March 6, 2024 • 30 mins
Jonestown, Guyana. November 18, 1978. In this chilling and thought-provoking episode of The Passage, the Ferryman, with his voice resonating with the depth and gravitas of Dan Fogler (Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, The Walking Dead), confronts a figure whose name is synonymous with betrayal and tragedy. Jim Jones, voiced by Scott Poythress, the charismatic and manipulative leader responsible for the Jonestown Massacre, steps aboard, his silver tongue ready to weave a narrative of justification and delusion.
As his car traverses the murky waters of morality and madness, Jim Jones attempts to cast himself in the light of a misunderstood revolutionary, a man who sought to offer sanctuary to those disillusioned with the American dream. He speaks of his vision for a utopia, a haven for those who lost faith in society and yearned to belong to a community that promised equality, love, and salvation.
Yet, the Ferryman listens with a knowing silence, for the air is heavy with the unspoken truths of the horrors that unfolded under Jones's command. The specters of Jonestown loom in the shadows, a grim reminder of the lives lost to the poisoned chalice of blind devotion and the dangerous allure of absolute power.
Jim Jones, the master manipulator, tries to paint his actions as noble, his intentions pure, but the echoes of the past speak louder than his serpentine words. Hell awaits him, a reckoning for the souls he led astray, for the innocence he shattered, and for the ultimate betrayal of the trust bestowed upon him by those who sought hope and found despair.
In this episode of The Passage, listeners are invited to confront the darkest corners of human nature, where the search for belonging and meaning can lead to the abyss of fanaticism and destruction. Written by E.M. Westover.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hm, I am the fairy man.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The human spirit is my business. Their madness, their passion,
the wonderful and monstrous ways they burn out their brief candle.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I regret to tell you that very many American lives
in love.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Was heard to shouts from the car.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
He's dead. Whether he rebird to president or four hours,
people must get up and go.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
If I am here in the in between to collect
their spirits and carry them to what comes next.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
This road is not on any map.
Speaker 5 (01:06):
It spanned the thresholds between their most forbidden desires and
their greatest fear.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
All I ask for.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
In payment is a tale and accounting of their lives
and the great temporary that is the land of the living.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
These are their stories.
Speaker 6 (01:35):
This is the passage.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
Jonestown, Guyana, November eighteenth, nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Death has a scent.
Speaker 5 (02:31):
It's not the spoil of decomposing flesh that comes later.
First death smells like scorched earth and the salt air
and the steam rising off the tarmac at the Port
Katuma airstrip after a tropical storm. You can smell it here,
(02:55):
mingling with the swede and musky scent of orchids. Hmmm, yeah,
you can hear death too under the buzz of busy pollinators.
I have been very busy here, tendant to the lost
souls after their massacre, hundreds of lost souls, all crying
(03:21):
out together. The people's temple was here after being chased
from its country of origin, a grand experiment gone horribly awry.
Such is the case with cults of men. The temple
buildings still stand, the people do not. What made them
(03:46):
human was their need to belong, to be a part
of something that transcended themselves across human history. This is
a requirement for survival. Rights of passage prepare the human
spirit for their place in the universe. These are painful, humiliating,
(04:10):
and violent, as the old persona is literally destroyed to
make way for the new. In these waning days of
the twentieth century, there's no such rights of passage. Ceremonies
no longer hold transformative power. So in this time, Americans
(04:35):
have begun to ask themselves to what do I belong?
It is a question born of separation. It is a
question that incites madness. America, after all, is a nation
of immigrants, people displaced from their past and continually searching
(04:56):
for their renewed sense of belonging. Yeah, a country, a
political party, a circus, or in this case a church.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
To What do I belong?
Speaker 6 (05:12):
They ask?
Speaker 5 (05:14):
Their religions are failing them, their rituals replaced only by
a great drive to consume. But consumption cannot say the soul,
and so they continue the search evermore frantic, many falling
(05:36):
for the schemes of the likes of the man we
meet today, Jim Jones, another American opportunist who saw the
great question being asked, who sends the great hunger for
meaning at the hollow core of American life? And who
sought to fill it.
Speaker 6 (05:59):
With himself.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
Thousands of followers flocked to him, as mirised by his
displays of mind reading and faith healing, and finding great
meaning in his words, a new something to belong to.
They followed that something to hear, to the salt air
(06:26):
and the orchids of Guyana, to Jonestown. Despite his humanitarian preachings,
he controlled his followers by humiliation and beatings, and blackmailing
and brainwashing. Here he had total autonomy, and moments ago,
(06:58):
in a violent fit of peak, Jim destroyed what he built,
as well as all those who helped him build it,
including the innocent children who arrived here through no choice
of their own.
Speaker 6 (07:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
Here he sits at the front gate, his grady intinted
sunglasses bent and broken from his own bullet, somehow oblivious
to the stench of death and the wailing of almost
one thousand lost souls.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
I'll be damned. Never thought my old ass would grace
the seed of a Cadillac again. I can't thank you
enough for the ride out of this damned place. You
wouldn't believe the last few days. Can't leave well enough alone,
those greedy American bastards. Everything we stood for, our whole
(08:34):
Rainbow family, the whole damn thing went right out the window,
quick as you please, And all it took was a note.
Ever seen a city burn because of a scrap of paper?
Sounds biblical, don't it.
Speaker 6 (08:52):
It's time to go.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Hmm, that's killing me. Marty might be onto something about
laying off the pills. She called for the car. I'm
sure it's a good woman, despite her flaws.
Speaker 5 (09:16):
She did not call you.
Speaker 6 (09:17):
You did?
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Oh? Hell I did? I did? Didn't I?
Speaker 6 (09:25):
Ye?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Well? Of course, I mean, no one else would would
think to call the car. The girls had too much
on their plates. None only think about it. Of course,
I called loyal. My family's so damn loyal, But dumbest
posts half of them. No mind. The Good Book says
to love them all the same. Everyone has their uses
(09:49):
in the end, you know. And what we've all accomplished,
all of us, our commitment, our ambition, our truth, it
is gonna change everything. The whole world will see soon
enough what we had to do. That we wouldn't just
(10:09):
lay down and let the enemy steal our lives from us,
break us down. They thought they had us, but we
showed them. This day is gonna be legendary. I am
gonna be a legendary. They didn't think we had the courage.
I tell you, brother, a revolution don't come cheap. But
when you are dealing with the very salvation of everything
(10:29):
you hold in your heart, money's no object at all,
no object at all. We built a town out of nothing,
you know, in the middle of a jungle. That's damn
hard work, real brutal stuff. Took a lot of hands
and a lot of capital. There ain't no way around it.
(10:50):
This day and age. You got to buy your freedom
from the chains of the system. And we did it. Twice.
There's preachers all over America thinking about being shepherd, telling
the children to love God and put their faith in
something intangible and a million miles away. But I put
in the work. I gave them truth and glory across
(11:13):
that whole ugly nation, from sea to shining sea, spreading
my good word worth more than a goddamn Bible. I'll
tell you you think you could turn on the air conditioning. Friend,
the jungle seems to have joined us in the cab.
(11:35):
I'll be honest with you, my brother. A lot of
folks didn't like what I had to say. But the
good ones, the clever ones, they saw I had the
right idea, and they spread the word like dandelions on
the wind. I called, and they followed. Together. We built
from this soil a paradise on earth. It was better
(11:58):
than Eden. A father loves his family and sees the
value in them, even if they stray from time to time.
They just got to know enough to be led to
the promised land. They find their station in life and
do as they're told, and then it's all golden. They're
(12:21):
worth something, and then you have them for life, good
little soldiers, primed up and ready to march as soon
as you give them the word, I'm here. And you
should have seen them, how they all stood there that
(12:43):
first night seems like forever ago. We were all there
in the church, sipping wine from our first harvest drapes,
a real treat them, thinking they did such a good
job for their father. We talked a lot about confrontation
in those days, about Russia, about Cuba, all the places
(13:07):
we could go to to be free, about war, America
always chomping at the bit for war. But I assure
them all we were safe. Dad would keep them safe,
and we would stay united against every enemy, united in
(13:30):
love and revolution. All smiles and nods and amens. Then
I told him they were drinking cyanide in their warm
That's how you know. That's how you separate the wheat
(13:54):
from the chaff. You can't have a real revolution without conviction.
You can't know you've got real soldiers on the front lines,
or cowards afraid to die for what they believe in,
until you put them to the test. They can sing
praises all day long, but I had to know. I
(14:17):
had to know who I could trust, who really was
a good soldier, ready for the revolution, ready to lay
down their life for the cause. We did it over
and over. White Night Communions, that's what we started calling them.
That first night there was all this screaming and yelling
(14:40):
and running, but not from everyone, wheat from the chaff. Indeed,
some of my flock they strong armed the others and
sitting down and shutting the hell up, anything for the cause.
And when the panic died down and the faithful were
waiting for me, I told them it was just fine.
It's fine, no poison at all. It's just a test
(15:06):
of faith, a show of devotion. And I'll have you know,
some of those little scavengers, we're goddamn embarrassed about the drama. Ugh, drama,
Why yes, drama, No need for all that fussing. We
(15:29):
are revolutionaries. We are brave, better than the blind, frightened
dogs out there in that seth pit, believing the lie
that is the American dream. We take a drink and
maybe we're martyrs, or maybe we're just tasting a little
of the good stuff. God's reward for hard work and
(15:50):
tending good soil, a reward either way for real faith,
christ level faith, Say, brother, was that silver ice bucket
there a minute ago in this bottle smells off artificial
(16:12):
grape bitter omens.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Yeah, I'll go ahead, Jim, drink M.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
I don't need a sip of that, my friend. I'm
here now. I played my part. I guided my flock
home like I promised. No, No, you don't need to
say it. I can tell guided them to slaughter. That's
what you're thinking. It's stifling back here, brother, have mercy
(16:48):
and hit the AC. I never would have had to
do what I had to do if it weren't for
that damn senator. If Leo Ryan would have stayed in
californ if he'd kept those goddamn wolves from coming back
to break apart our family, we'd be singing around campfires
(17:09):
and feeding hungry people. We'd be playing with their babies,
harvesting vegetables, and healing our elders. I didn't know we
had so many traders in our midst turncoats, sneaky little rats,
not content with everything I've given a whole new world,
(17:32):
and they still had to write their lives down and
beg and bleat at that damn government goon and their
slack jaw family members. Journalists with their cameras and their recorders,
finding all the worst and building a narrative. They wanted
a spectacle. They wanted it. They wanted to end it all.
Don't you see. I couldn't let them take everything from us.
(17:56):
I couldn't let them destroy our family, rip up the
people's temple in every thing we stood for. The family
knew it. My soldiers knew it. Lord. I didn't force some,
didn't tell them what to do, but they knew. They
followed those little liars back to the airstrip and they
(18:16):
gunned them down like the pigs. They were just ready
for them. What did you say, slaughter? No I wasn't there.
Oh no, I wasn't there. I didn't need to be.
It had to be done to save us, but it wasn't.
(18:40):
It wasn't enough to save us. If you want, you
want me to be honest, I always knew it would
come to pass, And god damn it, I've just been
so tired of this life, of this responsibility. Hm he
(19:14):
kin too hot, ah, the too damn hot in here
for all this, my goddamn head. I'm in agony back here, friend,
this ain't the Middle Ages? You know? Are we going
the right way? You need to understand something I knew
the minute Leo Ryan's brains blew out of his skull,
(19:36):
we'd all be dead one way or the other. Look
dead at the hands of the United States of America,
you see, they'd bomb us. Have you heard of fred Hampton,
Martin Luther, King Tulsa, the trail of tears. America hasn't
ever given a second thought to killing, just like Rome
(19:59):
of old feeble old men in Washington want nothing more
than to murder the poor, to take our sons, feed
them to the war machines. They were going to steal
the babies, blast us into oblivion. Label us terrorists, but
we aren't terrorists. We're the ones being terrorized, broken down
(20:20):
by the evils of capitalism. We alone stood up against Goliath,
and at the end of the day, damn it, it
wasn't enough. It had to be done. People play games, friend,
What can I do about liars? I beg them to
just please leave us, But no, there was no other
(20:41):
way out from my brothers and sisters. No, no, they
made damn sure that we did not let our lives
be taken, laid them down gladly and protest to every
damn thing we fought against in this world. One last
white night, the final test of the love and loyalty,
(21:02):
of our ability to do great things together. It was
just too damn late for Russia, Do late for Cuba,
do late for anything but our defiance. Dou late for
anything except revolutionary suicide, to keep our babies out of
the monster's jaws, to die free and with our hearts full,
not shot down by the state like common criminals. God,
(21:24):
where are you taking me? I should be rewarded for
my love, for my commitment, my conviction. I am not
a coward. I am a father stronger than those bureaucrats
and those ugh I who loves so so deeply. My
God understands what I have done. My God will welcome me.
(21:47):
Those people came to me for love, for acceptance, and
I alone took them in. I provided them with love.
I accepted them when this evil, horrible world showed them
only hatred and judgment. I loved them. And now my
God will take me in because my God loves me.
(22:10):
Are you lost? This is it right? What road are
we on? No? It's too much, it would not smell.
The sweetness is sickening. We did have to get a
little more forcible with some of our brethren than I
(22:32):
would have wanted. Didn't have to be like that. Brother,
Please understand, I wanted us all to go easy, peaceful,
to accept the future, our revolution together painless. Only it
was it was not the first time that first night,
and some some people tried to run.
Speaker 7 (22:55):
I couldn't have that.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I have them making everything a damn mess, babies crying,
women screaming. No, no, he was all wrong, not my
playing at all. But I couldn't keep on with it anymore. No, no,
to Leah Ryan, I couldn't take any more of that chaos,
knowing all hell would be loose soon enough. So yes, yes,
(23:18):
some of them we had to. We had to remove.
They were running from the truth and it was too
late for them. For all of us. We go together.
They've always known that, and I just got no step
of the left for the runners.
Speaker 7 (23:37):
None.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
After all I had to do to fix every damn
thing for them. Brother, I feel like on the suffocate.
My head is pounding, gomas are burning, my mouth is enohing.
Speaker 6 (23:56):
Drink.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
I told you I had quite.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Enough to drink.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
You haven't had a drop.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Oh no, yeah, you're gonna try and slip away.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Oh well, the rest.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Rot for your lie.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
No, you always saw what you wanted to see. You
weren't walking away from here. What good is revolution without
it's martyr?
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Hell, I was gonna go my own way. I'm a
good father. God damn it. I didn't need no damn
gun in my face.
Speaker 7 (24:37):
Oh not me.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Everything we are we are because of me, and you think. Ah,
I was gonna drink. I was gonna join my beautiful
rainbow family. It seemed to me that death was a
million times more preferable than another day in that life.
I told him too. Oh, I laid my life down,
(25:02):
So we haven't. I laid my life down.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
Who try to convince a liar at the very end?
Speaker 3 (25:09):
You'll be quiet, if you'll just be quiet. I was
going to lay my life down.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
You're holding the bottle o drink from it.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
I would have run if I could have. I was
so damn tired of it all. Oh, all the z canery,
all the pageantry, days without sleep, none of it ever
mattered at all. I was so tired. Ah, let's just
tell one of the burden of their lives on me anymore.
(25:40):
God damned, that's it, isn't it?
Speaker 6 (25:46):
Drink Jim, So.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
What you're all waiting for. Is that what you're all
waiting for? Oh ah ha ha oh oh oh yeah,
(26:09):
I see.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
It seems uh this is your stuff.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Well hm oh God, damn y'all drink to that. Mhm
(26:39):
h m hm.
Speaker 7 (26:43):
Oh oh look.
Speaker 8 (26:56):
Yeah ooh yeah yeah.
Speaker 5 (27:30):
It gets me right here every time. And all it
took for Jim Jones to see what he really was
was the great mirror of his own death. A coward's death, yeah,
(27:55):
not the one he hadn't meet it out so bravely
while still in control of the final thrashings of the
People's Temple. A silver tongue, sharp and meticulous, gone on
the hell his portal, a bottle that he would not
drink from in life, a little grape flavored aid, a
(28:18):
little cyanide, and one last prayer to send them on
his passage.
Speaker 9 (28:38):
The Passage stars Dan Fogler as the Ferryman. This episode
features Scott Poythras as Jim Jones.
Speaker 6 (28:45):
Written by E. M.
Speaker 9 (28:46):
Westover with additional writing by Dan Bush and Nicholas Dakowski.
Our executive producers are Nicholas Dakoski, Matthew Frederick, and Alexander Williams.
First Assistant director, Script supervisor and production coordinator Sarah Klein.
Music by Ben love It, additional music by Alexander Rodriguez.
Casting by Sunday Bowling, Kennedy and Meg Mormon. Editing and
(29:07):
sound designed by Dan Bush, Dialogue editing and sound mixing
by Jan Campos. Additional sound editing by Racket Sound. Our
supervising producer is Josh Thane. Created by Dan Bush and
Nicholas Dakowski. Produced by Dan Bush. The Passage is a
production of iHeartRadio and Cycopia Pictures.
Speaker 8 (30:00):
Passsssssssssssssssssssssss
Hm, I am the fairy man.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The human spirit is my business. Their madness, their passion,
the wonderful and monstrous ways they burn out their brief candle.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I regret to tell you that very many American lives
in love.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Was heard to shouts from the car.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
He's dead. Whether he rebird to president or four hours,
people must get up and go.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
If I am here in the in between to collect
their spirits and carry them to what comes next.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
This road is not on any map.
Speaker 5 (01:06):
It spanned the thresholds between their most forbidden desires and
their greatest fear.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
All I ask for.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
In payment is a tale and accounting of their lives
and the great temporary that is the land of the living.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
These are their stories.
Speaker 6 (01:35):
This is the passage.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
Jonestown, Guyana, November eighteenth, nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Death has a scent.
Speaker 5 (02:31):
It's not the spoil of decomposing flesh that comes later.
First death smells like scorched earth and the salt air
and the steam rising off the tarmac at the Port
Katuma airstrip after a tropical storm. You can smell it here,
(02:55):
mingling with the swede and musky scent of orchids. Hmmm, yeah,
you can hear death too under the buzz of busy pollinators.
I have been very busy here, tendant to the lost
souls after their massacre, hundreds of lost souls, all crying
(03:21):
out together. The people's temple was here after being chased
from its country of origin, a grand experiment gone horribly awry.
Such is the case with cults of men. The temple
buildings still stand, the people do not. What made them
(03:46):
human was their need to belong, to be a part
of something that transcended themselves across human history. This is
a requirement for survival. Rights of passage prepare the human
spirit for their place in the universe. These are painful, humiliating,
(04:10):
and violent, as the old persona is literally destroyed to
make way for the new. In these waning days of
the twentieth century, there's no such rights of passage. Ceremonies
no longer hold transformative power. So in this time, Americans
(04:35):
have begun to ask themselves to what do I belong?
It is a question born of separation. It is a
question that incites madness. America, after all, is a nation
of immigrants, people displaced from their past and continually searching
(04:56):
for their renewed sense of belonging. Yeah, a country, a
political party, a circus, or in this case a church.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
To What do I belong?
Speaker 6 (05:12):
They ask?
Speaker 5 (05:14):
Their religions are failing them, their rituals replaced only by
a great drive to consume. But consumption cannot say the soul,
and so they continue the search evermore frantic, many falling
(05:36):
for the schemes of the likes of the man we
meet today, Jim Jones, another American opportunist who saw the
great question being asked, who sends the great hunger for
meaning at the hollow core of American life? And who
sought to fill it.
Speaker 6 (05:59):
With himself.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
Thousands of followers flocked to him, as mirised by his
displays of mind reading and faith healing, and finding great
meaning in his words, a new something to belong to.
They followed that something to hear, to the salt air
(06:26):
and the orchids of Guyana, to Jonestown. Despite his humanitarian preachings,
he controlled his followers by humiliation and beatings, and blackmailing
and brainwashing. Here he had total autonomy, and moments ago,
(06:58):
in a violent fit of peak, Jim destroyed what he built,
as well as all those who helped him build it,
including the innocent children who arrived here through no choice
of their own.
Speaker 6 (07:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
Here he sits at the front gate, his grady intinted
sunglasses bent and broken from his own bullet, somehow oblivious
to the stench of death and the wailing of almost
one thousand lost souls.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
I'll be damned. Never thought my old ass would grace
the seed of a Cadillac again. I can't thank you
enough for the ride out of this damned place. You
wouldn't believe the last few days. Can't leave well enough alone,
those greedy American bastards. Everything we stood for, our whole
(08:34):
Rainbow family, the whole damn thing went right out the window,
quick as you please, And all it took was a note.
Ever seen a city burn because of a scrap of paper?
Sounds biblical, don't it.
Speaker 6 (08:52):
It's time to go.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Hmm, that's killing me. Marty might be onto something about
laying off the pills. She called for the car. I'm
sure it's a good woman, despite her flaws.
Speaker 5 (09:16):
She did not call you.
Speaker 6 (09:17):
You did?
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Oh? Hell I did? I did? Didn't I?
Speaker 6 (09:25):
Ye?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Well? Of course, I mean, no one else would would
think to call the car. The girls had too much
on their plates. None only think about it. Of course,
I called loyal. My family's so damn loyal, But dumbest
posts half of them. No mind. The Good Book says
to love them all the same. Everyone has their uses
(09:49):
in the end, you know. And what we've all accomplished,
all of us, our commitment, our ambition, our truth, it
is gonna change everything. The whole world will see soon
enough what we had to do. That we wouldn't just
(10:09):
lay down and let the enemy steal our lives from us,
break us down. They thought they had us, but we
showed them. This day is gonna be legendary. I am
gonna be a legendary. They didn't think we had the courage.
I tell you, brother, a revolution don't come cheap. But
when you are dealing with the very salvation of everything
(10:29):
you hold in your heart, money's no object at all,
no object at all. We built a town out of nothing,
you know, in the middle of a jungle. That's damn
hard work, real brutal stuff. Took a lot of hands
and a lot of capital. There ain't no way around it.
(10:50):
This day and age. You got to buy your freedom
from the chains of the system. And we did it. Twice.
There's preachers all over America thinking about being shepherd, telling
the children to love God and put their faith in
something intangible and a million miles away. But I put
in the work. I gave them truth and glory across
(11:13):
that whole ugly nation, from sea to shining sea, spreading
my good word worth more than a goddamn Bible. I'll
tell you you think you could turn on the air conditioning. Friend,
the jungle seems to have joined us in the cab.
(11:35):
I'll be honest with you, my brother. A lot of
folks didn't like what I had to say. But the
good ones, the clever ones, they saw I had the
right idea, and they spread the word like dandelions on
the wind. I called, and they followed. Together. We built
from this soil a paradise on earth. It was better
(11:58):
than Eden. A father loves his family and sees the
value in them, even if they stray from time to time.
They just got to know enough to be led to
the promised land. They find their station in life and
do as they're told, and then it's all golden. They're
(12:21):
worth something, and then you have them for life, good
little soldiers, primed up and ready to march as soon
as you give them the word, I'm here. And you
should have seen them, how they all stood there that
(12:43):
first night seems like forever ago. We were all there
in the church, sipping wine from our first harvest drapes,
a real treat them, thinking they did such a good
job for their father. We talked a lot about confrontation
in those days, about Russia, about Cuba, all the places
(13:07):
we could go to to be free, about war, America
always chomping at the bit for war. But I assure
them all we were safe. Dad would keep them safe,
and we would stay united against every enemy, united in
(13:30):
love and revolution. All smiles and nods and amens. Then
I told him they were drinking cyanide in their warm
That's how you know. That's how you separate the wheat
(13:54):
from the chaff. You can't have a real revolution without conviction.
You can't know you've got real soldiers on the front lines,
or cowards afraid to die for what they believe in,
until you put them to the test. They can sing
praises all day long, but I had to know. I
(14:17):
had to know who I could trust, who really was
a good soldier, ready for the revolution, ready to lay
down their life for the cause. We did it over
and over. White Night Communions, that's what we started calling them.
That first night there was all this screaming and yelling
(14:40):
and running, but not from everyone, wheat from the chaff. Indeed,
some of my flock they strong armed the others and
sitting down and shutting the hell up, anything for the cause.
And when the panic died down and the faithful were
waiting for me, I told them it was just fine.
It's fine, no poison at all. It's just a test
(15:06):
of faith, a show of devotion. And I'll have you know,
some of those little scavengers, we're goddamn embarrassed about the drama. Ugh, drama,
Why yes, drama, No need for all that fussing. We
(15:29):
are revolutionaries. We are brave, better than the blind, frightened
dogs out there in that seth pit, believing the lie
that is the American dream. We take a drink and
maybe we're martyrs, or maybe we're just tasting a little
of the good stuff. God's reward for hard work and
(15:50):
tending good soil, a reward either way for real faith,
christ level faith, Say, brother, was that silver ice bucket
there a minute ago in this bottle smells off artificial
(16:12):
grape bitter omens.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Yeah, I'll go ahead, Jim, drink M.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
I don't need a sip of that, my friend. I'm
here now. I played my part. I guided my flock
home like I promised. No, No, you don't need to
say it. I can tell guided them to slaughter. That's
what you're thinking. It's stifling back here, brother, have mercy
(16:48):
and hit the AC. I never would have had to
do what I had to do if it weren't for
that damn senator. If Leo Ryan would have stayed in
californ if he'd kept those goddamn wolves from coming back
to break apart our family, we'd be singing around campfires
(17:09):
and feeding hungry people. We'd be playing with their babies,
harvesting vegetables, and healing our elders. I didn't know we
had so many traders in our midst turncoats, sneaky little rats,
not content with everything I've given a whole new world,
(17:32):
and they still had to write their lives down and
beg and bleat at that damn government goon and their
slack jaw family members. Journalists with their cameras and their recorders,
finding all the worst and building a narrative. They wanted
a spectacle. They wanted it. They wanted to end it all.
Don't you see. I couldn't let them take everything from us.
(17:56):
I couldn't let them destroy our family, rip up the
people's temple in every thing we stood for. The family
knew it. My soldiers knew it. Lord. I didn't force some,
didn't tell them what to do, but they knew. They
followed those little liars back to the airstrip and they
(18:16):
gunned them down like the pigs. They were just ready
for them. What did you say, slaughter? No I wasn't there.
Oh no, I wasn't there. I didn't need to be.
It had to be done to save us, but it wasn't.
(18:40):
It wasn't enough to save us. If you want, you
want me to be honest, I always knew it would
come to pass, And god damn it, I've just been
so tired of this life, of this responsibility. Hm he
(19:14):
kin too hot, ah, the too damn hot in here
for all this, my goddamn head. I'm in agony back here, friend,
this ain't the Middle Ages? You know? Are we going
the right way? You need to understand something I knew
the minute Leo Ryan's brains blew out of his skull,
(19:36):
we'd all be dead one way or the other. Look
dead at the hands of the United States of America,
you see, they'd bomb us. Have you heard of fred Hampton,
Martin Luther, King Tulsa, the trail of tears. America hasn't
ever given a second thought to killing, just like Rome
(19:59):
of old feeble old men in Washington want nothing more
than to murder the poor, to take our sons, feed
them to the war machines. They were going to steal
the babies, blast us into oblivion. Label us terrorists, but
we aren't terrorists. We're the ones being terrorized, broken down
(20:20):
by the evils of capitalism. We alone stood up against Goliath,
and at the end of the day, damn it, it
wasn't enough. It had to be done. People play games, friend,
What can I do about liars? I beg them to
just please leave us, But no, there was no other
(20:41):
way out from my brothers and sisters. No, no, they
made damn sure that we did not let our lives
be taken, laid them down gladly and protest to every
damn thing we fought against in this world. One last
white night, the final test of the love and loyalty,
(21:02):
of our ability to do great things together. It was
just too damn late for Russia, Do late for Cuba,
do late for anything but our defiance. Dou late for
anything except revolutionary suicide, to keep our babies out of
the monster's jaws, to die free and with our hearts full,
not shot down by the state like common criminals. God,
(21:24):
where are you taking me? I should be rewarded for
my love, for my commitment, my conviction. I am not
a coward. I am a father stronger than those bureaucrats
and those ugh I who loves so so deeply. My
God understands what I have done. My God will welcome me.
(21:47):
Those people came to me for love, for acceptance, and
I alone took them in. I provided them with love.
I accepted them when this evil, horrible world showed them
only hatred and judgment. I loved them. And now my
God will take me in because my God loves me.
(22:10):
Are you lost? This is it right? What road are
we on? No? It's too much, it would not smell.
The sweetness is sickening. We did have to get a
little more forcible with some of our brethren than I
(22:32):
would have wanted. Didn't have to be like that. Brother,
Please understand, I wanted us all to go easy, peaceful,
to accept the future, our revolution together painless. Only it
was it was not the first time that first night,
and some some people tried to run.
Speaker 7 (22:55):
I couldn't have that.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I have them making everything a damn mess, babies crying,
women screaming. No, no, he was all wrong, not my
playing at all. But I couldn't keep on with it anymore. No, no,
to Leah Ryan, I couldn't take any more of that chaos,
knowing all hell would be loose soon enough. So yes, yes,
(23:18):
some of them we had to. We had to remove.
They were running from the truth and it was too
late for them. For all of us. We go together.
They've always known that, and I just got no step
of the left for the runners.
Speaker 7 (23:37):
None.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
After all I had to do to fix every damn
thing for them. Brother, I feel like on the suffocate.
My head is pounding, gomas are burning, my mouth is enohing.
Speaker 6 (23:56):
Drink.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
I told you I had quite.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Enough to drink.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
You haven't had a drop.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Oh no, yeah, you're gonna try and slip away.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Oh well, the rest.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Rot for your lie.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
No, you always saw what you wanted to see. You
weren't walking away from here. What good is revolution without
it's martyr?
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Hell, I was gonna go my own way. I'm a
good father. God damn it. I didn't need no damn
gun in my face.
Speaker 7 (24:37):
Oh not me.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Everything we are we are because of me, and you think. Ah,
I was gonna drink. I was gonna join my beautiful
rainbow family. It seemed to me that death was a
million times more preferable than another day in that life.
I told him too. Oh, I laid my life down,
(25:02):
So we haven't. I laid my life down.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
Who try to convince a liar at the very end?
Speaker 3 (25:09):
You'll be quiet, if you'll just be quiet. I was
going to lay my life down.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
You're holding the bottle o drink from it.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
I would have run if I could have. I was
so damn tired of it all. Oh, all the z canery,
all the pageantry, days without sleep, none of it ever
mattered at all. I was so tired. Ah, let's just
tell one of the burden of their lives on me anymore.
(25:40):
God damned, that's it, isn't it?
Speaker 6 (25:46):
Drink Jim, So.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
What you're all waiting for. Is that what you're all
waiting for? Oh ah ha ha oh oh oh yeah,
(26:09):
I see.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
It seems uh this is your stuff.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Well hm oh God, damn y'all drink to that. Mhm
(26:39):
h m hm.
Speaker 7 (26:43):
Oh oh look.
Speaker 8 (26:56):
Yeah ooh yeah yeah.
Speaker 5 (27:30):
It gets me right here every time. And all it
took for Jim Jones to see what he really was
was the great mirror of his own death. A coward's death, yeah,
(27:55):
not the one he hadn't meet it out so bravely
while still in control of the final thrashings of the
People's Temple. A silver tongue, sharp and meticulous, gone on
the hell his portal, a bottle that he would not
drink from in life, a little grape flavored aid, a
(28:18):
little cyanide, and one last prayer to send them on
his passage.
Speaker 9 (28:38):
The Passage stars Dan Fogler as the Ferryman. This episode
features Scott Poythras as Jim Jones.
Speaker 6 (28:45):
Written by E. M.
Speaker 9 (28:46):
Westover with additional writing by Dan Bush and Nicholas Dakowski.
Our executive producers are Nicholas Dakoski, Matthew Frederick, and Alexander Williams.
First Assistant director, Script supervisor and production coordinator Sarah Klein.
Music by Ben love It, additional music by Alexander Rodriguez.
Casting by Sunday Bowling, Kennedy and Meg Mormon. Editing and
(29:07):
sound designed by Dan Bush, Dialogue editing and sound mixing
by Jan Campos. Additional sound editing by Racket Sound. Our
supervising producer is Josh Thane. Created by Dan Bush and
Nicholas Dakowski. Produced by Dan Bush. The Passage is a
production of iHeartRadio and Cycopia Pictures.
Speaker 8 (30:00):
Passsssssssssssssssssssssss
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