Wrath of Pod

God’s call-in radio show pivots to cooking tips this episode, revealing his preferences for hooves, cud, fins, scales, and grasshoppers. Then God shows his germophobic side, laying down some rules about how to handle sores on your beard or when your bedsheets get icky – and the makeup department’s work on all of the diseased extras is not for the faint of heart! Aaron presides over a special ceremony that will remove all of the uncleanliness and sin from the community by gambling on a pair of goats. God also gives strict warnings against touching lizards, fortune-telling, and raving at a demon’s club. (Leviticus chapters 11 to 20)

Season 3 opens with God at the mic of his new call-in radio show, where he solves all of your sin-related problems. Accidentally overheard an oath? Sacrifice an animal! Touched something unclean? Sacrifice an animal! Trespassed on your neighbor’s field? You guessed it — sacrifice an animal! The priests get to eat all of the burned-up leftovers from these sacrifices, which works out fine until two of Aaron’s sons make God angry with their off-brand offering and become burned-up leftovers themselves. (Leviticus chapters 1 to 10)

Marcus and Deanna review all of Season 2: Exodus! They discuss God’s introverted tendencies, spread rumors about a schism on the writing team, reimagine the tabernacle, speculate on the similarities between Moses and a honey badger, and try to settle the issue of what’s up with Aaron’s leadership style once and for all. Plus, of course, find out the winner of the season-wide Weirdest Name competition!

Season 2 finale! The Israelites, led by head artisans Bedazzle and Fancy Drapery Care Bear, follow God’s divine Ikea instructions to finally build the tabernacle. Moses oversees the process under his veil while Aaron disappears into the background whenever God comes around. When the tabernacle is complete, God descends in a cloud, partly for dramatic effect but mostly to hide that he’s still in his pajamas. Whenever God isn’t clouding up the place, the Israelites break down the tabernacle and start plodding towards Canaan. (Exodus 35:1-40:38)

God (finally!) wraps up his long-winded presentation on top of Mount Sinai. Meanwhile, spurred on by the forceful head of the Hebrew Complaint Brigade and some short-term memory loss, the people demand that Aaron make a weird-looking statue of a baby animal for them to worship. Moses literally breaks up their party and administers some hardcore punishment, which is followed by a plague from God and a massacre by the jeans-clad tribe of Levi. Moses then leaves the disgusting ruins of the camp to attempt to coax God out of the closet. (Exodus 30:11-34:35)

God continues his very detail-oriented corporate keynote presentation to Moses. To add insult to injury, God names Moses’s brother, Aaron, as the first high priest. For this new role, Aaron will need some fancy linen underwear, a bejeweled Breastplate of Judgment, and enough bells to break his bird-hunting habit for good. Moses commiserates with Zipporah over text and discovers a shocking secret in God’s medicine cabinet. (Exodus 27:20-30:10)

God does his best Steve Jobs impression with a keynote presentation about building the world’s gaudiest tablet case. After coercing the Israelites into contributing to his Kickstarter, God specifies the materials and dimensions for a tabernacle, made of badger skins, show bread, and lots and lots of gold. While Moses takes diligent notes in God’s living room, Aaron adopts a cool hip-hop name and tries to consolidate his power. (Exodus 25:1-27:19)

Emboldened by his bestselling ‘top ten laws’, God tries his hand at creating some lesser ones. Peering down from his cloud at the top of Mount Sinai, God watches while the newly freed Israelites let loose at the First Annual Mount Sinai Music Festival. But they’ll need to sober up and follow all these new rules if they want to avoid a smiting or occasional sword stabbing. Thank goodness that God is going to give Moses two new tablets so he can download all this new content from the cloud. (Exodus 21:1-24:18)

Moses is suffering under the heavy demands of his job: sitting in judgment over every petty disagreement the Hebrews can come up with, and dealing with an ace prosecutor to boot. His father-in-law Jethro suggests he avoid burn-out by starting a sprawling bureaucratic pyramid scheme and taking only the biggest cases. God steps in to help further by staging an eardrum-splitting concert at Mount Sinai, complete with pyrotechnics and smoke machines. God then announces ten very important rules that the people should follow (most of which are about him), and some less important rules about abstract art and how not to build altars. (Exodus 18:1-20:26)

God loads up Google Maps and directs the Israelites towards Canaan via the Red Sea, which he divides in two with the mother of all sneezes. Pharaoh pops back up for one final scare before disappearing beneath the waves, along with his 600 pimped-out chariots. Although the Israelites couldn’t pack any desert hiking essentials, they did remember the tambourines for a big dance number. When the food and water run out, the Hebrew Complaint Brigade insists on talking to Moses’s manager. God temporarily solves the problem by carving some life straws out of a tree, throwing dinner rolls at people, and attempting to cook quail. We wrap up the episode with an epic but stinky battle with the Amalekites. (Exodus 13:17-17:16)

The plagues continue with swarms of monstrous bugs, things that go bump in the night, and straight up murder. Moses stars in ten seconds of an awesome action movie before it’s back to the now-familiar pattern of death, destruction, and Pharaoh’s clogged arteries. The Hebrews finally get to leave Egypt, much to the delight of the tiny number of surviving Egyptians, and they take all the booty they can find on their way out. We wrap up by spending more time with a character so irredeemably evil and bloodthirsty that he makes Sauron look like an amateur: no, it’s not Pharaoh, it’s God! At least he has a delicious recipe for lamb served with flatbread and some tips for decorating your house to have the best Halloween ever. (Exodus 10:1-13:16)

After God fails to boost workplace morale, he attempts to use Moses to free the Hebrews from slavery while giving Pharaoh a case of heart disease. Seven disgusting plagues and one classic arcade game later, Pharaoh’s arteries are hard as rocks, but the Hebrews are still enslaved. But forget about God’s rookie negotiating mistakes – you’ve never before seen such beautiful shots of dead fish, dead frogs, and dead cattle in a TV show! (Exodus 6:2-9:35)

We open Season 2 with a Pharaoh who takes a Thanos-like approach to solving overpopulation by killing all of the male Hebrew babies. One lucky tot rides the rapids in a mini-ark instead and is adopted by the princess, who names him Moses. Moses steps away from his privileged upbringing to embrace a more Batman lifestyle, and then has to get the hell out of Dodge before the authorities arrest him for murder. He settles down in Midian for a quiet life until God video chats him via Burning Bush to recruit him for his buddy cop movie. After a lot of pushback, Moses finally agrees to go on tour with God’s magic tricks, prompting Pharaoh to double down on the oppression. Tune in next week to see if God will make good on his Rube-Goldberg-like plan to free the Hebrews! (Exodus 1:1-6:1)

Marcus and Deanna review Season 1: Genesis. Is a shadowy figure secretly pulling God’s strings from behind the scenes? What’s the best use for the ark now that shooting is done? What counts as a blessing anyway? Tune in for the answers to all of these questions and more, plus the winners of the season-wide Weirdest Name competition!

Season finale! Jacob comes down with an acute case of “I’m gonna die soon” and gathers his sons for one last chance to complain about that time Reuben had sex with Jacob’s concubine. Jacob also attempts to bless Joseph’s sons but Joseph comes out of left field with an obsession about using the “right” hand. Asher appears destined to run a world class bakery, and Simeon and Levi reminisce about peaking in high school. After Jacob is mummified, wrestling legend The Undertaker literally crashes the funeral and God once again makes the eulogy all about him. Egypt closes for 70 days while all the civil servants bring Jacob’s body to the family mausoleum in Canaan, and the resulting backup in paperwork nearly destroys the economy. Joseph’s brothers fear that without Daddy around, Joseph will go back to his vengeful ways. But Joseph forgives and forgets before he too dies, is mummified, and presumably prepares for a Season 2 return as a zombie. (Genesis 47:28-50:26)

Joseph pulls the plug on his revenge plans after his brothers turn their groveling up to 11. Joseph removes his glasses in a Clark-Kent-to-Superman-style striptease, but his brothers don’t believe it’s him until Benjamin confirms the match with his cool sci-fi de-cloaking device. Following this tearful reunion, the brothers try to convince their dad that meeting Joseph in Egypt isn’t just some online scam. Jacob’s convinced to make the trip after God stars in a fast-talking radio commercial. Pharaoh offers them the best of Egypt even though their chosen profession is apparently a moral affront to all right-thinking Egyptians. The episode ends with the Egyptian government backsliding into a form of capitalism that makes The Wolf of Wall Street look tame. (Genesis 44:18-47:27)

When Pharaoh’s sleep is disrupted by terrifying dreams of vampire cows, he springs world-renowned Dream Reader Joseph from jail. Joseph concludes that seven years of famine can be prevented by opening a brewery and setting up a strong social security system. Delighted by this news, Pharaoh makes Joseph his right-hand man and supermarket manager. Joseph’s brothers come by for their weekly grocery shop and are fooled by his Groucho Marx glasses. Joseph trolls them further by demanding they bring him their remaining brother, Benjamin. After a lavish meal, Joseph frames them for the theft of his favorite goblet. Has Joseph’s revenge gone too far? God’s taking the week off, so we get to be the judge! (Genesis 41:1-44:17)

Joseph is out and proud with a fancy coat from his adoring father. Between that and his obsession with reading his dream journal out loud, the rest of his brothers have had enough and sell him into slavery. Judah has three sons, all of whom he aims to marry to Tamar, since she makes the best Thanksgiving casserole that anyone has ever tasted. Unfortunately, God keeps smiting the sons for infractions ranging from securities fraud to using the withdrawal method. When Tamar learns that Judah won’t honor his promise of marriage to the last son, she goes to Victoria’s Secret and gets his goat in more ways than one! Meanwhile, Joseph is thrown in an Egyptian jail for saying “no” to Mrs. Robinson. (Genesis 37:1–40:23)

Jacob freaks out about seeing Esau again and immediately ranks his household by their human-shield potential. God overdoes his attempts to lift Jacob’s spirits by staging an all-night wrestling match. Several dozen clotheslines later, Jacob is left with a broken hip and new name, Israel. Luckily for The Artist Formerly Known As Jacob, Esau turns out to be chill, and brotherly love prevails. Unluckily, his only daughter, Dina, catches the eye of a douchebag rapist. Dina’s brothers insist that the price for her hand in marriage is one metric ton of foreskin. After Circumcision Day comes Judgment Day, as the brothers get medieval on every man in the city, who are too busy holding ice to their groins to defend themselves. We wrap up with a Sesame Street special where Esau demonstrates the power of genetic inheritance. (​​Genesis 32:4-36:43)

On his way to Haran, Jacob uses a random stone as a pillow and has trippy dreams with distinct Led Zeppelin vibes. Speaking of stones, Jacob lifts a huge one with just his erection and then signs a seven-year employment contract in exchange for marrying the boss’s daughter, Rachel. Unfortunately, her father Laban enforces a strict “first-out-of-womb, first-into-wedlock” rule by tagging in Rachel’s crazy-eyed older sister Leah on the wedding night. Laban then insists that Jacob’s employment benefit of marrying Rachel needs another seven more years to vest. After fathering twelve children with four different women, Jacob gets revenge by painting his father-in-law’s goats, and Rachel scoops all the family heirlooms into a duffel bag on her way out the door. Just before fists are thrown, a stoned God drops by to mellow everyone out, man. (Genesis 28:10-32:3)