Back at the beginning of the season, I wrote about the remarkable continuity between the premiere of The Righteous Gemstones’ third season and the end of Succession, another show about three failchildren jostling for control over the empire their father built. But one key difference is the title Succession was a bit of a joke, in that Logan Roy dangled this inheritance in front of his kids without actually having faith that any of them could handle the job. Despite the many signs of his dwindling health, he proceeded as if he were immortal, in part because he genuinely convinced himself and others of his invincibility and in part because the thought of bequeathing his fearsome multinational corporation to the “not serious people†he raised is too humiliating to bear. It would be a mercy for him not to be alive to see it happen.
That’s not the case with Eli Gemstone. He has retired, and his children have taken over his ministry, with predictably disastrous results. The leap of faith necessary to believe that Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin would succeed is as immense as believing a Y2K Survival Bucket might be necessary to withstand the near-certain collapse of society. And yet Eli took the leap anyway, perhaps out of personal exhaustion for doing the job so long without his beloved Aimee-Leigh, or perhaps in the vain hope that the Gemstone church was bigger and more sustainable than any one person (or three). But retirement has been full of trials and exasperation for Eli, an endless series of interruptions to his efforts to do a little fishing and find some peace. He wants his children to be able to handle their own problems, but he’s raised them to be entitled brats who can’t even preach without a band, a choir, and state-of-the-art lighting effects to boost them to the pulpit.
Eli’s mistakes are more comprehensive than his failures as a father, though, and they come back to haunt him in a big way in tonight’s episode. When May-May came back to him, wanting help to rescue her adult sons from their father’s influence, Eli jumped at the chance to prove his righteousness and redeem himself for essentially destroying May-May’s family. We learned during “Interlude III†that May-May’s ex-husband, Peter, was ruined by the Gemstones’ Y2K scam and wound up in prison for an impulsive bank robbery gone tragically wrong. Rescuing the Montgomery boys, Chuck and Karl, ended up being a foolish quick-fix solution to a much deeper problem: Eli and his kids were convinced that terrycloth robes and a monster truck could restore a relationship that was deeply broken, and, this week, they pay for their sins.
“Burn for Burn, Wound for Wound, Stripe for Stripe†is an action-oriented episode, without much time to ruminate over how all these characters find themselves in this ridiculous predicament. But it’s a viscerally entertaining payoff to the conflicts that have been brewing all season between Eli and his kids, the Gemstones and the Montgomerys, and the ministry and the have-nots who have been propping it up all these years. Just don’t call what happens to Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin a kidnapping: “For your information, it’s not called kidnapping when it’s adults,†says Jesse to Kelvin after they’re thrown into an empty silo on Peter’s militia compound. “It’s an abduction, you dumbass.†Peter generally hasn’t proven himself a great planner — we never see the bank robbery, as it’s over seconds after he enters the building — but he does execute a triple abduction efficiently. It’s the rest of the plan he hasn’t thought through.
Peter is asking for $5 million per Gemstone, with proceeds going to possible initiatives like poisoning the water supply “in some liberal city.†What he fails to anticipate is that Eli will simply refuse to pay up. This could charitably be counted as an act of faith on Eli’s part: He doesn’t believe a decent Christian like Peter is capable of killing his own kin, and neither do his children, who are more annoyed than terrified about being tied up. Then again, what kind of father isn’t willing to forfeit money he certainly has to secure the lives of his kids? Eli’s actions are a little reminiscent of William H. Macy’s rich father-in-law in Fargo, who doesn’t trust him to handle such an important situation. The father-in-law gets shot in the gut for it. Eli may suffer a painful fate of a different sort.
Any fallout from Eli refusing to pay the ransom is tabled for now, however. This longer-than-usual episode is about the hilariously chaotic mess of setting the Gemstone kids free. Even in this ostensible life-or-death crisis, the siblings cannot get around the disunity and in-fighting that’s been dogging them all season, with Jesse blaming the other two for never supporting any of his ideas. His idea this time? “After I finish eating this orphanage food,†he says, “I’m going to fold this bowl into a knife. And when that door opens and the little one walks in, I’m gonna slay. Cut his fucking face off and wear it as a mask. Then I’m gonna walk out of here, hot-wire the Redeemer, smash every fucking thing in here, and escape.†Kelvin and Judy question the plausibility of this plan in the funniest possible way, with Kelvin stuck over the notion that someone’s face could fit over Jesse’s much fatter face, as if this will be his undoing.
The actual mission to free the Gemstones from the Montgomerys’ clutches isn’t brilliant, but it’s the type of smash-and-grab job that tends to happen on this show. Talk about killing the hostages finally leads Karl to call his mom for help, and Gideon follows her to the compound, leading to a Dukes of Hazzard–level breakout sequence involving a monster truck and a bunch of rednecks futilely popping their guns as the getaway car peels away.
“How the hell does he know how to drive that thing?†Judy asks Jesse as Gideon roars around in the Redeemer. “’Cause he’s my fucking son!†replies Jesse, proudly. In that moment, Jesse feels the satisfaction of being a great dad — and doing better than the man who raised him.
Uncut Gemstones
Jesse understanding that Chuck means him harm in the parking garage leads to a funny showdown where he pretends to take Chuck up on his offer to hang out while he backs up to grab a handgun from his car. “You know I love a sibs-free hang sesh,†he says.
• Judy, unafraid of her captors, who complain about their life of poverty: “Shut up Chuck. You deserve this life, dude, living in the woods with a bunch of incels, gazing into each other’s dickholes.â€
• Another great Judy line, about the filthy state of the silo: “Chicken doo-doo getting all ground into my fucking seduction dress.â€
• Perhaps the single funniest image of the episode: Baby Billy pushing his crying baby through the door at the Gemstone estate and just allowing the stroller to keep rolling toward the wall. Walton Goggins has not gotten much to do this season, but he’s sucked the marrow out of every moment. Ditto Valyn Hall’s Tiffany and her “voodoo dolls.â€