Original air date: 7/19/2000
After Fr. Maxi puts the fear of hell into the boys (excluding Kyle), they begin attending Sunday school like good little Catholics, fearing for their souls. Their distress intensifies when they realize Timmy (being only able to say his name) is unable to make a coherent confession. When Kyle learns of his friends' horror, he becomes concerned about himself and Ike, since they're Jewish.
Meanwhile, down in the fiery depths of Hell, Satan's comfortable new relationship with former nutritionist Chris gets complicated when Saddam returns... because where was he going to go, Detroit?
Tropes:
- All for Nothing: Despite the boys' obsessive efforts to avoid Hell, it turns out the joke is on them and they're going there anyway, since only Mormons are allowed into Heaven.
- A Hell of a Time: Not only is Hell hospitable to most of its nicer residents (luau, anyone?), but most of the newcomers are exasperated when it's explained to them that only Mormons are allowed into Heaven, whom they consider extremely boring because of their squeaky-clean lifestyle.
- Big Brother Instinct:
- Kyle, fearing for his brother's soul, drags him along to get baptized and convert to Catholicism.
- All of the kids express this when it comes to Timmy, as his handicap prevents him from confessing his sins, and return to church to ask if he will go to hell, then baptize him afterwards.
- Cliffhanger: The episode ends with Cartman starting his own church and preaching to the children of South Park while Satan contemplates going to Saddam's apartment.
- Compound Title: Combined with the next episode.
- Confessional: Not knowing that Father Maxi is in the confession box, Cartman rattles off a list of sins that he committed against the priest in second grade. Maxi loses his temper and proceeds to strangle Cartman.
- Easy Road to Hell: And how. It turns out that when people die in the world of South Park, no matter how good or bad they were in life, they will go to Hell for picking the wrong religion (even if they genuinely thought that their religion was the right one). The only people who are allowed into Heaven are Mormons. It says a lot how absurd this is when it's revealed that Ghandi is in the same afterlife as Hitler.
- Gone Horribly Right: Father Maxi's fire-and-brimstone style preaching was made as a tactic to scare the kids into dedicating themselves to the church. Not only do the kids dedicate themselves to Catholicism, but they manage to convert Kyle and whip South Park's children into a religious frenzy. Where it goes wrong is when it goes right into full-on obsession, neglecting all of the other parts of their lives out of fear that it will result in damnation. When the kids catch Father Maxi having an extramarital affair in the confession booth, they denounce him and end up creating their own ramshackle church that Eric uses to scam money out of his own parishioners with.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Satan's new boyfriend Chris actually thinks he can reason with Saddam, who wants to break them up and get Satan back.
- Hypocrite: Father Maxi spends all of his time preaching Hell and the importance of confessional and living a sin free life, then is caught having sex in the confession booth when Catholic priests are meant to be celibate.
- Jerkass: Father Maxi uses fear mongering tactics to scare the children of South Park into going to Sunday School and being terrified of hell. He then tells them that Timmy is going to hell because he can't confess his sins, then tells Kyle and Ike that they're going to hell for being Jewish. He also assaults Cartman during confessional.
- Mass "Oh, Crap!": The boys when they catch Father Maxi having sex in the Confessional.
- Mood Whiplash: The camera slowly pans down from Father Maxi's fire-and-brimstone speech to hell, where Satan is...hosting a luau.
- Never My Fault: When the boys find Father Maxi having sex in the Confessional, he begs God's forgiveness for being tempted by a harlot.
- Only Sane Man:
- Kyle's parents point out that Father Maxi is just using fire-and-brimstone preaching to scare people into devoting themselves to the church.
- Sister Anne also opposes Father Maxi's preaching and thinks the Jewish go to heaven if they're good people. She also opposes the idea that the handicapped go to hell when they can't confess.
- Pascal's Wager: Kyle renounces Judaism and converts to Catholicism on these grounds. He explains to his parents that if Catholics are wrong, they lose nothing, but if Jews are wrong, they go to hell.
- Precision F-Strike: Kenny blurted out a surprisingly clear, but still muffled S-bomb after he learned that he, Stan, and Cartman had to confess to the pastor in order for their sins to be washed away.
- Running Gag: "Yeah, well where was I gonna go? Detroit?"
- Scare Chord: When Saddam shows up at Satan's new place.
- Sequel Episode: To South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Kenny tries to return to the church to confess his sins but gets hit by a bus while trying to cross the street. It's ultimately subverted as by the next episode, it's revealed that he actually survived, and the bus ended up taking him to Ensenada, Mexico, although everyone believes he's in Hell.
- Take That!:
- Chris, a New-Age Retro Hippie is treated with contempt by just about everyone. Even his own boyfriend comes to the conclusion that he's a pussy.
- All the other religious followers that wound up in Hell are indignant and exasperated to find out that out of all the religions in the world, only Mormons are allowed into Heaven.
- Understatement: The beginning of Father Maxi's sermon: "Hell...is not a very nice place."
- Wrong-Name Outburst: While going to sleep after a failed attempt at romance, Satan says "Goodnight, Saddam" to Chris. This freaks both of them out and causes Satan to go for a walk to clear his mind.
