Editor’s note: The below article contains spoilers for The Righteous Gemstones series finale.
All good things come to an end, and sadly, The Righteous Gemstones is no exception, as the series finale is jam-packed with resolutions and beautiful odes to everyone’s character arcs. BJ (Tim Baltz) is reunited with monkey Dr. Watson, this season’s bizarre ode to George Romero’s Monkey Shines. Patriarch Eli Gemstone (John Goodman) is more retired than ever, heading for the salt life with Lori (Megan Mullally) by his side. Gideon (Skyler Gisondo) has found his footing as a pastor, using his background as a stuntman to use extreme sports as outreach, happily flanked by his younger brothers Pontius (Kelton DuMont) and Abraham (Gavin Munn). Even Uncle Baby Billy (Walton Goggins) has retired the Teenjus wig – and his fear of returning to poverty – to savor the life he has with Tiffany (Valyn Hall) and their two small children. But naturally, the bulk of the finale was a send-off for the core trio of unhinged siblings that led us through this story: Jesse (Danny McBride), Judy (Edi Patterson), and Kelvin (Adam Devine).
It’s almost strange to say about evangelical satire, but this season was beautifully book-ended by prayer as characterization and catharsis. In the show’s most ambitious swing, Episode 1 of its final season was a character study of the first Eli Gemstone, as portrayed by Bradley Cooper. In a show about the meeting point between American capitalism and Southern Evangelicalism, the episode stands on its own merit — but in the series finale, it comes full circle, for a pay-off we didn’t see coming.
‘The Righteous Gemstones’ Shines a Light on Inherited Trauma and Vice
Cooper’s Elijah Gemstone is a con man whose latest grift is impersonating a corrupt pastor he killed. In that Civil War one-off, the roots of the Gemstones are even more perilous than the present-day dysfunction. Elijah spends most of his time drinking and gambling, phoning in sermons for only a few minutes, and offering little to the soldiers who lie dying. One boyish soldier dying from his wounds laughs with Elijah, and Elijah seems ready to pray sincerely for the young man — but by the time he starts, the boy is gone.
This moment of failure stays with Elijah, and when his life is spared by Union soldiers who don’t believe in executing the chaplains that served the Confederacy, he prays for those men, but mostly for himself: “Now I’m about to send 11 souls your way, dear lord, and I know you’ll do with them what you see fit, but I give each of them my highest recommendation that they get into heaven. ’Cause there are far worse fellas down here.” At the end of the episode, Elijah opens the gold Bible on his terms. He is no less a failure, no less complicit, and we learn nothing else about the rest of his life — but from the devout and abusive behavior of Roy Gemstone (Kevin E. West) towards a younger Eli (Jake Kelley) to the histrionics and schemes of the Gemstone siblings, it’s clear that religion added to the mix was not healing, or all that righteous.
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The Gold Bible Is ‘The Righteous Gemstones’ Most Significant Symbol
The Bible makes its appearance at another point of reckoning in the Gemstones’ lives in Episode 6, “Interlude IV.” After a frightening break-in by Lori’s ex, Cobb Milsap (Michael Rooker), the Bible is taken. The symbolism of another bad actor taking the Bible in an act of spite is hardly subtle, but it also serves as a foundational fear for Kelvin. Later on, Season 4 makes it clear that the sins of the father are not an exclusive Gemstone dynamic.
The Bible ultimately makes its way back into Gemstone hands in the series finale. Kelvin is led to Corey Milsap’s (Seann William Scott) belongings by a vision of Aimee-Leigh’s (Jennifer Nettles) ghost. Corey fesses up immediately, “My daddy stole it. I covered for him.” He reveals that from his teen years, he was coerced by his father into not just this cover-up, but various schemes and murders to keep his mother away from other men. Corey’s father is dead, and his mother is moving on with Eli. With an impending divorce – stemming from his increasingly Cobb-like behavior – and no way to keep the family gator park, he feels lost. Corey, unlike the Gemstones, truly has nothing left. Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin follow him back to the house, afraid he’ll hurt himself, and he turns that violence on them.
After his nearly successful attempts to murder the Gemstone trio, Jesse shoots Corey. Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin immediately tend to him. They look down on their childhood friend, changed forever by the violence of his father, whose mistakes were not the accidents of grief or generations of parental failings but instead outright sadism. The severe jabs and petulance audiences expect to fade away. Their forgiveness of him is instantaneous, and Jesse wants to get Corey’s help. But Corey knows he’s dying and only asks that they pray with him.
Prayer Provides Catharsis in ‘The Righteous Gemstones’ Series Finale
The Gemstones gather around Corey to pray, hearkening back to the moment when the original Eli comes close to genuinely praying with the wounded young soldier — this time, they don’t fail. Jesse struggles at first to meet the moment of sincerity. Corey asks him to pray for real, echoed by Judy: “C’mon, Jesse, don’t make it generic. Make it about Corey, damn.” Jesse acknowledges how jealousy takes a person off their path. “Sometimes we let jealousies corrupt us […] We all fall off the path, dear Lord.” Judy acknowledges the root of her own acting out – pain. “It can do things to you. It can make you feel helpless.” Kelvin speaks, of course, of fear. “With all the doubts in our lives, and all the fears, help us let go, Lord.”
All of these things are true about the Gemstone who speaks it, but it isn’t just a case of projection, as with the Eli of old. They know they are closer to being their friend than they are to any ideal of purity. In forgiving Corey, the Gemstones find their own salvation. In the lake house where their mother’s presence looms closest, Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin finally drop the worst traits of their father and lean into the spiritually guided kindness of their mother.
Their prayers and the scene of Corey’s body surrounded by the Gemstones melt into Eli’s voice as he officiates Kelvin and Keefe’s (Tony Cavalero) wedding. The show ends at a beginning, centering not only on love, but the sincerity and relative humility of a backyard wedding. With these sincere prayers, the glimpses of the next generation pointing to genuine community-catered worship by Gideon, and the gold-laid Bible now on display for the entire congregation, the Gemstones siblings have broken the cycle.
