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The Season 2 finale of The Righteous Gemstones aired in February 2022. Season 3 premieres in June 2023, sixteen months later, but the timeline in the Gemstone universe doesn't fit. Plus personalities and back stories are different. As with Season 2, it will be more profitable -- and more fun -- to enter fresh, pretending that we have never seen or heard of these people before.
Title: "For I Know the Plans I Have for You." Jeremiah 29:11: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." I hope so, because word on the street is that this season gets very dark.
Eli and Aimee-Leigh's three kids look very young, but according to the fan wiki, Jesse is 19, Judy is 15, and Kelvin is 9 or 10.
While Aimee-Leigh is off smoking a cigarette, May-May, a shabbily-dressed middle-aged woman, approaches, furious: "You pretend to be all sweet and caring, but I know the truth -- what you done to my family." She attacks; Aimee-Leigh runs through the crowd, screaming for help, but May-May catches up and hits her with a wrench. As she lies bleeding on the ground, a car hits -- May-May!
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Eli Retires: Present day. Time to introduce the main conflicts of the season. First up: the now-elderly Eli is hanging out with his Mason-like Cape and Pistol Society. They ask how he's enjoying his retirement. Actually, he's only semi-retired: he's writing another autobiography and taking speaking engagements, but his kids are running the church. Gulp! His friend: "You scared your kids are gonna blow it?"
Cut to Zion's Landing, the Gemstones' Christian-themed resort. The 42-year old Jesse and his crew confront Eli's driver. In joke: his name is Walker! He squealed to the press about the dwindling membership and donations since the kids took over, so they beat him up and fire him. Pretending to have never seen these characters before, I am shocked. Christian ministers are often shady and hypocritical, but violent? What if someone sees?
A Cold Fish Kiss: Eli's second child, Judy, is now a famous singer. She has just returned from a tour, and her husband BJ wants to snuggle, but she yells at him for pressuring her, gives him a "cold fish kiss," and runs out again. Uh-oh, marital trouble.
Smut Busters: The primary conflict, judging from the amount of air time it gets: someone named Keefe is showing the youngest son, 32 or 33 -year old Kelvin, a giant novelty dildio. He exclaims with glee, "That is gonna hurt!" So he's an anal bottom, and Keefe is his boyfriend, showing him their new toy.
We pan out to see kids examining a pile of sex toys, mostly dildos and butt plugs of various sizes and shapes, intended for gay men. Notice the "Size Queen" dildo.
Psych! Kelvin and Keefe are actually youth ministers, running an anti-sex toy project. I guess: notice the t-shirts, with the name "Smut Busters" over a splatter of...jizz? They buy out the inventory of local adult stores, to force them into bankruptcy. Wait -- anyone know basic economics?
The youth group kids, also in Smut Busters t-shirts, are just examining the latest haul. Do they take the kids to the adult stores? They wouldn't be allowed inside. Besides, "exposing children to sex" is a misdemeanor.
They ask the kids and adult volunteer Taryn to join them in the Smut Buster chant: "No smut (touch nipples), no lust (feminine hip wiggle), no coconuts (hands to waist, grimace)." No one joins in.
After extensive research, I conclude that "coconuts" doesn't have a symbolic meaning, except maybe to evoke testicles. It was chosen for its near-rhyme. The chant reflects the playground phrase "no butts, no cuts, no coconuts" (no cutting in line), and its variation, "No ifs, no buts, no coconuts" (no disagreeing).
Left: coconuts
Pretending to have never seen these characters before, I conclude that they are a gay couple: notice how Kelvin plays with Keefe's nipple, an intimacy that platonic pals would not enjoy, how Keefe gets all bitchy around Taryn, and how most of the sex toys they buy are for gay men. They can't conceive of something used by straight men as erotic: "There's a naked lady on the box. Keefe, I said sexy, not disgusting!"
So the main conflicts of the season will involve the transition of power, marital problems, and coming out.
The Primitive Tribe: At church, the siblings are bragging about their missionary trip, where they brought Lasik Surgery to an isolated tribe in the Amazon. They are completely clueless; surgery to correct astigmatism must be the most trivial of the group's medical needs. Plus the depiction of a "primitive tribe" veers uncomfortably close to racism.
Left: An Amazonian.
More after the break