43 Pressing Questions About ‘A Recipe for Seduction,’ Lifetime’s KFC Movie

Every once in a while, a movie trailer is released that alters Hollywood’s status quo; that leaves you both wanting more and questioning everything. How will art continue after this? Did art even really exist before this? Was I ever truly alive? The Social Network’s trailer; the Uncut Gems trailer; the first trailer for The Force Awakens; the trailer for A Recipe for Seduction, the Lifetime “mini-movie” presented by Kentucky Fried Chicken.

What’s that? Oh, you haven’t heard?

Well, allow me the great honor of introducing you to A Recipe for Seduction, the Lifetime “mini-movie” presented by Kentucky Fried Chicken.

This is one of those sentences that gets better with every word: “A mini-movie, on Lifetime, presented by KFC, starring Mario Lopez, as Colonel Sanders, airing at 12 p.m. ET on Sunday, December 13.” It is also one of those sentences that makes less sense with every word, and with every passing second. I had a lot of things to do today but now I’m consumed only by profound, pressing questions about this film that was produced by a subsidiary of the Yum! Brands corporation.

Did art even really exist before this? Was I ever truly alive? Those are just the big ones. There are a lot more—43 more to be exact—to be asked.

1. What is a mini-movie?

2. Isn’t a mini-movie just an episode of TV?

3. How does David Lynch feel about this?

(That was a “calling TV episodes a movie” joke, but I guess it’s also a joke about how believable it is that David Lynch might one day make a short film about KFC that would RUIN US.)

4. How freaking pissed is Quibi that people are suddenly interested in mini-movies?

5. And how freaking pissed is Netflix that they weren’t the first ones to realize that fast food restaurants can be IP too?

6. Who is Ted Sarandos calling today yelling, “GET ME THE BOJANGLES MOVIE NOW!!!!”?

7. Is this Mario Lopez absolutely peaking or hitting absolute rock bottom?

8. Is this Hollywood absolutely peaking or hitting absolute rock bottom?

9. Why is Mario Lopez not doing a Southern accent?

10. What were the conversations that led to COLONEL SANDERS not having a Southern accent?

11. Did Mario start out doing one and they were like, “You know what, bud, maybe we just don’t”?

12. Why didn’t they go the Nicole Kidman in The Undoing, only-doing-an-accent-sometimes route?

13. Was Reba McEntire unavailable?

14. Is that Mario Lopez’s actual facial hair?

15. Is it wrong to think that Mario Lopez as Colonel Sanders is hot?

16. Is Mario Lopez as Colonel Sanders as hot, hotter than, or less hot than Sexy Hamburglar?

17. What is Hot Colonel Sanders’s “recipe for seduction?”

18. Are there 11 steps?

19. Is the thought of having sex with Hot Colonel Sanders really exciting and mouth-watering while actually having sex with him is deeply disappointing and shame-ridden?

20. How does the Double Down factor in?

21. Is there a boneless option?

22. Are KFC’s potato wedges underrated or overrated? I guess that’s not a question about this movie, but it’s still worth asking.

23. What is the plot of A Recipe for Seduction?

24. No, seriously, what is it? A girl super wants to bone her in-home chef—who is in the process of creating a world-conquering recipe for fried chicken—but her mother, who is having sex with her daughter’s boyfriend, won’t let it happen? So then the boyfriend and the mom—who, again, are banging each other—kidnap Hot Colonel Sanders and torture him like James Bond in Casino Royale?

25. So in the universe of A Recipe for Seduction, Kentucky Fried Chicken has not yet been invented?

26. What do people do? Like, just eat Popeyes instead?

27. Oh wait—isn’t that just like real life?

28. Is “Secret’s out, chicken man,” the best written line of 2020?

29. Is the plot of A Recipe for Seduction a rip-off of the Seinfeld Soup Nazi episode?

30. Has anyone on any planet ever tied an over-the-shoulders sweater like this?

31. Is this guy one of Mitt Romney’s sons?

32. What must it feel like to be cuckolded by Colonel Sanders?

33. Ask yourself that and then ask yourself this: Maybe you’d try to murder Colonel Sanders too?

34. What is the Venn diagram of “People who like KFC” and “People watching Lifetime at noon on a Sunday?”

35. How much overlap are we talking here?

36. Instead of making a mini-movie, couldn’t KFC just, ya know, make better food?

37. Remember when people stood in line for hours to eat a Popeyes chicken sandwich?

38. What other films will Lifetime make for the Yum! Brands Extended Universe?

39. You Drive Me Locos, a thriller about an illicit affair between Rita Tacobell and Dominic Doritos?

40. Stuffed, a deeply disturbing sensual romantic drama starring Michael Pizzahut?

41. I don’t have any Long John Silver’s jokes that aren’t completely disgusting, but: Has anyone ever actually eaten at a Long John Silver’s?

42. Are those combination KFC–Pizza Hut–Taco Bell restaurants just the source material for an epic, Infinity War–style finale?

43. What are you getting for lunch today? Because I’m pretty sure I know what I’m having.