“The Righteous Gemstones” follows the Gemstone family, a family of televangelist megapastors in South Carolina, as they deal with threats to both their church and family. The comedy series has been airing since 2019, with the fourth and final season currently airing on HBO Max.
The series follows the Gemstone family, which consists of patriarch Eli (John Goodman), eldest son Jesse (Danny McBride), daughter Judy (Eid Patterson), youngest child Kelvin (Adam DeVine), their uncle Baby Billy Freedman (Walton Goggins) and the deceased matriarch Aimee-Leigh (Jennifer Nettles). Supporting the main Gemstones are their spouses Amber (Cassidy Freeman), BJ (Tim Baltz) and Tiffany (Valyn Hall), Jesse’s oldest son Gideon (Skyler Gisondo), church accountant Martin Irmani (Gregory Alan Williams) and reformed-Satanist-turned-bodyguard Keefe (Tony Cavalero). This cast brings both laughs, as they find the seemingly worst way to handle all their problems, and moments of genuine, deep love for each other.
The first season begins with Jesse, Eli and Kelvin returning from a baptism mission in China–which they horribly botch–but manage to play off as a success. Upon his glorious return to his wife and children, Jesse receives an incriminating video over text and blackmail asking for one million dollars from the church. Jesse handles this in the worse way possible by draging his siblings Judy and Kelvin into it, refusing to tell his father and gathering a team of his church buddies to try to resolve the situation. In all this mess, the show takes an episode every season to dedicate as an interlude, acting as an agent to show how the family became the way they are in the present day.
“The Righteous Gemstones” manages to satirize and mock American televangelism, yet doesn’t critique, attack or mock Christianity as a whole. The Gemstones rarely, if ever, successfully preach, instead focusing on exposing their own family problems to the church or simply saying Bible-y enough stuff to pass. This idea gives the show the very important distinction of not being mean-spirited towards religion as a whole, but instead targeting the practice of mega churches and televangelism. The show also uses comedy to emphasizes the family’s relationship dynamic, rather than poking fun at their belief in God.
For this reason, the comedy hits, and hits hard. None of the characters get along with each other, all of them are fighting for power in the church and all of them are trying to deal with the blackmailing without being successful.
On top of the excellently written comedic script, “The Righteous Gemstones” has a banger original soundtrack. The soundtrack perfectly emulates 80s and 90s style country/gospel music, with actors Goggins and Nettles playing childhood country/gospel stars divided over whether or not to do a tour.
This series will definitely not convince you to join a mega church, but it will leave a smile on your face after every season is through, and will bring you back for more. I can also promise you’ll have at least one song stuck in your head, be it “Misbehavin’,” “Sassy on Sunday” or any of the other ear-worm pieces from this show.
