‘The Righteous Gemstones’ Might Be Danny McBride’s Masterpiece

The Righteous Gemstones is not the show you think it is. Sure, it’s a Danny McBride comedy, full of profanity, nudity, and hilariously uncouth manners. However, it’s something more than just another ribald comedy in the legacy of Eastbound and Down, Vice Principals, and even The Foot-Fist Way. The Righteous Gemstones is an epic look at the triumph and tragedies haunting a family of famous televangelists. Each episode turns the screws on what makes these powerful people tick. We see them wrestle with faith, ambition, loyalty, and most of all, their need for love.

“It’s not like this straight comedy,” star Adam Devine told Decider during an interview at Summer TCA. “It’s this big, grand comedy that’s also dramatic in some parts and very heartfelt and very earnest. I think people are going to walk away from it feeling more satisfied than just a 30 minute situational comedy.”

What’s striking about The Righteous Gemstones isn’t simply how it skewers the hypocritical avarice of televangelists. Instead, it digs deep into the pain that drives each of the Gemstones. Led by patriarch Eli Gemstone (John Goodman), the family started modestly enough and built an empire that now stretches across the globe. Danny McBride plays Eli’s eldest son, Jesse Gemstone, a blustering peacock of a man whose foibles could threaten the very Gemstone name. Adam Devine plays Eli’s youngest son, sincere millennial youth pastor Kelvin. As the baby of the family, he’s the butt of jokes and has a bizarrely intimate relationship with Keefe (Tony Cavalero), a former Satanist Kelvin brought into the light. Finally, the middle child, Judy (Edi Patterson), is defined by her frustrations. Ambitious, cunning, and desperate for respect, she’s the wild card of the bunch. Shadowing each of the Gemstones is the recent loss of their matriarch, Aimee Leigh (played in flashbacks by Jennifer Nettles). Without her light guiding the family, each Gemstone is prone to loneliness, if not also the propensity to lean hard into their worst natures. It often feels like Danny McBride’s version of another HBO show: Succession.

“In our mind, it’s a show about family and the church is a backdrop,” executive producer and director David Gordon Green told Decider. “There’s real drama in it and you sell it as a comedy, to get cinematic qualities in it that I don’t think are typical of a 30-minute comedy.”

Executive producer and director Jody Hill concurred. “We have experience with… you sort of buy your ticket for this one item. Like, he’s the bad word-saying, drunk, naked baseball player [in Eastbound and Down]. Then as the shows go on, it becomes more than that, which is how I think we trick people into something different than just broad comedy.”

While it’s true that both Eastbound and Down and Vice Principals reckoned with deep-rooted emotions, The Righteous Gemstones still feels like a huge step forward for McBride, Hill, and Green. The series not only digs into faith, but plays with narrative form. Each episode seems to twist the kaleidoscope a bit more, feeding more information about the family’s past, or introducing a wholly different point of view on the drama. What unfolds is stunning and deep; outrageously funny and terribly tragic.

Green said, “You have these great actors, you want episodes to take these tangents, to realize them and give them a real stage to fulfill them. Vice Principals was really a two-person show, or three with Kimberly [Hebert Gregory]. But here, it’s more expansive than that.”

The Righteous Gemstones frequently gives the floor to other voices, even those outside the Gemstone’s inner circle. Danny McBride’s Vice Principals co-star Walton Goggins appears in Episode 3 as Baby Billy Freeman, Aimee Leigh Gemstone’s hilariously incorrigible brother. It’s a scintillating scene-stealer of a turn, but The Righteous Gemstones ensemble is full of hilarious breakout performances. Tim Baltz shines as Judy’s desperately devoted beau TJ, Skyler Gisondo is an adorably fumbling wannabe extortionist, and Cassidy Freeman manages to be both sharp and tender as Jesse’s loyal wife Amber.

“I think people are going to have an idea of what this shows about, and if they’re open to it and watching it — whether or not it pissed them off — they’re going to be [like], ‘Oh, oh. This show’s actually about a lot more than just what I thought it would be,'” said Freeman.

The Righteous Gemstones might not be the televangelical takedown you’re expecting, but it does have the makings of a modern TV masterpiece.

The Righteous Gemstones premieres on HBO this Sunday, August 18 at 10 PM ET. 

Where to stream The Righteous Gemstones