The Righteous Gemstones recap: Are you there, God? It’s me, Judy Gemstone
The Gemstones’ obligatory “Interlude III” muses on family, trust, and why people don’t like Judy Gemstone
TV Reviews The Righteous Gemstones
“No one likes your ass, Judy Gemstone,” a fresh-faced teenage Jesse pointedly reminds his sister near the top of this season’s traditional flashback episode. It’s easy to see why. When we step back and look at Judy from a few miles away, her faults shape into view. Her short temper, sense of entitlement, and fashion sense snap together like a middle-child Lego set. She is Jan Brady by way of The Exorcist, her insecurities manifesting through petty crime, a thirst for revenge, and a total disregard toward the Rogers High School band equipment.
Returning to the year 2000, “Interlude III” takes us on a half-hour tour through the high school experience of Judy and the family’s millennial heel turn. A time of bandana tops and raging hormones, Judy’s adolescence, like it was for many of us, is a prison of insecurity. Her “flakey” advances toward her crushes and outright dismissal of Jesse’s “poor” girlfriend show a young woman on the cusp of realizing that not everything will be handed to her. At the same time, her immense wealth will keep her from ever experiencing the kind of financial violence her family creates—explored in this episode through the Gemstone’s Y2K Survival Buckets that crater Peter’s finances.
That’s not to say Judy’s problems aren’t relatable. Her flashback finds the character at her most human. She may be the princess of the Gemstone kingdom, but at school, she’s a disruptive weirdo. She isn’t a popular Fubu-sporting freak on a leash like her brother, the platonic ideal of a Fred Durst-obsessed turn-of-the-century white boy, nor is her hair as beautiful as Amber’s. Judy’s unpleasantness makes her a pariah in school and at home. Her brothers hate her. Her parents diagnose her with unspecified “minor” mental issues behind her back. With long hair sprinkling dandruff on the desk of her crush Trent, she’s learning in real-time that money can’t prevent the open hand of reality from smacking her across the face every day until the sweet release of death frees her of her torment.
Like the other Gemstones, Judy transforms her rejection into aggressive unearned confidence, one of Jody Hill’s and Danny McBride’s favorite themes. As far as defense mechanisms go, there are worse. It’s done the Gemstones a lot of good. What’s more unearned than claiming their wealth is divine will to the congregants they exploit? It’s all part of God’s plan, which includes murder, blasphemy, and swindling their congregants and their brother-in-law.
When we catch up with Aimee-Leigh and Eli, they’re doing damage control, spinning a failed Y2K doomsday-prepper scheme in another miracle that Eli seems eager to sweep under the rug. Still, the line between past and present comes almost immediately as Eli and Aimee-Leigh’s doomsday infomercial recalls Amber’s “The System.” Though the topics differ, they’re still packaging and selling answers to questions that should be available in that book they’re always hocking. It’s a scam, and they know it. “So who was wrong, God or you?” a journalist asks Eli. Eli offers no answers.
Regarding Christian fundamentalism and American conservatism, people often wonder who is and isn’t a “true believer.” The hard truth is, the distinction doesn’t matter because the results are the same: Voters are tricked, and everyone’s lives are made worse. The Gemstones complicate this notion through Aimee-Leigh and Eli, two halves of the same coin, a marriage between a true-beliving Christian and a grifting revival-tent huckster. And yet, the former is a lens into how corruptible that faith is. She admits to Eli that she never believed the world would end but romanticized it as a return to “a simpler time,” a dream of life without all the things that gave her power.
It’s Aimee-Leigh’s version of Make America Great Again. All it requires is the end of the world, which she knows will not happen. However, no matter how bad or dishonest she feels, she agrees to keep Kayfabe and tells her church that this is what God wants. There are no consequences to her deception; she’s back in power by the episode’s end. Like last season, Aimee-Leigh’s late-stage moralizing rings false, and “Interlude III” director David Gordon Green doesn’t ignore her hypocrisy. As she expresses a modicum of regret over her victims, we see Jesse playing with the church’s latest purchases: The Redeemer, a monster truck purchased by the church for Jesse, who must use in at least one sermon.
Aimee-Leigh can tickle the ivories of her grand piano from the altar of her megachurch, where she and Eli enjoy a sitcom-style resolution about their fraudulence. Still, there’s no repentance or returning the money. It seems their personal feelings don’t matter if they’re earning. When confronted with the failure of the world’s end, the two pull out the shepherd’s crook and lead their disgruntled, protesting congregation back to their TV show church, their lies, and their collection plate. There will be no refunds.
The kindest read of Aimee-Leigh’s justification comes from a real “true believer,” Peter, who invested $25,000 in Y2K survival buckets and turned to crime when his wife refused Eli’s refund. Ironically, he and Aimee-Leigh both want what the other has: Peter wants the wealth to keep his house and send his boys to college; she fetishizes living out of a bucket in the woods. God delivers neither from evil, but at least Aimee-Leigh has money and influence. Peter isn’t so lucky. For him, God has chosen a life of snake handling and insecurity as he attempts to sort through his complicated feelings on the matter in a last-minute sermon. His sermonizing reflects a desire to provide for his family as Eli does, revealing human justification for how he ended up the head of a militia. On one shoulder, he has May-May telling him to reject greed; on the other, he has Karl admitting he wishes he was a Gemstone child.
Peter undergoes the most significant change. “Interlude III” presents him as a feckless provider, an honest preacher, and a man crushed under foolishness and debt. As in The White Lotus, Steve Zahn plays an excellent mascot for the emasculated middle age man. He can handle a snake because he believes what he preaches—the outside world is what confuses him. He believed Eli was also a true believer or, at least, hoped for some of that Gemstone prosperity. Caught between God’s will and the tangible consequences of bankruptcy, Peter turns to the devil and takes a bullet to the cheek for his trouble.
Throughout “Interlude III,” May-May reminds us that greed rots the soul, providing empty pleasures that become outward expressions of inner turmoil. That’s why she always chooses Fresca from home over the Gemstone’s sinful Sprite. But her warnings come to fruition through Judy’s kleptomania, anger, and jealousy. Like Peter, she takes what she can’t have, looking at Jesse like he has everything. Judy focuses on the superficial, coveting Amber’s hair and stealing her ring, an outgrowth of the shoplifting ventures she drags “baby-dick” Kelvin on. What Judy can’t have, she steals or destroys. Then, at the very least, someone will pay attention to her.
With B.J. still years away—my kingdom for a Pen15–style B.J.-centric interlude where Tim Baltz plays his younger version—Judy has nothing besides a trust fund and her brothers. But as the show reiterates time and again, family is there for you in ways wealth isn’t. Jesse’s Darkman routine rescues her from rejection in a surprisingly hilarious and heartfelt defense of his sister’s honor. He swoops in with a white ski mask and a fedora and smacks Trent’s little ass red. Spanking Trent isn’t going to solve Judy’s problems. The attack is another example of Jesse’s problem-solving techniques, the same kind he used on the Simkins and Eli’s driver earlier in the season.
No, the Gemstone’s greed is in their blood, and they’ll do whatever they must to keep their fortune. May-May is right. Money created a world where the keepers of God’s message become deceivers. This is the world we live in. A world of Jim Bakkers and Pat Robertsons. A world of Eli and Aimee-Leigh Gemstones. For them, redemption and salvation come in the form of a monster truck aptly named “Redeemer.” The Gemstones roll over their congregation as The Redeemer rolls over Judy’s old toys, leaving nothing but a hollering Gemstone. It doesn’t matter if Aimee-Leigh or Eli are true believers because the result is the same. Buyer beware: All sales on Salvation are final.
Aimee-Leigh’s desire to “return to a simpler time” is a hackneyed conservative pipedream. She “romanticized” living after the end of the world as a way to reconnect with her family, free of the monster trucks and arguments about pubes that plague her day-to-day. What is so romantic about the end of the world? Why do all these people think it will be so easy? Judy Gemstone can barely survive high school.
Stray observations:
- The casting on this show remains unparalleled. I’m always impressed by Emma Shannon and J. Gaven Wilde, who play Judy and Jesse, respectively, and more or less carry the episode. Both of whom do such convincing and hilarious younger versions of Patterson and McBride. Still, the young Montgomerys, particularly young Chuck, are spot-on. I was so shocked by how much this kid looked like Lukas Haas; I thought some digital trickery might be involved.
- Both Peter and May-May have a lot of Judy in them. Like Judy, with her brunette mop or hair, May-May is always talking that trash, afflicted by the Gemstone temper, expressing her fears through stubbornness and violence. Poor Peter mostly gets Judy’s insecurity.
- “Interlude III” provides much context to the first four episodes but also raises questions about the future. Namely, why was Peter’s investment in Eli’s doomsday grift such a secret? Most importantly, May-May attacks Aimee-Leigh in the season opener. Why does she blame her specifically?
- Judy found Amber’s ring “in the toilet.”
- The lipstick kisses on the pictures of Russell Crowe and Ryan Phillippe were a beautiful touch.
- “I couldn’t live without my TRL.”
- 17-year-old Jesse says the Redeemer is “coke white.”
- “This what you call a ‘moist maker.”
- “Face me! I’m trying to have a hardcore, come-to-Jesus talk with you right now, and you’re being very rude with your body positioning to me.”
- Judy describes her hair as luscious and perfumey.
- Lord knows Jesse doesn’t want to hear this “He said, She said bullshit” at dinner.
- Did anyone else spot the return of Sean Whalen as Eli’s driver?
- I have to send many shouts to costume designer Christina Flannery who transported me back to middle school through the Rogers High Y2K fashion.
48 Comments
The actors they got to play young Judy and Jesse were great—-especially Jesse, that kid had Danny’s mannerisms and cadence down pat.
he gets better every season, too.
The cadence is what makes that character work. There’s a very specifc McBride way of talking that you need in order for that character to be correctly done, and he nails it.
I have to keep reminding myself the kid that plays Young Jesse isn’t McBride’s son. He looks quite a bit like him and nails every mannerism. He’s that good. The actor playing Young Judy doesn’t really look much like adult Judy, but she also nails the mannerisms. They’ve done a great job with the casting here
Yeah HBO casting continues to be amazing.
Damn, the end of the episode was…brutal. Just ugly, senseless violence. Kind of chilling, honestly.
Yup – Gemstones definitely knows how to pace and frame. That scene went against the overall grain of the episode in all the right ways.
def had a strong scorsese vibe there at the finish. real good stuff,
Reminded me a lot of Hawley’s Fargo.
Did anyone else spot the return of Sean Whalen as Eli’s driver?I didn’t recognize the actor per se but I recognized the name Walker as the driver Jesse fired in the season premiere.Jesse’s not 17 in the flashbacks, is he? I got the impression he and Amber met at college.One other thing I was thinking about is the sins of both of the Gemstone siblings (elder generation). You talk about Eli’s and how May-May is right about those— and that’s all true. But May-May also has anger in her, and pride, the kind that leads her to hit her kids to make them walk the righteous path and the kind that leads her to reject Eli’s offer and leads to Peter’s desperation. I suspect she resents Eli’s prosperity as much as she’s disgusted by it; I suspect she thinks rejecting it and living in poverty is a way to maintain her self-righteousness over him as much as she thinks it’s the right thing to do. It may be a season for the two siblings to learn about removing the plank from your own eye before worrying about the speck in your brother’s. May-May seems to have softened to Eli somewhat with time, but I don’t know how much so and whether she still carries that anger in her heart.Man, those kid actors are so good. Young Jesse got some great highlights— his speech to Judy, reminiscent of Jesse’s speech to Pontius last episode (in that they’re both sincere and meaningful but expressed in that singular Jesse Gemstone vocabulary). And I was hooting at Jesse’s revenge on that kid who humiliated Judy. And of course he has to do the little leg kick on his way out.
His Wiki page puts Jesse’s birthday at 1976, so he would have been 24-25 in here, but J Gavin Wilde was is 19, but I suppose could pass for a being a few years older.
19 I could buy; 24-25 seems too old at that point in time.Is the age listed on the Wiki based on anything in the show? Or just McBride’s own age (he was born in 1976)?
I mean, I don’t know if we should take this as gospel, but the fandom page lists the following. Jesse Gemstone was born in Rogers, South Carolina in 1976, the eldest son of Eli and Aimee-Leigh Gemstone and the older brother of Judy and Kelvin.
I was thinking he must be early 20s. I was 17 in 2000, and Danny McBride / Jesse looks a lot older than me….I hope.
Shit, he’s only a year older than me and I feel like he looks much older than me, which probably says more about the limitations of my own self image than it does about how old Dany McBride looks
The actor was spot on for a young Jesse but the age fudging for all of the siblings felt a bit off. I forgive it because everyone’s performances were truly great.
Judy clearly says in the episode that Jesse is “gone” and she’s stuck with Kelvin. So he must be in college at that point.
Could be away at a Christian boarding school.
They mention that Jesse is away at college. So that places him at 19, Judy is 16, and Kelvin is 7 or so.
Which places them at 42, 39, and 30 in present day. A bit young for the actors involved (other than Kelvin), but plausible.
May-May clearly still resents Eli. Notice that the book she brought to the book signing was the Y2K book he sold as part of the Survival Bucket scam.
Right! I’d forgotten that detail. I do think it’s interesting that for all her self-righteousness about living right, May-May’s own motivations are not as pure as she claims.
I generally don’t enjoy shows with zero redeeming characters, which up to this point ruled out all McBride shows. I optimistically thought Goodman’s character was decent but I’m now officially wrong. Not just a dishonest huckster but truly bad parents, their kids suck because of them.
The only one I’ve been able to get through is Vice Principals, just started on Gemstones and I’m so so on it.
There are characters who are fundamentally good but flawed. BJ probably applies most, even Kelvin in his own weird way. But I mean, this show gets to the humanity of even its worst characters. I understand if you aren’t into it (or the show’s brand of humor) but it’s not just relentless negativity and awfulness. (I will admit I think McBride is the weakest part of the show, which is not to say he’s bad but he’s too one-note to be at the center of such an amazing cast)
Eh, it was always clear that Goodman’s character was an asshole. You don’t get to be a multi-millionaire private jet flying preacher without being a piece of shit who is willing to take money from his congregation to line his own pockets.But I don’t see them as truly horrible parents. They’re not abusive. They just spoiled their kids, which tends to happen when you have too much money and more than a bit of guilt over how you acquired it.And the kids are mostly ok. They’re not great people, but they’re not murderers or psychopaths. Just normal spoiled brats coasting on daddy’s dime.
Ehh. Jesse is possibly a psychopath. He tends to resort to violence and intimidation a lot. He is definitely willing to kill. He has an outsized sense of self worth. He seems to dominate. Given how he’s treated his wife, Gideon, his friends and his siblings, he seems to have little regard for relationships.Kelvan…I’m still not sure how they are trying to portray him. That said, he seems too stupid to be malicious.Judy seems the most real to me, which is terrifying.
Nah, Jesse is just a dude. A lot of his posturing is just that, posturing. He doesn’t actually do anything truly malicious, even when given the opportunity, and occasionally does things for other people. His violence and general asshole behavior is him trying to present himself as what he thinks an “alpha” male should be. He’s the kind of guy who talks a big game, but when it comes down to it isn’t really up for truly heinous shit.
Honestly the young actors playing the siblings do a fantastic job.
Solid recap of an enjoyable episode.For the sleeeping editor, Aimee-Leigh played the piano on the church “altar,” not “alter”.And it’s “kleptomania”.
The Y2K thing did kind of bother me, because the story of Y2K isn’t an over-hyped fear that turned out to be nothing, it’s a mass-mobilization of private industry and governments working together to fix a very real problem. The warning was apocalyptic, but nothing happened because that warning was heeded. I appreciate that, even as it happened, that was the message a lot of people took, but nobody was wrong to be concerned.
Scary that if another Y2K were to occur today, aint no way you’d be getting people together to work out nothin.
i really enjoyed the moment where goodman’s reaction to ‘you should go talk to them’ was a deflated raspberry. you can really see how they’re all their father’s children.
Did anybody else notice that the band was playing the score to “Robin
Hood: Prince of Thieves” while Judy was storming in before she tore up
the saxophone?
I can’t imagine anyone would have, no. But assuming you’re right, good catch!
Righteous Gemstones is the only show, aside from Barry, that know how to stage violence in all its awkward, sudden and banal magnificence. That closing scene was just so perfectly executed. Violence is a dumb, horrific thing, and it takes great photography, direction and acting to make that happen. Also, as others have said here, casting “young” versions of cast members is always a WTF fest, but this show nailed it. A true masterclass in getting the looks and diction right for each character. And bless this show for helping me to feel for Judy. The creators have so much compassion for all of their unlovable subjects.
The creators have so much compassion for all of their unlovable subjects.That’s one reason I don’t understand the “zero redeeming characters” criticism above about McBride and Hill’s shows. I think they really walk an incredible line of portraying what could easily be one-note awful people in all three dimensions, their human motivations alongside their avarice and disconnect from regular human society, their virtues as well as their many, many vices. It’s a rare thing to see characters like this portrayed so fully on television.
I have an even bigger issue with the need for “redeeming” characters in the first place. Walter White is not a redeeming character but you understand his journey, which is incredibly engrossing to follow. The Gemstones similarly are filled with contradictions — they are hard to love but easy to watch. The only hard rule I have about characters: don’t be boring.
Oh, yeah, I totally agree. I want to be told a story, I’m not watching TV for moral lessons. I just need my characters to be compelling and to give me a reason to care about their story.And I totally agree with your assessment of the Gemstones. Those contradictions make them fascinating and make for great drama as they struggle to do the right thing occasionally— or even just the competent thing– despite all their negative qualities. And of course since it’s a Hill / McBride show it’s funny as hell, too.
Just because they show a shred of humanity now and then or have a (relatively tragic) backstory doesn’t make them fun to root for. I guess that’s my issues with these characters.
I swear every time they do this i google to see if McBride is overdubbing the voice in some way. That kid does such an amazing young Danny.
Kept waiting to see Baby Billy the whole espisode. God they need a young Baby Billy spinoff.
This episode was so sad! Not just because of Peter’s ill fate at the end, but Judy was humiliated by both her peers and her own parents. Throughout the series, Aimee-Leigh has mostly been portrayed – or at least remembered by her family – as the innocent one. In this episode we see her as the enabler and bad parent she really was. Also, I feel like you should have mentioned what seemed like an obvious parallel between Judy’s high school crush, Trent, and her adult boy toy, Steven. From the start of this season, I have been perplexed as to how Judy could be attracted to a grown man with frosted tips! Now we see that Steven not only dresses like Trent, he plays an instrument, too.
I hope we get to meet Mars-Eye Larry at some point.
“in the toilet” is another way to say “in the bathroom.”
True, but you know Judy meant literally in the toilet, because that’s her style.
Anyone else notice that they visited Roy Gemstone’s grave in the flashback…but he was very much alive and an old man in the present day in the first season?
I don’t remember him being alive in the first season. The only times I remember seeing him alive were in season 2, both set in the past: the opening flashback scene and the interlude episode.
Ah, you’re right. He was shown in flashbacks in the 2nd season.