The Righteous Gemstones preserves its delicate balance in Season 2

Paste Magazine

"Since launching on HBO in 2019, The Righteous Gemstones has felt like a Southern analogue to Succession," says Garrett Martin. "It’s a show about a powerful man and shameless bastard whose three spoiled children squabble over who gets to rule his empire when he’s gone, only it’s riffing on Jim Bakker and Jerry Falwell instead of Rupert Murdoch. The Gemstones have been frauds and hypocrites from the start, but season two digs into the violent origins of their rise to power, and how that violence threatens them decades later. And, like any good story, it starts with the one true art: professional wrestling. There’s a common skill set that’s invaluable to the televangelist, the pro wrestler, and the rock ‘n’ roller alike. All three fields are the domain of the charismatic blowhard, the fast-talking slick who can project a larger-than-life character while easily charming the audience. John Goodman’s Gemstone patriarch, Eli, got his start as a wrestler-turned-enforcer in Memphis in the ‘60s, and it’s this history of violence that starts season two down its shocking and bloody path. I don’t mean to make Gemstones sound too serious, of course. This is a show that turns the potential death of a major character into a mass barfing scene that’d make Stand By Me proud. It’s as brash, vulgar, and absurd as Danny McBride’s earlier HBO shows, as anybody who watched the first season of Gemstones can attest. But like Eastbound & Down and Vice Principals, no matter how ridiculous Gemstones gets, it still somehow makes you care about its destructive, cartoonish characters, exploring the fear, desperation, and sadness that drive them. McBride and his collaborators Jody Hill and David Gordon Green have consistently found the humanity within people defined by how inhumanely they treat others, and although that never makes them sympathetic characters, it at least helps viewers understand why they act the way they do." He adds that plot isn't something he looks for in a Danny McBride show. "No matter how ridiculous they get, they’re still rooted in a recognizable reality and a detailed eye for how people live and talk in the modern South," says Martin. "That attention to detail is readily apparent in this season’s flashbacks, where we see a perfect recreation of a mall circa 1993, as well as how one specific fast food restaurant changes appearance across the decades. These shows masterfully combine the outsized and the subdued, contrasting broad, loud, propulsive comedy with surprisingly nuanced characterizations and a believable setting. The Righteous Gemstones Season 2 preserves that delicate balance, and also has pro wrestling, too. How could it get any better?"

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• Season 2 displays surprising amount of growth and heart: "With its first season, the Danny McBride-created The Righteous Gemstones parodied the world of televangelists, ludicrous megachurches, and the dirty business of success in the name of The Lord," says Ross Bonaime. "As we reunite with the Gemstone family in the show’s sophomore season, they have somehow grown even mightier, as Eli Gemstone (John Goodman) and his three spoiled children (McBride, Adam DeVine, Edi Patterson) debut their own streaming service, GODD (Gemstones on Digital Demand), as their empire continues to grow through the faith and money of their followers. Yet in this second season, McBride and his team dig deeper into this absurd family, its history, but also the bond between parents and children — and lack thereof — that could bring such people into the world. In Season 2, McBride has turned The Righteous Gemstones into the Christian Succession, and is all the better for it."
• As Righteous Gemstones turns inward to consider who the Gemstones are underneath all that wealth and rodomontade, the "Daddy" usage mutates, too: "Diminished are the brattiness and petulance with which the word is initially delivered, and in their place step longing and fragility," says Roxana Hadadi. "McBride is a sculptor of broken people whose self-sabotage functions as simultaneously their chipped armor and the weapon that dented it in the first place, as captured in his HBO comedies Eastbound & Down and Vice Principals and the first season of The Righteous Gemstones, which introduced McBride’s Jesse as a philandering idiot caught in a blackmail scheme. That methodology is at play again when the series returns Sunday, tracking the Gemstone family through another crisis that threatens to destroy its reputation and wealth. McBride’s finesse in character development and his trust in the ensemble to bring these absurd imaginings to life are through-lines in an unevenly paced, sometimes one-note, but ultimately rewarding season. Call McBride America’s Ivan Turgenev because these nine episodes and their focus on patriarchal domination are his Fathers and Sons — a dive into the gap between inheritance and independence, a schism The Righteous Gemstones fills with sticky blood, gushing vomit, and more than one flaccid penis."
• Season 2 is a clever nine-episode sophomore outing that’s sharply written and often very funny: "It has some patchy inconsistency at times with its plotting, but an inspired array of guest stars help to hold together this 'Southern Succession,'" says Brian Tallerico. "Star/co-creator Danny McBride recently said that he wants this show to go on for years—much longer than Eastbound & Down and Vice Principals. Let’s just hope it’s not quite so long between seasons if that’s the case."
• John Goodman's gravelly performance continues to be The Righteous Gemstones’ moral center of gravity in Season 2: "As we learn more about his troubled, all-powerful pastor, it’s clear that the man’s murky righteousness remains the key to the show’s emotional foundation," says Will Ashton. "Jesse (McBride) and his equally overzealous siblings, Judy (Edi Patterson) and Kelvin (Adam Devine), retain an inherent goofiness, as their petty, pubescent squabbles are always enjoyably nonsensical. Yet even these nepotistic caricatures are given more nuanced complexity and sometimes even nobility than, say, Kenny Powers or Neal Gamby. The generational divide between the influential Eli and his overbearing children is full of comedic tension: The former is imposing in his influence and hard-earned wisdom—which is more richly developed this season thanks, in part, to additional flashbacks—while the latter are zanily aggressive in overcompensating ways. While The Righteous Gemstones grows increasingly violent, with more criminality, destruction, and scheming than in the past, it’s also more content to explore the strife within this increasingly unstable family."
• John Goodman is so devoted to The Righteous Gemstones that he ended up (briefly) in the hospital after a fight scene: “It was four o’clock in the morning and he ended up falling, getting into a fight with the tow hitch of a truck, and it clipped him,” says creator and star Danny McBride. “That was really scary, but he handled it like a champ.” “Goodman, he brought the fire,” adds executive producer David Gordon Green, who directed the episode. “You could really see it boiling within him.”
• Danny McBride and Edi Patterson discuss The Righteous Gemstones' endless ambition