‘The Righteous Gemstones’ Season 4 Gives Up The Ghost

The fourth and final season of The Righteous Gemstones is all about ghosts, both Holy and not.

First, there’s the legacy of Gemstone patriarch Elijah, played in a surprise guest spot by Bradley Cooper in a premiere episode set entirely during the Civil War. Like many biblical men who turned to God, he’s not a good man—at least, not at first. He kills a local pastor for taking money from the offering plate, and then finds himself drafted into the Confederacy as a chaplain in a case of mistaken identity.

He bluffs his way through his pastoral duties using some of the most Danny McBride dialogue known to man — “I been praying this whole time, silently, in my mind,” he says to a soldier who asks if he would pray for him.

Later, his gold-plated Bible (that he stole) protects him from getting shot in battle. The night after he returnk to his unit (the Union soldiers that captured him didn’t kill him, on account of his chaplaincy), he starts his preaching in earnest, and actually starts reading his Bible.

The genius of this premiere episode (other than understanding that Cooper plays a shifty con man so, so well — there’s no way McBride didn’t see Cooper’s turn in Nightmare Alley) is that it constantly makes the viewer question the faith of this family of preachers. Do they actually believe what they’re saying, or is it all an act? Or is it somewhere in the middle? The premiere proves beyond a shadow of a doubt the Gemstone brand was born out of good, old-fashioned American hucksterism — but there are hints of sincerity there. That, aside from the comedy, is what has always made The Righteous Gemstones so compelling. Will the family give in to their own prideful bluster, or will their faith save them?

Another ghost the Gemstones are dealing with this season is the one that has hung over the entire show: the spirit of late matriarch Aimee-Leigh (Jennifer Nettles), who died shortly before season 1 started.

By episode 5 of season 4, it’s clear nobody in the family has ever confronted their grief for Aimee-Leigh, much less her husband Eli (John Goodman), brother Baby Billy (Walton Goggins) and children Jesse, Judy and Kelvin (McBride, Edi Patterson and Adam Devine). Widower Eli is “wastin’ away in Margaritaville like Tom Hanks in that one motion picture, the one where he was by hisself” instead of at the church for the annual Aimee-Leigh telethon that kicks off episode 2.

Eli has been mourning his late wife the entire series, and now, he just wants to live on a houseboat, drink margaritas and have one-night stands — much to the horror of his adult children, who find the very concept of “old people sex” to be odd and off-puttin’. When he starts to date his late wife’s best friend Lori (a pitch-perfect Megan Mullally), he alienates his children even more, and also draws the ire of Lori’s jealous son Corey (Seann William Scott).

As the siblings try to break up Eli and Lori, they discover more about her past — maybe she’s killing all her exes. Or maybe something’s up with Corey. Either way, all three of them react to their dad’s new relationship in pure immature Gemstone fashion.

Everyone else is dealing with that new relationship plus their unacknowledged grief over Aimee-Leigh in the ways you would expect:

Baby Billy continues to ride the stretchy coattails of the fame he had when he sang with his sister as children, to mixed results (his new gambit: “Teenjus,” a show about Jesus as a teen). Jesse, who started the series believing he would be heir to the Gemstone preaching empire, continues to try to stubbornly assert himself as his siblings’ leader, even if that means he becomes a televangelist Icarus, flying on a jetpack too close to a disco ball at Aimee-Leigh’s telethon. Kelvin’s own sexuality haunts him as he worries about doom befalling the family (“The Lord can make bad things happen to anyone. He killed my mama, and she was his greatest follower.”) even as he secures a nomination for Top Christ-Following Man of the Year for his LGBTQ+ ministry.

Judy, long the forgotten middle child, can’t comprehend it when her husband BJ (Tim Baltz) severely injures himself during a pole-dancing competition, and sees this, like her mother’s death, as another test from God she must ace in order to be a good person. All of them have been running unchecked for far too long, and when they finally come up against some adversity, that must mean God is punishing them.

While the Almighty may or may not be punishing the Gemstones for their haughtiness, it’s clear that last bit about the pole-dancing is season 4 in a nutshell so far: an absurd humorous moment anchored in a biblical sense of dread. For three seasons, the Gemstones have dodged every scrape imaginable: sex scandals, failed business deals, kidnappings, familial revenge.

This season so far, while still funny, is less focused on antics like Baby Billy’s Bible Bonkers and more concerned with the consequences of prideful actions. How much grace can one family receive, especially if they built their entire legacy on fraud?

The Gemstones are about to find out.