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It didn’t take long to get back to the family Bible. Never a show to waste much time, tonight opens on a dark and stormy night from deep within Kelvin’s psyche, a nocturnal terror from a 2002 break-in at the family home. Glass is shattered, Elijah’s bible taken, and a Brendan Fraser headshot falls to the ground as a brace-face Kelvin screams for his life. If the Gemstone co*pound isn’t safe, what is? 

Tonight’s Gemstones is all about power and how the family wields it to dominate each other and the greater evangelical landscape—whether through rips or arson. Though Kelvin’s dream reveals a vulnerability, it’s Keefe’s haunting and hypnotizing monologue about Satan’s urine, which, “at first, is gross, but it’s the Devil’s piss, so it can play tricks on us—make people think that it’s actually delicious,” that gives the episode its juice. Keefe ends the monologue trying to exert some power over the storm and, by proxy, the Dark Lord, but his erection betrays him. Kelvin’s dream was more prophetic than expected. A new evil has entered the house. 

Though Kelvin’s night sweats worsen, in his waking life, things have never been better. Prism’s success has earned Kelvin a Top Christ Following Man Of The Year nomination, among the most coveted awards in Jesus Christ Industrial co*plex, a distinction not bestowed upon every Gemstone. Eli was nominated twice, but Jesse has never had the honor. Kelvin sits atop the Gemstone food chain, and it couldn’t co*e at a worse time for Jesse. 

Jesse’s never been lower. Both in the backyard and in the chapel, he can’t seem to get any of his schemes to click. Prayer Pods are being returned like so many Cybertrucks because his first church invention has beco*e a hotbed of masturbation thanks to Jesse’s considerate decision to stock the Pods with lotions so his praying customers’ palms don’t get chapped. Making matters worse, even Judy is getting rips on Jesse for ganking BJ’s mustache. Allow us to rephrase: BJ has alpha’d the shit out of Jesse, and the power shift has Jesse thirsting for a big old glass of the Devil’s tee-tee. 

So Jesse, like all of them do when feeling powerless, lashes out at those around him. To Lori’s son, Corey (Seann William Scott), this is a Gemstone family pastime: ripping. Corey exemplifies this by telling his wife, Jana (Arden Myrin), that her dress is “fucking dumb,” eliciting guffaws from the Gemstone kids and looks of restrained disgust from their partners. The Gemstones have the same love language as 13-year-old boys, which is to say they repeatedly and legitimately hurt each other’s feelings while pretending to laugh it off. Director David Gordon Green, who continues to do his best work on Danny McBride-led TV shows, emphasizes this disconnect by showing the Gemstone kids forcing out these forced laughs next to their partners, who look shocked, disgusted, and ashamed. Then, the episode cuts to Jesse, Judy, Kelvin, and Corey marching along the Gemstone co*pound like Peter Pan leading Wendy, Michael, and John through Neverland, sneaking around the trees to peer in on Eli and Lori’s relationship. Green captures the idyllic South as these four adults surveil the romantic lives of their senior parents, and the juxtaposition highlights the outlandishness of their disgust. Just how long do they expect Eli to mourn Aimee-Leigh? As we’ll find out, they want him to die in grief. 

The limits of the Gemstones’ capability for maturity are questioned again when Kelvin co*es face-to-face with the prospect of his childhood safe space being torn down. Groundskeeper Aaron might know a bunch of big words like “demo,” as in, Aaron needs to demo the treehouse because of the heavy damage it incurred from the storm,  but Kelvin forbids him from doing so. It’s another victory for Kelvin; he’s scored a Top Christ Following Man nomination and saved a treehouse where he can hide from his siblings’ loving rips. 

Meanwhile, Jesse and Judy have a chance to show off their leadership skills but again fall back on old habits. First, Jesse, still hoping to supplant Eli as Gideon’s mentor figure, invites his eldest to a meeting with the Goon Squad, and what a welco*e sight it is to see Chad, Matthew, Levi, and Gregory back in the fold and ready to crack some skulls. But when Jesse hears that his old rival Vance Simkins has opened a mini-mall church across the street from a Gemstone outpost, he denies himself the urge to lash out, cussing around Chad but never at him. There will be no violent retaliation. Instead, Jesse needs to service his base. 

Judy has a different struggle. Taking a nasty spil* during what can only be described as a performance of sheer erotic power, BJ rides the pole to a spinal injury, damaging Judy’s confidence in the process. Now on high alert for anyone looking to rip on BJ for his injury (but also demanding that everyone treat him normally), Judy is ready to knock the Slurpee out the hand of whatever random white boy crosses her path.   

These failures co*pound to a blow-up at Jason’s Steakhouse. No longer seated at a long table with one sibling or parent at the head, the family sits at the roundtable, showcasing an uneasy shared responsibility that Eli previously held as his own. Thankfully, Corey’s sudden realization that Lori and Eli have been spending time together, not just in the typical old-person way, gives the kids a focus for their disillusionment. Jesse, especially, facing the failure of Prayer Pods and Simkins moving in on his turf and humiliating him at the Cape And Pistol Society, sees yet another piece of his world fracturing. So he and his siblings retreat to the freezer at Jason’s Steakhouse. In the freezer, whilst repeating “he’s fucking her” and giving their father the finger, they unload their seething, uncontrollable anger. But Eli coaxes them out and tries to level with them. He can’t remain in mourning forever, and no matter how badly Kelvin, Jesse, and Judy want to protect the status quo, they will have to move on with their lives. 

The show makes excellent use of its spaces, both in how Gemstones overtake ones that don’t belong to them and in how it recognizes the Gemstone co*pound as a fantasy land where nothing can hurt them—even the rips. Tonight’s episode proves that’s not the case. The opening scene recalls a deeply traumatic time for Kelvin, expressing a fear that no space can protect him from tragedy—as proven by Keefe’s treacherous erection, which disproves his belief that the Devil has no power in the house. But throughout the episode, they overtake locations as their fellow citizens do their best to ignore their incessant expletive-laden shouting matches. 

Yet it’s always one step forward, two steps back with this family. The episode ends with them holding services at their mini-mall outpost, shaking hands with their most devout followers, and making a sales pitch for the family as a necessity for salvation. Through a montage that portends difficult times, Jesse sells the crowd on the Gemstones, the only ministry that can lead Christ’s children back to their savior’s loving arms. In heaven, they’ll be reunited with everyone they’ve ever lost or loved for all eternity, but to get there, they must beware of the wannabes and not turn their backs on family. As he says this, the show cuts to Eli turning his back on the Aimee-Leigh statue and Lori trying on her glasses, hinting that what the Gemstones preach against has already infiltrated their family unit. To wit: Jesse has already taken a big old swig of the Devil’s piss. As he preaches that the Gemstones are “good, honest people, out here doing the Lord’s work,” his Goon Squad is tossing a Molotov Cocktail through Simkins’ church window. The Gemstones aren’t changing so fast. 

Stray observations

• • Sunday School: Tonight’s title, “To Grieve Like The Rest Of Men Who Have No Hope,” is from Thessalonians 4:13: “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” Applying it to the Gemstones, the family is not supposed to grieve Aimee-Leigh as non-believers would. If they believe God’s word and the sermon Jesse preaches, their separation from Aimee-Leigh is only temporary. The Gemstones are grieving like non-believers, mourning her for years after his death and chastizing Eli for moving on. 


• • Tony Cavalero crushed his Devil’s piss monologue. Kudos, Tony! 


• • The Cape And Pistol power display was sensational. As much as I loved Jesse and Vance signaling to the men to circle as an onlooker co*ments, “Oh, it is getting very serious in here,” the scene peaked when Jesse grabs a pipe, leaving a pipeless Vance to mime one and allowing Stephen Dorff to show off his masterful object work. 


• • Steve Little was the host of the Top Christ Following Man Of The Year ceremony. It’s always great to see him back in the fold! 


• • David Gordon Green and editor Joseph Ettinger did a great job allowing these scenes to linger and stealing ace reaction shots from family members and background actors. The shot of Jason’s kitchen staff watching the Gemstones cry and curse was excellent. They always find such hilarious, unassuming reactions. The casting on this show continues to be one of its unsung virtues. 


• • Was BJ’s pole-dancing music repeating that line from The Sandlot: “Heroes get remembered, but legends never die”? 


• • Now that the episode’s out, I need a 10-hour YouTube loop of BJ spil*ing his milk. 


• • Has Kelvin been studying a thesaurus? As Keefe noted, his synonym game was pure fire tonight. 


• • “Gay Reddit is calling them ‘Squirt Yurts.'” 


• • There were some A-plus Gemstone tantrums tonight, with Judy dropping a ripped piece of dinner roll in her water glass out of frustration. Got his ass, Judy.


• • And let us pray: “Eye of the tiger, dick of a horse, show no prisoners, show no remorse.”