Photo: Connie Chornuk/HBO
With “Interlude IV,” the show’s mid-season (or, in this case, slightly past mid-season) gearshift on the horizon, tonight’s episode of The Righteous Gemstones has to do a lot of table-setting for the final stretch, which might account for why it’s a shade less inspired than usual. Not that it doesn’t have plenty of fun on the margins, but the gears of the plot have to grind a little to set up confrontations to come, from Vance Simkins’s all-out war against the Gemstones to Lori Milsap’s troubled romantic history to the possible collapse of the ministry itself, now that the kids’ one successful initiative may be running afoul of the “outdated” parts of the Bible. While you can’t feel the heavy lifting too much, there’s less space here for the show to play around, at least in scenes that don’t involve Baby Billy trying to turn a smoldering teenage Jesus (or Teenjus) into his latest television smash.
The trouble starts with Kelvin, whose success at adding a queer-friendly twist to his usual youth-pastor shtick has finally sparked an inevitable backlash. Kelvin himself seemed to sense that he could only push Prism so far — recall his Siegfried & Roy analogy when Keefe urged him to bring their relationship more out in the open — but it did seem strange that Prism would thrive in a conservative Evangelical community. Kelvin’s incredible hubris about his nomination for Top Christ Following Man was bound to be answered by fate, too, as even those closest to him roll their eyes at the “congratulations luncheon” he throws for himself. Though Vance Simkins and Jesse don’t agree on much, the consensus between them seems to be that Kelvin’s nomination is a token gesture from a group that perhaps wants to see itself as more inclusive than “straight white males.” As it turns out, the church may not be so progressive.
After his latest mini-mall ministry was almost certainly torched by the Gemstones, Simkins is ready to have his revenge on Kelvin, who’s so high on his own supply that he doesn’t see the live TV discussion panel for Top Christ Following Man as anything more than a brand-extension opportunity. (“It’s gonna be a great chance to drop some dank sound bites and establish myself as a clear fave,” he tells Keefe.) He gets very few dank sound bites off, however, when he’s ambushed by Simkins for his selective reading of Scripture. In the past, the Gemstones have proven to be reasonably well schooled in Bible verse, but Kelvin has no answers to Simkins’s attacks, which oddly speaks well of his family’s own acceptance of his sexuality. As much as Jesse jabs him for his token nomination, this TV panel seems like the first time he’s confronted real intolerance, and he looks almost heartbreakingly thunderstruck.
Kelvin isn’t the only one facing condemnation for his sexuality this week. After catching Eli and Lori 69ing at Galilee Gulch, the Gemstone kids are back to denouncing the relationship, perhaps mainly for putting that image in their heads. (“The slurping of the holes is burned into our memory, a scar upon the mind,” says Jesse.) The urgency to do something about it gets ramped up by Lori’s suggestion that she could be their “wicked stepmother” soon enough, if they’re so intent on rejecting her. This leads Jesse’s crack reconnaissance team to poke around Instagram looking for photos, which then leads to the revelation that many of Lori’s past boyfriends from the picture, including “Big Dick” Mitch, are either missing or dead. When Baby Billy later tells them that Lori’s money troubles led to her begging for a spot on the Aimee-Leigh telethon, they naturally conclude that they have a black widow in their midst.
In one of the episode’s funnier wrinkles, a disconsolate BJ gets a boost from a service monkey named Dr. Watson that Amber drops off in the hope that it’ll relieve Judy and boost BJ’s spirits. Judy has been unable to lift BJ from despair, despite giving him examples of disabled men who have lived great lives, like “the president with cold legs who does talks by the fireside.” Though Dr. Watson is unable to distinguish between black-cherry White Claw and Citrus Yuzu Smash, he’s smart enough to come pretty close, and perhaps smart enough to plot against his human masters. The look he flashes at Judy from afar toward the end of the episode suggests monkey shines at a minimum, if not the glimmerings of a Planet of the Apes–style revolt.
But it’s Walton Goggins who walks away with the episode as Baby Billy, whose freelance (and free-balling) activities have been a delightful wild card all season. Still riding high off the success of Baby Billy’s Bible Bonkers, he finishes the pilot script for Teen Jesus, which he shortened to Teenjus after an invigorating snort of cocaine. It’s worth pausing just to read the scene on his computer (“He’s gone. He’s risen. The girls are like, ‘Whoa, for real?’”), but his vision doesn’t truly come to life until he’s on the set directing a pallid, brooding, Z-grade Edward Cullen type to offer a youthful take on the son of God. (The dialogue makes it sound like Footloose in Nazareth: “If I win the village dance contest, there’s no way I won’t be accepted. Through my moves and swagger, I’ll show them I am the Chosen One.”)
It seems possible that Baby Billy can sense the decline of the Gemstone empire, so his job now is to extract as much money from the kids as he can before the ministry falls apart. All it takes for him to get the green-light on Teenjus is a little dirt on Lori. Surely there’s more where that came from. For now, he stands to cash in no matter what happens. His only real worry is keeping the donkey in focus.
• Okay, there is one source of stress for Baby Billy: He detests the giant German nanny, who can’t get in his good graces despite cleaning the pool after hours and offering support for his Teenjus idea. (“Over here skimmin’ leaves, eavesdroppin’. Go inside that house and watch them sleepin’ babies!”)
• Simkins may drop the yellow kerchief on him one day, but Jesse is right to think he won round one with his “New phone, who dis?” routine.
• A couple of episodes ago, I wrote about the Gemstones ripping each other without their relationships falling apart. But Kelvin gets so defensive about his siblings ragging on his “flavor of the month” success that he pushes the limits, calling Jesse a failure whose kids hate him and referring to Judy’s husband as “a pole-dancing cripple.” From Jesse’s perspective, saying “San Francisco” in an effeminate voice is nothing. It’s just a city, according to Judy, who asks, “What happens if I say ‘Fort Worth’? Are you going to stab me?” (The kids still brush it off as usual.)
• Seann William Scott is giving a lot of odd looks as Lori’s son. Keep an eye on him and the monkey.
• It feels like Kelvin’s “Stay blessed, y’all” is a jab at Mark Wahlberg’s “Stay prayed up” catchphrase, doesn’t it? Calling his followers his “discipes,” however, is pure Kelvin Gemstone.
• Taking edibles and watching the middling 1990 Michael Keaton/Melanie Griffith thriller Pacific Heights? No one should stand in the way of such a blissful golden years relationship.
