526: Mindreader

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What was his word?

I forget his word, too.

Was it father, dad?

Wonder.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, it was wonder.

I would write down something like Micropachycephalosaurus or something.

Give him a challenge, right?

Make him pronounce something at least, you know?

Write down a slur, see if he says it.

Come on, man.

It's the 70s.

You wrote down, my God.

You drew a picture.

You were supposed to draw a picture.

God-awful

movie.

Movies.

Movies.

Welcome to God Awful Movies live from the Big Easy.

Thank you.

We're live in Nolins, or as Eli would call it, Rock City.

This is, of course,

the podcast where each week we sample another selection from Christian Cinema because once in a while it affords you the chance to do a live show at the same hotel as the Church of Christ Holiness Worship and Prayer Service Breakfast.

Which was fun.

As April pointed out, it would have been a lot more fun if any of our crowd actually makes it to breakfast.

You know, the breakfast downstairs would have been great.

But

I am, of course, your host, No Illusions, but I'm not alone.

Please put your hands together to welcome my good friend Heath Enrights.

Hello

Yes.

Oh, fantastic.

Some old friends are here.

Love it.

New Orleans.

Am I saying it right?

New Orleans, close enough.

All right.

Fantastic.

And also joining us from stage left, please put your hands together one more time for my bad friend Eli Bosnick.

Wow

there's a lot of

sidesack

can I say I was wearing clothes was the plan And then one of the guys back there, he just started to give me, oh, don't rush this, come on, Charlie Kirk, we're left.

Fucking

2025, you don't just gently walk towards someone on a stage.

I've said some shit, man.

Doing my fun little bit, and you're just like, boop, boop, boop, boop.

Fucking.

I'm going to say no before it.

So, okay, okay.

So, Eli, I liked how much blood there was in that video.

It made me feel good.

Thank you.

Okay.

Let me fire for that.

It looked like it hurt.

Okay.

I don't think it did.

So any chance you can trade those beads back in for your clothes?

Do you think you could bargain?

So thank you, Eli.

So

there's not enough money in the world.

I have to be on this stage.

So Heath.

Titanium night.

It's Slater, yeah.

You have a weird note right here.

I just wrote shenanigans in the notes, but you have something that demands an explanation.

Okay, so the very first things I saw in New Orleans on this trip, leaving the airport, very first thing I see, billboard for ziplining, which I thought was fun.

It's Eli's birthday.

He would hate that.

It's perfect.

Then I saw a billboard for

Chick-fil-A.

Okay.

Naturally, but then I saw a police department.

There he is.

We're going to go zipliding, by the way.

Police department?

No fucking job.

Do it.

Okay, if the killer had done a zip light, it doesn't matter.

That'd be pretty funny.

If you murder me and it's a bit, I'll appreciate it.

I want you to know.

Okay.

Probably not in the moment, but no.

We have a whole whole whiteboard about how you're not allowed to give them instructions about this, Eli.

That's true.

A whole bit.

Sorry, wait, wait, there's one little more thing on your list.

Oh, yeah.

Last thing I saw, or a third thing I saw right away, too: police department parking lot.

It's got four or five RVs branded with the police department and

two dozen jet skis.

What's happening?

Oh, please don't make a Katrina joke, Eli.

Please don't make a Katrina joke.

No, no, no.

So I'm overruling the audience on this one.

Tell us how.

I got a whole talking to about Katrina jokes.

What will we be praying for?

Can you set me up like that

today?

We watched Mind Reader.

All right.

How many people also watched it?

A lot of what?

Yeah.

Yeah, by applause.

The audience can't hear you.

By applause, how many people watched it?

There we go.

All right, excellent.

Excellent.

All right.

Pretty much everybody watched it.

It's the story of that one bar mitzvah magician who actually is a psychic and that one stripper who actually does really like you.

A stripper has to like somebody sometimes.

That has to be rich sometimes.

And that's the Christian experience in a nutshell.

I thought it was perfect that the Cristiano brothers did that by accident.

Only one Cristiano Brother.

One Cristiano brothers.

That's why it wasn't as good.

This is the dear.

You didn't have the genius of whatever the fuck was

other Christian brothers.

This is the dear old dads of Christiano Brothers joints.

So, Eli, well, I guess you've already answered this now, but how bad was this movie?

Well, if you love the heavy-handed metaphors of Christian cinema.

And if you're here, you motherfucking do.

Yep.

But you wish they'd be explained to you after the movie within

the same movie.

You will love this movie.

Okay.

For the 26 of you in the audience who haven't watched this movie already, and for all the people listening at home who haven't watched it, just wait for the fucking ending, okay?

It's going to get so much better and make so much more sense of why we're doing it.

Let me help you 26 people out.

Has anyone ever written you a poem and then you didn't care, so they explained the poem?

There's a Christian movie version of that.

The difference between the men and women who raised their hands just now.

Yes.

Men were like, yeah, poems.

And women were like, he did it.

He did it.

Yeah.

Yep.

He's with the Lord now.

That was the explanation.

All right, so there's anything you guys want to nominate this one for being the best at being the worst at?

Ooh, can I go with best, worst, anti-Semitic

wide whale corduroy apparently as a way to be anti-Semitic?

And I was surprised.

Those magician guys.

Okay, no, no, you're right.

Okay, you're right.

And in case it wasn't clear, we'll find out.

They actually explained later that that was, yeah, they do connect those noses for us.

So, all right, Bradley Cooper.

So, I was going to go with best worst attempt to inject the word strawberry with gravitas.

Oh, fuck yeah.

There is a point at this movie where one of the characters will be called upon to say gravitas with the they call me Mr.

Tibbs inflection, right?

And he goes for it.

He fucking goes for it.

Oh, we have that to look forward to as well.

I'm going to go with best, best magician sexual fantasy.

Now,

look.

None of you are or were professional magicians because you can afford a ticket to this show.

So I'll explain.

As a magician, what you mostly do is you go up to talking people who are enjoying themselves at a perfectly nice party and you go, would you like to be entertained like a child?

And they go, no, thank you.

And you go, please let me or they won't pay me.

So when I tell you that a movie where every time a magician does a trick, everyone in the room goes, you're fucking real.

This is some outfit stuff level fantasy playing out in front of me.

And I'm also viscerally aware that whichever the less talented Cristiano brother was saw a mentalism show and was like, this guy might be Jesus.

There's like an 80% chance this guy is Jesus.

All right, well, I'll tell you what, I'm almost as excited about talking about this movie as I am about making Eli talk about this movie.

So we're going to keep the break brief.

And when we come back, we'll dive in all the ham-fisted parables of of mind reader

22 23 24.

hey 26 what you doing oh hey morgan me and anna are just getting in shape for the next season of dnd minus yeah that's right gotta be in peak dice rolling shape And you're doing that by having Eli do jumping jacks?

Lots of jumping jacks.

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Nice.

Hey, why do you guys want to be in dice rolling shape anyways?

We're mostly going to be throwing them at Heath.

Oh, good plan.

Right?

Okay, everyone.

Welcome to the first ever Writer's Room meeting for Mind Reader.

Woo.

So I'm thinking this one's going to be a good old-fashioned parable.

It's about a wonder worker who earns the love of the people with his magic.

But when the high council is afraid of his power and influence, they're determined to take him down.

Amazing.

But what's the parable?

Yeah, I don't get it.

You guys don't get it?

Yeah, there aren't any magicians in the Bible.

Okay, first of all, yes, there are.

Second of all, really?

You can't think of a character from the Bible that this story reminds you of.

No, no, really, Samson, the guy with the hair,

that's from the Book of Mormon.

I still think it's Samson.

Okay, you know what?

We'll do the story, and then after the story in the movie, we'll have a story where someone explains the story.

Okay, oh, that's much better.

Vishnu.

Stop saying other religions and be more specific.

And we're back.

Thank you so much, New Orleans.

We're going to open this movie on our obligatory Bible quote.

This is Matthew 13, 13, where Jesus says, and I'm paraphrasing here, I speak in parables because y'all are too dumb to understand this shit otherwise.

Right?

And then we get, we see a theater marquee announcing that there's a variety show starring, quote, the great Dexter.

And what theater is it?

It is the temple.

Ooh.

Hint, hint, wink, wink.

Now, listeners, for a while, you're going to think that this is not a Christian movie.

I assure you, we will prove by the end that it is.

So we're going to come inside the theater.

We're going to see, and this was traumatic for me, the end of a very bad juggling act.

Right?

I didn't see the rest of the juggling act, but hey, if your grand finale is throw one ball really high, take off your hat, and catch it.

You fucking suck as a juggler.

You're not getting more than a reverse cascade and a half shower out of this asshole.

But then, once I'm done being offended, the entire rest of the movie comes out to piss off Eli.

I loved it.

I loved every second of it.

This dude walks out, and I was like, yup, you fucking got us.

He's got shoulder-length hair in a doll bob.

Yep.

A powder blue suit like he's being chased out of a 1984 prompt.

Oh, dude, he was,

he looked like somebody wearing a mean Cecil costume, right?

Somebody was going to Cecil for Halloween, but hated him.

That's how I would dress if I wanted to die by Cecil's sword.

Yes, yeah, exactly.

Waiting outside for him in the morning.

Come, Cecil, put an end to it once and for all.

I'm 30, whoo, whoo, and I'm ready for it then.

Did you hear tomorrow's Lucinda's birthday?

People are really excited.

Yeah.

All right.

Listeners at home, Eli's doing callbacks to the interstitial breaks now in case you're garrisoning.

He gave her a birthday clap and I didn't get a birthday clap.

So now it's time.

No, it's too late.

It's too late.

I don't want your make-a-wish birthday clap.

My wish is for no more birthdays.

Okay.

He's going to help you out in the corner of the table.

Yeah.

He keeps sneaking closer to get a better shot.

So now the guy's going to come out and he's going to do this bit.

So one of you guys who's in the up front where it's got your name on the where we put your name on the back of the chair there.

Is there somebody that doesn't want that anymore that can give it to me and never have it again?

Okay, I got one.

I already got one.

That's great.

Okay.

So the guy, he's going to do this magician bit where you throw a ball out to the audience so you know you're getting a random person.

So this is what he does.

And apologies to the listeners at home because this is a visual bit.

This is what he does.

He goes,

Yeah.

It is the most ridiculous throw that I've ever seen outside a Christian sports movie.

It's incredible.

It's incredible.

It seemed like he hurt himself.

He did.

He did.

Oh, I should have stretched.

Throwing a ball.

Somebody described Tim Tebow throwing a football once.

I think it was described as if somebody trying to throw a folding chair during a bowling alley fight.

Yes.

And that was perfect.

He did that with a ball somehow.

Oh, he almost missed.

It was just throw the ball out into the audience and he very nearly missed.

So now here's the bit.

Somebody catches the ball.

He's like, now you throw it to somebody else.

Now you throw it to somebody else.

So we've got three random members of the audience.

He gives each of them a pad of paper and he says, write down a number.

And then he just goes through and he goes like 72, 106, 31.

And he's right, but

that's a bad act.

Terrible magic trick.

Well, it actually gets worse because he goes, okay, write your numbers down.

Now think of them.

And it's like, well, if you were reading the minds, why did they write them down?

And then he doesn't even have them show it.

He just goes, 74, and a person in the theater you can't hear goes, oh,

got it.

Yeah.

Also, he hands out the pads, and he's like, this is a normal piece of paper on a normal pad.

Pad I brought with me.

Now I think you're lying, right?

Yeah.

If you say this is normal, now it's not.

Like if a barista was like, here's your normal coffee,

you drink it.

That's poison.

Yeah, exactly.

Right, for sure.

Well,

it's cumber poison.

But also, look, I know magicians well enough to know that if they hand me a pad of paper and a pen and they say, examine the pad of paper, it's a normal pad of paper.

I'm like, okay, so it's a trick pen?

Right?

Oh, that's the new magician trick.

We just tell people what they can't examine.

Here I have a normal deck of cards.

Don't touch my sleeves or I'll cry.

Yes.

Right.

Here I have have a normal deck of cards.

Examine the box they came in.

Yeah.

But I want to point out the reason this happens in the movie is, as my co-hosts have pointed out, we have trick pads, secrets of magic revealed.

But what happened is Dave Cristiano, the less talented Cristiano brother, was sitting there in a magic show and he was like, well, of course they have to use ordinary everyday pads.

So, okay, so you weren't impressed with the number trick.

Don't worry.

He's going to do the exact same trick again.

So he goes one by one to the people and he's like, okay, now write a word on your paper.

And people are like, wow, well, I mean, guessing a number is pretty easy, but a word?

And so then now he's going to go through it and he's going to tell everybody which word they pick.

Now, we're going to see him do this trick about 31 times in the course of the movie.

Every single person will pick a word that is intrinsic to their own personality, right?

Like the one word that describes that person's personality in the script.

So the first lady, what was the first lady's word?

I forget.

The adulterous lady?

Kiss.

Kiss.

Yes.

You're right.

Yeah.

She's like, what's your word?

He says, your word was kiss.

You're also the guy that you're with isn't your husband.

And she's like, oh, fuck.

But I say, Noah accidentally gave so much better a performance than this guy gives.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Because what he does is this.

He goes, Your word is kiss.

And everyone's like, boo, boring.

Clap, clap, clap.

And then he goes, by the way,

all right, your word is pumper.

And like, he just fucking moves past his real psychic powers.

Yeah.

Right.

So he goes to the next guy.

He's like, your word was boy.

And he's like, it was boy.

I want it so badly for him to be like, you're dating a boy.

It's 1940.

It's 1974.

So they beat the shit out of him and throw him out into the street.

So yeah, but he's like,

your word was boy.

And your wife is pregnant.

And you're hoping she has a boy, aren't you?

And he's like, yeah, I am.

And then we go to the final woman and he says, your word is

flower.

And I'm like, okay, anyone would have guessed that that fucking woman's word was flower, right?

She's wearing a dress covered in flowers.

Everything about her personal, she's carrying a bag with flowers all over it.

Obviously, her fucking word was flower.

And then he tells her, she says, well, yeah, no, I love flowers.

I was going to open a flower shop.

And I'm like, well, the fact that you don't know the word florist suggests you haven't thought about it too fucking hard yet.

Flowerists.

Flowery.

Curse you, magic man.

You've made a fool of me once again.

Just like the bank.

Do you think that's why she got denied the first couple of times?

They were like, so what is this for?

And she was like, I want to be a flower lady.

And they were like, well, you didn't Google it.

So I'm going to need you to.

Flowerologist.

I don't know.

I don't want to bake things.

So now then we cut to these two audio.

The show's over.

And we're going to meet two guys, Nicholas and Maxwell.

They're walking out of the show.

Nicholas is absolutely convinced that Dexter, the great Dexter, is a psychic because actually reading minds.

Maxwell is not convinced.

Maxwell will spend the entire rest of the movie going,

fuck you guys talking about there's no goddamn such fucking thing as magic fucking powers.

Yeah.

But he's the bad guy in this because it's a Christian movie.

He's the bad guy, yeah.

He's Jewish.

Yeah.

He is.

That's what's happening.

Even when he's that bad guy, Jewish.

So, okay.

So then they're leaving and they're like, and we learn that they're like magicians, they're fellow magicians, right?

And they're trying to figure out this act, and it's really like grating on them that they can't figure it out.

Nicholas, who is the good guy of the two, he's like, he's like, look, I've been to this show because the other guy's like, ah, he's just using plants.

I'm sure he's using plants.

And Nicholas is like, no, I've been to this show six different times.

He can't possibly be using plants.

What are the odds that there are 18 out-of-work actors in this same town?

And then

he goes, look, I've seen a lot of magic.

This is the greatest magic trick I've ever seen.

And I'm like, even if the motherfucker's psychic, this isn't the greatest magic trick you've ever seen.

This is a pretty shitty trick.

Dumbest use of actually being psychic.

Right?

Throughout, I was so mad you weren't doing anything.

If you're actually psychic.

Yeah.

Come on.

So then we cut down.

He's in the dressing room and adultery lady comes in to confront him about outing her, about narcing on her in front of her rich boyfriend.

She demands to know how he knew, right?

How he does his trick.

And there's, he's got an assistant.

This is Caleb.

The assistant stands next to him and goes, he's actually a mind reader.

So.

It's the best.

Caleb's my favorite character in the movie.

Oh, yeah.

Because he just announces the plot of the movie throughout the movie.

Everyone else is participating in a fictional movie, and Caleb is staring directly into camera like he won some kind of prize.

He's really psychic,

is the plot of the movie.

Yep.

I'm in the movie.

I'm on a boot.

She says, my side piece left me because of what you said.

I should sue you for me being married.

And then she's like, well, I don't think you can do that.

And then she storms off and she goes, I think your act stinks.

I'm like, well, you've got to admit, you're at least impressed, though.

I mean, come on.

It's okay.

So then we're going to cut to the, this was all in 1974.

Eventually it comes up.

there's a subtitle that comes up like midway through the fucking scene.

It's real easy to miss that says this is happening in 1974.

Then we cut to the present day.

There's these two guys, they're arriving in a small house, and they decide to stop.

It's one of these things like that they do in movies where apparently these two people had no discussion whatsoever in the car leading up to this.

So now they have to get out of the car and stand there and explain to each other what they're doing there.

Do you think they tried to start expositing in the car?

Like they got in and it was like, so this is the

wait until I told you we're listening to all of Janice's blue in the car.

Don't interrupt.

Okay.

Here's the thing that I love about this case to the movie.

This was very clearly intended to be the explanation of the heavy-handed, clumsy metaphor of the movie.

Yes.

And the less talented Christiano brother was like,

they're still not going to fucking get it.

Which renders these characters completely poisonous.

Well, okay, so what very clearly happened is that the less talented Cristiano brother made a movie.

He finished it.

He looked at it, and it was 51 minutes long.

And then he's like, okay, I'm going to frame it around a bunch of guys doing a flashback.

Because the flashback stuff never fucking matters to the rest of the movie, right?

It doesn't resolve anything that's left unresolved within the movie.

And then he did that.

He framed it around all these flashbacks, and he's like, okay, now it's 62 minutes long.

Fuck.

I'm going to add an ending where I painstakingly explain every goddamn thing that happened.

That only got him to an hour and 20.

Yeah.

Right.

Even with all this shit.

Shows up to Dave's room.

Hey, buddy.

You remember how I said, like, I don't need you and I can make all my movies.

Now it's just kind of...

I don't have any B footage.

I'm not giving you anything.

It's like just me and Thomas and Tom kind of talking now.

Would you mind if you just...

Write some bumpers.

So, of course, both Heath and I had to have a note about the fact that the guys that are about to go.

So, they're going to go in and interview Caleb, the guy who used to be the assistant to Dexter.

And they're bringing a Zoom recorder, which is the exact kind of recorder that we have, the H4N.

I'd pick it up and show you, but I'm using it to record shit right now.

It's kind of important.

But, yeah, so that was kind of cool.

But they don't know how it's used because

he keeps holding it like a news microphone.

So, for those of you, there's spatial microphones, and you put in the center room, it catches all the noise.

But he keeps pointing it at the guy, but they're conversational distance away.

So he keeps being like,

dude, at one point, at one point, when they walk in, he sets it upright.

Yeah.

Which is fucking nuts because A, the microphone is not pointed towards the fucking ceiling, right?

And B, anybody fucking sneezes and the goddamn thing is gonna fall over.

Actually, some of the greatest journalists

point their microphone the wrong direction for the first

40 or 60 episodes of their podcast.

So,

okay.

So, did they go into this guy's house?

They're going in to see Caleb, and they explain: hey, you know, we want your story of what the Dexter died, I guess, and now they want their association, which is the Association of Magicians, I guess.

They couldn't get the rights to whatever the actual group is.

There's a real one, right?

There's like a governing body of all magicians.

I'm in it.

Are the psychic entertainers serious right now?

I'd leave our job to go to their convention every year.

You're in a professional organization.

Psychic Entertainers Association.

I'm a member with Silver Star, baby.

And can I say, to whoever Cristiano's credit, they have captured the whiteness and grossness of our cohort.

Like I was like, I'm going to call Archie and tell him that they're making fun of him in this Christian movie.

So you're getting ahead of us.

You're getting ahead of me.

So, okay.

So they go in there, they're like, we want to give Dexter this posthumous honor.

It is the highest honor any entertainer can receive.

Big deal.

Kind of like the People's Choice Podcasts Award of 2015.

Yes, exactly.

Exactly.

I'm sorry.

If it is the highest award that an entertainer can receive, they're not giving it to a fucking magician.

I'm sorry.

Maybe that's just the juggler and me coming out.

But okay.

So, but we learned that this guy, Thomas, the guy with the H4N Zoom recorder, he says, I'm writing an article about Dexter.

I will write whatever you say.

Well, that's a power you should never give any fucking body, right?

Imagine if you said that to Eli.

Dexter fucked kids.

Got him.

So he's like,

13 hours, $13 an hour, my ass.

He says, okay, so what we'd like for you to do is just sort of walk us through Dexter's story in a series, like a movie-length series of flashbacks.

And then he says, but don't worry, this information won't be available to the public.

It'll only be in our museum.

Is it a secret museum?

I don't know.

I don't know.

Do you have a secret museum of a secret museum?

Oh, okay.

Well, there you go.

No, I guess that makes Brandon.

I looked at their notes and I was like, oh, man, I hope they don't ask me if we have a secret museum.

We have multiple secret museums.

Y'all, live in my world for a moment.

David Copperfield owns a museum that you have to know somebody to get into.

then there's a guy who has an underground museum in the middle of virginia and then we have a secret mentalists only museum down in south carolina so wow we don't have secret museum we have secret museums

so sorry i just want to be clear somebody goes to the one in south carolina they do card magic get the out

you're not allowed in interesting All right, so they said, so we're Christians are so stupid.

They're the worst.

It's truly,

it's truly the worst.

There are not a lot of people that atheist podcasters can squarely look down on, but I'll tell you,

magicians are right there making the balloon animals to make it happen.

We're really, we're in it to win it.

So, okay.

So they turn to Caleb and they're like, let's start the doodly-doos out by asking you, what is your most cherished doodle-do about Dexter?

And he goes, he says, what's your most cherished memory about Dexter?

And the answer that the character gives, he says, that he was a good man.

It's not a fucking memory.

The fuck are you talking about?

I'm like a secret museum here.

Give us some fucking dessert.

I wrote in my notes, meet.

Yeah, right.

This is why you got to prep the people in your life before you die, okay?

Yeah.

Okay.

So we doodly doo back to the break room at the factory where Caleb and Dexter both work together.

Oh, okay.

He's Dexter, he's supposed to be an actual psychic, A mind reader.

A mind reader.

Why are you working in a factory if you're a mind?

You wouldn't?

Yeah.

So because he wants to remain humble.

So two characters we have.

I don't think he does, though.

I think he's not.

No, no, he becomes a goddamn mentalist.

So yeah, probably not.

They don't write the lottery numbers down on pads first.

Yeah, right.

Do you think there's a prequel where Dexter's just trying to figure out how to make his pad-based powers profitable outside of variety entertainment where he's just like, okay, write down your pin number on a pen.

Where are you going?

Fuck.

I am cursed by God.

If I cut my flowing locks, my powers go away.

And because I'm psychic, I know what everyone thinks about my hair.

A fate worse than death indeed.

Yeah.

So, okay, so then so we're at this break room in this factory, and there's two guys playing poker.

And

neither of them are the characters that we know.

And one is losing to the other, who's being a real asshole about it, right?

Importantly, though, he didn't make the other guy play poker against him.

The guy agreed to play poker against him and just lost, right?

So that's where we're at.

And the guy who lost, he turns to everybody afterwards and he goes, Well, I can't afford to lose that money, or I won't be able to feed my children.

And we're supposed to feel sorry for the guy.

Like,

okay, hey, I have an idea.

No, me.

Yes.

Oh, me, what have you done to me?

Yes.

The meme of sticking the stick in your bicycle tire, yeah.

Why would they let you play a game where you lose?

Right.

But then, so the guy turns to Dexter.

He goes, Dexter, help.

And Dexter goes, oh, I'd sit down and play poker myself, but it wouldn't be fair.

Well, except for maybe making a point during a flashback.

It is truly dude.

But then they don't play poker.

No, they don't.

Which why the fuck wouldn't you just have him play poker?

Well, because then he can do the eighth lamest magic trick that anyone has ever done.

Oh my god.

He literally does pick a card any card.

And it's worse than pick a card any card, right?

Because here's what he does.

Here's pick a card in your card.

Pick a card in your card.

You've chose the four diamonds.

Hooray.

That's a bad trick.

Here's what he does.

Pick the top, you shuffle.

We watch him layman shuffle.

So he's like, you can't do it the way my grandma did.

And then he goes, Take the top card of the deck, which literally non-magicians know.

You have to cut the cards because everyone could see that fucking one.

Yep.

He pushes it forward.

He goes, You guess what it is.

He's like, No, you're the psyche in the movie.

He's like, Shut up.

What card do you think it is?

He's like, Queen of Diamonds.

He's like, Wrong.

And he's like, This is terrible so far.

He's like, No,

because I'm now going to tell you

what it was.

Yep.

And then he does.

He's like four of clubs, and the guy's like, oh my fucking god, I've never seen anything like this in my whole fucking life.

He's a demon, stab him in the heart.

And again, I cannot tell you what a sexual fantasy this voice would be.

All right,

my friends, I memorized multiple decks of cards when I was a professional magician and was met with bored yawns from everyone around me.

The idea that someone would be like, he knew what was on top.

I clipped this movie.

You go on xnxx.com, you're going to find a lot of clips of Mind Reader and just one account favoriting them.

Don Ford, voice of fantasy and adventure.

It's my name on all the porn accounts.

Oh, okay.

Now that makes sense.

So then, so now he's...

He's won back the guy's $65 that he needed to pay his children or feed his children.

What is it you do with kids again?

I forget.

I don't have any of those.

No, that's Don Ford voice of fantasy.

So, yeah, but he gives him the $65, but only if he promises never to gamble again.

And then we back out of the doodly-doo long enough to tell us that then Caleb, having witnessed this amazing guess-my card trick, helped Dexter put together his stage show.

So then we go back to the doodle-doo where Nicholas and Maxwell have now gone gone to their boss, their

magician, historian,

secret museum curator.

Right, yes, exactly.

That's

the skeptic, the Pharisees.

These are the Pharisees.

Yes, yes.

This is the anti-Semitism squad.

Exactly, exactly.

And Nicholas

is Nicodemus.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

Wow.

Wait, is there a parabola?

Believe it or not, yeah.

Try to follow along, 26 people.

I think you might crack this one.

But they're like genuinely in a lair.

Like, whichever Cristiano it is, I don't fucking care.

He's pretty sure there's like an evil volcano lair for skeptical magicians.

You don't think that there's actually an evil?

Is there an evidence?

Of course there is.

They had a convention.

It was called the Amazing Meeting.

It was a whole thing.

You know, I don't have a beginning.

Spinny bookshelf,

Brandy snifters, the whole thing.

Fuck Dungeon.

Don Ford.

You're just describing Ken South now.

Okay, so...

So, but basically, these three guys who are supposed to be historians of magic are basically sitting around having the, but what if David Blaine can levitate conversation, right?

Now, I want to be super clear that the trick that he does, where like you write down something on a pad of paper and then the magician knows what it is, like, that's a trick.

Like, that's a real trick.

Like, that is a doable trick.

They could have, in their movie, had the psychic do something that a magician couldn't actually do, and they didn't.

When we were talking about the least talented Christiano brother, that's how talentless we're talking.

Also, not to ruin the like enclave of magicians, but we have never wondered how tricks are done.

We're like, what do you think he's getting paid for that?

Do you think he

do you think they're letting him eat beforehand?

Do you guys want to?

Let's go down to the dungeon.

Do you guys, they don't have Uber pool in this city, but if we both call the Uber at the same time, we can be like, oh, it was a mistake.

And then he has to let me ride in in the trunk.

Do they make it?

I got Jimmy's sixth birthday this year.

I'm pretty proud.

Pretty excited.

I actually have a zero rating on Uber.

I can't use my plants.

So, okay.

So then they're like, no, come on.

He's obviously using plants because apparently the Christiano brothers can't think of any other way this trick could possibly be done.

They're like, they're obviously using plants.

But then Nicholas, he says, hey, well, you know, I didn't want to tell you guys about this for reasons that will never be clear at all.

But I was actually an audience volunteer.

I caught the ball one time, which is not as sexy as it sounds.

So now we're going to doodly do

in the doodly-do

back to when he was a volunteer, right?

We didn't swoosh it.

We're fine.

We haven't swooshed it yet.

Keeping it safe.

But then, so I guess he's got to write down his word, right?

And he's boring as fuck with his word.

What was his word?

I forget his word, too.

Was it father, dad?

Wonder.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, it was wonder.

I would write down something like Micropachycephalosaurus or something.

Give him a challenge, right?

Make him pronounce something at least, you know?

Write down a slur, see if he says it.

Come on, man.

It's the 70s.

You wrote down, my God.

You drew a picture.

You were supposed to draw a picture.

So, but also.

Strawberry?

But then the big deal thing that he does, right?

So he's like, the guy's trying to convince these other magicians that he's the real deal.

And he says, but after he guessed my word was wonder, he turned to me and he said, you should call your dad.

He'd love to hear from you.

And he's like, you know, I haven't talked to my dad in years.

How the hell could he have possibly known?

Right.

Now, okay.

So last weekend, I gave a talk about cold reading, about doing tarot readings and stuff.

And the go-to example I used for the easiest possible prediction to make for a person is you have daddy issues.

Right?

That is the biggest possible potential hit you can ever get when you're predicting shit from people.

And in this stupid fucking movie, that's the one that has all the professional magicians going, well, fuck, how could he possibly have known that you don't call your adult dad?

As an adult, you don't call your dad as often as your dad is.

It wasn't even less.

It wasn't like daddy issues necessarily.

It was like, I predict cold reading-wise, that you have a dad.

That's all I was predicted.

Who owns a phone?

Yeah, how would he know that?

How would he know that?

Just by a round of applause, who in this room has daddy issues?

Fun facts, everyone's going to be a little bit more than a moment.

Those are some fantastic daddy issues you have.

Let me say.

I do.

The real daddy issues with results.

So, okay.

But he says, there's also this great moment where he goes, that Nicholas says to the other two, he goes, You know, you two are the greatest historians of magic ever known.

In case you forgot who you are during this conversation that we're having, you know how every trick that's ever been done has been done, except this one.

Yes.

Which, to be clear, would be like saying, you guys are fantastic musicians.

You know how to play every song that has ever been written.

All right, so then we cut to fucking Flower Lady at the office.

Now, over and over again in this movie, we'll go to people who caught the ball, right?

Who wrote down words for him to show us just how right his predictions turned out to be, right?

So we have flower lady at the office and she's talking to her friend about how, you know, she really wants to start a flower shop, but the psychic told her she should try one more time.

What could that possibly mean?

And can I say, again, just this is the sexual fantasy that anyone sees a magic show and doesn't go, and there was a magician.

Like a full-grown, no, it was an adult.

It was not a child.

It was an adult.

And he was like, I'm a magician.

And then he needed a ride home.

The amount of times I've sat in the back of a grown-up's car being like, thanks for the ride to the train station for the man of mystery and wonder.

I hope you had fun as I plumbed your deepest secrets.

Do you mind going to the awning?

It's raining.

Thanks.

I'm going to eat a cliff bar and seven unquestibles while I wait an hour and a half for the Long Island Twins.

Did you have those in your pocket?

Oh, my own choices.

Get him up his sleeve, yeah.

So, okay.

My bud died.

But she's like, she's like,

I think what he meant is I've tried to get a loan for my flower store several times, and I think he meant that I should try one more time to get the loan.

Okay, even if you thought that's a real psychic, mind reader, supernatural human, why would you think they would be giving good advice about like your small business decision?

Right, yeah, right.

He doesn't know the future.

Yeah.

Or we haven't established that he does.

Yeah.

And I, again, as someone who knows a lot of magicians, you do not want to take business advice.

Yeah, you're a fucking magician.

Yeah.

All right.

So.

How's your Bitcoin doing?

Is it good?

Oh, man.

Why you got to break that down?

That wasn't me.

That was my friend who sold it because Carrot Tom told him to.

Okay, this is.

That's a real story, but

we genuinely have to move on from it.

But, okay, so as we're talking about what great business decisions magicians make, so then, okay, now we go back to the theater and a woman shows up and she says, I would like to work for you backstage in the secrets department.

For free.

I don't need money.

For free.

Volunteer to stay.

It'll be for free.

For free, I will work for free.

I'm not a spy.

You're a spy.

You're spying on yourself, I bet.

Now, don't get me wrong.

I do know a lot of magicians who would fall for this.

Every magician you know if you walked up and you were like hey, I just want to learn from you because I'm so impressed they'd be like I knew someone would say this to me someday

Okay, but this character's name guys is Judy

Judy.

Okay, we have to go get there.

We'll get there.

So okay, but he's like, you know what, we really don't need any help, but

Fucking juggler is shit.

You want to help the

maybe help him out or something?

She's like, yeah, whatever gets me back there in your backstage area is fine.

Yeah.

So she can start tomorrow.

So then we check in with the guy whose word was boy, the guy whose wife was pregnant from the audience earlier.

And he just has a conversation with his wife about how he's pretty sure that mind reader was right and she's going to have a boy.

There's a moment where this movie tries to like tackle the inherent sexism in this.

The less talented Christiano brother decides to tackle the sexism because he says, How's my little ball player doing?

And the wife goes, well, your ball player or cheerleader is doing fine.

Now it's less sexist, guys.

Okay, here's the thing, though.

I'm pretty sure you're finally gonna stop failing as a woman and forth being a son

because a magic guy told me while I was out at a magic show by myself while you're pregnant with our other two children at home.

And he's got two fucking daughters.

What a dick.

What a fucking pretty.

Sometimes you just need to take yourself to the magic show.

Little

treat for daddy.

He's got rickets again.

Fuck, I'll be at the magic show.

Tell me what number I'm thinking of, wizard.

Carry me away on a blanket of wondering lies.

All right.

Well, right now, while you still think that pregnant lady's husband and flower lady are going to factor into the movie in some way, before we disabuse you of that belief, we're going to take ourselves another quick break.

But we're back in a minute with even more Mind Reader.

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Oh, yeah, thanks for the tissues.

Now, if each of you will think of a word, excellent.

You, sir, is your word

bathroom?

It is.

Indeed, I regret to inform you you have have bladder cancer.

Now, madam, your word is a tricky one.

Wait, what?

Tell me, do you play tennis?

I do.

Sorry, did you say I have bladder cancer?

Well, then that would explain why the word you wrote down is love.

I did write that down.

Sorry, just real quick, can we go back to the bladder cancer title?

And finally, sir, you're thinking of a name, are you not?

My God, I am.

And that name is Craig.

How did you know?

You know what?

I'm going to come back tomorrow.

I'll come back and ask tomorrow.

And we're back.

And we're going to.

I love when the audience at home gets the me cutting off a joke from Heather Eli right at the very beginning of those.

We're going to rejoin Dexter at the theater doing his same boring fucking trick again.

This lady's word is lock it

because she lost a locket

is her personality

so she she says lock it and then he says to her he turns to her he says don't worry you'll find it and she goes

and then he turns to this other lady this is patty yeah patty

get him

so he gets this this lady patty so this is the next lady up So he goes, he turns to Patty and he goes,

you're not thinking of a fucking word at all, are you, Patty?

You're trying to fuck with me, aren't aren't you?

And Patty's like, well, I am trying to fuck with him.

She's like, he's like, you wrote down XO, XO, didn't you?

And she's like, very sheepishly admits that is what she wrote down.

Yeah.

And again, this is every magician's fantasy that the person who fucks with the magician, like the whole crowd turns on him.

Yes.

Tears her limb from limb.

So, and then, okay, and then meanwhile, the association, the Nicholas and Maxwell and Robert, are sitting there having the same scene that they had last time, right?

Where Nicholas opens it up going, well, well, you got to admit, that last scene was pretty damn impressive, right?

With the XO, XO, and everything.

And then they're like, well, what we need to do is get Dexter to join us in the Magicians Association, right?

If he does that, then we can kind of take credit for his shit.

And then Maxwell goes, yes, yes, we could draw him in and then expose his trick.

And I'm like, you're a fucking magician.

Why the fuck would you do that?

What did he even mean by expose him isn't clear?

Expose that he's actually

or exposed that he's doing a magic trick to other magicians whose job it is to do magic tricks.

No.

I don't understand.

So okay, so meanwhile Lockett Lady is in the office talking with a different lady about how she was at the magic show and the guy told her she'd find her locket.

Think about this movie that includes this fucking scene wasn't long enough to make feature length so they had to add all this framing bullshit, right?

This movie that follows random fucking Lockett lady to work to go, look, no, no, she lost a locket though.

He was legit.

He was right.

She turns to her friend at this point and she goes, He said, Don't worry, you'll find it.

What do you think that means?

And I wrote in my notes,

What else could it be?

Diane,

this is why everyone in the office fucking hates you.

So, hey, we knew it was your birthday over this summer,

we skipped it on purpose.

So, meanwhile, Judas, I mean, Judy is introducing Dexter and Caleb to Robert Maxwell and Nicholas, the evil association guys.

And so, you know, because they want to get in and like to invite him to be part of their association, but also, you know, get into this theater and see if they can figure out how he's doing his fucking trick.

So they're like, you know, your act is pretty impressive.

And it's a variety show.

So he tries to throw the juggler a bone.

He's like, oh, well, you know, all of our performances are very good.

And they're like, no, not the fucking juggler.

We saw his finale.

He

fucking sucking.

He's a juggler.

He said that.

This is why Heath has to sit in the fucking middle, right?

So I'll beat you with a fucking pin.

I have clubs, torches, chainsaws.

I got a bowling ball.

What do you got?

Magician, you got to saw me in half?

Multiple pads.

Words that people can think of.

Real psychic powers I barely use.

And so, and Maxwell is like the first person and only person in this movie that acknowledges that his act is boring as shit.

Right?

He goes, so your act is,

it's just the same fucking trick twice, and you just do it over and over again, huh?

And he goes,

Yeah, people like it, though, when I do it over and over again.

And they're like, well, what we'd like you to do is come to our

Magicians Association has a monthly mixer, and we'd love it if you could attend.

And I'm like, wow, a room full of fucking magicians trying to, whoo, no,

I would rather swallow my own fucking tongue.

As someone who's given that invitation, you hear that a lot.

I will come to you.

According to the standard, it's a box you can check.

Is I'd rather swallow my tongue

than go to the magician.

So there's a and then they go to leave.

And of course, Dexter has to do his, like, his one more thing bit.

They turn back around and he says, Nicholas, you still haven't called your dad.

So, okay.

So now we're at the association dinner.

They're commiserating, or sorry, we're back at their office, their mahogany office, and they're commiserating about how badly they botched their spy mission.

They're like, Maxwell's going, we should let us go backstage so we could see the fucking trapdoors and shit.

They stand out front.

Like a backstage psychic machine.

I don't know what they thought was going to be some sort of physical room.

A coil hat with a big cone on it.

But Nicholas is like, guys, he's obviously a real psychic.

He's a real wizard.

And I'm like, if he was, why wouldn't he let you guys backstage?

Just a pile of Hugh Jackmans on the floor.

Like, I don't know what they.

What are you looking for?

Those aren't for the act.

Those are for sex.

Could be both.

It's how I keep the perfect Bob.

Hugh Jackman come.

So, So Maxwell.

Meanwhile,

meanwhile, we've got Maxwell sitting in the office.

Like, you've got to imagine like Eli, right, going, like, the guy's not a fucking psychic, which is, by the way, you have to tell magicians that all the time, I'm sure.

And then, so, oh, sorry, so they're in this diner at this point.

And this guy comes up, and they're like, oh, it's Howard.

Howard apparently is the wealthiest and most influential magic philanthropist

in the world.

Because they're like, oh my God, if he's more impressed with Dexter than us, we'll lose his donations.

Right?

So that's their motivation for taking Dexter to the world.

Is there a magnate of this is absolutely what happens?

So here's the thing: occasionally, you have a grown-up who's stupid enough to like magic, and that grown-up pays for magic every year.

And we all take turns having that grown-up pay us to do menu.

I have been like, I got Howard this year.

This movie's a documentary, is what I'm saying.

It's a documentary towards the darker parts of my life.

Sure.

And so,

meanwhile, outside the doodly-doo, they summarize the last scene, and the main association guy, he says, you know, well, you know, Dexter, and this is going to be a big part of the movie from this point on.

He's like, well, you know, Dexter never claimed that he had psychic powers.

Now, we haven't mentioned this up to this point, but the end of his act is him going, remember, I don't do magic.

I just read minds.

That's his fucking tagline.

Yes, he does say that he's usually Caleb.

You stood next to him and was like, He is a real mind reader.

It doesn't matter whether or not he says it or you say it.

Yeah, right.

If your hype man says it at your behest for a living, you say it.

I'm just picturing Uri Geller on the set of the late show just being like, Hello,

he has real psychic powers.

Don't get mad at me.

Let me touch the spoon.

Please let me touch the spoon.

This would be my number one YouTube result for so long.

Let me touch the spoon.

I'll bend them when you're not looking.

So, in case it's not clear, audience, Eli was doing a hand puppet the whole time, the audience listening at home.

The flawless Uri Gallery personnel.

Yeah, well, no, that was.

Yeah, it was.

So now, so, okay.

So now we have a scene.

And like, normally I wouldn't even talk about this scene, but this movie is so boring and pointless and stupid, there are no scenes that I can leave out of it.

Because then what would we fucking talk about, right?

Oh, well, this scene is useless.

Yeah, well, so, okay.

But there's a scene where Judy is telling Caleb stage manager stuff that doesn't factor into the movie in any way.

Like, it's like they're trying to set up a love interest between these two characters, but they'll never speak again.

So, again, I guess we're just padding runtime.

Meanwhile, we give Nicholas, we got Nicholas, he does a pump fake on calling his dad.

He almost enacts the inciting incident of the movie that will never matter.

Yes, right.

Now, this is the 1970s.

He calls the operator and asks for England.

Okay.

I,

as the cherub-faced youngin of our podcast, who's only 30

years old.

I believe we had phone numbers in the we did in 1974.

I believe they already had those.

You didn't have to call Mildred down at the switching posts.

I believe England was still all, they all had the one phone that they would take.

No, so I will say that I don't know about 1974, that's before my time, but as late as like the early 90s, making an international call was still, you know, you had to like

slay a dragon and present its tooth to Mildred and all that shit.

Yeah.

Mildred, get me England.

Yes.

The part where my dad is.

You know, my dad.

So, yeah, so, but while Mildred is getting England on the line, he says, no, I'm sorry.

I don't know what I was thinking.

It's still act two.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I can't do it.

So he hangs up.

And then we cut to Earth's worst party.

Okay.

This is the magnate guy, right?

The philanthropist, the guy who's going to be able to do it.

Yes, yeah.

Power.

Yeah.

Bruce Wayne or whatever.

He's got a mansion.

He's hosting like a wizarding gala for everybody.

You've been to these, aren't you?

You're nodding like you've been to a bunch of these.

100%.

That's how you got.

Yeah, I wrote my notes.

This is upsettingly accurate, except everyone is way too nicely dressed.

And no one's talking about losing their kids in a divorce.

Okay.

So apparently, there's like a mentalism industrial complex or something.

It's like serious.

When was the first

woman in all of magic?

It was sometime after.

1974, clearly.

Yeah.

Yeah, Yes, but way after 1974.

Way after 1974.

Our friend Rachel.

Yes.

All right.

Fair.

So, yeah, so, but as a Dexter shows up at this party, right, of all the magicians, and Howard comes up to him and says, you know, I find your trick to be the most impressive of all the magic tricks.

I would pay handsomely to know how it was done.

And as he's doing this, Maxwell, the chief instigator, the chief anti-dexter guy down at the association, comes by and starts talking a little magician shit.

Now, I want to point out that Maxwell in this movie wears a sports coat over a turtleneck because he's supposed to be a douchebag character.

Or a magician.

Well, no, no, no.

But that's

6-0-1.

So, but he's supposed to be this douchebag character, except Dexter, who's not supposed to be a douchebag character, is wearing a turtleneck with a sports coat.

And a vest, right?

Like, he out-douchebags.

Right, you have to pop a collar to be more of a douchebag than that, right?

But but Maxwell challenges Dexter to do his trick.

He's like, He's like, Well, if you don't use plants, I guess you could do your trick right now, couldn't you?

So the gauntlet is thrown down.

But Dexter says no at first, right?

At first, yes, right.

And then Maxwell's like, attention, everyone.

This guy uses plants, and it's all magicians at it.

They're like, Yeah, I use it.

Yeah, we all

look a lot of us use plants.

Max, have you not been using plants?

They're great.

You know, magic's really silly and stupid, right?

Max, do you want me to be your plant?

You just throw the ball to your plant.

That's nothing.

Then they throw it to another one, playing catch.

It's a game already, Max.

It's great.

Proves nothing to nobody.

Okay, but Dexter finally does take the chance.

Yes, yeah, right.

He goes, finally, he's he's like, get my pads.

Okay, that was one of my, I laughed so, because that's like, that's like for magicians, like, let's take this outside.

He was like, get me two normal pads of paper.

Here we go, over the top.

Let's do this.

He turns his shitty bob haircut around and gets in front of his face.

Here's my other question.

Did he prearrange that with Caleb?

Because Caleb was ready.

So when they were walking into the party, was he like, Caleb, in case someone challenges the authenticity of my psychic powers, I may ask you to fetch my props, like some kind of 1920s problematic relationship.

I have them ready.

Okay, you just pads, you're just the pads, right?

Do you mind wearing a Fez while we're going to go?

I will have a Fez.

Here, hold this land.

Got it.

Joe.

You had it upside down.

It spilled a lot of oil on me.

Ow from earlier.

It's okay.

It's the 70s.

So, okay, so they set up to do the exact same fucking trick, right?

And he's like, I'll use you, Maxwell, as my audience volunteer.

You write down a word.

So Maxwell writes down a word, very flourishing.

And then he says, now think of the word.

And he thinks of it and Dexter writes down his prediction, which isn't part of the trick.

But for purposes of this stupid reveal, it has to be, right?

So he writes it down, and then he says, So, what was your word, Maxwell?

And this is where Maxwell turns around his word, and it was strawberry.

And Dextra goes,

You wrote down one word and thought of another.

That doesn't fucking count.

No fair.

And this is where he does my best worst, where he goes, My word

was strawberry.

And I also have to point out that they do the yes, you did, know you back, an insane amount of time.

It's like six back and forth.

Genuinely, like a full solid 60 seconds where he's like, you didn't think of it.

Yes, I did.

I was.

Yes, I did.

Stop it.

I was thinking of it.

I love strawberry.

What?

It's nuts.

And also a position that every magician has been in.

You're also going to be Jewish in this metaphor later, just so you know.

I'm like the king of the Jews.

So, okay, so Dexter storms out.

He goes, you thought of the wrong word.

You're cheating.

And he storms out.

And then Nicholas runs up to Maximo.

He's like, why did you think of the wrong word?

You're such a bad person.

And he goes, didn't I?

You totally was thinking of strawberry.

It was my word the whole time.

But then, after he's walked out, they turned Dexter's fat over

and it says strawberry on it.

Okay.

So at this point, thank you.

Chug gesture in the front row.

What the fuck actually happened?

Yes.

Great.

He has real psychic powers.

He actually guessed the word.

He has a panic attack about him not thinking of the word, but he wrote down the right word or he changed the word to think that.

What was Dexter?

I think Dexter just wanted to leave this terrible party

of magicians.

All right.

And he found a way to storm out that made no sense, but he was like, grab the lantern.

We're out of here.

Yeah, he didn't know about my trick, which is, excuse me, I still have custody of my kids, so I've got got to go.

That'll get you out of any magician gathering pretty quick.

Okay, so now Maxwell's back at the association office apologizing to Robert for fucking the last scene up so bad.

And he's like, well, in my offense, like, everybody kept talking about how Dexter was awesome, and nobody was talking about how I was awesome, and I am awesome, so it's got a bullshit.

And they, this is where they bring up again, and they've talked about this throughout.

They say that, like, if Dexter has real psychic powers, it would be terrible for mentalists.

But that

isn't true.

No.

Wait.

Lots of Americans think psychic powers are real.

Yes.

The majority.

Usually why they hire magicians who pretend to be psychic.

Right, so that they can go, but do you think he really has powers?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Getting one right would be awesome.

It's pretty awesome.

Because you just get to be the magician and go, I'm like duck guy.

Yes.

You know how there's one of us that's real?

Now there's two.

Take my business card.

I printed it at Staples.

There is a great moment here where Maxwell says, he's doing

something.

And I'm like, yeah, no, we can all agree on that.

And then they say that they have to find a way to stop him.

He's becoming a problem for the association because real psychics would fuck up fake psychics.

So they have to find a way to stop him.

Hidden that.

It's as crazy as you think.

Do you guys think we should like persecute him or something?

We should persecute him.

Maybe we nail him to something.

We could nail him to something.

So, okay.

So, meanwhile, Judy is stage managing.

There's this great moment where, like, the writer needed to think of a thing that they might be talking about, you know, just something that the magician and stage manager might discuss before the show begins, but they can't because they're fucking idiots.

And so, he goes, I was thinking about maybe changing the show up a bit.

I could throw the ball further back so that it would be more random.

More random?

What if instead of having people think of a number from one to a hundred, I had them think of a number between 100 and 1,000?

200.

I have real psychic powers.

But then he's like, he's like, let me show you what I mean by throw further.

I've forgotten my magical hacky sack.

Judy, can you go back into the secret section?

Also, I severely injured myself last time.

I threw something.

Yes.

So she goes back to to get his magical hack.

He's like, but she sees a crumbled up piece of paper.

Yeah, might have some secrets.

But before we can talk about that, we have to check back in with Locket Lady.

I'm sure you guys were worried about Lockett Lady.

She found her locket.

Yeah.

She found her locket.

It was in her jewelry box.

So his magic trick is that women don't actually look the first place you told them to look.

Look how still the married men in the audience are right now.

I don't know what he's talking about.

That joke doesn't make any sense.

You're really good at looking for stuff you lost.

And then, so we're going to wrap up a bunch of these, right?

Because we check in on her.

She finds the locket.

We actually have her find the locket and then go to work and tell her friend, I found the locket.

Like, did we, we know.

We just saw another fucking scene.

You thought we were going to think that was a different locket that you were picking up in this scene?

Jesus fucking Christ.

Then we check in on Flower Lady, right?

She's sketching a sign for her flower shop still hasn't learned the word florist

and then we check in on boy guy who is at a party with blue balloons

yeah right so it's all coming together

so then we check back in with I wanted a gender reveal to start a fire for that guy

he stopped

So then we cut to Judy, who gasped, turns out that she was a spy for the association the whole time.

And the movie thinks we're we're going to be shocked.

Yeah, right, right.

You're so disappointed.

And so she brings the crumbled up piece of paper.

And she's like, look, he has a bunch of equations on this piece of paper.

So he's probably cheating.

He's probably using math to guess what their numbers are.

We see this thing for a second.

It's calculus.

Yes.

So the movie's being like, this is how he does it.

He finds the area under the curve.

Yes.

Right.

Integral.

Think to figure, to be psychic.

Think of the...

Look, eventually the average number people is going to guess is 50.

So I just say 50 every time.

I'm figuring it out.

1 to 100, you're eventually going to, you have to, everyone says 50.

Think about how.

The average would be 50.5.

It's fine.

It's fine.

Think about.

Nah, because nobody ever guesses one through nine.

Think about, though, how stupid your understanding of math would have to be to assume that somewhere out there there is an equation that would solve for guess a number.

Yeah.

Right?

You'd have to be the less talented Cristiano, brother.

Yes, exactly.

So, okay.

So now we get to Nicholas.

He's still trying to call his dad.

But this time, he gets through.

He goes all the way through it.

And look, I got to admit, even I at this point thought that the conversation with the dad would have any meaning whatsoever.

My friends, I kid you not.

It is 14 seconds of the most boring small talk you have ever heard.

He's like, hello, dad.

It's different time here than it is there.

Yeah.

How are you?

I'm all right.

I too am all right.

No, but Lick and

Yes, that's the thing.

This stupid fucking movie could not have even been bothered to come up with a conflict for them to resolve here.

They're just like, yeah, so

been a minute.

Bye.

That's the, like, we've, we've had like four scenes to set this up, right?

At least give us a like, I still think about what her body looked like that night.

Yes, right, yeah, something, yeah,

yeah, something with Errol Musk.

No, no.

All right.

Well, this movie's getting ahead of me in Resolving Act Three shit, so we're overdue for a break.

But first, let me give Act 3 and the stunningly bizarre fourth act, the hard sell.

Will this movie follow us out of the theater?

Will this movie painstakingly spell out its already transparent analogies at length?

Will this movie make you regret ever wondering for a fucking second if it belonged on god-awful movies?

Find out the answers to these questions and more when we return for the exciting conclusions of

Mind Reader.

Dexter, that was incredible.

Honestly, Caleb, it was nothing.

You can't tell me that was nothing.

You have real psychic powers.

Yeah.

I never said that.

You know what you have to do, don't you?

What?

You have to join a multi-show act.

Wait, what?

Yeah, people are going to love this.

Oh, I thought we would use the superpowers to like save lives and stuff.

Oh, I was just thinking we'd use it for like a magic show.

What?

Magic, you say?

Exactly.

Guys, guys, if Dexter has psychic powers, we should be using it for the greater good.

He could be finding missing people or solving crimes, preventing future terrorist attacks.

Yeah, I guess so.

Or I could guess the numbers someone thought of.

Now that's what I'm talking about.

Okay.

And we're back.

Thank you.

And we're going to rejoin the action back at the Association's Mahogany Office where Maxwell and Robert are plotting.

They're leaving Nick out at this point, right?

They know Nicholas is not on their side anymore.

He's a turncoat.

But they're setting up some kind of a sting operation now on Dexter.

Association ever done a sting operation.

We've actually done quite a few stings on BBO Yes.

Yeah, to pretend to be psychic.

Yeah, I guess so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, and elsewhere, Cindy, the flower flower lady, is she's she's getting some mail from the bank, which she's having sent to her at work.

They send you your loan acceptance, like a college acceptance letter.

We want to thank you for applying to HSBC Bank.

Yep.

And so, but she's like, I can't read it.

I need my friend to read it for me.

So she talks her friend into reading it for her.

But her friend still does a huge dramatic pause before the word approved.

Seems like a bit of a dick move.

But they do say approved, so she's going to be a flowerist after all.

This is a stupid bank, right?

Like, the bank needs a mentalist on stage.

Really?

Yeah.

Dexter, how's this going to go?

Writes down on a pad, bankruptcy.

Yeah, right, right.

And of course, at the end of the scene, she turns to her friend and she goes, the mind reader was right.

And I want to sort of point out he wasn't, though, because all he said was try again, right?

He didn't say the the bank is going to give you a fucking loan, you know?

So, okay.

So, meanwhile, back at the theater, Nicholas is having a one-on-one with Dexter.

He's come to see Dexter to tell him about the secret plans that Robert and Maxwell are drawing up against him, right?

He says, he says, first of all, I want you to know that yours is the greatest magic trick I've ever seen.

Of the apparently two that I've seen, I guess, because it's not very good.

At this point, I wrote in my notes, this is what Uri Geller thinks happened to him.

Right, because he goes, you know, they go after people who claim to have supernatural powers.

And Caleb says, but Dexter's never made such claims.

And we're like, but you have, Caleb.

Yeah, this is where Dexter says, saying it's a trick would take away from what our act is all about.

And I wrote, why would it do that?

That would be like saying Noah can only juggle because he dangles a baby out his bedroom window every morning.

Well, and so, and look, we're not supposed to tell people about that.

But

he goes, like, this is serious.

This is very serious.

It isn't.

It isn't serious at all.

He says, they don't play to lose.

And I wrote, yes, they do.

They're magicians.

He goes, they don't play to lose, nor do they plan to.

I'm like, okay, well, the last half is probably true, I guess.

Yeah.

He threatens, well, he threatens on behalf of the association.

Nicholas is like explaining to Dexter that they're going to shut down his real psychic show.

Yes.

And Caleb and Dexter are like, what is that?

No.

What does that mean?

Shut down our show.

And he's like, trust me, you don't want to know.

It was like a mob hit type of vibe to it.

Right.

They have ways.

And they're like, are you going to murder Dexter?

Yeah.

It was like the muggles you.

Yeah.

Like they were going to beat up the magical scab or something.

Yes, right, right.

So your mentalism troop would be amazing as like beating up magic.

Yeah, right, yeah.

So, okay, so then we cut to the meeting where they plan to expose Dexter once and for all, right?

We slowly, we pan across a bunch of dour magician faces until we land on this table up front where Maxwell and Robert and Nicholas are sitting in judgment.

Yeah.

They call themselves the governing board of magic.

And I wrote in my notes, oh yes, the governing board of magic and the official party of dance.

Yes, right.

Right.

Eli, can I ask you a question about the governing board?

When you start a meeting,

is there a

very silly, very small bell?

Yeah.

To begin the meeting?

We do the foof of fire and that's like.

Oh, yeah, there you go.

No, I wrote my notes.

I was like, Robert jingles the meeting to order.

So he's got his little bell.

He goes, dingle, digital,

and so he explains that this is the,

their job as the governing board of magic is to make sure that no magicians pretend to be real.

And I'm like, wow, you guys suck at your fucking jobs, don't you?

Somebody get the Pope, you know.

Not Pope Bob.

He goes, well, this is 1974.

Hey, write it down on the pad.

You thinking a hot dog?

Why not?

Pope Bob.

I probably covered up some rapes.

Don't get to like me.

So, yeah, so Dexter says, you know, I never said I used supernatural powers, which again, he did.

We know that he did.

We were watching the movie.

And they're like, it doesn't matter, you didn't say that you weren't using them, right?

Which fair, fair.

If you're out there doing a magic show, like, I mean, most magicians that I've seen will at some point remind you that what they're doing is a trick, right?

But Dexter, when he is told that he needs to start doing that, he goes, I've never seen a magician admit that they were doing tricks to their audience.

Have you ever seen a fucking magician?

Yeah.

Then?

And at most magic shows, that's just insultingly obvious, right?

Like the guy's gently putting his pet rabbit back in the cage, and he's like, do not fear the god that stands before you.

By the way, can I get a ride back to the train station?

I thought I scored an uncrustable, but it was just the rapper.

I'm really hurting.

Listeners, once again, Eli is calling back to stuff that happened while we weren't recording.

They brought me a rapper podcast listener.

That's so heartless.

That's so fucking heartless.

Did I hide it from myself because I kept looking down at my notes and seeing and being like, oh, a little treat.

No, goddamn it.

Okay, so

here's what clearly happened: is somebody in the audience thought, oh, you know what?

I'm going to bring Eli an uncrustable.

I know he loves him.

He's always talking about that.

And then, and then somewhere along the line, she was like, This uncrustable looks really fucking good.

good.

I don't think he's going to make it all the way to Eli.

And then she saw me without my shirt on.

She was like, he doesn't need another uncrustable.

He's pretty crustable right now.

He's got plenty of uncrustables up in his hotel room.

And you know what?

I do.

I have strawberry and grape.

Because your city, not very vegan-friendly.

As it turns out, yeah.

So, okay.

So, but then when he says, says, you know, I'm not going to tell my audience it's a trick because that'd fuck up my bit.

And they're like, well, it just so happens that we have this.

And they pull out his crumbled calculus notes.

Yeah.

And he says, I can see that there are a bunch of calculations here, which means you're doing some sort of math trick.

Tell us the truth, Dexter.

Does x equal negative b plus or minus square root?

Oh, do you got the rest of the quadratic?

B squared?

Minus

four A

all over to A.

Oh, God.

Oh, God.

Heath has never been more proud.

Wow.

We have reached the peak of Eli's intellectual existence.

It's all downhill from here.

So, okay.

okay, so he says it was your it was a math trick.

You're doing a math trick.

If you don't admit publicly that you're doing a math trick, we're going to publish these notes that suggest you're doing a math trick.

And Nicholas is like, you can't.

That

can't do political violence like that.

Absolutely not.

He goes, he goes, you have three days to decide whether we've won the movie or not.

And then Nicholas goes, those Those notes are meaningless.

I planted those so that your spy, Judy, could find them.

He knew all along because he's a fucking mind reader.

I mean, how are you going to spend your spy to a fucking mind reader?

I bet this lady will work for me for free for like a month if I occasionally drop a crumpled piece of paper.

Yes, it's a great way to get free labor, unless you're a religion.

I can't do Jehovah's Witness, so we'll do this.

I did enjoy Maxwell doing the like taunty hype man thing right yes yes

shows over Dexter what was great is he does a little the guy who's talking does a little side eye like a hey don't I'm doing the threatening so all right no I actually I was gonna use you're stepping on all my bass locks just go play abra cadabra bitch

Craig, can I talk to you over here?

Remember how I said I don't want you to hype me out of the city?

I do.

I remember when you said that.

I jumped out of panic.

I have to represent Jewish people as best I can in this movie.

I understand.

So I have to be very, very bad.

I have to be evil.

I got it.

Okay.

So

he explains the paper's meaningless.

And then he says, people want to be fooled into believing the supernatural.

And like says the Christian writer.

But then he says he says, the truth is, is that you don't care about the integrity of magic.

You don't care if I lie about being a psychic.

You're just mad because you can't figure out how my fucking trick is done.

And yeah, right.

When that's everybody's just like.

Eli, that part's accurate, right?

Like, you'd all go insane if somebody could do a trick you couldn't figure out.

Oh, my God.

Okay.

If you say that to another magician, that's like, I hope you lose custody of your kids.

But like, serious, because we do that all the time.

Yeah, right, right, no, because they actually had already lost.

I'm glad you lost.

No, we said that all the time.

Because that guy who did the drink trick, I was like, how do you do it?

And you started crying.

I did.

Because you couldn't tell me the answer.

There's a guy in New York who does a trick and none of us know how he does it.

And he doesn't cheat and it fucks us up real bad.

Okay.

I'm not kidding.

It's the thing that I genuinely, if you, you know, how you think about like the bad things that have happened to you, but nothing bad has ever happened to me except the uncrustable.

So I just,

I lie in my bed at night and I'm like, maybe there's a pouch underneath the table

which has all possible drinks in it.

No, stupid, stupid, stupid.

So, okay.

So he's like, but I don't care if you publish my trash.

And he goes to walk out.

But here's, like, honestly, maybe the funniest scene in the whole fucking movie is him trying to walk out of the, but the crowd of magicians doesn't move.

And they let it go on for so long.

So he's just kind of trying to angrily scooch.

Yeah.

You know?

Unwilling to shoulder check his way out of the room.

He's like, oh, I'll go and let.

Oh, I'm a psychic.

I should have known you were going left.

Stupid.

So he's like, he pushes his way through a while.

And then I shit you not.

Somebody yells, Dexter, and there's a gunshot.

He got shot.

They shoot him.

Maxwell turns around and he goes, more like Abra Cadaver, huh?

Huh?

Not the time.

I wanted so bad for the next cut to just be Dexter with like a bullet in his teeth.

Turns it around, it has strawberry written on it.

So, okay.

So then, so outside the doodle-y-doo, Caleb weeps for Dexter's memory.

You know, he says, yeah, you know, I sure will miss my old friend Dexter.

And they're like, wow, that was a pretty incredible story.

And we're like, eh,

seem better.

Maybe both Cristiano brothers got together.

Maybe it would be a great idea.

Did you keep all the inserts where people later confirmed that the things he said on stage were true?

Okay, good.

So he says, I'll tell you what, gentlemen, wait for me in the front yard before you leave.

There's something I want to give you for your museum.

So we cut outside, they're waiting for him.

He comes out and he's like, here are one of the pads of paper that Dexter used for his magic trick.

Yes, they're ordinary fucking pads of paper.

That's the whole thing.

It's just a regular fucking pad of paper.

I thought like a gun was going to pop out and shoot the individual.

Yes, that's something.

Come on.

I stole this one from the Hyatt for him.

So,

so yeah, he's like, I want you to examine this notepad to see that there's nothing, no trick about it.

And they're like, Well, we don't know for sure.

It's one of the ones he fucking used.

You're not going to do the fucking trick, so why would we bother with this shit, right?

And to be clear, there's no payoff to this, right?

No, I thought he was going to be like, now think of a word.

And then he does the trick.

Nope, he's just like, all right, you have that now.

So,

so he goes to like the scene over.

Yeah, right.

He goes, he goes, nobody else ever did an act like Dexter's.

And I'm like, they did, though.

I've seen Eli do this.

I did this act.

Me doing this act is on YouTube.

Yes.

Right.

And then he goes to leave.

And the reporter guy who doesn't know which direction his Zoom recorder faces in.

He says, one last question before you go.

I did not stick my finger in the bullet hole.

What?

It's what were you going to actually say?

It was not my finger.

It's going to turn out to be a Jesus thing and it's extra fun.

So, okay.

So, he's just going to say, just one more thing.

How did he do the trick?

Well, Lee, come on.

Give you a fucking break.

And he goes, I'll tell you what.

I'll tell you three things.

One answer will be true.

The other two will be false.

Okay.

Can I just say that the sentence Noah said was so much more clear than what is actually said?

Yes.

Noah couldn't help but write a better sentence.

Right.

He's actually like, I'm going to answer your question in a multiple-choice question.

What?

Fuck.

A.

Yeah,

I want to point out he's wrong.

He's lying.

Because he goes,

How did you do the trick?

A, very well.

The shittiest magic answer in the world.

B,

he really could read minds.

Or C,

both of the above.

Now, I want to point out the parameters were that two of these were wrong.

Right?

That was the setup.

Yes, think about this shit.

Man, you need the other Cristiano, brother.

You really do, to bounce shit off up.

I wanted the reporters to be like, oh, so you mean he did it very well?

And he's like, no, I meant

that he was psychic but bad at it.

Oh, fuck.

Secret answer.

Secret answer D.

We hadn't really locked up the formula for the show

when we agreed we were doing tons at the end.

And then he goes.

He goes,

just believe, gentlemen.

Humble yourselves and believe.

Now, at this point, I wrote in my notes, see, it's a Christian movie after all.

because I was still worried.

But then the credits run, and a lot of you are probably sitting there thinking, the ones of you who haven't seen the movie, the listeners at home who haven't seen the movie, are thinking to themselves, well, this is going to be a really short episode.

Why is there so much run time left in the podcast?

It's mostly me crying about the uncrustable I didn't get.

Okay, yeah, mostly.

Well, yeah, no, that too.

But as the credits roll, people get up and leave the movie.

And we follow them out of the theater

like there was genuinely a moment where I was like this movie is not gonna end until Rich Cristiano walks into this theater and challenges us to a fucking fist fight

ladies and gentlemen

everybody wish really hard

with Christ all things are possible Fuck Rich come out of here there's no Christ

all right well we put disproven all in some problem.

Okay.

I just want to say I feel like we could score a Cristiano.

Yeah, but not Rich.

I have the cameo funds necessary.

So, okay.

So, okay, so we follow these four friends out of the movie theater.

And what's amazing here is that now we've got Rich Cristiano writing dialogue for his characters about what a great movie he's writing.

Right?

Because they're walking out and they're going like, wow, that was a really good movie.

One guy goes, oh man, that part where he predicted it was the four of clubs.

Whoa,

that's the actual line.

I'm like,

Wow, I really thought he was gonna get that wrong in the movie.

Do you remember then the movie when the things happened in the movie?

Yeah,

here's my question: because we're about to get into it.

Do we think this section of the movie was caused by a test screening?

Yes, yeah, I think he screened this for his audience, and they were like, I don't get it

how come there wasn't no jesus in it how come how'd he do it i told you there's a parable at the beginning i think i wrote it down on my pad that you gave me when i came in here with the bag of chips you gave me for lunch i think it would be better if the movie was explained in the movie yeah so okay so okay so now so so i wrote strawberry

so as they're walking out the one friend there's there's this kid Danny, who's paid for the other friends to go to the movie, right?

So they're like, Danny, thank you so much for buying the tickets.

He's like, yeah, guys, I thought maybe we could talk about some of the things.

Okay, nuts, Jack.

All right, see ya.

It's the best.

The Cristiano brother wrote this.

His characters that he wrote, one of them's Christian.

He's like, I got you guys those movie tickets.

How fun was that?

Anyway, I want to talk to you for a second.

They're just like, fuck you.

We're out.

We're out.

It's the best.

It's awesome.

Even a Christiano brother can't pretend that anyone gives a shit about a Christiano brother movie.

God is dead.

See you, Danny.

Fucking awesome.

Yeah, they all leave.

I write in my notes, how the fuck are there 15 minutes left in this movie?

And then we cut over to Danny's dorm room where he's commiserating with his buddy about how he didn't manage to tell him about all the Jesus stuff in the movie.

Right?

He's like, yeah, man, I really blew it.

And his buddy goes, well, maybe you'll get another chance.

There is a bizarre amount of movie left so

and then we just sort of follow Danny around in his day at college very sad wanted him to have like a big whiteboard where he's like make a movie where there's a movie in a movie and then I explain that movie after they go to that movie but in the movie I'm in the movie explaining the first movie That's you're just reading the script.

No, that's no fair.

So yeah, so so then he gets a text from his buddies that he went to the movies with, and he's like, they're like, hey, man, we need to meet you at the library after school.

We want to talk about something very important.

What do college guys talk about when they get together?

Jesus.

Wait, wait, we can't go to the scene where they get there yet because he noticed one of the most amazing things in the history of film.

Oh.

Okay.

So he's sitting there in his math class.

First of all, we see his phone for a second.

He's down to 58% and it's like 2 p.m.

So that's just him.

Like, this is why we lost the election.

This is why right here.

But we also...

We also see.

We also see.

I got to check on Zing Zing the monkey.

She needs me.

Yeah.

Yep.

So that's why we lost the election.

TikTok, for sure.

Also, we see his math notes for a second.

He's got a notebook.

He's at a university.

He has a notebook for a university math class.

And it has PEMDAS on it.

It does.

I saw that in Jane Heath's notes and I had to go back and look.

It does.

P-E-M-D-A-S.

That's the order of operations for arithmetic.

At his college.

In his university math class.

Please excuse my dear aunt Sally

in his university math class.

Cuts up to the board as It's just that Facebook meme.

99% of people will get this wrong.

Albert Einstein.

We lost the election.

So then, so, okay, so now he's got the text.

He goes to meet with his dismissive friends.

And it turns out they don't want to talk to him about Jesus at all.

They only wanted to talk to him about the name for their intramural basketball team.

Darn it.

Right.

So Danny, the serious serious Christian here, he's like, all right,

I thought you were going to want to talk about Christianity.

I'm going to take off.

And you see the rest of them be like,

guys,

he's like crying already.

Danny, wait,

was there maybe like a parable from the movie?

Yes, it was a parable.

The movie was parable.

So the pads are the word of God.

What?

He goes, yeah, so he goes, he goes, because the question they ask, they're like, hey, amen.

At the beginning of that movie, there was like a Bible quote.

What was that all about?

Right?

And he goes, oh, yeah, no, it was the part about Jesus talking in parables.

And they're like, why wouldn't Jesus just say what he fucking meant?

And

his answer is, to punish you for not believing.

Yes.

Jesus is kind of like butt stuff, right?

In the parable?

Like, yeah, okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let him cook.

Yeah, let me cook.

I will stick the landing here.

Okay.

It's very important when you're doing butt stuff.

Okay.

You stick the landing.

What I'm saying is, I've got, yes, yes, it is.

Good point, Noah.

I'm saying,

Jesus doesn't move.

You move

to Jesus.

It seems like a bit of a stretch, but hey, it's butt stuff.

It's always a bit of a stretch, you know.

Not always, not always.

And it's the only way to the father.

I like that we ended on a holy joke.

That's great.

So

he's like, no, don't you guys understand the movie was supposed to be a parable.

And they're like, was it?

Because like, we're sitting here explaining the whole fucking thing right now.

So

I don't know that it is.

and then he goes full ray comfort yeah are you think you're a good person yeah yeah he has this great moment where he's like guys why would Jesus have to die on the cross if being a good person was enough and I was like oh you're so close you're so close yes oh

indeed why

So and then he starts spelling everything out.

This writer is such a chicken shit.

He goes, no, guys, look, judy was judas and nicholas was nicodemus and the and the pads were the word of god and they're like what and remember the anti-semitic guys they were jews yes yes he even says yeah he's like and those guys were the

you know they were trying to kill jesus

and then friend three goes like what's It's fucking dumb, man.

This movie is dumb.

We're in a dumb movie.

And then

two of the three friends, well, he goes, you know, they're like, you know, wouldn't it make more sense if Jesus just explained what he meant?

And they're like, no, no, it wouldn't.

There's like, are you sure?

Because like, otherwise you burn in hell for eternity if you don't get it.

I feel like that's one of those situations where you want to be super direct about things.

Is this where they do the...

we know what the alternative is conversation?

Yeah.

He goes, well, you know what the alternative is.

And they both do like a knowing nod because they don't want to, in their movie about magic tricks be like and then the rape demons they just but you don't remember it so it's the worst it's ever been because it's new every time

what were you guys thinking we would name our intermariner basketball team

yeah but the one guy goes like but come on man i'm a good person i should get into heaven he's like no no according to my religion that's not even relevant not only it's not not just insufficiency it's irrelevant that you're a good person and i'm like hmm do you do you hear it though now?

They don't.

So two of the friends get up and walk off.

They're like, I'm sick of your Christian bullshit.

So they get up, they walk off.

And the third Christian, Logan, sticks around because he wants to hear a little bit more of this Jesus stuff.

He represents Wolverine from the Bible, I guess.

Yes, clearly.

I'm the best at what I choose.

He goes, but shouldn't we all get to heaven if Christ died for all of our sins?

He didn't die for just some of our sins.

He's like, no, it turns out he did.

It was kind of a dick move, but you still have to say the magic words.

And he says, well, okay, well, what does the Bible have to say about all of this?

Because that's the next logical question, right?

And he goes, check out John 14, 6.

And I'm like, well, weird that it would just be the one sentence that you'd want him to check out.

You'd think it'd be a whole chapter or something, but no.

He says like well, I don't know if I want to.

And Danny goes, look, we're talking about eternity here or bullshit.

It's it's one of those two things that we're talking about

and so we have a we have a oh so sorry so and then he goes hey do you remember when caleb said in the movie that you should humble yourself and just believe and we're like yeah it was seven fucking minutes ago man yeah we remember it in the context of the movie it was fucking bizarre

made no sense So, okay, so then he leaves.

Now we've got Logan back in his dorm room thinking about Christianity, maybe picking up the the Bible and thinking about it, but not really being sure yet.

Were you guys worried we were going to pull out into a different movie?

I was afraid it was going to pan out and people were going to be leaving this movie.

I don't know why Logan didn't listen to his super smart friend.

Maybe he should have made better arguments.

Anyways, here we are in our Alaskan research station.

Everyone remember, PEM DAS.

One of the most important parts of Alaskan research, tablets.

Paragraph electoral temines.

You got it.

The movie jumped up its own PEMDAS.

Yes.

All right.

So then, so now we're going to follow Loken around, right?

We followed Danny around.

Now we're going to follow Loken around for a little while.

He's at work at the coffee shop.

Still a fucking movie.

And

he looks over in the restaurant and he sees somebody who looks just like

Dexter from the movie

yeah who is Jesus in the movie Dexter Christ is there and you you watch Dexter Christ the actor right so like this would be an actor according to the

right swoosh worry that's the thing

that even in the movie that guy exists as an actor as an actor so you watch this actor be like this weird Christian breast is gonna ask me if I'm Jesus Christ right

I got to get out of here.

And he walks out.

Yeah.

Knowing he was an actor in a Christiano film, I expected him to go up to the counter and be like, are you guys taking applications?

Yeah, right, right.

Dave Cristiano paid me $200 in membership at his church.

Yes.

Turns out that was free anyway.

So, okay, so now we cut to Logan.

He's studying the Bible hard because he saw that actor in his coffee shop.

So then he reads something in the Bible and he decides to go talk to his other non-Christian friends from before, right?

And so he asked them, he's like, hey guys, what if Danny's right?

Now, here's the honest to God

interaction that happens within this film.

He goes, what if Danny's right?

And the other guy goes, well, what if Danny's wrong?

And he goes, yeah, but what if Danny's right?

And the other guy goes, no, that's a good point.

Okay, to be clear, if I was in a conversation that idiotic, that is exactly what I would do.

Okay, I said, but what if you're wrong?

And they said, but what if I'm right?

I'd be like, great point, man.

Guess you should leave.

I've got some praying to do.

Dear Allah.

Yeah.

It's neither here nor there.

Yeah, no, but they go back and forth exactly three times.

And the movie chooses, of course, the movie p-hacks this argument.

The movie p-hacks like, what if he's right?

But what if he's wrong?

But what if he's right?

Oh, damn it.

Jesus.

Odd numbers win these games.

That's what the P and Pem dance is for.

Yes.

So the one one friend goes, like, don't take religion too seriously.

And Logan goes, well, Danny takes it pretty seriously.

And we're like, yeah, and he's a prick, right?

He's an annoying prick.

And we won't even go to a movie with him if he doesn't pay for all of our tickets, right?

But Logan thinks they should all be more Christian.

So he goes back to study his Bible.

He reads the John 14, whatever, chapter, which is that's the Jesus was the way and the truth and the life.

verse, which I want to point out is entirely meaningless, out of context, and translates to Christianity is the right religion, though.

That's all it means.

But that's enough for Logan.

He prays, and then he sends Danny a text that says, I just prayed to Jesus.

And then we see a big stupid grin from Danny.

Credits for Reels this time.

This is a Christiano fantasy right here.

It's so beautiful because it's like, and then my friend from college, who is real,

texted me back.

End of movie.

I have won.

It's the best.

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

And that is genuinely it.

There's not another credits that we walk out of after that.

At least I don't think so.

Yeah.

See, I turned it off before the credits were over.

It might still be going.

I don't know.

All right.

Well, that's going to do it for a review of Mind Reader and possibly for Eli's love of stage magic, but that's not going to do it for the episode just yet.

Because people get really mad when we leave the what's on deck portion out of the live shows, regardless of how awkward it is to do on stage.

So, Eli, what's on deck?

Stranded in rural Alabama, two couples are faced with a maniacal killer and a deadly ultimatum while sheltering in a home that itself harbors evil.

We'll be kicking off our Halloween spooktacular with

house.

Okay,

not

awesome.

Not the good house, not the one with norm, but

a different house.

We'll have Tim specify on Facebook which one.

All right, well that's going to do it for the episode.

Before we go, I need to thank Tim Robertson for all the work that he did organizing things for us.

He always does an amazing job.

We need to thank Ann Perkins for all the work that she's been doing helping out with merch.

And Perkins.

She's also the reason that I added Dr.

Bever, we need to thank the lovely and talented Lucind Illusions over here.

We need to thank the magical Dave who manages to make feedback go away just by walking near it.

Thank you so much for making us sound good today.

Yes.

We need to thank everybody at the Crown Plaza, especially Caitlin, who is amazing.

She's the one that did all the organizing for us.

She's not in the room, but I want her to know that we thought she was awesome as well.

And on that note, we'll leave you with the American graffiti clothes.

Caleb put on his best waterproof mascara and tearfully announced, Maxwell,

I forgive you for shooting.

Eventually, the association guys realize they should have asked for the fucking pens.

Dexter now tries to get attention by telling the New York Post he knew 9-11 was going to happen.

It doesn't work.

Thank you, New Orleans.

Thank you.

I got so excited when I saw this Uncrustables wrapper and then it was empty.

I regret my whole career.

That is heartbreaking.

Rock stars get panties.

I get empty Uncrustable wrappers

and my own panties.

made a terrible mistake here on my 30 birthday that was yesterday while we wait for other people to come in can I tell you a story that's a little too boring for the podcast but is actually kind of sweet

I was telling this to Heath backstage

so I have a friend who's a magician and the way he sort of built his career is going on tour in England.

And so he was on tour once and he was doing like a full week of shows in this little town in England.

And he noticed that a lady had left an earring in the theater.

And he uses cameras and in his act, so he used the cameras to see which lady lost the earring.

And then he looked at the ticket booth to see when she bought her ticket and went through the times and saw who it was.

Then he used her email to look her up and found her address.

And he sent his wife to this woman's apartment.

And his wife knocked on her door and was like, hi, my mom lives below you.

We're getting a leak.

Can I check and see if the leak is coming from your apartment?

And then she hid the earring in the woman's bathroom behind the mirror.

And then he had a radio appearance that day.

And on the radio, he was like, I'm getting a woman named Karen.

She's lost an earring.

It's behind the bathroom mirror if you find in.

And the best part about that story is that he never heard anything.

So she probably just wasn't listening to the radio and he stole that lady's lady's ear and lost her fucking earring best case scenario she was like oh fuck it was behind the mirror that's weird

secrets of magic revealed

thank you so much so real quick before then we we don't actually do the sketches and stuff on the live show sorry uh we don't actually leave during the breaks though which is nice um

but this uh particular live show just happened to fall on a very awesome day which is right between the birthday of one Eli Bosnik

who celebrated his something or another birthday 38th, 39th?

38th.

The birthday yesterday.

And the lovely.

Sure.

The one I'm looking forward to is the last one.

Okay, all right.

But that birthday was yesterday, and tomorrow is the birthday of my lovely wife, Lucinda, who's right back here.

So, we're apparently going to pin a dollar on her shirt tomorrow and walk her around town and try to make some money.

I would just like to point out that the difference between your birthday claps for me and the birthday claps for Lucinda.

Well, the birthday clap for you was like there was a surprise in it, right?

You know, that was my note, just so you're all wondering.

You know, when they bring out an athlete who got hurt real bad and now he doesn't play anymore, that's how you birthday clap for me.

Here he is, everybody.

Tyson Diggs.

How are you doing, bud?

All right.

It's only because I said her last.

All right.

And you didn't know the number, to be fair.

It was like, oh, buddy.

And then he didn't know the number.

It got worse.

All right.

And I wasn't even going to try saying the number for Lucinda.

She's turning 29 again.

21, everybody.

Yes.

All right.

Let's buy her first beer.

What do you say?

Yeah.

All right, since you're

since everybody's clapping and laughing anyway, we'll come back.

All right, well, if guy who wants a boy and flower lady are going to factor.

Sorry, one more time.

Morgan, make it sound like I didn't say this.

Keep it in, Morgan.

Keep it in.

Well, right now, while you think about it.

Keep my cool Bitcoin story.

Keep it, Morgan.

All right.

So apparently this guy is so good.

Our audio guy is so good.

He can just walk by the fucking speakers and they know better than to keep squealing.

Thank you.

Thank you so much

Hold on.

Are you a psychic?

This is how he uses his power.

How the fuck did your mom take Tylenol when she was pregnant?

That was awesome.

That was pretty good.

See what you get for coming to the live show?

Yeah.

All sorts of fun shenanigans.

Yeah, everybody else will have to wait till the outtakes to hear that part.

This content is can-credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm at their hotline at 617-249-4255 or on their website at creatoraccountability network.org.

The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle in the Thunderstorm LLC, Copyright 2025, all rights reserved.

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