Previous: Episode 3.9, Continued: Five plot resolutions and a funeral. With collegiate jock cocks
On The Righteous Gemstones, season finales is not a separate episode; it is a scene set some time after the various plot resolutions, allowing vieweres to say goodbye to the characters, a sort of "and they lived happily ever after." There are few plot developments, and only vague hints about the future.
The Season 3 Finale has more of a timeless,dreamlike quality than the previous finales. It has a flattened structure with no dialogue and not a lot going on. The family gathers for a private monster truck rally. Thus, the season begins and ends with the Redeemer.
The Arrival: Setting: a field, with a wooden fence to the side and a swing set. The Gemstone garage is visible in the background. This is the same field where Jesse played with the Redeemer in the 2000 flashback.
The family arrives and sets up lawn chairs in a row, in this order: May-May, Chuck, and Karl; Peter (he has a prosthetic leg, and doesn't bring his own chair, so maybe he's in prison, out on furlough for this special event); Eli and Martin.
Next, Baby Billy, Tiffany, and their two kids sit on blankets instead of chairs. In a deleted scene, Tiffany is letting her baby sit up, so it's been at least nine months, probably a year, since we last saw them.
Next: Amber, Gideon, and Abraham. Pontius is not present, suggesting that he is completely estranged from the family. In the future he will be an antagonist, the Dark Lord of the family.
The Rocking Chairs: Then Judy and BJ, and finally Kelvin and Keefe. Now they have two rocking chairs, depicting Keefe as the roots of the tree, and Kelvin as the branches. Those things must be very uncomfortable to sit in, and rather fragile. Adam Devine notes that he broke his chair when he kicked it during the fight scene, and they had to get a replacement.
Kelvin points the chairs out to the family, who look surprised. Why haven't they seen the chairs before? Maybe Kelvin and Keefe keep them in the bedroom, where they don't gete many visitors; or maybe Keefe has just finished his chair. In real life, the family would get up to take a closer look, but on the show that would involve a lot of staging with no payback.
Why bring them today, instead of regular lawn chairs? The guys' conflict this season has been whether to be open as romantic partners, and the two chairs certainly do the job.
The Rings: Kelvin sits in an odd position, with his fingers splayed, to draw attention to his new ring. It is thicker and more substantial than the "wedding ring" he wore earlier in the season. Keefe's is hard to see, but it looks thicker, and not as shiny. Did they pick them out for each other? Maybe we are to infer an advance in the relationship; maybe the guys are now married.
Gideon's Role: Kelvin pats Keefe's hand several times, presumably call attention to the fact that he built the chairs. Keefe raises a thumbs up, and Eli and Gideon, the head of the family and his apprentice, return it. Remember that the last time we saw them interacting, during the kidnapping, Gideon was explicitly rejecting Keefe as a member of the family. This is a gesture of inclusion.
Also notice that Gideon did not drive Eli to the event, but they use the same gestures, suggesting that he has moved from driver to apprentice minister.
The Guys' Couture: Keefe is wearing an Eckhaus Latta Accordion Sweater in Kelvin's standard green color, with the midriff and back bare, giving him a feminine appearance.
More couture after the break
Eckhaus Latta is known for experimenting with unconventional textures and styles, and unconventional advertising. In 2017, the ads for their Spring Collection featured gay, straight, and gender-inderminant couples having unsimulated sex. This certainly adds a lot to our understanding of the Kelvin/Keefe relationship.
Kelvin is wearing a shirt depicting fish, suns, and the letters S and W in rainbow colors, a callback to the young Kelvin's Hawaiian rainbow shirt in the 2000 flashback. It comes from Moschino Couture, a Milan-based fashion company that offers clothing for everyone (who can afford to spend $300 on a t-shirt), but is best known for its gay line. Kelvin is, in effect, wearing a gay shirt.
By the way, it comes with matching boxer shorts.
The Monster Truck Rally: Each family member gets a turn at driving the Redeemer to crunch cars and other things. They crunch in this order: the siblings (Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin), the partners (Keefe and Amber), the Montgomery boys (Chuck and Karl), BJ, Martin, the Freemans (Baby Billy and Tiffany), Abraham, and the older generation (Peter, May-May, Gideon, Eli). They seem to go order of distance from the siblings, with some variation to get different reactions.
Why is Peter redeemed: If you've ever wondered why the monster truck is called The Redeemer, now you know: being permitted to drive it signifies redemption, wholeness in the eyes of God and the family. Uncle Peter tortured Jacob, subjected his niece and nephews and their loved ones to trauma that will take years to work through, sent goons out to kill his own children, and plotted to blow up the church, yet he has been redeemed.
In spite of the Cycle Ninjas, toilet babies, Bible Bonkers, and proliferating penises, the ongoing theme of this show is a profound theological question: Is there an sin that can't be redeemed? Is there any darkness so deep that there's no coming back?
The answer: no. Sometimes it takes a lot of work and a lot of pain, but everyone can be redeemed. In Season 1, Scotty assaulted Eli, robbed the church, and treated Gideon as a sex slave, yet after his death he was admitted to the family. In Season 2, Baby Billy was reconciled with his long-abandoned son through a punch in the nose. Kelvin was redeemed through Keefe's symbolic death and resurrection. Peter sacrificed himself to save the family.
Other activities during the event include: Baby Billy riding a donkey-shaped piñata and hugging Jesse; BJ riding a stuffed giraffe; Keefe riding Karl's shoulders; the siblings doing a line-dance; Eli and Martin pretending to dine with the stuffed animals; Eli riding a swing; Kelvin pouring popcorn into his mouth. A shot of Kelvin riding Keefe's shoulders was deleted, probably because Keefe is grimacing.
We can find some character development in these acts. Kelvin and Keefe no longer need to spend every moment together. They are comfortable engaging in independent activities and forming separate alliances. Nor does Keefe need Kelvin as a conduit into the family: he is a Gemstone in his own right, not just "Kelvin's friend." This is a significant relationship advance, suggesting again that the two have moved forward to marriage.
We say goodbye to the Gemstones: It is nearly dusk. The monster truck rally continues, but half of the lawn chairs are gone. The chairs remaining belong to the the siblings and their partners and children, the ones whose familial squabbles formed the main theme of the season. If you look closely, you can see all of them. The spirit of Aimee-Leigh stands behind a fence, looking on with approval, as we hear Dolly Parton's country-Western cover of Collective Soul's "Shine":
Give me a word, give me a sign,
Show me where to look, and tell me, what will I find?
Lay me on the ground, fly me in the sky
Show me where to look, and tell me, what will I find?
Lord, teach me how to speak, teach me how to share
Teach me where to go, and tell me, will love be there?
And they lived happily ever after.
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