The Righteous Gemstones recap: Sinner, you better get ready

After last week’s surprising dip into the warm waters of Cousins Night, the future was looking so bright, the Gemstones gotta wear shades. Yet, from the jump, “I Have Not Come To Bring Peace, But A Sword” tips its hand toward a reckoning. Now we know: The goodwill forged in “For Their Nakedness Is Your Nakedness” hid a rotten core at the heart of the Gemstones, and it was laid bare this evening.

For the last few weeks, we’ve seen the Gemstones attempt to hide their superficial and interpersonal failings. Whether it be Jesse’s dye job or Judy’s affair, the show explores how the family’s secrets, big and small, come at a cost when tiny infractions snowball. But it’s a lack of trust that Jesse astutely points to at the episode’s end that reveals the episode’s intentions. His son’s Pete Davidson act reflects a family-wide duplicity that caused nearly every major partnership on the show to falter.

“Trust is a gift that should be cherished,” Jesse tells Pontious in the show’s closing moments. “Trust is the only thing keeping the entire house of cards standing. Without it, we’re left with a shit-stained world filled with liars and cheats.” Yet for as accurate as Jesse’s observations are, the show’s nonchalant dismissive humor in the form of Pontious’ tossed-off “whatever” mirrors what Jesse is talking about. At every turn this week, we see lovers, friends, and family intentionally or unintentionally weaponizing that trust for their own interests, and as the song goes, “the sinner must die.” The trust built at Cousins Night gives way to a half-hour unmasking: Judy’s affair is exposed; church parents find out about the Smut Busters; Jesse gets a white slap; and the Montgomerys throw up twin middle fingers to the Gemstones’ hospitality. Oh, also, there’s an Aimee-Leigh hologram. A lot happens in this one. Tonight’s Gemstones grabs hold of the show’s many Band-Aids and rips them straight off the skin, pulling out each hair and revealing the infected wound underneath.

Still, the Gemstones are riding the Cousins Night wave early on. The Montgomerys are getting makeovers and shiny silk suits. Things have improved significantly since their days with the Brothers of Tomorrow’s Fires, but that doesn’t mean they’re not still in the militia’s pocket. “Slick boys,” Peter calls them, an appropriate nickname considering all the costumes they wear tonight. From their makeover montage to pest control to their Mumford & Sons act, the Montgomerys can blend in and transform in unexpected ways.

If only Keefe were as capable of tapping into his inner chameleon instead of being a sacrificial lamb. Keefe’s trial at running a Youth Group parents meet-up goes as expected when he bumps into the guy from the sex shop (George Paez) in front of the parents. Though Kelvin expresses surprise when this all goes awry, it does feel like something Kelvin should’ve handled. Sure, Keefe came through at Cousins Night with his mastery of the flaming orb, but that’s a little different than explaining to an ice cream and weiners party of Baptist parents wondering what this ex-Satanist with a very original and provocative fashion sense is doing with their kids. Kelvin could’ve explained the whole thing, but with the rumors going around, maybe he’s trying to keep his head down.

Kelvin put Keefe in an impossible situation, and Keefe was crucified for it. Not that Kelvin ever had a solid plan. The audience understands the Smut Buster mission because the show successfully locks us into the Gemstone mind frame. However, Smut Busting was a plan that seemed, well, inappropriate for a church youth group, what with all the butt buzzers and plugs—not to mention all the sex-negativity that keeps Kelvin and Keefe sweating out their repressed desires through various forms of faux masculinity. (What exactly were they trying to do, anyway?)

Ultimately, Keefe takes the fall for Kelvin, the church avoids a scandal, and Keefe leaves Gemstone manor behind. Kelvin must pay the hefty toll of firing his closest friend—and on a day when Keefe is wearing his best zip-up, turtleneck choker. But Kelvin’s emotional injury is the result of his decision-making, his planning, and his inability to articulate to his family and church what Keefe means to him. His overt repression forces Kelvin to side with his family and send Keefe into the wilderness. Suddenly, withholding the truth becomes as consequential as outright lying.

Judy, too, has this problem when Stephen goes full Fatal Attraction on her ass. Director Jody Hill turns the affair into an erotic thriller with precious B.J. at the center. When Stephen begins popping up in B.J.’s text messages and at his pickleball games, Hill pushes Judy’s doting husband toward the truth with Baltz’s babe-in-the-woods act, creating an unlikely and disarming tension in the episode as he attempts to empathize with Stephen (played by Stephen Schneider with unhinged, sleazy delight—he is, in every way, the anti-B.J.). Whether he’s informing Stephen that the glorious cock shot was sent to the wrong recipient or reaching out for another game of pickleball, despite the homophobia and explicit descriptions of sex acts, B.J. is willing to hear Stephen out in a truly Christian way.

Throughout the episode, B.J. offers a perfect counterpoint to the Gemstones around him. Endlessly trusting of his wife, he joins her in a game of “ain’t robots dumb” at Sips and Strokes. He’s upfront with Stephen, directly informing his pickleball partner of his likes and dislikes. At sushi later, B.J. admits he understands why Stephen reacted this way and wants to help Stephen through this challenging period. Despite the Versace Couture, this is still B.J., and he’s a man of serious resolve. He even has a little gun at brunch. It doesn’t protect him from a drive-by nose honking, but still, he’s willing to defend the family.

B.J. trusts his wife and his family, and in return, he gives his time and energy to the church and not in the self-enriching Gemstone way. Like Keefe, the last thing he wants to do is embarrass or undermine his partner. Meanwhile, Jesse can’t help but cuss at the Cape and Pistol chambers, embarrassing his father and provoking a “white slap” to cap off his induction ceremony. It’s no more than he deserves, considering he tries to act all fresh in front of Simkins while making oh-so-obvious he and his crew were behind the attack. Jesse thinks nothing can touch him, and he’s seriously mistaken.

In their throne room, Jesse, once again, asserts that he’s the only one working for the family. But that’s not really what’s happening here. He simply thinks he’s not getting the proper respect. As Baby Billy points out, he doesn’t have a star by his side. It’s just him and two not-really stars. Jesse thinks he deserves more, and this is where we have to get into Billy’s Aimee-Leigh hologram. Namely, where the fuck did he get this thing? That system looks like the control center of James Cameron’s deep-sea submersible—so how the heck did a man named Uncle Baby Billy end up with it? But this is just another counterfeit Gemstone. Jesse’s overwhelmed response to seeing his digital mother standing before him, singing as he remembered her, is a golden calf for the family to exploit. It’s hard to imagine Eli liking this hologram, even though, like the influx of A.I., he’ll probably go along with it because of money. But May-May and Peter will probably find it so disgusting for different reasons they’re liable to kill Jesse over it.

And then there’s the Montgomerys, who pull off the greatest betrayal. Hill performs a fantastic misdirection in this episode through Peter’s brunch appearance. Though it’s hard to say how early he got to his boys or if Peter’s tons of birds won them over, the brunch scene and the makeover sequence only endear us closer to these two dummies. Lukas Haas and Robert Oberst have created two sweet, soft-spoken members of the Brothers of Tomorrow’s Fires, who seemed genuinely grateful for the Gemstones’ acceptance. It’s heartbreaking to hear Haas say, “We’re not going, Pa,” not because we feel bad for Peter but because we think Chuck is hurting and Haas’ performance is so effective. It will take another episode before the logistics of the betrayal get ironed out. But Hill and, last week, McBride do a convincing job of making these two seem like sympathetic victims.

Everyone wants to trust each other, they’re eager to, and people like the Gemstones and the Montgomerys exploit that desire. We want to trust the Montgomerys, just as May-May wants to trust them, reconnect with them, and see them play their song again. She wants it so bad it blinds her from the truth. May-May is so taken with her boys in their little old-timey suits, playing their music, and it’s as phony as the “TV show church” that Eli drags her to. The song and costume is a performance: The song “Sinner You Better Get Ready” is an African American spiritual that dates back to the 1800s—tipping to the Montgomerys’ appropriation and another layer of deception—and Chuck’s vest and bowler derby combo resembles a stripped-down, Al Swearengen version of the wardrobe the guitarist from “TV show church” wore in the opening sequence. The suits may not be shiny, but their Deadwood cosplay is a costume just as the Smut Busters was a costume; Judy’s tour life was a costume; and Jesse’s cape and pistol were costumes. All of them cover for the insecurity these Gemstones regularly repress. The boys bring May-May peace by placating her version of Christianity, a more modest, traditional, but phony interpretation of the same scripture.

The Montgomerys played everyone like a fiddle as Karl played the fiddle. The Gemstones are none the wiser because they do the bare minimum for their actual family if it’s not directly serving their egos. It’s why Kelvin and Judy can’t come clean to their partners, and Jesse can’t stop cussing for five seconds to spare Eli. They are all Pontious saying “whatever” to their parents because they’re so used to dodging accountability for their schemes. It’s all a disguise, and when the mask comes off, the sinner must die.

Stray observations

• Addendum to last week: The painting in Judy and B.J.’s house is of Judy and B.J. as Adam and Eve
• Stephen’s disdain for his wife is so pure: “I hate Kristy. I wish I could chop her fucking head off while she’s making omelets.”
• Love B.J. throughout the pickleball scene, but his little nod after shutting down Stephen’s slur was just perfect.
• “Oh, I’d love to see you turn this big, fat ass red.”
• Steve Zahn’s chair-dragging work at brunch was nothing short of masterful.
• Ditto for B.J.’s pink vampire fit.
• While we’re on B.J.’s drip: His pickleball-patterned shirt and shorts combo. Look, the guy knows how to dress.
• Seriously, is Henry (Bobby Andrew Burns) on blood thinners?
• The mark of a great bit is knowing when to get out, and after four episodes of B.J.’s naive innocence, it was time to get this plot to its next act before the character lost credibility.
• “Payday” update: I didn’t know that “There Will Come a Payday” was a Red Sovine cover, but IndieWire showed me the light. Also, the track is on YouTube for our listening pleasure: