Original air date: 7/26/2000
Cartman and the boys start their own church against the wishes of their parents. Meanwhile, Satan must choose between two of his lovers.
Tropes:
- An Aesop:
- People who try to scare you with the threat of hell often have ulterior motives.
- Don't live in fear of hell, you should spend your life helping other people and having a happy life.
- You aren't obligated to be in a relationship with anybody. You can be happy just fine all on your own.
- The Alleged House: The church the children built is a messy construct of random building materials that barely holds together. Various parts can be seen falling off in some scenes, Timmy falls through the floor at one point, and a parent is killed by a hunk of wood falling on him.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Chris is kind and submissive to a fault, but after one too many assassinations by Saddam, he fights back and gets in a few kills of his own.
- Big "NO!": Saddam over being stuck in Heaven with the Mormons.
- Brutal Honesty: Hearing Satan's whole story, God remarks he's being "a whiny, little bitch" with an unhealthy dependency on relationships. Satan realizes he's exactly right.
- Compound Title: Combined with the previous episode.
- Continuity Nod: When Cartman reveals his true plan to Stan and Kyle, he cites "the tooth fairy thing" and "the boy band thing" not working out as his motivation.
- Continuity Snarl: At the same time, he never mentioned getting 10 million dollars in the former, they really wanted a Sega Dreamcast
- Cool and Unusual Punishment:
- Jesus intends to send Cartman away so he can think about his sins.
- Since Saddam won't leave him alone, Satan calls in a favor from God to get him admitted into Heaven. For a guy who enjoyed being cruel and in Hell, being stuck with excessively polite people is quite the punishment.
- Corrupt Church: Cartman's religious revival takes its cues from Televangelists (including Cartman actually watching one on TV), complete with exaggerated speaking style, excessive focus on sin and damnation, smacking people on the forehead and declaring them healed by God's Power, and the revelation that he doesn't care about religion at all and is only in it for the money.
- Crisis of Faith: Upon learning of Cartman's scam, Stan remarks he's severely disillusioned.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Like other characters that started as living props, Heidi is called a different name here (Marcy).
- Easy Road to Hell: In this case, going to Heaven and Hell is based purely on what religion you follow, and only one religion is allowed into Heaven; Mormons. All the other religious followers sent to Hell just for following the wrong religion are exasperated at the idea of putting up with the insufferably nice and polite Mormons and unanimously agree Hell is better.
- End of an Era: This is the final episode where the boys are in the third grade, as well as the final episode to use the original intro theme used since Season 1. Starting with the next episode, the boys move to the fourth grade, where they remain for the rest of the series, so far.
- Extreme Doormat: This is Satan's main issue with Chris; he constantly remains upbeat and positive, even when Satan cheats on him with Saddam.
- False Prophet: It turns out Cartman only started the church to con the other kids out of their money and make ten million dollars.
- Faux Horrific:
- Cartman delivers a sermon with fire-and-brimstone fervor detailing all the terrifying things he has learned about Hell from a phone call he got from Kennynote . Among the horrors, he says that the smell of Hell is awful, everyone speaks Spanish, and there are dozens of trinket stores that all sell the exact same trinkets. His whole congregation gasps in horror at every one of these revelations.
- Saddam Hussein has to be dragged kicking and screaming to his place of eternal torment: Heaven, populated entirely by super-polite Mormons.
- Greedy Televangelist: It's revealed that Cartman uses the church to fulfill his ten million dollars gambit.
- Irony:
- Listening to Satan talk about his problems, a little girl suggests he talk to the last person he ever would've thought of: God.
- Despite only allowing Mormons into Heaven, God is a Buddhist.
- Jerkass Has a Point: When his scam is revealed and the others act surprised, Cartman cites what Sister Anne told them and kept trying to tell them about God and Hell.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Saddam attempts to kill Chris to keep him from getting between him and Satan. However, since Chris is already dead, he merely resurrects every time Saddam attempts to kill him.
- Nice Guy: The Mormons in Heaven, excessively so and much to everyone else's annoyance.
- Only Sane Man:
- Sister Anne opposes Cartman's evangelism and when the adults of South Park can't talk the kids out of spending all their time listening to Cartman's preaching, she asks Jesus for help to put an end to the matter.
- God points out that Satan has become dependent on relationships and has become a whiny little bitch as a result. It helps Satan Take a Third Option with his love problems.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: From the audience’s perspective. The two-parter is based on the idea of the children doing everything they can to stay out of Hell, but given that none of them are Mormons, that’s where they’re all eventually going to go anyway.
- Take a Third Option: Faced with choosing between Saddam and Chris, Satan is convinced to simply choose neither and be single.
- Teach Him Anger: When Saddam stabs Chris in the park, Chris ends up fighting back and killing Saddam. They then keep killing each other over and over until Satan stops them.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Averted; not only does Kenny turn out to have actually survived what happened to him in the previous episode — he just ended up stuck under the bus all the way to Mexico — but he survives this episode's events as well. He does end up stranded in a run-down Mexican town for the entire episode, but at least ends up with Cartman for company at the end.
- This Is Gonna Suck: God has this expression when Satan begins talking about his love life.
- What Did I Do Last Night?: Satan goes to see Saddam, with the intention of breaking off their relationship, but Saddam gets Satan drunk and he ends up spending the night.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: Hell has approximately 8,615 "newbies" arrive in what is implied to be a daily introduction ritual. In reality, over a hundred thousand people died every day in 2000, the vast majority of whom were not Mormons. The number of "newbies" should have been somewhere around 100,000.
- You Can't Kill What's Already Dead: Saddam and Chris make several attempts to kill each other, only to revive due to them both already being in Hell. Satan solves the problem once and for all by getting Saddam into Heaven, much to his annoyance.
