It always felt like The Righteous Gemstones was going to stick the landing. There was never really any doubt. Across eight episodes, the show managed to maintain a remarkable level of quality. The show hardly ever wavered, balancing its comedy with pathos, thrills, family drama, and instantly infectious musical numbers. Now, there’s the finale, “Better Is The End Of A Thing Than Its Beginning,” an episode that somehow tops everything that came before it.
It begins, yet again, with a stunning cold open. McBride and company really nailed them all season long, and the one that kicks off the finale is every bit as funny and ludicrous as the others. In a flashback, Aimee-Leigh is laid up in her hospital bed during her final moments. Eli, Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin are gathered, and they’re praying at the moment that Aimee-Leigh’s heartbeat vanishes. Then, a bee buzzes around the room, everyone gets distracted, and the room gets torn apart while everyone sobs. It’s escalating comedy at its finest.
The finale is filled with bits just like that, ones that start out with an obvious joke and then just continue to beat it into the ground until it’s impossible to stop laughing. Take Judy’s attempt at getting BJ back. It’s the episode’s best scene, and Edi Patterson is simply rolling. The two meet at an Outback Steakhouse, and Judy tries to explain to BJ why she’s so bad at relationships. She confesses that she’s only had one boyfriend, and then goes into very lengthy detail about how she was attracted to her college professor, jacked him off against his will, and then kidnapped his child before the police stepped in. “Then we weren’t boyfriends and girlfriends anymore.” Only Edi Patterson can sell this winding, hilarious story, and it’s only compounded by the fact that BJ does come back to her, and says all sorts of disgusting stuff in front of a security guard when they reconcile.
Reconciliation and redemption is the theme of the episode, and it does a great job of wrapping up all the season’s storylines while offering up some real moments of change and reflection. This isn’t simple tidy storytelling, but rather something more complex and rewarding. As is often the case with McBride’s shows, the crude surface gives way to something more meaningful underneath. Here, it’s themes of family, forgiveness, redemption, and the need to reflect on one’s actions in order to grow.
We’ll get to the obvious and best example in a second, but this episode is peppered with ideas of trying to better ones self in order to live in this hellish world. There’s Kelvin, after a brief goth phase, realizing that while his family may be in shambles, he abandoned the one man who truly needed him. So, he goes back for Keefe, and finds him in the weirdest spot imaginable. McBride and company really went there with the dick-exposing suit and a milky bath, and it’s worth it. How can something be so sick and so sweet all at the same time?
There’s also, as mentioned, BJ and Judy. Their freaky romance gets a happy ending because they both decided to live more honestly, to try and be the people they want to be. None of it seems healthy or anything, but hey, those two weirdos definitely deserve each other. Then, after everything, there’s the final confrontations between Eli and Baby Billy after the Gemstone kids figure out that he slammed into Scotty’s van and took the money. McBride’s shows love to use outlandish scenes as a form of emotional catharsis, and that’s the case here too. Baby Billy tries to escape the confrontation, Kelvin tackles him to the ground and Judy slaps Tiffany, and then Baby Billy is struck by lighting and only brought back to life when everyone prays for him and he’s stung by a bee. Yes, the finale somehow manages to call back to that insane cold open in a meaningful way. Of course, this is still Baby Billy. He can’t help but go on and on about seeing Aimee-Leigh, which, knowing him, is probably a lie.
Finally, we get to the season’s central relationship: Jesse and Gideon. It’s been fraught with blackmail, violence, and lies, but here it gets the semblance of a happy ending. After coming clean, Jesse’s marriage is on the rocks, and a trip to Haiti where he can’t get Gideon to come home only makes it worse. Amber boots him out, and that leaves him flailing. Gideon sees right through this visit, accusing his father of wanting to make the “bad things go away” rather than actually reckoning with what he did and the consequences those actions brought forth.
It’s such an insightful bit of writing. This show understands Jesse, and isn’t willing to give him a break just because this is the finale. It isn’t just time to move on and set the table for the second season. And it’s in line with the Gideon we know, the boy who lashed out in a big way, but who always seemed out of place with Scotty. Here, as he’s trying to bring more clean water to the people of Haiti, he seems at home.
And so, Jesse joins him there. He shows up, without saying a word, and starts digging alongside his son. He commits to working towards forgiveness, and that freedom he’s seeking, freedom from a life defined by lies. Who knows if it will come, but for now, he’s working towards something bigger than himself.
Stray observations
- “Voodoo, chicken magic? Yeah, but not cannibals.”
- I can’t praise Edi Patterson enough here. What a gross, hilarious performance. “No one should have sat on that chair after me; it was damp.”
- I love that BJ thinks the Peter Gabriel song is called “Indoor Eyes.”
- “That wasn’t Jesus, that was a karate person.”
- Thanks for reading along this season, everyone. I really didn’t think McBride and company were going to be able to top Vice Prinicpals, but there’s a good chance this is their best show yet. What a ride.
83 Comments
“Save that piss for my chest.” The real hero of today’s episode is that security guard.
That part had me dying. The whole episode was a laugh.
There’s a running thread in Jesse and Amber’s troubles that reconciliation is explicitly contingent on Amber getting her son back. When Jesse fails, nothing else he offers – including genuine remorse – is good enough (note: I am not arguing that it should have been enough.) Similarly, even though Eli never says so, the siblings all behave as if finding the stolen money is necessary in order to get back in his good graces… and they were absolutely right. McBride said he wanted to tell a story about hypocrisy, and Eli turned out to be the biggest hypocrite of them all.
More charitably: you could look at those scenes as illustrations of just how strong the bonds of family can be. You see it with Eli and his kids and with Baby Billy — despite so much betrayal, heartbreak, etc., he wants to find a reason to forgive them, even though he knows they’re going to fuck up again almost immediately.Same, possibly, with Amber and Jesse — we’ve seen before that she’s willing to overlook a lot of his behavior. Obviously the events on video are a much deeper cut that is harder to forgive, but even offering a chance at redemption via Gideon is probably more than Jesse deserves and is a sign that she’s leaving the door open to reconciliation.
This show seized on the fraudulent, grotesque hucksterism of mega-churches and had a ball lampooning their existence in many ways true and added such profanely hilarious and extremes that I did stay with it. That it did attempt an overture of redemption and heart in the finale was indeed terrific and I was surprised how well it worked. But I swear as soon as it was over, once again (as it has been for me after each episode) my mind is flooded with the decades of predatory and manipulative practices so many have been busted for in their corruption and hypocrisy in scamming dollars from those so taken by these charlatans. I am presently curating correspondence to a wealthy woman here in California by Tammy Faye Baker for auction. You can see in her letters the most nauseating and toxic scamming for money and even jewelry in the name of Jesus. The capper was a rubber banded stack of letters in appealing for monies and support to keep Jim Baker out of jail. Beyond contemptible. I don’t think any of these so called Christians would know redemption if it was stenciled on a truck and ran them over.
What I find most perplexing about this show (and don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy it) is that the Gemstones are actually….fairly decent people?Despite fleecing their (massive) congregation so they can live lives of absurd excess, the characters don’t come across that badly. They’re not really hypocritical and they don’t seem particularly predatory about their church practices. They’re just really, really good capitalists who are great at monetizing their particular brand/product.But they all seem (reasonably) sincere in their faith. And Jesse’s one night of debauchery which was the cornerstone of the blackmail scheme was basically a one-off thing and all Jesse himself did was do some drugs and gamble a little. Big whoop.It’s strange to see a show and a dark(ish) comedy at that about the proprietors of one of those disgusting mega-churches who are, at heart, flawed but okay people.
Tammy Faye Bakker was actually a pretty decent person, or at least became one after the divorce.
They’re not particularly evil. They’re just assholes.
That could probably be used to describe a lot of what Danny McBride does …
eh, i don’t know. Judy is a rapist and a kidnapper. that is pretty evil.
Yeah, there are definitely exceptions.
People who run megachurches are fucking evil. Except the Gemstones.
Yeah, it’s not like he rolled over and fucked a whore.
earlier in the season, there was a scene where Jesse was by himself in a room and delivered a fairly heartfelt prayer. it’s one thing to prayer in front of millions (when your bank account depends on it), but to me, that ‘all by himself prayer’ signaled that, deep down, he really desired to be a good person, even though he regularly behaved selfishly.
The time you get caught doing blow on camera is definitely not the first time you’ve done blow.
That’s the whole problem of the show. Joel Osteen and his wife are some of the most despicable humans on this planet, as are all wealth-gospel preachers.But it’s not because they’re weirdos with daddy issues or closeted or any of the stuff this show lampooned its characters for. It’s because they’re soulless, money-obsessed assholes who will take a family’s last $15 under the guise of an investment in god that will pay back to the giver a thousand fold.Just google “sow a seed in faith” (a phrase I first came across in an excerpt in Osteen’s book, but seems to be standard in the holy shakedown industrial complex) and be ready to want to put your hand through a wall.The writers clearly fell in love with their characters, ignored that they’re evil and let them off way, way too easy. It’s kind of an epidemic at HBO; Barry has the same problem.
Yeah, it’s just a baffling series of choices. Like, I expected the show to be a really dark comedy about a group of amoral con artists (which is what all those people are in real life.) But the Gemstones are a lovable bunch whose dysfunction is played for goofy laughs while the show goes out of its way to remind you that “aww, they’re really not that bad!”
Exactly.I assume the fault is in McBride as a writer, too much in love with his character. Or maybe it’s in casting John Goodman. Would just be too painful to turn that man into an actual shitheel. Heck, even 9 Cloverfield Lane let him be right, even if he was some kind of evil psycho (I forget the details).
I loved, “Let’s go home and let the Catholics and liberals help these people get their clean water.”
The key really is John Goodman’s fundamental decency.
Jesse and Judy cracking up to the Never Ending Story horse scene is how I’ll choose to remember this show.
Right? A normal person was rightfully traumatized by that scene (hand up here), and learned about depression from it, but Jesse and Judy are a different type all together.
“BJ, I need to tell you: part of my pajama pants are drenched right now. And it’s not drenched with pee.”“It better not be, Judy Gemstone. You save that piss for my chest.” The most romantic exchange I’ve ever heard.
The quick intercutting to the guard wincing made it perfect.
also the guard mouthing “fuck me” with such a grossed out look on his face was hilarious
It was perfect touch to an already hilarious exchange.
and then goes into very lengthy detail about how she was attracted to her college professor, jacked him off against his will, and then kidnapped his child before the police stepped inI hate to point out some double standard shit that I notice the writers of this site are pulling a lot lately, but you describing it in that way really stuck out heavily to me.This entire scene was hilarious to me and all, but if the shoe was on the other foot from the person telling this story, this review would have been filled with much different language to describe that than what was written. Probably also an extra four extra paragraphs or so.You guys need to make up your minds on when things are off base or not. Just saying.
A real lightning bolt to the slit.
These people didn’t deserve redemption but overall it’s been a great ride.Is there a plan for another season?
I do believe they are offering a second season, although I thought last nights episode would have been a pretty perfect ending if there isn’t one.
I’d honestly rather they keep it as it is but bring the cast back for a new show each year or so – like with how American Horror Story functions. Only without the half-assed continuity.
I had the same thought about Eastbound and Down, but they managed to one-up themselves for several seasons.
HBO has already green-lit/ordered a second season. So we will be getting more of the Gemstone family. I presume we’ll get to watch Jesse try to weasel his way into Amber’s good graces. Hopefully some BJ and Judy nuptials – because I want to see a Judy Gemstone wedding.
I do think Hill and McBride wrote this as a single season, but it really wraps up everyone’s arc nicely. That being said, I want more.
Yes, GEMSTONES has been renewed for a 2nd season.
I assumed the bee was Aimee-Leigh reincarnated; appears after her death, doesn’t attack anyone, revives her brother.
oh that totally was, right??
This show is so incredibly overrated, but my boyfriend makes me watch it.
That Outback Steakhouse monologue! Just when you think it’s tapped out, it gets wilder and wilder. It’s like they came up with these crazy pages for Judy to say in the writers room, probably in one giant stoned binge one weekend, landed on this one and said, “Oh, this one we gotta save for the finale.”
Through that scene I kept thinking “Someone at Outback Steakhouse read this script and was like ‘Yeah, put our name on it.’”
Have you TRIED the steak and shrimp combo?SPLOOSH!!
“Enjoy the rest of your Outback Steakhouse dinner, Judy.”
‘G’day.’I died.
Same!!
I missed the G’day because I was laughing too hard.
And then said, “G’nite” or “G’day” – I couldn’t hear which (didn’t rewind it) and it just killed me.
It’s ok. BJ did them a solid by capping off that segment by saying “I hope you enjoy the rest of your Outback Steakhouse dinner”
I loved that the food was all on the table already when BJ arrived. Made me think they were contractually obligated to show a Bloomin’ Onion.
Perfectly displayed and untouched, as if Judy wanted the table to look exactly like a commercial spread and not nervously snack on it. Which it was. Meta hilarious.
I had the same reaction, that some poor Outback Steakhouse PR rep was shown the pages, swallowed hard and said, “Well, OK… but can we at least have all our popular items on the table in front of them while she’s talking?”
The capper was them ending the dinner with two somber ‘G’days’
According to McBride’s interview in the NYTimes, Edi Patterson wrote that entire monologue. That woman is a FORCE
Now this I needed to know – of course she also can write. What a G-D delight!
When she said she left what “looked like a snail’s trail” on her chair, I absolutely lost my shit.
Apparently she’s a well hydrated woman.
Edi Patterson is an absolute gem. Her talent is insane. How is it that I never remember seeing her in anything before Vice Principals and she’s not way way way more famous?? I would watch anything she’s in, ever, for the rest of her life.
Of the three shows about institutional con artists (this, Succession, and On Becoming a God in Central Florida) we’ve had running this season, the Righteous Gemstones has definitely been my favorite.Judy’s story about molesting her professor was so horrible and funny and insane. I love that character.This is a better show than Vice Principals, which I also loved. A little of Danny McBride goes a long way. I like him better in these smaller, more carefully crafted doses than when it’s him going full bore asshat, scene after scene.
Judy Gemstone is one of the most terrifying characters on HBO. She is played masterfully. The part where she describes how she sexual assaulted her professor and kidnapped his child. scary!
She’s like an extended version of Mona Lisa Saperstein from Parks & Rec.
Yet she stays sympathetic because her primary characteristic is a crushing chasm of neediness and desperate desire for approval that’s both hilarious and kind of wrenching.
For me, it’s the relationship between the three siblings that holds the show together. When Goodman throws the Jesus karate person statue at the wall and it breaks, and they all go ‘Oooooooooh!’, you can see how they’ve probably been the same people for just about all of their lives. Hell, we even saw them being those same people in the flashback episode. These people aren’t saviors. They’re not even well-developed adults. They’re all just overgrown children playing dress-up and doing what they need to do to maintain their wealth. Loved this episode (Edi Patterson stole the shit out of it, of course), although I was expecting something a little more cliffhanger-y or suggesting what might come next season. Not sure if it’s a McBride/Hill tradition to not do that or something, but all in all, what a great season. Can’t wait to see what’s next.
I grew up one of three siblings, and its pretty honest how they revert to their childish rivalries at times. You never really outgrow that. Plus The Neverending Story truly fucking rocks.
Oh, same here with me and my sister. We act exactly how we used to as kids in various situations.
Yep. I have two younger brothers. Same.
Name me a kid from the 80s who didn’t learn about depression from that damn scene! The horse just GAVE UP!
I’ve never seen it. My depression came naturally.
I don’t know whether it would have made you feel better or not …
A horse dies? Yeah, I’m good.
Now you understand why them cackling at the scene that made so many of us WEEP is even more poignant. Monsters!
I STILL struggled to watch that scene…it was fucking traumatizing then and it remains now
I didn’t remember that scene…but instantly knew it was from TNS.Suppression, etc.
cried at aunt tiffany decked out in supreme
That scene in the storm made me nervous because you could see where it was going. If they killed off Baby Billy, I could never forgive them. Baby Billy needs to be protected at all costs.Now where I do I order that picture colored in crayon for $59.99?
The second I saw that bee in the open, I went “That’s Aimee-Leigh’s soul,” and I feel the episode’s climax bears it out, whether it was meant to be taken literally or metaphorically. She came back and revived her brother and, of course, did it with a sting. I definitely think Baby Billy is lying about what all he saw, but I don’t think he’s wrong that his sister was present in some way.
The Outback Steakhouse monologue was incredible, as was Kelvin’s persistent belief that (a) he might be Jesus and/or (b) other people definitely think he is. The sibling affirmation scene (over The Neverending Story, no less, with Jesse and Judy LAUGHING over Artax’s drowning?? you MONSTERS) was terrific. And only this show could make a scene like Kelvin and Keefe’s reunion feel meaningful. The ending felt like the perfect cap to all of this.
I have no idea where the show can go from here. Everything feels just right. But I trust in the Gemstones to get themselves in hot water again, and I can’t wait for the next season. (And oh God, I desperately want to see more of that theme park. Take us on Jesse and Kelvin’s Exodus Adventure, dammit.)
I love this show.
I know it’s meant to be absurd, but I am well familiar with South Carolina and I was well entertained thinking about the logistics behind getting that many freaky goths to an orgy in that state. Like, were they bussed in? Had the mind of rural America finally succumbed to meth and madness that there was enough local talent?
Ina show that features plenty of both, the goths are never actually shown doing drugs or having weird sex, meaning Keefe’s dark past actually only consisted of… dancing.
Yeah, I loved their portrayal of the goths/satanists. They’re just having this huge 24/7 rave, and everyone in town seems to know about it, but nobody does anything. Also, they seem to be pretty decent people once one pushes past the satan-loving facade.
I won’t say anything profound about this… just that it was a delight. The whole f-ing season. It will require a re-watch for me because I’m sure there’s plenty that I missed.
is anything and everything that Edi Patterson the funniest and best performance ever? Get over it. She’s alright. Sarah Silverman could have done her part. Did Edi Patterson write her own lines? Even if she did, still not that funny or an an incredible performance
What a goddamn show. I didn’t expect anything deeper than some funny jokes about superchurches—but wow, what a smart, confident first season.
Just finished binge-ing this season today…it was completely unexpected coming from the guy who brought us Eastbound and VP, IMHO. Like somebody said on another page, theres far more drama than either of those series.McBride though seems to play the exact same character in each of his shows. Maybe its him realizing the limitations of his acting ability, I dunno. I guess there’s a certain admirable quality in sticking with what you are good at.Obviously Edi is the MVP of the show, but once again Goggins shines when he gets to play this kind of outlandish character. Its why I’ve been so disappointed with The Unicorn so far—-his character is too much straight-man and I don’t think thats the kind of role he’s made for.But I was so happy that he didn’t die at the end of the ep, because we need more Baby Billy for season 2!Oh, and Scott MacCarthur was seriously giving me flashbacks to The Mick. Boo Fox for cancelling that show!
I actually really like him in what I’ve seen of Unicorn…in part because he’s so indelibly Boyd Crowder in my mind.
I always see Shane Vendrell.Or Venus Van Dam, lol.