Gemstones Episode 4.6: Kelvin screams, Corey lies, and Cobb get his cobb bit off. With Jace Norman and nude Mongolian dudes

 

Title: "Interlude IV."  The Interlude is usually Episode 5, but this season started with a stand-alone, so it's Episode 6.  We're halfway through the action in the present day, with Kelvin's meltdown, Judy's jealousy over the monkey, and Eli and Lori dealing with violence.

The New Parking Lot: 2002.  Eli is standing before the County Zoning Board, discussing his plan to build a 10-acre parking lot at the Salvation Center, which would involve buying and demolishing neighboring houses.   He claims that it will  bring thousands of people to town, who will spend money, so it's a "win-win" situation.  Aimee-Leigh points out that they're also bringing in jobs.  The townsfolk growl and complain.  So am I.  Zoning restrictions?  How boring can you get? 

 The council president yells: "You may be able to buy out desperate people, Dr. Gemstone, but that doesn't make it right!"   She notes that the county board usually rubber-stamps their crazy plans, but not this time: "The crowd of people behind you is voiceless, and someone has to be their voice!"  

The plan is rejected, and the couple leaves in defeat. Aimee-Leigh wonders why they're even doing this ministry stuff.

Eli: "For the lake house."  That is, for the money. Um...serving God?  Spreading the Gospel? Helping people?

They walk out into a huge demonstration.  Someone shoves pies in their faces.

Writers: This sequence has no connection to the plot.  In Season 3, the Y2K scandal caused Peter's meltdown and enmity toward the Gemstones, but Cobb's enmity has nothing to do with the new parking lot.

Corey Defends Daddy: At the lake house, Lori's husband Cobb (Michael Rooker) is trying to water-ski, but Eli drives too fast, and he capsizes. His manhood challenged, he splutters and swears. 

Meanwhile, on a raft-slide, Young Judy and Jesse laugh at Cobb, which upsets his son, Young Corey.

Young Kelvin defends him, pointing out that at least Cobb is trying, whereas Jesse spends all his time "being bad, having sex."  This has resulted in Amber getting pregnant.  The enraged Jesse tries to attack, but Corey stops him.

A New Album: While Lori and Aimee-Leigh watch their husband in the water, posturing to see who will become the Silverback, they advise the very pregnant Amber that she should go inside and take a nap.  She refuses, so they discuss how much they dislike their kids until Amber gets tired of it and leaves.

Then they discuss recording a new album; they haven't recorded together in years, so it will be nostalgic.

Cut to the studio, where they are making up song lyrics while Judy listens.  Kelvin eavesdrops from outside the door.  Notice that his t-shirt says The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius,  reflecting his belief that he is a "boy genius."  The tv show premiered on July 20, 2002, so this must be a few months later, maybe in September 2002.

Kelvin Sneaks Teen Idols:  Seeing that Judy is occupied, Kelvin sneaks into her room, says "Hello" to a photo of Hayden Christiansen (Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones, which premiered in May 2002),, and retrieves a box from under the bed.  He draws out a Tiger Beat magazine with Ricky Martin (below) on the cover. "Wow!" Kelvin is afraid to let anyone know about his interest in teen idols, although he had no problem with a muscle magazine cover taped to his bedroom wall in 1993. 

He exclaims "Oh, my God!" at photos of Ryan Gosling, Brendan Fraser, Hayden Christiansen, and Josh Hartnet, and then stops at the Gossip Page.  This is important, as an interest in gossip makes Kelvin a real-life jerk.

Next  he finds Judy's diary, with an entry on a crush on her economics professor, Dr. Carmichael (in Season 1, she admits to sexually assaulting him, then kidnapping his son).

Suddenly Judy is in the room!  She chases Kelvin out of the house and to his treehouse (much closer than it was in an earlier episode).  He pulls up the ladder -- safe! -- gives her the finger as she storms off, frustrated. You're in the wrong, Kelv Baby -- that's your sister's property.

Recording:  Aimee-Leigh and Lori recording the song that Lori will sing at the telethon in 2024:

I feel so lonely, all on my own/ Running from the darkness, since you've been gone.

They take a break, and Lori reveals that things with her husband Cobb are bad.  The marriage is over.  

Cobb's Pecker:  At dinner, Corey is telling about the time a gator took a piece of his Dad's pecker off, and all he said was "Boy, go get me a napkin."  Lori claims that it was an improvement, because it doesn't work anymore.  In earlier seasons, there were frequent symbolic castrations.  This is the first for Season 4.

Husband Cobb arrives, drunk, and orders Lori to come home.  She points out that she's busy working on an album, but he doesn't care.  He tries to pull her into the truck, but Eli intervenes and punches him. 

"Ok, then, don't come home ever!"

Corey says he's going to drive his dad home, but he'll right back.  Wait -- if the Milsaps live close by, why haven't they been visiting all along?

That night, Jesse, Amber, and Judy overhear their parents discussing what they are going to do about Lori and Cobb. Jesse (J. Gaven Wilde) in his underwear displays an impressive dong. 

A day or two later, Eli arrives at the Milsap Gator Farm to ask how he can help.  Cobb: "Your wife is making it easy for her to act like me and her's life together don't even exist."  He notes that he's rich, but not into fancy things, and Lori likes fancy.

"Would you like to pray?"  

"No, I'd rather jump into the water with them gators. I don't ever want to see your face again."

Another song: Lori and Aimee-Leigh recording: 

I was lost in a dream, floating away.
 I'm lucky to sing with you.  
When we're older, I guess, we'll say
These were the best of times in our lives. 

The best times of my life were in West Hollywood:  Saturday night Mama's Family, Golden Girls, cruising at Mugi, then, if I didn't meet anyone, stopping at the all night comic book store; the gym that was half gay men, half B-list celebrities; Sunday service at the Metropolitan Community Church on Fairfax; the beer bust at the Fault Line, then tangerine chicken; buying every new gay book that came out at the Different Light; Hamburger Habit, the Greenery, Mickey's, the Unicorn....

Isn't that what The Righteous Gemstones is about?  How our lives today are affected by the memories of the past?

Cobb's Gator Farm: Close-up of alligaators and scary snakes, then the gift shop (Cobb sells "Gemstone necklaces," har har).  

Corey (Sean Ryan Fox, in bed with his Henry Danger co-star Jace Norman) is helping close up for the evening.  Daddy Cobb asks if he wants to stay for dinner -- he could cook some hot dogs --  but Corey has to go to the mansion and hang out with the Gemstone kids while the parents are out.

Mansion or hot dogs?  Gee, what a difficult decision.

"That rich bitch Aimee-Leigh done poisoned your mama's brain!" Cobb sneers.

"It's ok -- I won't even be with her, just with the kids."  He begs his Sad Dad to not force him to choose between his parents.

Cut to the Eli, Aimee-Leigh, and Lori getting ready to go out for the evening, while the kids are playing Monopoly. Presumably they've already had dinner.  Jesse is in charge.  "Just promise that you won't burn the house down."

Wait -- Corey is 26 or 27 years old, well into adulthood.  Shouldn't he be in charge?

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Gemstones Episode 4.5: The dirt on Vance, Big Dick Mitch, and Lori, with a nude Teenjus and Joey Stefano

 

Title: "You Shall Remember," from Deuteronomy 8.18: "You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the power to get wealth."  The Gemstones have forgotten that God made them rich so they can help people.  Tonight they'll get their comeuppance.  

The Dirt on Vance: Vance Simkins (Stephen Dorff) examines his burnt-out church and glares at the Gemstone satellite church across the street.  Cut to a Simpkins Commercial with him and his siblings, Craig and Shay, saying: "Grace.. .Praise... Rejoice..Salvation."

Vance calls his siblings to his office, but Shay won't come ("she wants nothing to do with you") and Craig (Gogo Lomo David) is just there for his money: their parents' estate put Vance in charge, so he has to depend on hand-outs.  Vance gives him $10,000, and tells him to make it last.

Craig criticizes Vance for running the church into the ground, destroying their parents' legacy.  He keeps trying to open new churches when they're broke, just to compete with the Gemstones: "You can't admit you're beat, can you?"  

Vance protests that he's going to win the Top Christ Following Man Award. 

"You're a straight white man," Craig digs. "Your kind don't get awards anymore. Wait -- are you straight?  Never had a girlfriend, sweetie-pie."  Enraged by the implication, Vance slaps Craig and throws him onto the desk.

Uh-oh, a church deacon saw the attack.  Vance is violent, like Uncle Peter in Season 3 and Lyle Lissons in Season 2....he's the Big Bad of the season!

Vance had some queer codes back in Season 3, when he swished around with that tiny dog.  It would make sense for him to be gay and closeted.

Gogo Lomo-David is gay in real life, but there's no evidence that his character is gay.

Baby Billy and Kelvin in Decline:  Baby Billy finishes his screenplay about a teenage Jesus and his friends, changes the title from "Teen Jesus" to "Teenjus," and snorts some cocaine.  That's the Belly of the Beast in the Gemstone universe, buddy.

Cut to Kelvin and Keefe rushing through the crowd of queer well-wishers to a party to celebrate his Top Christ Following Man nomination.  Jesse, Amber, and Judy look angry; Eli, Lori, and Gideon look happy.  Abraham looks intrigued; Pontius sneers.  Abraham is the last of Jesse's kids to get a queer code.  I wrote a fan story where he comes out.

They begin partying.  Kelvin joins his siblings to gloat at the big turnout.  Judy sneers: "You're their little gay avatar."  Jesse: "You need to stop smelling your farts."  Translation: He's getting way too conceited about this award thing.

Lori drops by.  They criticize her for having sex with their father.  She promises to lock the door next time, and asks if they can start over and be friends again.  After all, she's known them all their lives.  Nope, "We reject this union."  

Lori: "All y'all little cocksuckers better put on your big boy pants and get the fuck over it."  Hey, that's homophobic, and at a LGBTQ event!  My estimation of Lori dropped 20 points. 

She continues: "I wanted to be y'all's friend, but if you want a wicked stepmother, I can do that, too."  

The siblings interpret "stepmother" to mean that Lori and Eli got married.  They are disgusted. 

BJ's Injury. BJ tries to make it from the toilet to his wheelchair, but fails and falls into the bathtub. Judy rushes in to help.  He complains that he can't even pee on his own. "I'm broken. I'm half a man."

Judy points out that the doctors say he will have a full recovery, but he refuses believe it. When she tries to help him out of the bathtub, he angrily yells at her to go.  

Amber arrives to see how they are doing -- they're both miserable -- and to give Judy a service monkey named Dr. Watson.  She works with a charity that trains service monkeys for disabled veterans (first I'm hearing of it)

Rebuilding the Tree House: Cut to Keefe using his carpentry skill to rebuild the tree house that got destroyed in the storm (he actually has a crew, visible in the background).  He swings like Tarzan from one building to another.  Easter Egg: The blueprints are dated 4/24/24. 

Kelvin exclaims that "it's all coming together.  A project like this tree house is exactly what I needed."

Next up in the Top Christ Following Man of the Year contest is a tv roundtable discussion: "A great chance to drop some dank soundbits and establish myself as a clear fave."

The Yellow Kerchief: Jesse at the Cape & Pistol headquarters, drinking and glaring at Eli as he talks to his friends. Vance stops by to heckle him for Eli dating Lori, and to blame him for bombing the Simkins church.  He threatens to "drop a yellow kerchief," challenging Jesse to a duel.  Jesse smirks and pretends not to know who Vance is, angering him even more. 

BJ and Watson:  Judy introduces BJ to his new service monkey.  She demonstrates, asking him to bring a Black Cherry White Claw (a hard seltzer beverage) -- and he does!  Actually, it's Citrus Yuzu Smash, another flavor of White Claw.  Close enough.  Capuchin monkeys can learn up to 200 words and understand complex sentences. 

The Dirt on Big Dick: The Gemstone Leadership Team, aka Jesse's Goon Squad, has been researching Miss Lori's socials, and found lots of photos of her with different men, especially Big Dick Mick, her ex boyfriend (although Matthew doesn't think it's very big -- you can't see the outline through his pants.  This will become important later).  

A newspaper article reveals that Big Dick Mick went missing on May 11, 2024.  Plus several of Lori's other boyfriends have gone missing, and some are just dead: drowning, car accident, suicide.  Uh-oh, she's a "Black Widow."  

Wait -- Lori started dating Eli last September, during the Aimee-Leight telethon.  These guys are dying eight months or more after she ended the relationship.  Why would she kill them?  Corey must be the culprit.

The siblings need more information.  Time to ask someone who knows Miss Lori well.

Teenjus Again: Baby Billy pitches his television show, Teenjus, to the siblings.  They don't like the name.  He promises to give them some dirt on Miss Lori, if they greenlight the project, so they agree.

The dirt: Miss Lori begged him to let her sing at the telethon, saying that she was broke and needed the gig.  Don't performers volunteer their time at those things?  And she immediately starts dating Eli.  Suspicious?  That's it?  I expected something juicier.

The Dirt on Miss Lori:  The siblings wait for Eli, discussing who gets to "crush him" first with their revelation. 

When he arrives -- wearing a ridiculous outfit --  they reveal that many of Lori's ex-boyfriends have ended up missing or dead.  Also "she's in debt up to her eyeballs."  Eli thinks they're just making stuff up, and yells at them that "Mama ain't coming back!"

"Us or her?" the siblings demand.  "Pick a side."

He picks the one that lets him have s*x, of course.  

Later, as they fume, Kelvin struts his stuff, bragging about his achievements.  Jesse thinks that his nomination for Top Christ Following is a sham, just tokenism.  Got to nominate the gay guy to prove that we're into diversity, but no way will he win. I remember when I was applying for jobs, I would often get interviews as a diversity token.  

Kelvin counters that Jesse is a loser.  Even his kids don't respect him.  And Judy, married to "a pole-dancing cripple."  Dang, Kelvin, you're a super jerk today.   They both get hurt feelings from these savage jabs.  "I hope you feel good about yourself," Jesse says. 

Kelvin turns his back -- no, he doesn't feel good about himself at all.  

Filming Teenjus: Teenage Jesus (Matthew Garbacz) complains to his sidekick Johnny B, aka John the Baptist (Pilot Bunch) that the kids in the village will never give him a shot.  Maybe if he wins the big dance contest, they'll believe that he's the Chosen One.  A centurion (Dan Auerbach of the band Black Keys) criticizes him for being a trouble-maker: "You're late to class."

Baby Billy cuts the action and asks Jesus for more "smolder."  

Matthew Garbacz began his career at age eight.  At age 16 he began touring as John Deacon in a Kings of Queen tribute band.  He has performed in Oliver!, Gypsy, Billy Elliot, and Les Miserables.

I assume that he is gay because appeared in Trust in Love (2024), about a record producer who comes out to his wife and son

And because of the way he celebrates Valentine's Day: "Tag the one you love."

And because he played a Queen.  Not the gay one, but still....

And because of his....

.  

Lori's Edibles: Lori and Eli want to give the siblings "some space," so they move to her house. Wait -- I thought she was living in Pigeon Forge.  If she's been living in Charleston the whole time, why hasn't she visited the Gemstones for years?

Corey meets them at the door: he dropped by to bring dinner, "Kung Pao Dynasty." Also, he left her edibles by the microwave.   Eli doesn't know what edibles are, so Miss Lori explains. Apparently he's ok with drug use now; he wasn't in earlier seasons.

Corey shakes Eli's hand and says "Have fun, you two," but as he walks away, he grimaces.  He's been killing the ex-boyfriends.

Meanwhile, Kelvin in a flamboyant costume is being photographed with the conservatively-dressed nominees for Top Christian Man. And it's time for the Live TV Roundtable.  

The full cast list is not in the episode credits or the IMDB, but I think the conservative minister being hugged by Kelvin is Chad Darnell, who is gay in real life.  He works primarily in casting, but he has 21 screen credits, and a lot of theater work, including the gay-themed Love! Valour! Compassion!, Forced, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Plus some gay-themed screenplays and two novels.

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 4.4: Gideon is gay, Pontius has four dicks, and Kelvin is scared. With Hamlet, some German guys, and Casper the Friendly Ghost

 

Title: "He Goeth Before You Into Galilee."  Matthew 28.7 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary see that the tomb of Jesus is empty.  An angel tells them to tell the disciples that he has risen from the dead, and "he goeth before you ointo Galilee."  

Left: Since the Nanny is German, I'm including a few German guys, this one from Ingolstadt.

Welcome to Galilee Gulch.  Baby Billy water-skiing naked, extensive shots of his dong and butt that made some viewers mad.  "Why we got to see that?  Why can't we see Amber's stuff? Every man on Earth, without exception, loves looking at breasts!"  Um...you've heard about gay men, right?  

Then the Gemstones and Milsaps arrive at Galilee Gulch, a huge "lake house" on Lake Marion, about an hour north of Charleston.  Coincidentally, the house where they filmed is owned by a gay couple. 

Pontius complains;  Gideon tells him to not disrespect the lake house, and makes him carry a bag.  He says "Get a life, you dork!"  Abraham agrees: "Such a little ass-kiss."  Abraham has only two lines this season, both about butts.  Got something on your mind, Buddy?

Some cute attendants, who aren't in the cast list, take care of the wheelchair-using BJ, who complains that the whole place is inaccessible.  He'll be constantly complaining about everything through the episode.

Keefe wants to go waterskiing naked, like Uncle Baby Billy, but Kelvin doesn't want to hang dong with his uncle.  Then he forces Keefe to carry the gigantic trunk full of shoes into the house.  That's no way to treat your partner, buddy.  At least he calls Keefe "Sweetheart."

Baby Billy's Breakup Plan: Uncle Baby Billy disapproves of the Eli-Lori relationship -- we aren't told why, but maybe he knows something from Lori's past -- and pushes the siblings into a plan to break them up. The siblings point out that they arranged this weekend retreat because the lake house is full of Aimee-Leigh's things, and will certainly cause Eli to feel guilty about "abandoning Mama."   Maybe they can push things along.

They tell the staff to leave Aimee-Leigh's clothes in Eli's bedroom.  Angry, he calls "the help" and has them all moved into Kelvin and Keefe's room.  

Kelvin is pretending to read the complete works of William Shakespeare.  Another clue that we're in the middle of Hamlet.

The New Nanny: Baby Billy is being nasty to his wife and children ("Get them out of here!"), and expresses his hatred for the butch Germanic nanny, Sola (Kirsten Schultze).  So why not fire her?

Gideon is Gay:  Friday dinner. Kelvin, Keefe, Abraham, and BJ are playing blackjack, the others sitting around a kitchen island.  Jesse gets jealous because Gideon is sitting next to Eli, and they shared a joke. 

 Jesse is treating Gideon as a romantic partner who is cheating on him.  That is not really happening, of course, but it is heavily implied that Gideon is gay, for the first time since Season 1.  There are queer codes about Pontius and Abraham, too.  It's starting to look like Jesse has three gay sons.

Corey apologizes for his reaction to Eli/Lori, and brings in 100 pounds of barbecued pork. 

Jesse's Breakup Plan: After dinner, Keefe goes swimming (distant beefcake shot), and the others hang out or play cornhole.  Corey thinks that Eli is good for his Mama, better than Big Dick Mitch at the Benz dealership, who she used to date, or is still dating -- he's not sure.  

Left: Muscle guy from Munich.

Jesse can use this!  He rushes over to Eli and Lori and brings up Big Dick Mitch in "casual conversation."  Eli gets upset and storms away.

Later, in the bedroom, Lori claims that she doesn't know where Jesse got that idea.  She only dated Mitch twice; they had no chemistry.  Then how does Corey know about the size of his dick?  They discuss whether to keep it casual, allow dating other people, or "go steady."  Go steady it is. 

Dress-Me-Ups: The staff has moved Aimee-Leigh's clothes into Kelvin and Keefe's bedroom!  Kelvin shoves them into a closet, and then joins Keefe to cuddle on the bed.  

Dig the matching pajamas, except Kelvin's have legs, and Keefe's end above the knee, so you can get to his crotch more easily.

Keefe is reading an obscure comic book called The Zero Patrol, from 1984. Only two issues were published.  The hero is telling someone named Dedalus that "The Princess is still mine."  Daedalus was Keefe's Satanist friend in Season 1; maybe we're looking at Keefe's attempt to protect Kelvin from the Darkness.  Or maybe the prop master just grabbed something that had a muscleman on the cover and wasn't Marvel or DC.

He sets the comic aside so they can watch Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), the scene where psycho-killer Jason is shown worshipping the mummified head of his dead mother.  A parallel to the siblings' worship of Aimee-Leigh.  Kelvin gets scared and buries his head into Keefe's crotch (dude, are you scared or horny?), but Keefe assures him that "she's just doing dress-me-ups." .

Like a Hallmark Movie:  Saturday morning.  The Nanny practices her kung-fu. Baby Billy berates her again.

Cut to a montage of everyone water-skiing, while BJ looks on, angry.

Later, the siblings discuss Lori and Eli again.  Amber thinks it's like a Hallmark movie: two old friends fall in love.  Jesse berates her and insults her knowledge of movies.  

So far Jesse, Judy, Baby Billy, and Corey have berated and yelled at their partners.  These relationships are doomed.

Kelvin's Breakup Plan:  The family gathers for a performance.  Keefe is waving at the stage with a toy dinosaur, a shot which appeared in the trailer, making fans think that he and Kelvin had kids.  No, he's waving at Kelvin.  Why is a 40-year old man holding a toy dinosaur?

In a parallel to the play "wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king" in Hamlet, the siblings sing -- badly --about how Mama is in the house, judging everyone, disapproving of the "betrayal." Eli storms off. Feeling guilty, Claudius?

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 4.3: Keefe does stuff with the Devil, Vance is homophobic, and Kelvin is doomed. With a stunt cock and a nude Hamlet

 

Title: "To Grieve Like the Rest of Men Who Have No Hope," 1 Thessalonians 4.13.  Paul is telling his followers not to grieve "like men who have no hope," since they will see their loved ones again in heaven.

Kelvin Screams: 2002.  During a thunderstorm, an intruder breaks into the house, smashes a photo of Eli and Aimee-Leigh and some other memorabilia, and takes the gold-plated Bible from the Civil War.  Close up of a destroyed framed magazine cover promising "Hot Gossip" and featuring Brendan Fraser.

The intruder continues into the playroom and smashes a photo of the siblings and Kelvin's army men.  There's a muscle man in skimpy underwear, denoting that Kelvin is gay.

He lifts up the bed to find a hiding 12-year old Kelvin, who screams.  Notice the enclosed space. They will appear often in the episode, giving the viewer a sense of disquiet. The family is trapped.

Night Sweats: Kelvin awakens screaming from a nightmare.   Keefe notes that his nocturnal terrors and night sweats are getting worse, and uses a towel to daub him, but Kelvin insists that it was just a nightmare, and goes back to sleep. I'm worried about the night sweats -- when I was living in West Hollywood, it was the first sign that you were HIV positive -- but surely they don't mean that Kelvin is sick.  

Doing Stuff with the Devil, Part 1: Kelvin hates storms; it's like the Devil is peeing on you.  Keefe agrees, with a amazing monologue about the Devil pouring down his piss on people, who think it's a wine cooler or kombucha, and drink it.  He looks out into the storm and says "Your hot sorcery piss can't hurt us in here. Begone, Devil"  but the Dark Lord is already inside: Keefe has a no-hands orgasm.  

Doing Stuff with the Devil, Part 2:  Looks like that devil is Lori.  She finishes having sex with Eli in the bathroom -- another enclosed space -- and tells him "You're so bad!"  She is tempting him to evil, like the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

Then they go out to a family picnic.  We meet Lori's son Corey (Seann William Scott, top photo), who used to spend time with the siblings and thinks that their squabbling is hilarious, and his ditzy wife Jana (Arden Myrin).  

Left: a parody Sean Playdude cover.

The scene seems to be mostly ad-libbed cinéma vérité, allowing us to see the Gemstones in a moments of joy before things go very wrong.  Some takeaways:

1. No airport or shopping mall wanted to buy the Prayer Pods, so Jesse is humiliated. 

2. Keefe says that on Gay Reddit, they're called "squirt yurts."  This is the first time he has said "gay."

3. They make fun of Eli for being too old and uncool to attract women, but Lori defends him: "Looks pretty cool to me."  

Later, the siblings and Corey see Eli and Lori together, and laugh at the idea that they could be involved.

The Last Safe Space: On the way home, Keefe imagines Kelvin winning the Top Christian Man award by default, with all of the other nominees dead, weird.

They see that Kelvin's childhood treehouse is being demolished.  The Groundskeeper (Brian Sides) says that it was damaged heavily in the storm, and it's unstable, but Kelvin insists that they don't touch it. Another safe space gone.  

Left: Michael Rooker, who appears in the cast list of the episode.  We don't know who he is playing. Yet. 

Left: the Groundskeeper's butt.  Or at least the butt you get when you search for "Brian Sides" and "nude."

Burning Down the House:  In the board room, Jesse is mentoring Gideon by demonstrating church management.  His Leadership Team enters: the usual crew (Gregory, Levi, Chad, Matthew), plus Martin.  

Bad news: Vance Simkins, one of the antagonists from Season 3, is back, opening a  new church in a mini-mall right next to a Gemstone satellite church.  

Chad suggests burning Vance's church down, but Jesse is trying to be a role model for Gideon, so he takes Martin's suggestion: the siblings could perform at the satellite church, to ensure that members don't defect. 

BJ Falls from the Sky: The male pole-dancing competitition.  Nice bulge on the first performer.

In the locker room, Judy gives BJ a pep talk: "Eye of a tiger, dick of a horse."  A guy with a horse dick walks by (below).

BJ begins his routine, but then falls on his head.  Judy screams for an ambulance.  This happened much too fast.  We needed a number of scenes of BJ preparing and competing.

Is BJ Dead?: The family gathers at the hospital.  Everyone wonders why Eli and Lori arrived at the same time, suspecting that the two are having s*x.  Maybe focus on the crisis?

A doctor appears and tells Judy "I'm very sorry."  Ulp.

No, BJ isn't dead, but he's paralyzed, and will have to use a wheelchair.  Judy cries.  "What are we going to do?"

Tim Baltz's stunt double Ryan Mooney and his little friend.

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 4.2: Baby Billy's dong, BJ's pole, Pontius' private parts, and the Clobber Verses

Title: "You Hurled Me Into the Depths, Into the Very Heart of the Sea." Jonah 2.3: Jonah is in the belly of the great fish, praying for deliverance (not a whale -- there are no whales in the Mediterranean Sea).

Gemstone Roll Call: A gold-and-purple Baby Billy announces Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin in angel costumes.  The rest of the family joins them on stage for the Aimee-Leigh Birthday Give-A-Thon (in case you're interested, she was born on September 21, 1955).

Keefe does a high kick.  The siblings appear in jetpacks, and rise up over the stage, but things go wrong and they crash.  Fortunately, it's just a rehearsal.

Baby Billy's Dong:  In the dressing room, the siblings refuse to continue with the jetpack bit, but Baby Billy insists: this is too important. So he's in charge now? And where the heck is Eli?   Somewhere in Florida. He won't answer their phone calls. 

Baby Billy then drops his trousers to flop his dong around: "This is what a real man looks like.  I booked all these people to the Give-a-Thon, so Eli has to be there!"   Fans were complaining that the stunt cock guy had no balls.  Who's looking for balls?

Eli Hooks Up:  Somewhere in Florida (actually the Keys), a grotesque long-haired Eli awakens on his boat, Nice Mussels, and cooks eggs for the lady he "69ed for 45 minutes" last night.  She wants more of his "thick breakfast sausage" instead, but he explains that he is not ready for a relationship.  He's still trying to figure out what he wants.  Dude, you're 73.  Better hurry.  Besides, "I don't like you."  

She rushes off, but Eli struts down the dock, smoking a cigar, cruising the ladies.  Easter Egg: he has a cap from Adams College, a call-back to "Revenge of the Nerds"

Uh-oh, it's the siblings, for some reason dressed in their Cape and Pistol society costumes.  Judy has an unexplained bandaged hand.  They yell at Eli for drinking too much, and when they find a bra, hooking up with ladies.  "Am I supposed to be in mourning all my life?"  "Yes!"  They had the same argument in Season 2, when Eli hooked up with a lady after Bowling Night.

He refuses to go to the telethon.  The siblings annoy him by saying "p*ssy" over and over, and making the tongue-through-fingers gesture, until he consents.  How does Kelvin know about that?

Time to set up the sibling conflicts for the season:

BJ's Pole:  BJ (not pictured) is in a pole dancing class otherwise occupied entirely by women (the casting call asked for men, too, but I guess none showed up).  Judy disapproves of him spending so much time aroiund hot ladies, or having any life outside of her, but he explains that the "physical rigor and slightly taboo nature of pole dancing" has keyed into his obsessive nature, like pickleball in Season 3 and skating in Season 2.  BJ's story arc always involves trying to become his own person, distinct from Judy.

It turns out that pole dancing is a competitive sport, with men and women participants.

Living Loud and Proud: Kelvin and Keefe in glittering green hold their all-inclusive Bible study in a glittering green hall.  Applause by a drag queen, a butch lesbian, a couple of gay guys.  He explains that Prism, "where diversity sparkles," involves "looking at the Bible in a different light."  They talk all around it, but they don't say "gay."  I'm concerned. 

They see the Bible differently from "older, lamer generations."  They omit the yucky stuff and concentrate on the good stuff, with the Kelvin Gemstone Edition Bibles.  So they're censoring the text?  Why not discuss the contemporary scholarly consensus that the Five Clobber Verses have nothing to do with contemporary LGBTQ identities:

1. The story of Sodom: their sin was being inhospitable to strangers, not being gay.

2. "Thou shalt not lie with man as with woman": A reference to temple prostitution.  Anyhow, the next passage says that eating shrimp is an abomination, too.

3. "Men, leaving the natural use of women, burned with lust."  It's a story about lust, not a condemnation of gay relationships.

4. "Strange flesh."  Dating angels.

5. "Homosexuals," a mistranslation of arsenokoitai and malakoi: slang swear words like motherf*ker, not meant to be taken literally

Back home, Keefe helps Kelvin de-flamboyant himself by taking off his shirt and rings. Kelvin is happy that he can finally "be myself and be worshipped for it," and their success is something that he can "throw in Jesse and Judy's faces."  I liked you better when you were buying dildos, buddy.

Keefe wants to be more open, like "kissing more in public," or maybe... getting married?   Keefe's story arc always has him trying to push a resistant Kelvin to the next stage in their relationship. Doubtless there'll be a Kelvin/Keefe wedding in Episode 4.8.

Kelvin is alarmed by the idea of marriage. Maybe if you did it right, on one knee, with a ring?  

Being more open would hurt their ministry.   What about Sigfried and Roy? "They were lickin' each other's wieners just like you and me do, but they didn't...put in the pipe with each other in front of the audience."  He wants to kiss you on stage, not put his pipe in  you.  It's not the same thing.

Siegfried and Roy performed magic acts with a white tiger in Las Vegas from 1967 to 2003.  They never  denied that they were romantic partners, but they never actually came out either.  When Roy died of COVID in 2020, Siegfried announced that "I have lost my best friend."

To assuage Keefe's hurt feelings, Kelvin becomes "the kissy monster."  Annoyed, Keefe complains that he doesn't have time for the kissy monster right now, but Kelvin chases him across the room.  He starts climbing, presumably onto the bed. Dude, he said no, and that "kissy monster" shtick is not at all sexy.

Bonus: In case Baby Billy's dong isn't enough, here's another.  

Pontius' Private Parts: Jesse taping a commercial for his new line of Prayer Pods, like privacy pods except that inside you can pray, play Bible Bonkers, listen to a sermon, and so on.  He forces the entire family into one.  It's a tight fit: Pontius, sitting on his lap, deliberately farts in his face.

In the dressing room, we get some back story:  Pontius (top photo and left) got kicked out of the Citadel for low grades, and  because he was posting videos of his buddies sticking firecrackers up each other's butts.  

That sounds like slang for homoerotic activity, but apparently it's a real thing: people put fireworks in their friends' butts as a prank.  

I still think Ponty is hinting at homoerotic interests..

Amber notes that you can "hurt your privates doing things like that," but Pontius insists that his privates work fine, disgusting his parents.  Darn, now you have viewers checking out your bulge.

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 4.1: Elijah scoundrels, Winston dies, and Kelvin screams. With Bradley's bottom and Jackson's junk

The Righteous Gemstones Season 3 finale was a perfect ending to an imperfect series.  But fans wanted more, so:

Title: "Prelude."  This is not really an episode of The Righteous Gemstones at all.  It's a full theatrical movie starring Bradley Cooper, who you know as Ben in Wet Hot American Summer and Rocket Raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy.  So I'll do a scene-by-scene.

Scene 1: A small country church in Virginia, 1862.  Pastor Adam Grieves (Josh McDermitt, Eugene on The Walking Dead) preaches and takes an offering.  After the service, rogue Elijah Gemstone (Bradley Cooper) shoots him and steals the offering money and his gold-plated Bible (hopefully this will be important later).

Uh-oh, before he can escape, Confederate troops arrive at the church and, mistaking him for the pastor, announce that he's been drafted to be chaplain for their division, heading to Fredericksburg. It pays $50 per month ($2000 in today's money), plus room and board.

Overjoyed, Elijah asks for a moment to gather his things.  He changes clothes with Pastor Grieves, bashes his face in so no one will recognize him, and writes a note: "This is the body of a crook who tried to rob me.  He was handsome.  His name was Elijah Gemstone."   He was handsome?  Got yourself some same-sex desire going on, buddy?

Scene 2: A battle, with lots of Confederate soldiers being killed. Their grim faces flash by.  A boy gets his leg blown off.  600,000 soldiers died, plus about 1,000,000 civilians. 6% of the young adult men from the North, and 18% from the South

Captain Cane (Jim Cummings) approaches Elijah with the rumor that he was gambling and drinking with the guys last night, inappropriate behavior for a Man of God.  He denies it, and further threatens the Captain with hellfire for spreading rumors. Does this remind you of Jesse's sex-and-drugs party from Season 1?

Scene 3: Elijah is called to pray with the boy who got his leg blown off (Alex Saxon).  He is dying and afraid, but Elijah just pretends to pray.  

Cut to night, with Elijah is drinking and gambling with the guys.

Scene 4: Time to preach the Sunday sermon.  Elijah can't do it, so he just says "God doesn't expect us to be perfect.  We make mistakes, but we're trying to be good, and that's good enough."  In Baptist theology, you don't need to try: once you are saved, you are incapable of committing new sins. But Elijah doesn't know that.

Cut to more drinking and gambling, followed by trying to avoid praying with another dying soldier, Winston (Jackson Kelly).  This one is worried that he won't go to heaven, because he's killed people, but Elijah assures him that God has made an exception on his "Thou shalt not kill" policy for soldiers who are forced to fight. 

Scene 5: Elijah and the soldiers bathing in the river (blurry d*ck shot).  Afterwards Ned Rollins (Kimball Farley) announces that he recognizes Elijah from before the War. "It took me awhile, but I saw the way you shuffle the deck of cards, with your pinkie out like a woman."  So Elijah has some femme/gay characteristics?  Does he remind you of Kelvin?

His cover blown, Elijah attacks, but Ned just wants to partner with him: Major McFall (James Landry Hebert) is coming to camp tomorrow.  He's starting a card game, and he is loaded.  They could take him.

Cut to the card game.  They take him.  Then, worried that he will say something, Elijah kills Ned and stuffs his body in one of the coffins. And now he's Judy

Scene 6: On the road, a soldier (Nicholas Heffelfinger) tells Elijah the rumor that Ned deserted, and brags that he isn't afraid because he has the Spirit of God in him.  He is killed at that moment, as the Union troops attack.  A lot of men are killed, and twelve are captured and lined up to be shot.  Captain Stephens (Charles Ambrose) finds the gold-plated Bible on Elijah, surmises that he is a minister, and lets him go.  

But first he has to pray with the condemned men.  This time he prays for real: "These are good boys.  Some of them have done bad things, but they aren't bad boys. They killed people because they had to. I recommend that You send them to heaven."

More after the break

Gemstones Season 3 Finale: Kelvin and Keefe married? Pontius a Dark Lord? Peter redeemed? Plus saying goodbye to the Gemstone hunks

 

On The Righteous Gemstones, season finales is not a separate episode; it is a scene set some time after the various plot resolutions, allowing viewers 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.  

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-indeterminate couples having unsimulated activity. 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 p*nise 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 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.

More after the break

What has Ian Winningkoff been up to lately? Hint: you'll need several n*de dudes, one going downtown, to get through it all

 In October 2023, I posted a profile of Ian Winningkoff: Young Chuck Montgomery in Righteous Gemstones Season 3, Classmate #2 in an episode of Secrets of Sulphur Springs, and Danny Zuko in a local production of Grease.  There were a lot of page views during the first week or so, and then they dwindled to near zero, the usual fate of profiles of actors who aren't particularly famous. 

 But during the last few days, the number of page views has skyrocketed, leading me to wonder if something has happened.  Did Ian get a starring role in a big production?  Did he come out?  Did he get arrested?

So let's check Ian's Instagram, his dad's Facebook page, and his high school website to see what he's been up to lately.

In the summer of 2024, Ian starred as Troy Bolton in a local production of High School Musical.

2024-25 was his senior year at Ben Franklin High in New Orleans.  We see him in January 2025, filling out a profile for the NCSA college recruiting website: "I love the game of basketball on a larger note then just playing, but my dream is to play for a college program."

And he's got a goatee that makes him look like a Disney villain.  Not just Disney:  Leonardo DiCaprio, Wes Bentley, Tom Cruise, Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman, and Spock got bearded up when their character went dark.

Mardi Gras, 2025: Ian is hanging with some rather hot homies, no girls. So, into guys, buddy? 

In April 2025, Ian's dad notes that he is starring in the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

A photo dump from April 2025 shows Ian hugging his buddy Xander, who will receive the Louis Armstrong Jazz Award and be named to the LHSAA All-Academic Team.  Quite an impressive boyfriend -- oh, wait, the rest of the photos show Ian hugging, kissing, and pretending to strangle a girl.

May 2025, Ian's Senior Prom photo dump: multiple scenes of hugging, kissing, pretending to strangle, dancing in his underwear with, sticking his tongue out at, and licking the corsage of a girl.  I'm getting the impression that Ian is heterosexual.

More after the break.  

Pilot Bunch: Unbreakable boyfriend, zombie boyfriend, teen Jesus manager. With n*de dudes from New Orleans and Hawaii

 

I may have met Pilot Bunch, who played Johnny B., buddy of the teenage Jesus on The Righteous Gemstones, at a Halloween party a few years ago. No, we didn't hook up.

Today he looks a lot like my niece before she began transitioning.  And coincidentally, their boyfriends look very similar, too.

Pilot was born in Kazakhstan, but grew up in Atlanta, where he graduated from Woodward Academy in 2025.   His first acting role was in The Lion King, performed at his elementary school.  He got an agent at age 11, and began appearing on tv at age 14.  To date he has twelve on-screen credits  listed on the IMDB, including:

Four episodes of Drama Club (2021), a Nickelodeon mockumentary about a middle school drama club recruiting a football player (Chase Vacnin).  Sounds like "High School Musical."

Pilot plays Colin, the chem-class lab partner of focus character Mack (a girl).  In an interview in TresA, he says that he loved the character: "witty, sarcastic, and always messing with Curtis (Reyn Doi).  Reyn Doi usually plays gay characters, so we can assume that Colin is gay-subtext or gay-vague.

In 2021, Pilot played Vincent, a resident of the Alexandria Safe Zone, in  the post-apocalyptic The Walking Dead.  "A reckless, immature bully," he and his friends play "chicken" with a child zombie (Augustus Morgan, son of Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who plays antagonist Negan).  He says that the role was fun because he got to hang out with Augustus in his zombie makeup. 

He also has roles on The Wonder Years, 115 Grains, The Hill, and Red One, and some theater, including Shenandoah.  He plays Robert, who is kidnapped by Union soldiers during the Civil War (right, with Caleb Baumann as Gabriel)  Robert isn't dead; Gabriel is his best friend, not an angel.

Pilot's biggest role to date is in The Unbreakable Boy (2025), a biographical heartwarmer featuring Austin (Jacob Laval), who has a brittle-bone disorder and is on the autism spectrum.  Pilot starts out a bully, but becomes Austin closest friend and supporter. In a feature article in Pop Size, he notes that the role has special significance for him, because his brother is on the autism spectrum

Pilot's Instagram contains no pictures of him with girls, except for this one, but he could hardly help it: it was at a friend's birthday party.  Otherwise it's boys all the way down.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit