Not following the career of Danny McBride? If you’re a fan of comedy, you really should be. Over the past 20 years, particularly in his work with HBO, he’s become poet laureate of the American id. In Eastbound and Down (2005-2009), Vice Principals (2014-2016) and The Righteous Gemstones (2018-present), he has created some of the funniest, raunchiest and best-crafted shows of the 21st century.
The hallmark of great comedy is timing, and McBride has always known instinctually where to place the punchline. And while he has said in the past that The Righteous Gemstones was built to run forever – McBride estimated a 72-season run – it was while writing season four that he knew this was where it had to end.
“I could just kind of feel it,” McBride tells The National. “I kept coming to resolutions, and themes of moving on. But when we got to set, I didn’t announce to everyone this is the end. If we didn’t stick the landing, I wanted to leave myself the chance to do it again. But then, as we got closer to the ending, I felt we had done what we needed to do with this story.
“It’s sad. I love all these people, and it’s sad to look back at what you have created together, knowing that it’s the end of a chapter. It’s a whole bushel of emotions. But at the end of the day, I felt good about it. It was an awesome experience – and so much fun to tell this story with this group of people.”
What is this story exactly? Think Succession set at a megachurch in the American south. McBride plays Jesse Gemstone, the eldest son in a world-famous televangelist family who made millions preaching values they do not uphold behind closed doors. And when their secrets are under threat of exposure, the family bands together like never before.
McBride’s earlier work was more character-focused, but Righteous Gemstones is tightly plotted and over-the-top, full of twists and turns and big swings. That is probably because McBride himself has become so versatile, having written the last three Halloween films as well as the most recent Exorcist reboot.
As a result, he has crafted a show unlike any other, which has left his fellow stars, even the tenured performer John Goodman, using acting muscles they did not know they had.
“It’s been great because there’s a lot to deal with here that I’ve never had to deal with before in any other character. It’s a new field for me, and because of that, it never gets boring,” says Goodman, who plays the family’s patriarch, Dr Eli Gemstone.
Goodman is putting it lightly. His co-star Tim Baltz, who plays BJ, lays out a few more examples that make it clear just how wild this show’s ride really has become in its four seasons.
“This covers so much more ground than a lot of other characters in other shows do. Just speaking for myself, I got baptised in what looked like the '80s Dune movie. I learned how to roller skate. I fought a man naked. I learned how to pole dance. I kiss a capuchin monkey. These are all things I could have never anticipated. And all of that felt natural and emotionally true the entire time. That’s what’s so good about this show,” says Baltz.
Baltz, like many of his collaborators, did not actually know the show was over when they finished filming – as McBride never explicitly said it was the end.
“On the last day, we kind of had a feeling. No one was addressing it. Then Danny gave a speech, and the emotions started to come out a little bit, because we realised it was probably the end,” says Baltz.
And while it’s hard to say goodbye, the world of the Gemstones is so vibrant that not everyone involved feels it's really over – particularly Edi Patterson, who not only served as a writer but also plays Judy Gemstone.
Patterson says: “I feel like the Gemstones still exist in a world that’s still happening. It just doesn’t feel like the end of anything to me. I feel like they’re still so alive. That’s the fun part of this show – this is a world you can go into, a world so vibrant it’s never really gone.
“It’s bittersweet, but I’m so proud of what we did. It was a really wild and special thing. Oh man, what a gift. This was the greatest job ever.”
The Righteous Gemstones season four releases weekly on OSN+
