The Righteous Gemstones is a show about American grifters, converting faith into cash through grotesque Sunday spectacles and an array of branded revenue streams, all in service of a family that amasses sins like miles on their private jets. Yet it’s also a show about redemption, with characters who occasionally show the humility to confess wrongdoing and seek amends from those that they’ve wronged. While it would fair to say that the Gemstones are too quick to forgive themselves — and, indeed, seem to commit sins in anticipation of self-absolution — they also believe in what they’re selling on stage. As much as the show often feels like a low-comedy companion to Succession, the Gemstones have a greater capacity than the Roys to come together as a family.
And it all starts with Eli Gemstone, who is not the irredeemable, rapacious beast that Logan Roy is. For all the contempt the Gemstone kids have for their father — and the power vacuum they’ve been jockeying to fill once he’s gone — his time in the hospital affected them more than they perhaps expected. (And they have the projectile vomit to prove it.) When Jesse tried to take Eli’s seat at the head of the table in last week’s episode, it didn’t feel right to his siblings, but it didn’t seem to feel right to him, either, as much as he and Amber may have talked about moments like this during sex. In fact, Jesse’s refusal to seize power so callously is threatening to become as much of a wedge between them this season as his carousing did last season. Amber wonders why they didn’t use their time at the head of the church to send money to the Lissons for the Zion project, but for Jesse, that level of betrayal is unthinkable.
Eli emerges from his near-death experience a changed man, like Ebenezer Scrooge after his visitation from ghosts. He wants to treat his children better, and he wants them to do likewise. He wants to square up with his past in Memphis and end his conflict with Junior. And John Goodman, an actor who’s so capable of projecting gentleness and grace, makes Eli so authentic in spirit that no one can be hard-hearted enough to deny him. One thing about committing sins as big as Eli has is that he can’t be consumed with self-righteousness when it comes to the sins of others. The entire thesis of the episode — and maybe the show — comes out in his answer with Junior, who asks him if he thinks he’s better than everyone else.
“No, son. I have the devil in me too. I think we all do, but that doesn’t mean he has to win.â€
Granted, Eli is also an extremely lucky guy in this moment. He approaches Junior to tell the truth about what happened to his dad, Glendon, whose dead body is part of the foundation for his amusement park. Eli doesn’t know that Junior and Glendon were on the outs because they didn’t have a relationship like the Gemstones have. In a pre-credits sequence in Memphis 1993, we learn that Junior and his dad had split over the direction of a business that Glendon had no intention of giving over to his son. The cash that Glendon had tried to launder through Eli’s church was the liquidation of his assets, not a dollar of which was going to Junior. Eli’s decision not to take the money — a moral choice, if not the cleanest in context — salvages his relationship with Junior. These are two con men, but there is honor among thieves.
After last week’s riotously funny, action-packed episode, “The Prayers of a Righteous Man†is a surprising and equally audacious gearshift, pausing for breath before a finale with many big questions left to answer. (So much has happened that the grisly scene at Thaniel Block’s rental cabin seems like a distant memory.) As Eli extends his grace to Kelvin, Judy, and Jesse, for whom he finally agrees to invest in Zion’s Landing, Baby Billy is out there trying to be a better man himself. After peeling away from Tiffany and his soon-to-be-born second child, Billy finds himself wanting to reconcile with his first, Harmon, the kid he’d abandoned in a mall in the ’90s. He’s now a grown-up in the sort of suburban home you might see in a John Hughes movie — only he’s not home alone, despite being played, in another Gemstones casting coup, by Macaulay Culkin.
Along with Goodman, Walton Goggins is the most versatile actor on The Righteous Gemstones, and his scene with Harmon covers the full range of Baby Billy’s character — his slick charm, his childlike neediness and sincerity, his expectation that a few minutes of generosity will make up for a lifetime of neglect. There’s not much difference between ’90s Billy letting Harmon pick out anything he wants at the mall and present-day Billy letting Harmon punch him in the face, except for the fact that Billy is asking for amends from his son rather than fast-stepping his way out of the mall. There’s something both brazen and sweet about Billy popping into Harmon’s life, ready to do whatever it takes to make things right, even though it really does nothing for a son who’s already settled into a prosperous life with a normal family. Getting punched in the face is such a better gift to Billy than the cat was for Harmon. It’s a cure-all more surefire than his miracle elixirs.
The Gemstones have now cleared the deck. More sinning can commence next week.
Uncut Gemstones
• Baby Billy, taking measure of his son’s success: “You’ve done well for yourself. Got you a couch with a bunch of cupholders.â€
• A wonderful episode for Valyn Hall as Tiffany, who’s introduced here perched in a tree while full-term pregnant, talking to Judy and BJ about the fracking operation near her mother’s home, which is 15 hours away by bus. “You gotta watch out for, like, sinkholes and explosions and stuff.â€
• There are many funny moments in Kelvin and Keefe regaining control of the God Squad, but my favorite may be Keefe’s casually slapping one of Cody’s pecs.
• Baby Billy’s temporary excitement over his son possibly believing that his spirit lived on in Harmon’s cat is punctuated by a great Goggins reading: “Meow, meow son.â€
• In case this episode was going too soft on the Gemstones, there’s a bracing moment where all three of them laugh over the $50,000 pittance awarded to a needy family. “Poor people love money, y’all,†says Kelvin.
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