Phase one: The hangover. Obviously. You and your roommate are lounging around the apartment on some Sunday morning  late afternoon after a wild night on the town. You are having a great time ordering delivery from Seamless, deleting text messages from the night before and alternating turns running to the bathroom when you grab the remote. You hit the power button and as the picture comes into focus it hits you like a freight train.

Phase two: The hook: The prostitute taking night classes at Harvard, the two six-year-old children being charged for breaking and entering, the night club singer whose sugar daddy pays all of her bills (??). That sh*t that brings you in. Each implausible storyline is ridiculous, melodramatic and with juuust the smallest possible hint of realism that stops you from changing the channel. Well, that too but mostly because YOUR. BODY. HURTS. and you accidentally kicked the remote off the couch.

Phase three: The bad acting. But I mean, really? What would you expect? Not that I could do any better… but watching girls obviously too pretty to be junkies belt their face off while going through withdrawal–it doesn’t really get any better.

Phase four: Madea. She’s always there in every movie–interacting with the main characters enough to warrant her existence, but never really serving any purpose. I suppose she’s ultimately there to serve as a sort of comic relief to the surprisingly jarring “hard knock life” themes that these “comedic movies” seem to center around.

Phase five: Jesus. The good Lord, Jesus Christ and the church have no doubt been introduced into the main characters’ lives around the mid-point of the movie, and simultaneously into yours, as somehow, by the grace of God you are still awake, alive, and watching this Tyler Perry production.

Phase six: Abrupt ending. The acting may will be dicey, the plot twists and turns will be predictable, and the short but sweet resolve will leave you wanting more, but if you aren’t rooting for the coke-addicted, child-abandoning pimp in the last five minutes of the film (but not a minute before), you have no heart.

Phase seven: The realization of the larger picture. “Holy balls, THIS IS A MARATHON” you shout. The whole length of the film you were hoping the end of this horribly written roller-coaster ride of emotions would await you with something a little less light-hearted: perhaps a chick flick from the early 2000’s or the news. But now you know. The Tyler Perry movie cycle is truly the gift that keeps on giving.

Phase eight: Repeat phases one through seven until the cycle is completely exhausted (Read: this only happens when you have fallen asleep, the 4am infomercials begin, or death–whichever comes first).

Upon waking up the next morning, you will most likely realize the previous day was one of the biggest wasted mass of hours in your life’s entirety, but also maybe one of the greatest. Phase nine includes writing an angsty blog post with Tyler Perry as your subject and phase ten entails flipping on the TV when you’ve finished writing and secretly hoping another Tyler Perry Studios marathon awaits you.