The Righteous Gemstones Season-Premiere Recap: Succession

The shame of The Idol taking over the Sunday slot after Succession ended was not merely the sudden drop in cabin pressure, but the unfortunate timing — a few weeks before Succession’s true companion, The Righteous Gemstones, kicked off its third season. They’re essentially the same show, each about the efforts of three wealthy, inept failchildren to take over their father’s empire, and each a flamboyantly profane satire of American greed and exploitation. The Roys may be too snooty to invite the Gemstones to their Manhattan soirées, but they’re shaking down the same people: It’s easy to imagine legions of Evangelicals on their couches, flipping between ATN news and the megachurch currently deducting a monthly “tithing” charge from their bank accounts. The question is whether the younger generation can keep the money hose on.

That’s more of an existential question on The Righteous Gemstones than Succession, because Waystar Royco doesn’t necessarily need a Roy to operate, but the Gemstones are a true family business, so Jesse, Judy, or Kelvin — or some combination of the three — will have to follow Eli as “America’s Jesus Daddy.” And the third season begins with this fresh, dynamic, cool Gemstone trio flailing desperately to do the job despite their previous confidence that their old man might be losing a step. (They have that in common with the Roys, too.) Because Eli has not bequeathed his empire to any one of them, they’re now the three stooges of the televangelist world, stepping awkwardly on each other’s toes at Sunday service while trying to work different angles on their own time. With the thriving Zion resort looking like Ned Flanders’s answer to an all-inclusive Caribbean vacation, there are new souls to save and new revenue streams to establish this season.

The immediate problem for the Gemstone siblings is that the church has hemorrhaged attendees and donors since they took over for their father, and “dismal” poll numbers suggest that they lack the charisma and ingenuity to bring them back. Amber tries to lend her support to Jesse, comparing the situation to the time Jay Leno took over for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show and enjoyed a long run at the top of late night after his initial fumbles. (Jesse retorts, “What if we’re not Leno? What if we’re just Conan?”) But the episode suggests that Amber might be the more spotlight-ready of the two: As Jesse fumes, Amber is out turning their Christian marriage-counseling meetings from last season into “The System,” which offers couples a path to “a happy and healthy marriage in the eyes of the Lord” for the low price of $500 for a “starter kit,” and presumably much more once they get deeper into the program. (BJ’s success in pitching auto-deducted tithing at the Welcome Center makes him seem more competent than his Gemstone spouse, too.)

At least Jesse seems to have his focus directed at turning things around. His siblings are off on their own projects. Kelvin’s yen for inadvertently homoerotic youth-pastor work continues with “Smut Busters,” an army of young people he and Keefe have recruited to take down porn shops along the I-95 corridor by robbing them of stock. That leaves Kelvin and Keefe marveling over foot-long dildos and other sex toys before tossing them into a toxic fire pit. (“The smoke was green from some of the butt plugs,” complains Keefe.) Meanwhile, Judy’s five-state performance tour has led her to embrace the rock-star excess of dry-humping her guitarist twice and kissing him three times, leaving her with some proximation of guilt for betraying BJ.

Like any floundering politicians, though, the Gemstones have to turn to their big donors first. During a typically contentious family breakfast, they’re informed that one of the congregation’s biggest contributors, an aging stock-car driver named Dusty Daniels (Shea Whigham), has withdrawn his support. Dusty had intended to leave an estate worth $200 million to the church, as well as the $30 million attached to his trademark slogan (“WhooWhee, Sucker!”), but laments it hasn’t been the same since Eli left. That loss brings the siblings to the track to win back “The Slick Bandit,” but their efforts are undermined by the Simkims, a group whose leader, Vance, played by Stephen Dorff, has a more compelling origin story. Dusty allows the Gemstones a chance to settle their dispute with the Simkins through a stock-car race, but Jesse, a true avatar of unwarranted self-confidence, stalls out his car before peeling it straight into the wall around the first curve. He stands a much better chance at being the next Jerry Falwell than the next Mario Andretti.

The Righteous Gemstones sets up the Gemstones-Simkins rivalry quite well, including the now-requisite act of violent stupidity that occurs whenever Jesse feels backed into a corner. It also gives Eli something to do in retirement besides signing copies of his third autobiography and appearing at meetings for the “Cape and Pistol Society,” a band of godly elites that sits around over cigars and scotch like CEOs. The opening sequence at a Christian monster-truck rally in the year 2000 teases out a larger drama involving Eli and his long-lost sister May-May (Kristen Johnson), who tried to attack his wife with a giant wrench at the rally but now comes asking him for a favor in tracking down her sons and wayward ex-husband.

We don’t know yet the nature of any of these relationships, but it speaks to Eli’s dual nature as both capitalist gangster and true believer. All we’ve seen of his sister is her smashing his beloved Aimee-Leigh in the head with a wrench, but here he goes, seeking some form of reconciliation and grace. As played by John Goodman, an actor of gentle voice and imposing form, Eli is every bit the good pastor Dusty Daniels imagines him to be while possessing a potential for afflicting harm that even a reckless thug like Jesse doesn’t have. Kelvin’s smut patrol might be out seizing dildos, but his father is the true velvet hammer.

Uncut Gemstones

• The production and costume design on this show is always first rate, but special attention should go to Aimee-Leigh’s watermelon dress in the opening scenes. It’s not so obvious from afar, but when she leaves for a smoke break, the fruity lapels stand out beautifully.

•  “The pistol gives us power to take life. The Lord gave us freedom to do as we choose. Thusly, it is a righteous man who wears the pistol but does no evil.” That third line honoring the Cape and Pistol Society seems less important than the first two. The true elite get to kill without consequences. And wear sashes with more pieces of flair than the waitstaff at Chotchkie’s in Office Space.

• Amazing missionary initiative to bring LASIK eye surgery to Indigenous populations.

• Judy on stock-car driving: “Real talk y’all, I don’t get this race-car shit. Bunch of rednecks, racing around, seeing who can go nowhere the fastest.” Amen to that.

• You have to pause to see it, but the title of one of Eli’s previous books is Y2K: When the World Goes Dark.

• What’s going on with Jesse and Amber’s son Pontius? He has the word blessed tattooed in calligraphy on his head and is shown a few tables away at breakfast surreptitiously puffing from a vape.

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