanyadro family. And that's just the living room. So this was a huge. I mean, these are minor Mormon royalty, right?

He's a member of one of the quorums of the 70. The second quorum of seven. Yeah. And of course, Elder Phelps acts like he's met Kaiser Sose. Yes. This is like meeting, you know, a stand-in globe trotter. It's like, oh, you know, you'd be like, oh, that's cool. Wow.

Nice. But, yeah, he has a fucking panic attack. Yeah, right. He's like, oh, I didn't recognize a member of the second quorum of 70. Oh, I'm so embarrassed. Yeah. Like, really, are you? Okay.

So now, Jerry, he's back home with one of his 27 or so brothers. I don't think that we've met this character yet, being embarrassed that he didn't recognize a member of the second quorum of 70 more. Yeah, we don't have time to meet all the siblings. It's only a, it's only a hundred-minute movie. Yeah, well, he's got 10 and an 11th on the way, yeah. Or so I guess he's got nine. He's one of the 10, yeah.

Yeah, and you can tell this movie is fantasy because dad's helping with the dishes. Yep. The first time we ever see dad help mom in any way. Any of the men do anything. Yeah. Right. So, okay, but then this is the scene where he gets the letter from BYU, right? Because up until now, he thought he was going to BYU, but his life has to get even

worse because he's been rejected. He was too dumb BYU. This poor baby, like honestly, I felt so bad for him. In reality, this would trigger like a 72-hour involuntary hold, you know, where you're wearing a giant tear-proof oven mitt under the lights. Right. You're not allowed to have laces in your shoes. A real grippy sock vacation moment. Yeah. Really? Yeah, you've been there. You know what it's bad, but it's bad. I didn't even have a bad. My childhood rocked.

I just did him a weak flower that was not meant for this world. I'm just a boring version of Gallagher. But yeah, I was worried poor Elder Phelps was going to go to the 12-gauge cafe after that rejection letter. Okay, because here's the thing. I'm so glad that you talked about that because the thing is like, the thing that overhangs so much of this movie is that missionaries come home and kill themselves all. all the time. And this movie had no sense of awareness of any of that. And I was like,

are they going to play him shooting himself as a comedy beat? Because it really feels like we're two scenes away from like, that's not strawberry jelly. Yeah, right. If he did, nobody would notice. His family would just walk by. Yeah, honestly. The Tongan would eat him.

So he gets a call and he's got to go see the president of the elder quorum something or no sorry he's gonna be the elder quorum person at this point i wrote my notes i'm like i am clinging to mark like the mast in a storm right now i have no fucking idea here's the thing it doesn't fucking matter it's just he talks to a bunch of guys in a room that's it yeah okay and they don't have their manuals yeah yeah right so right he's the now leading the group of uninterested men from before and it's like it's something that we've already set up as being like you can't fail at it right because the guy had forgotten it was his turn to do it and still he didn't fail at it and now Jared is nervous that he's going to fail at it like I don't understand what the tension even is here and look this could in a movie that was written by a person who was aware of the phenomenon of cause and effect I could kind of understand that this would have anything to do with anything right he becomes the head of the and then he does such a good job that, oh, it leads to a job, and that's how he gets the girl.

But it will just be a thing that happens for around three and a half minutes in the movie. And then once again, the movie will be entirely about something else. I wrote montage of quorum presidenting. Some of these are probably jokes. Yeah. And you know, it's a good, I think Elder Phelps not having any humiliation permanence is really, really symbolic of what it's like to be a super faithful Mormon. You just have to move past it.

Like you're just going to get life's going to suck for you constantly. And you just have to go, oh, well, it's Sunday. Yeah. We get a lot of, we get a lot of home teaching jokes here, right? Because for those of you unfamiliar, after you spend the formative years of your life bothering strangers, then you come home and you bother people who are already your religion to keep being your religion. This is probably the snitchiest thing in the snitchiest religion in America,

which is unannounced. Two guys will show up at your house on any evening they want and just demand to be let in and kind of knows about your life. And you can't turn them away. And we're seeing like this montage of like bad Mormons because they're not doing that. They're like, you know, he's going around going like, so when's the last time you snitched on your neighbors for being Jewish? And they're like, well, it's been a long time.

And it's like, oh, well, you get on that shit then, okay? And we're supposed to be like, good job, Jared. Yes, this is his redeeming moment, right? Yeah. Yeah. So then, yeah, we see him at home working his ass off full time, unpaid with his job he didn't ask for, right? Because they just called him and they said, well, you know, God called you to do this. And he's like, well, fuck.

Okay. And then as he's doing that, his buddy Corey calls using one of the voices that I won't let Eli do anymore. Yeah. A very poor version of Apu calls. Yeah. Yeah. For no reason. For no reason.

Hank Azaria would never. Yeah. And so they have this fucking insane moment, this insane moment in the movie, apropos of nothing and for no reason, right? So he goes to this party. This is the party, right? Where he goes to the party. Goes to this party and the cool guy who didn't go on the mission is like,

oh, you should join my friend. You should meet my friends. And they're all cool and he's all lame. Blah, blah, blah. It's boring. And then for no reason. They have this scene where cool guy is like, hey man, I think your life is bad because you've dedicated yourself to the wrong things. And it's time to grow up and make decisions about you and your enablement.

And then the movie just moves on. And yet, there's not even a punchline. It's just Corey going like, hey, man, if you think about it, like, I'm already like halfway through a college degree and my life's going pretty good. And I seem to be like, you know, living my life and enjoying things. I'm the bad guy. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

It's fucking nuts. I want to make a quick kind of design comment about Corey's frat, which I call Ormungamara or a kappa-capa-lame. Did you see these frat guys in there like drinking mudlight and watching hip-hop videos? Yes. This is a cable-knit sweater vest kind of frat guys. You know the berserker hell's angels that the stones hired to work security at Altruc. These guys, these guys would fuck them up. Have you ever seen a man stomped to death by Sperry Top Siders?

I have not. Like, he walks into what is the lamest Tuesday evening I've ever seen in my life. Like, even the Falluzis are wearing Lane Bryant slacks. Oh, yes. Yeah. It's so hilarious. Right, because it's what they can show of a frat in a Mormon movie, right? And they're like, you know, you get it, you get it, lascivious.

Television after 9 p.m., you know. Caffeine everywhere. Unmarried adults enjoying themselves at an evening time. It's like Sallow, 120 days of Sodom. Holter tops, I say, Holter. And then Corey at the end gives him that weird pitch. He's like, oh, it was like, if you need anything, man, if you need anything. And I'm like, what is he offering him?

It's like, right? Come join me in this permanent midnight. You know, was it a blow? Was it a no loads refused pro-am boy-only fuck battle at the Circus, Circus, Circus in Reno? Is it fully caffeinated beverages? Yeah, right. Chilling. See, now I have two phrases that I'm walking away from this episode with,

give them heaven and no loads refused boy-only battle. Yeah, fuck battle. But it's at Circus, Circus, and Reno. It's the thing they do. It has to be in Circus, Circus, and Reno. Okay, that's good to know. Yeah. I'd hate to blow it at the Flamingo.

show up and be like, my loads are getting refused left and right at the flamenco. So, okay, so then we go to a restaurant called Book of Mormon Burger, which if it existed, I would be taking Mark to as part of a Patreon fundraiser. I would go there. That would be so amazing. Every single day. Yep. I would go there every single day.

Although I will say, like, these lazy bastards, okay, for their spit, they needed to come up with like five Mormon food puns. Knee fries, that's good. I'll give them knee fries. That's solid. All the other ones are just shit. They're not even trying. Lamoney lemonade, fuck you.

It felt like the end of a citation needed episode where you and Heath and Cecil have come up with these like 19 part puns. And I'm like, the episode was about fish. That's how this fucking pun work felt. It felt like you and Cecil came up with knee fries and I came up with Shiblam salad.

Because, you know, they both start with fucking ass. You know, I got to say what's crazy about that, I was, you know, I was out of the church 20 years earlier than this. But those kind of jokes were fucking Haram, right? Of course. Yeah. Yeah, they, they, you did not fuck around with that stuff. That was like Goody Proctor level heresy.

Like, in my day, you would have been crucipled fully for those jokes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. was totally off limits. All right. More weight, but the weight is just loads. Progress. So, okay, but then he's working at, now Gerr's working at this restaurant, right?

He's working there as a server, and Kelly and her family are there for some knee fries. And when they leave, she leaves her number with the tip. So now we get the awkward him calling Kelly scene where she fucks with him

and he stumbles about on his words and says stuff like a lot of people are going on dates these days and I write okay Heath in my notes. Yeah, no. As someone who was there for the entirety of Heath's singletude, this was very triggering for me because I expected the camera to pan over and for you and me to be holding signs that are like, go out with me. Don't mention you want separate houses. I screamed when they cut to her bedroom and she picked up the phone

Her old timey phone? It's another choice that takes you so out of the movie It's like she answered in the second act of Hollywood Boulevard Yeah She's like, hello, this is Klondike 224 I was the biggest star in Hollywood before the talkies And he's like, oh, wrong number pans out her window, there's a dead guy floating in her pool

That's another thing It was so bizarre So, okay, so, but then he goes downstairs. He's like, Mom, Dad, I got a date with this girl. I need to borrow the car and they're like, well, you know, you're not on the insurance. So looks like Jared's date is in trouble before it even starts. So we're going to pause on the closest this movie is ever going to get to suspense. But first, let me give Act 3 the hard sell.

Will they finish their casseroles on time? Is the hamburger helper too spicy? What is floating in that jello? Find out the answers to questions pretty much just like that. When we return for the shit, we forgot to make it all work out conclusion of the RM. From the makers of RM and Hava Nagila comes the story of a young girl with a dream. My name is Fatima and I love being Muslim. Of course you do, Fatima.

Nope, nope, we're not doing this sketch. Noah, it's a 3B. It's a bummer, is what it is. okay, they get it, and it's going to be a fucking bummer. Can I still wear the hijab for the rest of the podcast? Oh, of course. You look stunning. Shokron.

You weren't ready for that, right? No, we were not. And we're back for still more of this shit. We're going to rejoin Jared picking Kelly up for their date, but now mom has to drive. He's a loser. He got her a wrist corsage? for a date?

Like I got that for my prom date, but I never heard of that for just a casual date. Right? Is that a Mormon thing? No, I think this is an attempt because as an audience, we didn't yet understand that Elder Phelps had like tremendously

arrested development and was years behind his peers. So I feel like that gag had to help us understand that by pushing that he thinks it's a prime. I gotcha because he doesn't know any better. Okay, so let me ask you this. They're both wearing blue button downs and khakis, like their date is going to be working a shift at best by. Is that also a Mormon thing or just a coincidence?

Or is that just straight people? Modest is hottest. Yeah, it's both Mormons and straight people. Imagine that's a circle of hell. I don't even want to contemplate. But take a second to realize the richness of this moment. because Kelly left him a pity tip at his humiliating costume job at the restaurant last night, he's got the money to take her to the movie.

So in reality, she's giving him an allowance. Yeah, really? Right? So if you think about it for him, it's like, you do everything my mom does and I can do sex to you? Take this ring I bought for someone else. Yeah, right, right. You lucky girl? So they go to the theater for their date, and she goes,

wow, your mom sure is pregnant. And then a guy comes in and says, a lady in a midi van that was just pulling away as having a baby. You say a guy, but I think you must recognize that that guy is 2000 Olympic Greco-Roman wrestling gold medalist, Rulon Gardner. Ruland Gardner, you say. Rulon Gardner, you know, the owner of Rulon's Burger Barn and Gaston. in Afton, Wyoming, 2011 biggest loser contestant? That Rulong Gardner.

Oh, that rule on Gardner. Studded. I feel like I'm watching The Odyssey all over again. This is the Mormon Ocean's 11. Yeah. Clearly. Yeah. Oh, my God. Star-studded fucking guests. All right. So then they rush mom to the hospital. Mom heads into the delivery for her 12th fucking child apologizing for not finishing all

her church chores before she went into labor. which again, they play as a joke. It's so fucking grim. She's going to labor with her 10th child. And she's on the gurney apologizing for not being able to finish a fucking centerpiece. Yep. So while she's in labor, Jared and Kelly are sitting in the waiting room drinking Sprite, like good Mormons. And then, okay, so then we cut back to the house where I guess Mormons are showing up with Tupperware containers full of food to celebrate the birth of her 28th kid.

Yeah, the girl walks in and they go, what's this one? And she goes, marshmallows, corn flakes, and gummy worms. And I wrote, I mean, that sounds great. Like, I don't like the homophobia and the religion founded on lies and the racism and the rampant sexual abuse of children. But the food fucking slaps, okay? Don't just know where to aim your target. The Mormon, the Mormon stoner crossover is at food. Right?

Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Nobody brought me funeral potatoes. they said they were going to bring me funeral potatoes to the last live show. Not a single vegan funeral potato to be had. Oh, no shit. Well, that's weird because I will credit where credits do in this scene.

When somebody dies, somebody gets married, you know, a birth, Mormons show up. That is a thing. Like, my grandfather died. He wasn't even a Mormon and he never went to our ward. And we had a week's worth of food just appear on the porch. Oh, wow. Yeah. That is, you know, it's the one upside to a spiritual point.

police state, I suppose. There you go. Jews do the same thing. It's nice. We're being even handed with our treatment of Mormonism on their show. If anything, we are fair to Mormons here on Mormon movie. Absolutely. Yeah.

So, okay. So mom gets home, big celebration. Jared gets a call about the ring, right? So we have this completely useless scene where, like, he goes to the mall to sell the ring. The guy drives a hard bargain. He loses the ring. But then he finds it. So nothing has happened.

Yeah, it was complete other than to get an Orrin Hatch CD joke in. Sure. That would have been, Orrin Hatch fancied himself of a real musician, but that's it. Did he? Yeah. He actually proposed legislation to blow up people's computers if they pirated music because he was so concerned about his music being pirated. People were just getting the safest link on Napster. Yep.

Yeah. That and a bizarre. our lifelong fascination with Arnold Schwarzenegger were kind of his two contributions. Really? Yeah, yeah. He wanted to change the Constitution so Schwarzenegger could be president. I'm surprised none tall.

Well, that makes two of us. A chill guy who never did anything wrong. That's what I always say about Arnold Schwarzenegger. There you go. So he loses the ring, but then we cut home and he comes in. He's got the ring, but he's covered in condiments as though he had to, like, go through the trash to get it. So many of the moments of this movie,

and we skipped over him and I don't want to revisit them because the movie is boring and bad. So many of the moments in this movie are like, trust us, a yucky and or painful thing happened. Like, we skipped over it, but there's a whole scene where he has boils for no reason. Right. No, just to make his life more miserable.

You're not a fan of Greek theater where they would just, someone would walk on stage and say, a great battle has transpired. I have. Their terror has come to me. My eyes have been torn out. By the Eagles of the Gods.

So, okay, so, but now he has to go to his sister's wedding reception, but he has to do it all stinky because he just had to dig through the trash to find his ring, right? So that's the bit now. So this wedding reception is entirely fiction. It's been years since I went to a Mormon wedding reception, but if you guys went, you would think, oh, this is where everybody went after the tornado. This is the Red Cross shelter at the high school. Honestly, it's literally a moment.

a basketball gym. I had never heard a note of music. There's a, you know, a punch bowl full of lukewarm water and a distinct no tinkling from the Dixie cups and the plastic silverware and paper plates. And nobody's talking. So this is a bacchanal compared to what I experienced. They really did it up. Because if they showed you that wedding reception, you would kill yourself. Sure. So now this is, of course, he's flirting with Kelly at this point. At the reception. Well, he's sitting next to her. Sitting near Kelly, waiting for her to ask about him, as he has wanted to do.

And this is where he realizes that he hasn't done his home teaching this month. And it's the 31st, Joe. He's basically a whore. Yeah. When he said, I forgot to do my home teaching and it's the 31st. I wrote in my notes, this movie is coming really close to not being in English anymore. And he panicked. It's like right now people are at home eating dinner, going to bed, minding their own business

that haven't been pestered by volunteer spies for Jesus' month. Goodbye, boundlessly patient, hot girl I could never pull down. Yeah, right, right. So, yeah, so he runs off, but she sure is impressed with his commitment to Mormonism as all the lovely ladies are. And then their Philip Seymour Hoffman guy sings at us for a little bit. He's not bad. Sure. Trying to be nice here.

So I don't know why. The Mormon seems so fucking polite. I almost feel like I have to be like, okay, well, that was kind of funny. So now we get the scene where he's running around bothering people. We start with an elderly couple who seems like they're about to fuck. They're about to fuck. Yeah. They're about to do some very intense consensual and pre-agreed upon wax play.

And he ruins it. Yes, absolutely. This is grandpa from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and his lady friend. directed by David Lynch. There are more candles in that house than an interview with a vampire. It is so... 100% strange.

And the sex is as intense and weird. Yeah, and not to like... Not to poo-poo sex positive, you know, depictions in a Mormon movie, but did it have to be between two people who were in the original, you know, pioneer handcart companies? Old people should not be allowed to fuck each other.

No. Right? So, yeah, and then there's a... You should have to turn your genitals in on your 40th birthday. Really? Yes. 40th. I did. See? Mark gets it. So yeah, so he wakes up a bunch of families to do Mormon shit in the middle of the

night. And then as he's leaving his last house, Corey shows up. His buddy Corey, his sinful buddy Corey shows up driving well intoxicated and wants him to go off and debauch with him. The movie truly, there might as well be a title card that scrolls up from the bottom. that says, the movie is about this now. Yeah, honestly. It's so, the transition is so fucking jarring. To suddenly you get hit by the sludgehammer of the morality tale. But it's hilarious because Corey and his Corey whores.

The course. Drunk. Thank you. Yeah. Just hold for laughter. Morgan put that in. But they. Just, ooh, cut to the black.

Two of white footage. The horse and Wells applauding. They're acting drunk. And it's like, it's like a middle school production of leaving Las Vegas. It is so terrible. And the way they're doing it,

it's like, oh, you somehow invented racism against drunks. Yeah. You're wearing, you're in slurface. That's why Heath isn't on this episode. Actually, he didn't like the way they were talking about his people. Yeah. So yeah. So then he's he's like, oh, no, I can't be, you know, debauchous with you. I have to go. And then he starts thinking, hey, you know, if I leave, he's going to be off drunk driving and he's going to hurt himself. I better drive the car myself as any good friend would. Right. Credit for a good friend, but he could have asked where he got the car. Sure could have. Yeah. Because he knows that's not his car. Not his limo, no. Yeah. Right. So then he's like, they're driving along and he's like, you know, you're not supposed to have open alcohol containers in the car.

So they throw out all their beer cans, but damn it, there wasn't a cop right there. So he gets pulled over and it just so happens that he had gotten pulled over right next to the wedding reception. And the news is there. Yeah, right. Luckily. And a little person, police officer. Mm-hmm. Why?

Yeah, well, there was a kind of bigotry we hadn't done yet, Eli. Yeah. And so they needed little people. that was the little day we had to wrap it up. There's a bit of transphobia in here earlier that we didn't mention as well. That's like the dude in the wig they were doing. Yeah, they were trying to check off all the. It was transphobia by accident, I should point out, which is kind of amazing that they pulled off.

They kind of incepted transphobia into just misogyny. We were transphobic before it was cool. You kids aren't ready for this. That was the thing about the sister missionary who says, you better stay worthy. and it's based on a horrible trope that only boys' missions were mandatory, girls were optional, and the old chestnut was that only the unmarriageable hags go on missions. So that's why they had a linebacker clearly in a dress. Oh, okay.

All right. So we got it all, guys. We got the whole bingo card. Yeah, right. No, that's actually like that's a triple layer. I believe that's racism or bigotry cubed there. That's pretty interesting. I think that might be a gam first.

It's pretty cool. So now he gets arrested in front of the reception, and Kelly sees, and she sure is disappointed in his heath and his ways. He wasn't going off to do religious stuff. He was going off to drink and drive. So we cut to Jared and Corey in jail, and we were like, we're all writing in our notes. I bet there's a joke about how he's going to get raped, isn't there.

I didn't see that coming. Really? Did you guys see a prison rape joke? Like, who could have guessed? I would never have guessed. that was yeah it's so original that's the thing it's crazy like one of the things because i was so desperate for my brain to cling to anything interesting while i was watching the movie at this point i was thinking about these two tokens of humor that we were supposed to be associating one

drinking and driving which even at the time i need to point out carried a pretty heavy prison sentence and prison rape like i don't know where culture slid along which spectrum that we ended up where i Within four minutes, those were the two objects of humor I was supposed to be laughing at. Yeah. Yeah. And what do you need in a prison? Black guy. Yes.

The only person of color in the entire movie. Yeah. Well, there were three. Yeah. Yeah. There are three people of color in the entire movie and every one of them is a joke. Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yeah. And a jump scare the first time we see them. That's right. Woo. Right. Yeah. Right. It's like we're just, we're reaching new levels of bigger tree.

here on Mormon movie month. It's pretty impressive. So then we get, like his friend, Corey is telling him, as long as we both tell the same lie, we'll be just fine, right? We'll get out of this. And so we have this dream sequence psych out where like Jared's imagining how it would go. And the judge is like, well, you guys both told the same lie. So there's no punishment for you.

And then the trans lady shows up to shoot Jared. Yeah. Who knew that she was his Jiminy Cricket? Right. I had no idea. Yeah. She was so concerned for his moral journey that she shows up later and murders him in front of his whole family. Yes. Moral.

And I know that you're probably listening to this and thinking to yourself like, oh, I wish they had set that up better so that I would understand how that made sense. Or I wish they had described that character. So I know. No. No. It could have been any character who rolls up to shoot him. There's no. There's no connection. Like someone we'd never met.

Yeah. No, it's like the fact that we remembered that character is actually quite remarkable. And quick thing, it's really important to understand what a monster Corey represents kind of in the Mormon imagination. Like, if you, if you are not 100% faithful and you miss church a couple of times in 24 hours, you devolve into an like an amoral, nihilistic psychopathy that would make, you know, the president of Trump University bless. It is horrifying to them. The most scary thing is an ex-Morman to a Mormon. Oh, 100%. Yeah.

So, Corey is, in this comedy, Corey is a literal monster. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it's amazing because unless you're steeped in Mormonism, you just don't know. Yeah. Because he's just a dude. Yeah.

Everybody knows that guy. Yep. So, okay. But then, like, he gets home. They make bail. and Jared comes home. His mom and dad are very disappointed in him. The church doesn't think he should church anymore.

He's got to sit in the back. He can't have a leadership position. Yeah, he lost his unpaid job. Yeah, right, that he didn't want. His brother drops a book in his lap that I won't go into great detail on, but it is a horror. The miracle of forgiveness has kind of disappeared until this movie's like, hey, look at this terrible thing again.

But in short, it says, rape victims are equally responsible for their fate if they survive the assault, that masturbation leads to homosexuality and that anything other than total Christ-like perfection in this life is failure. So here, Jared. I am going to write that down. We've got the JD Vance book coming up. But after that.

Miracle of forgiveness. It's a peach. And again, it's played as a punchline in this movie. Like, you know, when your brother gives you miracle of forgiveness. Like, again, it's just, there's nothing that isn't evil or terrible or weird or bizarre that this movie won't be like, I think we all get it. Yeah. Let's kick this kid when he's down. This, this is horrible.

Yeah. Well, yeah, because then we have the scene where he has to go to the stake president and get fired from his unpaid job and shit. And then we go like, we have like a montage of his life sucking. He goes back home to find more woe. In case you missed it. Yeah, right, right, yeah. Nobody will buy us ring and he got fired from a pizza job that we didn't even know he had at this point. And then he's selling cut co knives, which is another thing that is very, very common in Mormon Hustle.

Yeah. Oh, did you? I sold cut cone knives in college. Oh, right. But I just bought, I just bought the knife. You know how it's a pyramid scheme? Because they make you buy the knives so that you can sell them other people. But then they're like, maybe you'll be stupid and a little.

lazy and you'll just have a really expensive set of shitty knives. That's what happened to me. Yeah, that's what that's what I just bought a $500 set of knives. And I bought knives since then and they're way less expensive than that.

But you know, if there was any introspection in this fucking movie or in these young Mormons, they would understand that, you know, trading in half of, two years of the, probably the two most important years of your transition from youth to adulthood, he spent like trying to hawk his sad Bible fanfic written by a rapy

amateur magician in Evanston South. And if he hadn't blown all that time, his life might be a tad more buttoned up. But he doesn't even, it's not even considered. No, the movie never acknowledges that to the point where like the movie seems unaware that that could be a conclusion. Right. They keep circling the problem, but they're like, well, there's nothing in the middle of the circle. Right. Yeah. So, okay. So now we've got to meet court. defense attorney, right? So, like, apparently he had stolen that car as part of a fraternity prank. And so the fraternity's lawyer is going to try to get him out of it.

You mean Alec Baldwin and Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross all of a sudden. Yeah. Always good to set up the stakes of your comedy movie while you're doing the moment of choice and the testing and the proving all simultaneously in the same. All of a sudden, those are the stakes of the movie as though they have been the whole fucking time. Yeah. Yeah. So, but the lawyer's like, don't worry. I came up with a great lie. Here's your lie. He's got it printed out. It says your lie at the top, basically. And he walks him through the story. And Jared's like, well, I just, I can't, I did chop down the cherry tree, though. I cannot tell a lie. Right. And so the lawyer's like, well, look, if you aren't willing to go along with our lie, we're just going to have to pin this whole thing on you. Yeah. And it's, he has 30 seconds to decide all this. Like, it's so crazy. Here's the story. Remember it. And if you don't, we're coming after you. Ready, go. Yeah. And walk into a court where already your sworn testimony says this, right?

Yeah. Somehow. Yeah, yeah. So, okay. So now suddenly we're in court. Mom has made a centerpiece for the defense stable. Once again, nailed that joke. That was pretty fucking good. That was pretty funny. I was a little thrown off by the courtroom. Why couldn't they find one with a lower ceiling? There were like four inches above people's heads. It was very funny. It was very funny. It was very funny. Yeah. Freaky. I got vertigo. Yeah.

Well, but luckily, in case you were worried that this scene wouldn't be funny enough, the prosecutor for this scene is wearing a silly wig. He's wearing a silly wig. It's just, it doesn't look like hair at all. It was Conan O'Brien doing Sarah Palin's accent in an Anton Shigur wig. Oh my God, it was. It was exactly that. It's so weird.

Holy shit. That's uncanny. much you distilled that for the listeners. Yeah. And he was, I think he was doing a Conan O'Brien bit. Yeah. Yeah. So then we do the fantasy thing where he thinks about how it could work out again, right? We play it out like it really happened. And then we're like, nope, no, that was just him thinking about it. I'm like, you can't do that twice with the same scene movie. That's got to be a rule. Yeah, we were getting lost in the layers of fantasy here. I guess, yeah.

Yeah. But Jared takes the stand and they're like, so, hey, is this lie true? And he's like, I, I, no, it's not. Here's the truth, right? He just cannot tell a lie, which, like, I mean, I get that, yeah, you know, you have to have the movie end in, like, him saying the truth and everything. But, like, the truth that he was going to say exonerates him completely and puts his friend in jail. So it's not like a heroic truth.

Yes, exactly. That's the point. So, again, the stakes are neither. of you will go to jail. I am a lawyer and the stakes are I am establishing that if you lie, neither of you will go to jail. But because he's so honest, he sends his friend who has a nice

life, is in the middle of a college education and has a job to prison. Yes. Yes. Even though he could have got him out of it. But he had to tell the truth. And this movie's like, see, he did the right thing? And we're like, oh, did he? Send your friends to prison.

Yeah. When your, when your morality is completely childlike and binary. I guess. You know, you don't understand that, okay, look, there are times where you might have to choose the greater good. Right. Nope. Right. No, this movie cannot admit that there might be a time where there is a greater good.

Yeah. And drinking and driving is fine. Well, and then, so the, Corey's like, you know, no, that statement is incorrect. This is what really happened. And then Corey stands up and says, judge, he's telling the truth. And I'm like, oh, judges love it when you do that. Yes. Witnesses really, defendants really lead the trial.

That's what they always say is that. Let the defendants take it away and they'll sort of, they'll work everything out. I think Socratic justice is kind of the best. You know, just an open dorm, there's no such thing as bad testimony or evidence. That's what judges are always saying. Let's jansen it out. And you know what? Anybody else?

No one else is a waste of fucking time is closing arguments. Yes. You're a process. This is a no-loads refused to trial. So the judge is like, all right, well, you know what? You guys have both said something. So fuck all this witness calling and closing statement. I'll have bullshit.

Let's go straight to sentencing. I declare movie trial. Yeah, right, right. So, okay, so now we're on the courthouse steps and everybody's congratulating Jared for telling the truth and sending his best friend to prison for multiple years, which the movie makes clear, right? The judge is like, well, it's very nice to you guys to all step up. You're still going to jail for several years, though, for what you did.

Yeah. And in this outside the courthouse, seen. Corey is very like, you know, I think it's for the best. I've learned my lesson. Nothing helps a young man's life like a quick stint in prison. Yeah, he's just like, whatever. Cool, man. See it when I get out.

Yeah. Wild. Right. No, they're leading him out to prison, presumably. And the cops like, well, I'm going to let you have your like, rap off conversation with Jerry. The end of the move. Day, Nubal, we're almost a little bit. Third act. Weird. Other words. Otherwise, so, okay. So now he's at church and he's given his, like,

testimony or whatever. Yeah, this is, the homecoming talk. This is the famous. Oh, is it? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was delayed because of all of his unworthy. Oh, okay. Yeah, because they were telling him you can't do your, okay, all right, I had no fucking idea. Like at a certain point, I stopped translating. His parents

had to remember he existed. Yeah, that was a big part of it, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, so he goes, you know, in a lot of ways, I have been blessed. And I'm like, were those ways off camera, man? Did the movie You got boils? Yeah. And your girlfriend dumped you,

you don't, and your job sucks, and now you're selling knives, and you don't have a fucking car, and everything about your life is terrible. The only blessed thing is that you're not in prison for a crime you didn't commit. Yeah, it's a movie about a man just being torn to pieces and his whole life breaking down. And at the end, they're like, now you're ready for love. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Right. Because he gets done with this thing. He goes outside. Kelly's out there waiting for him. Yeah, but first his, his boss, Mr. Wiggs, stops by. Oh, right. Yes. Mr. Wigg, too. Yeah, and offers him a job in digging in South Africa and, you know, Elder Phelps, of course, finally realizing that he has to go talk to a girl that's been

trying to talk to him for the whole movie. It's like, no, thanks. Thanks for the blood diamond weekend, Mr. Wig. But I haven't, the woman I haven't realized is my court-ordered social worker is lurking yonder in the sprinklers. Yeah, exactly. So he goes, it goes to time. He goes to time. to Kelly and they are immediately made up. You know, the fact that she completely ghosted him after he got arrested without even allowing him to a chance to explain is entirely forgiven, right? Because no relationship in this movie has any depth whatsoever. No, and he's like, this is, this is the most sexless man I've ever seen in a movie because

they're standing there together and she is raping him with her eyes and he's gazing dull-eyed into the distance fantasizing about eating a snow cone at the circus. Yeah, thinking about whatever deer think about. Yeah, it was so hot. As the car approaches, just lights. Yeah. He's just like, Petri's fast. Yeah, right. So yeah, so then we watch them, like they tandem bite together. We watch them eat a picnic. And I wouldn't even bring this up, except for the picnic basket is so wildly overstuffed with food. How long is this picnic? There's like two loaves of bread. Two loaves of bread.

Boxes of crackers. It's like, this all makes sense to me. Maybe they just live outside. I guess. Yeah, but then they kiss. And we wrap things up. We go back to the jewelry store, but now he's with Kelly and he's not there to return the ring.

He's there to exchange it. I got nothing to say about that. You got a lot more notes about those Yadro things. Yeah. So, okay. So then we're going to close the boulechers. So that's the end of the movie. But we have to go back to Tongan guy, because up to this point in the movie, he hasn't been speaking and everybody's been acting like he doesn't speak English. But it turns out that he does and they're just racist. Yeah. What would the RM be without one more racist adjacent fat joke and a dig at mom? Yes. Oh, you're right. Yes. A dig at mom, a fat joke and a bit of racism all together in one to close things out. Wow, that actually is kind of brilliant.

If this movie had ended with a circle slowly lowering on porky pig, it could not have been more broad hysteria. So, oh, and then I just the biggest lie of the film, it comes in the credits that says soundtrack available everywhere. No, no, come on. Only in my dreams. All right. Well, Mark, thank you so much for hanging out with us. I genuinely, I look forward to it all year. This was this was this was this was therapeutic and you guys can just bill me for it.

Okay. Yeah, I was going to say for us or for you? Yeah, I don't know yet. So no, it was a lot of fun. I really appreciate it. And this was this, this was a fun movie. Yeah, it was certainly fun to record with you. And well, that's going to do it for our review of the RM.

That's not going to do it for the episode just yet because Mormon movie month is just getting started. So Eli, tell us what's on deck? A New Jersey game. gangster and his family must adjust to life in a quiet Mormon community in Utah. We'll be watching mobsters and Mormons. Carl the Pugapagocorn meets the Mormons. I cannot fucking wait. So with that to look forward to it,

we're going to bring episode 568 to a merciful close. Once again, a huge thanks to Mark for all his help today and an equally huge thanks to the Patreon owners that help make this show go. If you'd like to count yourself among their ranks, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash God off on there by an early access to an ad-free version of every episode. You can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review and by sharing the share on all your various social media platforms

and if you enjoy to do this show, be sure to check out our sibling shows the scathing a citation needed D&D minus and the skepticat available wherever podcasts live. If you have questions, comments or cinematic suggestions, you can email Godolphamovimovimovimov.com. Tim Robertson takes care of our social media. Our theme song was written and performed by Ryan Slotidavid with Drafts on Mars.

All the other music was written and performed by our audio engineer, Morgan Clark, and was used with permission. Thanks again for giving us a check of your life this week. For Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick, I'm No Illusions. Promises it to work hard to earn another check next week. Until then, we'll leave you with the American graffiti clothes. Mark would go on to make Con Air

the greatest movie of all times. It's pretty fucking great. This movie went on to mutter the N-word as soon as the microphones were off. Now halfway through her 20 mandated births, mom is rushed to the hospital for baby number 11. Back home, after a fruitless hunt for the nightly brown food heaps.

The boy children panic, their panic turns to resolve. And they ate one than three of the lower value girl children. Oh, God. By day two, the place smelled like a reptile house, and the hallways were impassable for all the filthy laundry. Jared Amulek and the remaining twin sat naked and filthy around the fire on the garage floor, silent, unblinking, mad from hunger, waiting for the first one to fall asleep.

Halfway through day three, things took a dark turn, and they began boiling the, uh, Rod rose. First the elegant newlyweds, then the cello player, then, dear God, then the girl with the wheelbarrow

full of flowers. On day four, Mom walked into a river of sewage, landscapes of dirty dishes, and piles of bones. The last remnant of the Phelps children was a single word, like that of the vanished

Roanaut colony, scrawled on the living room wall and fry sauce. It read simply, Dang. If only she taught the boy, how to open the refrigerator or flush the toilet. But that's woman's work.

So as usual, this is all her fault. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Hey, Ange, I don't like to do this on air, but if you illustrate that for us, we will make that, we will put that on the YouTube. Oh, yes. All right.

And then we're just going to do all three interstitials together, Mark, on the same record here. Gosh, I haven't rehearsed them as much, fellas. Holy shit. When I scan down through this, it is a lot of rad. It's a lot of. I literally, I told Eli, I was like, dude, you and I could say about nine fucking words and just let Mark go through his notes. And this is going to be a brilliant. 100%.

There are very few episodes. I realize what I need to do is just kind of put the keywords in for myself and not fucking right. Yeah, yeah. It's a little harder to deliver in real time. No, it's, I got it. So, all right. So just a quick note, Chava. Chava, yeah. Not Chava. Not Chava.

Chava. That's how we say it in the temples. Chava. Here comes Chava. Chava. Chava. Yeah. That's literally why I chose Hava.

I was like, they know Havanaeguila. That's the closest to a Jew name. I think they only know it because it was on a Harry Belafonte. I believe it's Navigila. Yeah, Navigila. Yeah. Chavina Jela. Yeah.

With a hard R. Yeah. You can order those at Mortons. All right. All right. Interstitial one. You know, international on our... Mark Hoffling, citizen of the world.

Yeah. We did just get demonetized, which is crazy. It was not the... It was the... It was the Arabic that did it. Oh, right. What can we... Is there anything I can't say?

Because I think I might say rape or something. No, we're... I think we're yeah. Yeah. Like honestly, whatever restrictions there are, we're going to triggers. Yeah.

Sometimes we don't. Yeah. And it's very funny because they ask you. They go, is there any swearing in your podcast? And I always say, no, catch me,

bitch. And then occasionally they'll be like, wait a second. We just did your subtitles. And they said, we're YouTubers now. We can DM a minor. You do,

no, you only get dick pill ads. Oh, wow. Well, that's good because I do talk about a no, loads refused.

Exactly. Yeah. And Reno. So we're going back to the top, right? Yeah. One, two, three, four, five. I think I nailed it that time. Wasn't seconds.

I was going on. See, if we could, if we decimalized seconds, that's how long they would be. And then we could have 100 seconds per minute, 100 minutes per hour, 10 hours per day. So much better. Please, Mark can only get so hard. It, oh, so. I'm 57. You get what you get at my age.

It's been my case since I was like 29. Oh, you know what I could do is I can go here. I could do this. Sorry, give me one second. I'll crop that back out there. Put up here. Will you last some Coca-Cola? With the real cocaine?

Yeah, that's the good stuff. Wait, then I go there, and then I come back. It goes right back. Oh, it does come. Okay, there's a little bit of a pain. It's there. Sorry, let me do one of the thing real quick. I love this so much more with video, you guys.

Right? Yeah, right. You can see me fucking up. I'm that generation that I fucking hate talking on the phone. So when it's just voices, it just seems so remote. I love this. Yeah. Yeah, I like it too, except for the fact that I spend an awful lot of time

normally when we were audio only like looking at other shit checking my phone for stuff and now that's all like really visible so yeah I could hear how distracted you were all right here we do you read your comments they're mostly for Mark

yeah right it's no no I do not yeah skater boy 69 all right here we go this content is scanned credentialed which means you can report instances of harassment and abuse or other harm to their hotline at 617249455 or on their website at creator accountability network.org. This podcast is a production of Puzzle and a thunderstorm LLC and was created without

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