Marcus Adair: finance major, stuntman, bodybuilder, Jabari warrior, nude model (probably)

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Gemstones Episode 2.9: Who killed Thaniel? Will Keefe ever get a place at the table? Can we see some Gemstone alums naked?

Previous:  Episode 2.8, Continued: Macaulay Culkin grows up, the Cycle Ninjas break out, and Jussie Smollet shows his stuff

It's the last episode, time for answers to the big questions of the season:  Who killed Thaniel?  Who is trying to kill Eli?  Will Keefe ever be admitted to that family dinner? 

Title: "I Will Tell of All Your Deeds."  Psalms 9.1, NIV: "I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds."  Hopefully we'll hear about some of the Lord's deeds.

The Thaniel Answer:  A flashback: Thaniel Block (Jason Schwartzman), the snoopy reporter who was murdered in Episode 2.2, is yelling at Lyle Lissons, the megachurch pastor who wants Jesse to invest in his Christian resort!  How do those two know each other?

Ulp, Thaniel is forcing Lyle to dig up dirt on the Gemstones, but all he has provided so far is satellite church pastor Butterfield having a  three-way in the dance club restroom (See Episode 2.1)

Not good enough.  Thaniel wants Eli Gemstone, the most famous televangelist and megachurch pastor in the world.   Bringing down the Gemstones will win him a Pulitzer! 

But Lyle needs their money for his resort.  How about if he frames some of his own satellite church pastors for embezzlement? 

No, Eli Gemstone, "Or I'll do a story on your strange relationship with some of the boys at your orphanage."  Uh-oh, Lyle is a pedophile!  

Lyle goes out to his car, where the ministers he offered to betray are waiting. One is played by Chad Mountain, linked below. 

They brought hand grenades to kill Thaniel with.  But one of the idiots pulls the pin, and is exploded!   Thaniel investigates the noise and shoots another, then runs back into his house, where he accidentally shoots himself!

  

Lyle and the two surviving ministers hide when a car approaches. It's the Gemstone siblings, coming to tell Thaniel to back off. So this is all happening during Episode 2.2.   They see Thaniel's corpse and the other dead guys and run away.  To avoid discovery, Lyle tells his ministers to burn down the house.  Then, worried that the siblings may have seen them, he burns them to death, too.   OMG, this guy makes Eli breaking thumbs look like a church ladies' tea.  I'd call him a psycho, but I don't want to insult Freddy Krueger.

 So now we know who killed Thaniel and the other men, and I'm guessing that Lyle sent the Cycle Ninjas, too.  We just need the answer to the Keefe question.

Gideon jumps out a window:  Cut to Gideon running through an office, chased by the police.  He jumps through a window and falls three stories.  He's dead!

Psych!  It was a stunt job!  Everyone loves it, including his visiting parents, who conclude that maybe doing stunt work in California isn't so bad after all.  Don't worry, he'll be back with the Gemstones soon.

Toxic father, toxic son: Then back to the Psycho: Lyle and Lindsey Lissons are visiting his elderly Dad Roddy (John Amos), who is not happy to see him: "You took everything I cared about, locked me up in this....prison."  "You mean an expensive care facility?"  Whoa, Lindsey actually slaps him and threatens him. Murder and elder abuse!  

They have come to give Roddy a permanent room at the Christian resort they are building  -- with some of the money the've stolen from him.  But since he's acting so snippy, they rescind the offer

Toxic father-son relationships this season: Roy Gemstone-Eli, Glendon Marsh-Junior, Lyle Lissons-Roddy, Baby Billy Freeman-Harmon, Eli-Kelvin, Jesse-Pontius. 

Personal note: John Amos and I used to go to the same gym in West Hollywood. We never became friends, but we had a sort of nodding acquaintanceship.  I did manage to see him in the shower.

More answers after the break

Gemstones Episode 2.4, Continued: Patricide, cake, and frolicking muscleboys. With a nude wrestler bonus.

Previous: Gemstones Episode 2.4: BJ gets baptized, Baby Billy gets Funyons, Kelvin gets dissed, and Harmon gets a cat.  With Israeli and Egyptian men

The After-Party: An elaborate affair, with many humorous set-pieces that reveal the inner state of the characters:

 

Levi, the only single member of Jesse's crew, dances joyously by himself amid dozens of pink balloons.

A life-sized BJ cake, so you have to cut slices out of his head. 

The outraged Kelvin chooses two cupcakes, carefully removes the pins, places a napkin on top of them, and splat!

Jesse and Amber seethe with rage as Eli dances with a lady.

Eli tries to be friendly to BJ's family, but Judy interrupts him: "They're from Asheville.  They hate God."  "Yes, but God loves them."

When BJ enters in his shiny pink "romper with a cummerbund," his family criticizes him for being feminine, but he counters that men can wear one-pieces.  Then they complain that he is a child, a little baby, not a man at all. (Notice the parallel with Kelvin constantly trying to prove that he is a "fully-grown adult man.").  He's ridiculous, the Gemstones are ridiculous, he's ruining his life.   BJ rushes back to his dressing room and tears off the outfit (some momentary beefcake).

Since when does Eli Gemstone like ladies?;.  As the party is winding down, Kelvin and Jesse meet at the baptistry and discuss how Eli always ruins their plans, "I wish I could fight that man!" Kelvin exclaims.  "I'd destroy him...make him look like a fool."  Eavesdropping, Baby Billy notes that he's wanted to fight Eli many times over the years.

Kelvin tells him that Eli has been having sexual encounters with "multiple somebodies"  Jesse continues: "Dude fancies himself a damn cocksmith...trying to make himself into a big character for the ladies." Interesting that Jesse specifies women, but Kelvin does not.  Women just don't pop into his head when he thinks of sex. 

Baby Billy finds this hard to believe. "Eli Gemstone...with the ladies?"  Why, when you were young, was he just into guys?

All women want to screw their brothers: Judy accosts BJ's sister KJ in the ladies' room, claiming that "siblings have to hate siblings' spouses."  Jesse and Kelvin hate BJ, because he "took her off the market," made her sexually unavailable: "They may be my brothers, but that don't mean they're not sitting in their room at night, thinking they might someday get to hook up with me." Does she not know that Kelvin is gay, or does it not matter?  

KJ protests that Judy's theory is "disgusting": she would never hook up with her brother.  "Well, what if I held a gun to your head?"  Then she might consider it. "I knew it!" Judy exclaims in triumph. "BJ is mine!  Stop fighting me for him!"  

The Fist Fight:  As Keefe passes out the food he stole, Kelvin seethes and bursts balloons,  and KJ complains that the Gemstones are a "train wreck" of a family, BJ throws a piece of cake at her -- which hits Eli just as he is schmoozing with a senator!  "You kids are an embarrassment!" he exclaims.  

As Eli leaves the party, Kelvin appears to yell  him about the Judean desert trip: "You made me look like a fool in front of my men." 

"I'm not spending one cent so you and your muscle boys can frolick in the desert!'   Frolick is feminine: Eli believes that Kelvin is planning an homoerotic orgy in the desert.  Referring to them as muscle boys, not men, enrages Kelvin, and he attacks.  

The two have a fist fight in the foyer of the church, with everyone watching, Keefe and the musclemen doing a chest-pound display of loyalty.  Kelvin throws one of BJ's gifts at Eli: he ducks, and it smashes a picture of Aimee-Leigh.

"You could have killed me!"

"I wish I had!" Kelvin cries.  Wait -- killing your father, sex with your siblings.  This episode is overloaded with Freudian symbolism. 

Eli pins him in the thumb-breaking position and demands an apology.  Kelvin refuses, and taunts that he doesn't have "the balls" to actually follow through. A call back to Eli's testicle injury in Episode 2.3, a symbolic castration that has rendered him impotent. 

But Eli does it!  I suppose I don't need to point out that in Freudian theory, the thumb is a stand-in for the penis, so Kelvin's broken thumbs represent  yet another symbolic castration.  But this time it is the father who performs the castration, rendering his own son impotent. 

The Wedding Rings: We cut to Keefe helping the EMTs rush Kelvin to the ambulance.  

There are those rings again , on their wedding ring fingers, Keefe's a thick silver band, Kelvin's more delicate, with a diamond filigree.  Fan boards went wild with speculation. We know that they're not God Squad rings, since they are not identical.  Or purity rings, since those are for teenagers, not men in their thirties.  Commitment rings? Wedding rings?  But Kelvin is opposed to romantic love.  Since they are not emphasized or commented on in any way, they are probably just a fashion choice, signifying that Kelvin and Keefe are fancy boys.

As the ambulance drives off, Keefe runs behind it for a few steps, then tries to get the God Squad to make their chest-thump gesture.  They refuse: the Messiah of Muscle has fallen.  His homoerotic energy has faded away. 

What a Shit Show:  In the aftermath of the baptism debacle, Tiffany notes that she sent Baby Billy out for Funyons hours ago, and he hasn't returned. Judy and BJ invite her to wait at their house.  Uh-oh, we see Baby Billy on the freeway, turning off to the Charlotte, North Carolina exit (a three and a half hour drive from Charleston.  How long did that party last?)  He has abandoned another family!

Meanwhile, Jesse and Amber take a van meant for Eli.  They drive until late at night (wait -- weren't they going home?  That's only a short distance from the Salvation Center).  Eventually they reach a gas station in Lebanon, South Carolina, 40 miles from Charleston.  The driver vanishes, and four motorcyclists appear, wearing red-and-black helmets that obscure their facees. They open fire.  Jesse and Amber barely survive.  

Uh-oh, Junior hired the motorcycle guys to kill Eli!  The end. 

This review seemed a little skimpy, so I threw in some pictures of naked wrestlers after the break.  Junior is a wrestling promoter, after all.