The Righteous Gemstones is a raucous satire of the unholy union of capitalism and religion, as well as all-American greed, hypocrisy, vulgarity, stupidity, violence, and alpha-male braggadocio. Yet it is also, at times, a disarmingly sincere show about family values. Those values may be obscene and debased much of the time and the family wildly dysfunctional, but among the Gemstones, there are no sins that cannot be forgiven. Perhaps that’s the one benefit of sinning so often: Who are any of these people to cast the first stone? In the first season, Gideon Gemstone returned from Hollywood to run a blackmail (and later, heist) scheme on Eli’s ministry and now serves as his driver. His father Jesse had an affair on his mom — and got shot through the butt cheek and anus for it — but now they’re selling their reconciliation tips to married Christians at $500 a pop.
The Bible offers dozens of verses counseling the faithful to be slow to anger and quick to forgive, and though the Gemstones are chronically terrible at that first part, they don’t hold grudges for long. The first episode of this season opened with a flashback where Eli’s sister May-May clocked his beloved wife Aimee-Leigh in the head with the wrench, which would seem to be cause for permanent estrangement. But when May-May comes back to Eli looking for help in the present day, he finds he can’t turn his back on her and even works up the nerve to drive straight into a hostile militia camp to reconnect with his nephews. There is no insult or betrayal that would be too wounding to do permanent harm to any relationship within this family. It makes a certain kind of sense that chronic sinners are also the biggest believers in redemption.
When the new season premiered, I compared the Gemstones to the Roys in Succession, noting that they are similar families with similar goals in appealing to similar audiences, but they would never mingle at the same parties. The Gemstones are nouveau riche hicks, the Roys old-money urban snobs. But to see the Gemstone siblings and their spouses on Cousins Night, sipping cocktails while trading snarky jokes about their ill-bred kinfolk Chuck and Karl, you’d think they were at a Wambsgans soirée. How could these yokels swim in that filthy trout pond? (“I feel like I’m up in the zoo right now watching the gorillas get washed,†says Judy.) And what’s with Karl’s unruly tufts of pubic hair? (BJ, in a rare and magnificent cutdown, shouts, “Holy smokes, what’s Karl got cooking under his trunks?!â€) Money has turned the Gemstones into symbols of grotesque prosperity-Bible excess, with their monster trucks and gold-trimmed private jets. But they’re also capable of looking down their noses.
In the lead-up to Cousins Night, the siblings want nothing to do with the Montgomeries. They’re annoyed that Chuck and Karl are complaining about staying in Daddy’s mansion and pigging out in plush bathrobes. As Eli is trying to convince them to treat their first cousins as family and make them comfortable, they catch Chuck and Karl peeking out from the windows above and “ducking down, Haunted Mansion–style.†Later, Kelvin describes them to Keefe as “diarrhea people,†unworthy of Keefe’s warm sausage dip, but a mishap at the party turns the whole relationship around. When Karl’s inadequate chewing lodges a chunk of dinner in his throat, it takes a group effort for the Gemstones and Chuck to save the big man. This simple moment of cooperation in the face of potential tragedy unlocks something in all of them. Family means something to the Gemstones. As usual, the siblings are just slow to realize their father was right.
In other developments [deep intake of breath], Baby Billy is back! The inspired cold open finds the once and future televangelist star in a relatively low place, perhaps not as bad as selling COVID-fighting elixir out of a hitch-trailer, but not nearly the height of his childhood fame. His current gig is performing 24 shows daily at the pool lounge at Zion’s Landing, adding an aquatic clamshell theme to a sequined getup that wouldn’t be out of place in Reno’s saddest casino. It’s not a bad job, really, to live in the penthouse with Tiffany and their son Lionel while sipping free piña coladas. But the clever opening suggests his restlessness, toggling back and forth between the fantasy of swooning fans hanging on every verse and the sad reality of “basic Christian sun bums†doing cannonballs in front of him.
“Everybody that’s famous knows that true famous people go through different phases on the being-famous train,†Billy tells Tiffany when he gets back to the penthouse. He’s mostly right, though true famous people probably also know that career trajectories tend to dip after a few decades, not rise and fall, and he hasn’t been a star for a very long time. Hilariously, he grasps at the very first thing he sees: an old episode of Family Feud, back when Richard Dawson hosted and used to kiss all the female contestants on the mouth. His thought is that he could do the exact same show but with Bible trivia. No “survey says,†though, because there’s only one right answer.
When Billy and Tiffany present their idea to the Gemstone sibling tribunal, the props look great — my God, that Baby Billy doll — but it’s an obvious pass from all three of them, who can’t even pronounce the name of the show, “Baby Billy’s Bible Bonkers.†(Or at least they can’t three times fast.) Billy and Tiffany’s attempt to stage a mock pilot of the show during Cousins Night gives them a decent proof of concept, but when Karl starts choking, the stunt is quickly forgotten. Billy is unbowed, however. “They’re gonna buy Bible Bonkers now,†he tells Tiffany on the drive home. It wouldn’t be the first time the Gemstones have acquiesced to one of their own.
Uncut Gemstones
• A wonderful small moment at the end of Billy and Tiffany’s pitch to the siblings: The meeting ends poorly, but Judy and Tiffany exchange sincere affections after it breaks up. The bond they developed last season has stayed strong.
• Other than his return to fame, “standing in air-conditioning all day†seems like a primary motivator for Baby Billy to be “back on the motherfucking TV.â€
• “She kung-fu-ed my larynx, Daddy!â€
• The sexual charge to Keefe talking to Kelvin about his sausage dip (“I’ll keep it in a special container that will keep it warm and you can carry it with you to the family eventâ€) is palpable and truly unsettling. And it continues with Keefe’s astonishing fire routine, which sends Kelvin to ecstatic heights while weirding out just about everyone else.
• Amber offering Judy and BJ a free The System starter kit is a masterstroke of passive aggression. She’s the most powerful of the Gemstones other than Eli, and it’s not really that close.
• “I will not have baby Lionel miss out on proper cousinship just because he’s young.†Walton Goggins is a true national treasure.
• Any speculation about the significance of Gideon picking up his grandfather’s autobiography? Is this a conversion moment?