McBride, Goodman & DeVine: How Could 'The Righteous Gemstones' Not Be Great?

When Peter Fonda of Easy Rider fame died last week, I decided to revisit a handful of the late actor’s films in tribute and remembrance. Two I watched back to back – one of them Fonda’s directorial debut The Hired Hand, a soulful and lovingly-crafted western that I’m so glad I finally saw – teamed Fonda with the rough-hewn character actor Warren Oates, whose presence tends to galvanise any production in which he appears. Oates wasn’t necessarily polished but he pulled off the terrific feat of coming across as both a stylised kind of performer and the most authentic of actors, and watching him onscreen got me thinking about any 21^st century contemporaries he may have. John C Reilly came to mind, as did Matthew McConaughey, funnily enough. But two names that immediately rang true when making such a comparison were Danny McBride of Eastbound & Down and especially Walton Goggins of Justified.

Now, in a wholly astonishing coincidence that’s not at all contrived, both of these actors appear in a new television series premiering this week. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

I’ll admit it, The Righteous Gemstones, the new HBO project from the creative team behind Eastbound and Vice Principals (among them filmmakers Jody Hill and David Gordon Green), was on my mind when posing myself the Oates question, having watched six of the season’s nine episodes, so the conceptual leap wasn’t necessarily a huge one. But this saga of a dysfunctional family of American evangelists running a megabucks megachurch enterprise is an ideal showcase for not just McBride and Goggins, reunited after their previous Vice Principals teaming, but a tremendous array of talent made up of veterans, rising stars and relative newcomers who nimbly walk the tightrope dividing larger-than-life and genuine and grounded, not unlike Warren Oates at his best, one might say.

In a podcast interview with McBride, Hill and Green prior to the premiere of The Righteous Gemstones, the trio talked about being inspired by The Godfather and the hit ‘80s TV series Dallas in shaping their storylines, and one can see these influences in the best ways. The family dynamic of the Gemstones – overseen by OG preacher Eli (John Goodman, who effortlessly not only conveys but combines the benevolence of a shepherd and the ruthlessness of a CEO), the father of brash Jesse (McBride, delivering yet another exemplary display of entitled buffoonery), down-with-the-yoof Kelvin (Adam Devine, who hasn’t been this effectively deployed since Workaholics) and loose cannon Judy (the amazing Edi Patterson – picture a more unhinged Kristen Wiig) – mirrors that of the Corleone clan, although the flashes of Michael-style pragmatism and strategising of which each seem capable are far and frequently outweighed by Sonny-esque aggression and recklessness, not to mention straight-up dimness a la Fredo.

But the Gemstones are good enough at their game to have millions of bucks coursing through their system, and they’ve grown accustomed enough to the lavish lifestyle it affords them (sorry, sorry, affords their church…their tax-exempt church) that they’ll do whatever it takes to hang onto it, whether that’s using their powerful clout and pious reputation to overpower any small town priest and swallow up his flock or going to extreme measures to stop a gang of clueless blackmailers from exposing Jesse’s dirty, hypocritical laundry to the world. (Or keeping a black-sheep relative, like Goggins’ freeloading has-been Baby Billy Freeman, on the payroll. Goggins is, as you probably guessed, quite awesome in the role.) 

That’s where the Dallas comparisons come in – one of the secrets of that show’s success (and it was a ratings-gobbling monster back in the day) was its ability to skirt right up to the line of ridiculousness and implausibility but not trip over it. It was a heightened, prime-time soap opera that both chastised and revelled in its characters’ bad behaviour and excessive indulgence, and The Righteous Gemstones does likewise, although it often takes giddy, naughty pleasure in skipping over that line before returning to something resembling real life. Don’t be mistaken, Gemstones is first and foremost a comedy – and a bitingly funny one – but its excursions into family drama and Fargo-esque crime caper, among other tonal and stylistic shifts, are well in keeping with the overall world McBride and his collaborators have worked up. 

One is inclined to give Green, a veteran filmmaker with an eclectic body of work, the lion’s share of the credit for this, but McBride – who really has only two episodes of Vice Principals to his name as a director – sets the stage perfectly with the first episode. It’s one of the most assured pilots I’ve seen in a good long while, full of confident and cinematic choices – not only in terms of its look but also its feel. At times, it’s got the same sort of boldness shown by the Coen brothers, Paul Thomas Anderson and David O Russell. If you dug Eastbound, Vice Principals or any of the distinctive projects bearing the names McBride, Hill or Green, The Righteous Gemstones will not disappoint. Indeed, one could almost call it heaven-sent… if one were unashamed of dispatching shithouse wordplay into the world.

The Righteous Gemstones premieres 8.30pm Tuesday August 20, and airs every Tuesday night, on FOX Showcase through Foxtel.