Previous: Episode 3.1, Continued: Kelvin withholds sex, Judy cheats and Jesse fights, with some random buttsEpisode 3.2 introduces Eli's estranged brother-in-law Peter Montgomery, his sons, and a disturbing super-macho mirror of Kelvin's God Squad.
Title: "But Esau Ran to Meet Him," from Genesis 33.4. Jacob has tricked his father Isaac into giving him the inheritance. Esau is furious and vows to kill him, so he flees. When he returns after 20 years, Esau behaves as if he is happy to see him, but....
Stephen's abusive wife: Stephen, who was fired as Judy's guitarist after her brothers discovered their affair, is trying to tell his wife Kristy that he was "laid off," not fired. She doesn't buy it. It's a highly abusive relationship: she calls him "an unemployed, cokehead piece of shit who sulks all day." He screams "Fuck you!", and she hits him with a glass blender. Shattered glass all over his face and head, in front of the kids! Whoa, scary. The Gemstones and their partners argue, but they never use abusive language or physical violence. Except for the time that Amber shot Jesse in the butt.
Later, Judy meets Stephen at Spanky's Cafe, a real restaurant in North Charleston, and offers him $10,000 to leave her alone: "I don't want to see you no' mo'." But he still wants her. Judy points out that he's married, but it doesn't matter: "I'd leave my family in a second if I could have you. I'd murder them." Say what? This guy is a psycho. Of course, he should leave his abusive wife, but murder her...and the kids?
Kelvin's Butt Buddies: Jesse and Amber's adult son Gideon, who moved to California to become a stuntman, is back, lying on the veranda in a bathrobe, smoking a cigarette, holding a box of Lucky Charms cereal, and sulking. The background song by Buddy Knox tells us: "I think I'm going to kill myself." He injured his neck, and may never do stunt work, tumbling, or martial arts again.
At least he's displaying a nice chest.
Background alert: Skyler Gisondo injured his neck in real life in 2022, when his hair stylist gave him a "little neck massage." They wrote his injury into the script.
In a much, much nicer parallel to the Stephen-Kristy confrontation, Gideon's parents order him to stop feeling sorry for himself, get off his butt, and go to work for the church. But he doesn't want to preach. Ok, so he can become Eli's driver. Remember that the long-term driver, Walker, was fired.
We cut to Gideon on his first assignment, driving Eli and the siblings to see if May-May's kids are ok. They are living with her estranged husband, Peter Montgomery, and his militia, the Brotherhood of Tomorrow's Fires: they expect end of civilization, like Eli's Y2K scare back in 1999. Eli calles them preppers: "They want to make sure they don't run out of toilet paper."
Usually Evangelicals believe in the Rapture, when Jesus zaps everyone who is saved to Heaven, leaving the unsaved to suffer through seven years of the dystopian Tribulation before being sent to hell. To this day, I will not let anyone stamp my hand for re-entry into an event, because the Mark of the Beast was drummed into my head. But Eli and Peter apparently have a different belief system.
On the way to the compound, at the defunct Boy Scout Camp Wooden Feather, the siblings discuss their cousins, Karl and Chuck. Kelvin says that he always found them "kind of dumb and strange."
But you haven't seen them since 2000, when you were ten or eleven. How much do you remember?Judy: "That's why I'm surprised you weren't butt buddies with them."
He gets annoyed, not because she alludes to him being gay but because she implied that he's also "dumb and strange," and therefore perfect for the Montgomerys.
Not the God Squad: Bizarre signs like "Now we will see" greet the family, along with multiple armed guards. They pass Jacob (Stephen Louis Grush) cutting up a deer. Kelvin smiles at him --
think he's hot, buddy?. Then a military-style obstacle course; guys practicing martial arts; a guy taking a shower outdoors (no beefcake); and finally the mess hall, where about thirty militia men are having lunch.
Wait -- no women and children? The actual far-right militia movement has many female participants, but this is a male-only space, like Kelvin's God Squad in Season 2, but with scruffy guys in military fatigues instead of flexing musclemen. It is dedicated to phileo instead of eros, buddy-bonding instead of homoerotic desire. An article on Doomsday Preppers notes that these male-only groups "cultivate a dangerous vision of apocalyptic manhood that consummates a fantasy of national virility in the demise of feminine society." Women are weak and fragile, their civilization doomed. Only the "manly love of comrades" can survive the Apocalypse.
May-May's son Chuck ushers Eli and the siblings in. They are greeted by Cousin Karl (Robert Oberst), who is delighted to see them; and Uncle Peter (Steve Zahn, below), who is not. It's time for church, so get out! No, the siblings offer to help lead the service: Jesse will preach, Judy will sing, and Kelvin will perform some "feats of strength" for the kids -- the only time he references his muscles during the season. No kids around, but maybe the militia guys would like to see some masculine beauty.
Uncle Peter rejects the siblings' offer. They are "phony fakers," entertainers, interested in making money rather than saving souls.
More military guys after the break
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