"Waterloo Road," Episode 10.1 or 14.1, "What I did last summer," with a new headmaster, a side piece, dark secrets, and dicks.

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Gemstones Season 1 Finale: Judy and Kelvin begin to heal, Scotty joins the family, and we say goodbye with some random dicks

Previous: Episode 1.9, Continued: Kelvin goes dark, Keefe goes down, and Captain America saves the day
 

Showrunner Danny McBride has stated that he wants every season of his programs to tell a complete story: no callbacks to previous seasons, and no cliffhangers.  By the finale, every plotline has been resolved and every character development arc has been concluded.  He also hates downbeat endings, so the season finale tells us that "they lived happily ever after"  

The Season 1 primary plot featured Gideon betraying the family, first by blackmailing Jesse over the tape of his sex-and-drugs party, then by planning to steal the Easter offerings from the church. He also betrayed Scotty by failing to acknowledge their romantic bond.  Secondary plots involved Eli butting heads with Rev. Seasons over his church expansion, and Kelvin and Judy dealing with obstacles in their relationships.  The finale ties all of the plotlines into a single theme: forgiveness.

Back in Freeman's Gap :  Church. In his sermon, Eli describes his visit to Aimee-Leigh's childhood home, where he interacted with her spirit.  Cut to a flashback of the siblings collecting the money that Baby Billy and Tiffany stole from Scotty's van.

He continues: "We move through this world, crossing paths with friends, family...and I believe that the goal of all that colliding is to make us appreciate one another, to find empathy." Shots of Martin, Mandy (Chad's wife), and Chad, sitting far away from her. 

Rev. Seasons is redeemed: Cut to a flashback of Rev. Seasons  (Dermot Mulroney) working in a hardware store (Baptist churches are autonomous, so if one closes you don't automatically get placed elsewhere). Eli offers him a job as pastor of the satellite church that Baby Billy abandoned. Rev. Seasons was a secondary Big Bad, but Eli stole his flock, so we are not sure who needs forgiveness more.

"If you're not rooting for your enemy's salvation, you are not in line with what the Spirit wants."  Shots of Dot Nancy and her parents, BJ, Keefe (working security again), Martin's wife, a couple I don't recognize, and Jesse's crew (Matthew, Gregory, and Levi).  Notice that BJ and Keefe are linked, structurally presented as the partners of Judy and Kelvin.  They won't begin sitting together until Season 3. 

Scotty is redeemed: "Aimee-Leigh knew this. That's why she wanted to help, no matter what."  Shot of the spirit of Aimee-Leigh sitting in the congregation, glowing in ethereal light, with Scotty beside her. 

He looks more bemused than happy, surprised that he has been forgiven, wondering how he came to be sitting here, after all the pain he caused Gideon and the Gemstone family.  Remember that both BJ and Keefe had to suffer symbolic deaths before they could unite with their partners.  Did Scotty, in death, become Gideon's partner?  

Maybe, in spite of his machinations, posturing, criticism, and threats, in spite of the hints of abuse, this is what Scotty wanted all along.  After all, the goal of the two schemes was to draw Gideon away from his family so they could spend their lives together. Maybe he couldn't admit it to himself, so it came out in random bursts, like calling Gideon "cute," taking him out on dates, and finally admitting, just before his death, that "you broke my heart."  Aimee Leigh helped him understand what he needed, what he wanted, and she has made him a Gemstone.

Baby Billy grifts: "For when you forgive other people when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will forgive you."  Cut to Baby Billy and Tiffany selling their new gimmick, pictures of his trip to heaven. I guess they haven't been redeemed yet. 

Kelvin and Judy start to heal: "How we navigate this life,  and each other, is what defines us, and what leads us on the path to healing."  Cut to Judy and Kelvin in makeup, getting ready to perform, smiling. 

Before this season, the siblings spend their lives crippled by the traumas of their past. Unable to believe that they were worthy of being loved, they sabotaged every potential relationship, Judy by defining herself soley as a sexual being, and Kelvin by denying that he was a sexual being at all.  In this season they found partners who loved them in spite of their spitefulness, selfishness, and general craziness, in spite of Judy's obsession with the phallus and Kelvin's fear of it.  Forgiven, redeemed, they have started on the road to healing.   

The conclusion and cocks after the break

Victor Rivera: Summa cum laude theater arts grad, LARPer, D&D player, stunt cock. With bonus Jesse Eisenberg butt

 

Have you ever  you started off knowing nothing about a guy except what his penis looks like, and found out about the rest of him later?

Don't answer that.

In Righteous Gemstones Episodes 1.1 and 1.7, a video of Jesse's sex-and-drugs party shows a naked Chad (James Dumont), visible from the belly down, walking to the foreground.  Victor Rivera is James Dumont's cock double, actually playing the naked guy.

So who is Victor Rivera?  I expected a Charleston-area amateur with no acting or minimal acting experience, displaying his dick as a lark.

But Victor actually graduated from Appalachian State University in 2013, summa cum laude, with a 3.98 GPA, a major in theater and a minor in art.  

After performing in communitiy theater in North Carolina for two years, he moved to Atlanta in  2015  to start his career on screen.

The results: 

23 commercials

A lot of shorts: Safe Words (burglars get more than they bargained for),  Mob Rats (a Mafia informant), Acting Out (theater arts major meets the Girl of His Dreams).

 Guest spots on Swamp Murders, The Uncanny X-Men, Good Girls, and Creepshow

The Tomorrow's Monsters podcast

The tv series D&Me, featuring Victor playing Dungeons & Dragons by himself.

Ten movie roles. The most prominent is Civil War Bearded Guy in Zombieland Double Tap (2019), a sequel to the post-Apocalyptic Zombieland (2009), starring Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg (left), Luke Wilson, and Thomas Middleditch

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Here Victor notes that in one week he saw Zombieland: Double Tap by himself, twith a group of Atlanta friends, in North Carolina with his family, at the Zombieland Scare Zone at a haunted house in Orlando,  back to Atlanta to see it with Peter (a boyfriend?),  then to a Halloween party where he wore a Zombieland costume.

More after the break. Caution: explicit.