The thing about The Righteous Gemstones is that it is a good show. It has been for a while, too, thanks in no small part to things like Walton Goggins singing a song about misbehaving and Macaulay Culkin showing up and punching Walton Goggins in the face and a bunch of other reasons that don’t directly involve Walton Goggins. Everyone on the show operates at such a high level all the time. Most of Edi Patterson’s line-readings as Judy Gemstone should be put in a museum so future generations can enjoy them. Reasonable arguments can be made that it is actually our best recent show about idiot children attempting to fill a power vacuum created by a domineering father stepping away from the family business. Sometimes those arguments are made by me. I get excited.
And when I make those arguments, one thing I plan to cite going forward is the 10-minute stretch that closed out the most recent episode, the second of the third season, which debuted as the back half of a two-part season premiere. It was kind of incredible, really, just for the ambition and range and the fact that they went ahead and made it all work. I apologize in advance for all the GIFs coming up here. I was not joking when I said I get excited.
The background of it all isn’t super important for our purposes here, but I am a professional (sort of), so let’s sketch them out quickly. The first part of the action features the three children — Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin — at a meeting of pastors who work with and under the Gemstone family brand. They are trying to convince these pastors that the leadership will remain strong and stable in their father’s retirement. It starts out fine, or at least fine-ish, but then…
What I like here is that this is almost certainly the first time this collection of words has been said out loud in this order. Another thing I like about it is that it came moments after Danny McBride — in character as a failson megachurch pastor — took off one of his shoes and whipped it from the stage at another pastor who was questioning his leadership.
And then other people started taking off their shoes and whipping them at each other, including Edi Patterson launching a high heel that caught a lady who was just unfortunate collateral damage.
And then the whole thing devolved into a conference room full of pastors launching shoes at each other and shouting and flipping double-birds about it all.
Just a massively stupid and funny and chaotic scene that somehow drives home what a disaster these children are better than any dialogue anyone could ever write. I was howling when I saw it. I’m laughing a little again now. It’s fun to think about how the Gemstone family thought this was going to go. It’s also fun to picture them explaining this to their father, Eli Gemstone, who is played by John Goodman. I would very much like to see that.
Where was Eli while this was happening, by the way? Well, this brings us to the second half of this brilliant 10-minute slice of television. He was in an SUV driven by Jesse’s son Gideon — a wannabe stuntman who just got the gig as his grandfather’s new driver — that was fleeing a group of doomsday preppers led by Eli’s maniac brother-in-law, played by Steve Zahn, because this show does guest stars and recurring characters better than any other show on television.
That’s right. We rolled from shoe-tossing straight into a car chase. A really good one, too! Like, one worthy of an actual action movie! Let’s crank through some GIFs to drive this point home.
We have nudging…
… and we have wheel-cranking turns into and around fields of grass.
It was honestly so good, and made better by Eli’s two goofball bearded nephews — nephews he was liberating from the prepper group, hence the chase — flailing around the backseat as the SUV screeched around turns. Just a lovely little chunk of business.
Anyway, it all culminated in an attempted ramming and brake-slamming bit of anarchy that left my mouth hanging open a little bit. Look at this show do work.
LOOK AT THIS SHOW — A FUN LITTLE HALF-HOUR COMEDY — DO WORK.
This is what I am talking about. Look at the range on display here. Very few shows could pound out the back half of an episode with an outrageously silly scene where men of god wing footwear at each other followed by a scene where a different group of men of god engage in a highway chase that ends with multiple airborne pickup trucks. An even smaller number of them could do it and make it work.
I’m thinking about it now and the only one that leaps to mind is Barry, another straight-up incredible piece of television that mashed together nail-biting action and slapstick comedy. Yes, this is where we mention the dirtbike chase scene from last year. Again. There aren’t many shows in this genre, the one I would best describe as “stupid comedies that are also brilliant action movies,” but I sure am glad Danny McBride and Bill Hader are doing their best to make it a thing.
