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

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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) 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 (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

More after the break

Gavin Munn goes fishing. With Michael Rooker, Kelton Dumont, a gator, a cobb, and n*de dudes. No, #8 is not Gavin

It's been awhile since Righteous Gemstones wrapped its fourth and final season, but Gavin Munn, who played Abraham, continues to fill his social media with interesting pictures that I can spin into thematic posts. In this case, fishing.  

1. Gavin and Dad show their catch.

2. I've only been forced to go fishing once or twice.  It was awful:

You sit in a rickety boat or on a rickety dock, with only a thin veneer of wood separating you from 40 feet of gross, dank water, while the mosquitos eat you alive.  You bait a hook with gross, squishy worms, dunk them in the water, and wait. 

3. Gavin hooks a four-hander.

4. A  65-pound wahoo

5. Fishing has its perks: it's hot, so the shirts come off.  And sometimes the pants.

6. Vintage n*de fishermen.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.

"Cavendish": Brothers, one gay, face paranormal peril in a quirky PEI town. With Sandiford bulge and Canadian cocks

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"Shrinking": A bizarre shrink, the male gaze, sentient water, and an invisible gay friend. With Segal and Tanner dick

 

I heard that Tim Baltz, who played BJ on The Righteous Gemstones, starred in a sitcom about an inept Shrink, so when we got Apple Plus, I clicked on Shrinking, Episode 1.

Scene 1: Husband and wife, Liz, in bed.  Hey, that's not Tim Baltz.  It might be Ted McGinley, who I last saw on "Married..with Children."   He tells her it's her turn to handle it.  They argue, but she goes -- not to take care of a new baby, har har, but to yell at the next door neighbor.  

He is fully clothed, wiggling his fingers in a bizarre way while two bikini babes frolick in the pool. Heterosexual male gaze, anyone? 

Liz tells him that it's 3:00 am, and he should turn the music off.  But he and the bikini babes are partying with adderall and opioids.  So why aren't you nekkid in the pool with them?

"What about Alice?"  Must be Bizarre Guy's wife.

Scene 2:  Bizarre Guy gets up, goes to his kitchen - full of booze bottles, with a painting of a bikini babe on the wall (ok, ok, you're straight, I get it), and gets yelled at by his sister or daughter. She turns up a photo of Bizarre Guy hugging two women.

Left: I didn't realize it until I checked the IMDB, but Bizarre Guy is played by Jason Segal, and he's the focus character!  I don't know why they decided to fool viewers into thinking that Liz and her husband were the focus characters.  Malicious editors?

He gets into his car, but it's out of gas, so he rides a bike -- badly.  When bikers zoom past him, he invites them to engage in gay sex as an insult. Bizarre Guy is homophobic. 

He ends up at the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Center, where he has an appointment with his shrink, Tim Baltz.

Wait -- Bizarre Guy is the shrink!  But those bizarre finger movements, like he has some kind of psychotic disorder. The doctor is crazier than his patients!

Scene 3:  Bizarre Guy holds his head under the water faucet, then returns to his patients: 

"I hate my mother"

"The barista made me spell 'Dan'"

"I always go out with superficial girls!"

Left: Jason Segal's butt.

"My boyfriend made me go back to fetch my sunglasses, but they were right on my head the whole time.  Then he called me stupid, but he said I had great tits, so he loves me." Great Tits is displaying them very brazenly for the aesthetic pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer.

Bizarre Guy blows up: they've been through this again and again.  If your boyfriend calls you stupid, he doesn't love you.  Besides, he's not that great: "His muscles are too big, and his shirts are too tight. Nobody likes that!"

Forget that gay men exist,  Bizarre Guy?  Or maybe gay men don't exist in this universe, except in slurs.  But obviously Great Tits likes it. 

Left: Big muscles, tight shirt.  Any questions?

"Just leave him!" Bizarre Guy yells.

"Ok."  She goes home to pack her stuff.  That was easy.

Scene 4: Sister/Daughter from Scene 2 is singing a silly song to the water she's pouring (yes, to the water) while old guy Harrison Ford rolls his eyes.  "It's too much water."  She must be volunteering in a nursing home, with Harrison Ford as the cantankerous geezer.  

No, it's the break room at the Cognitive Center.  Sister/Daughter is a fellow shrink, pouring her own water due to her "character quirk" of being health conscious. And thinking that water is sentient.

Bizarre Guy bursts in and confesses that he just told a patient what to do.  They are upset: this is against the rules of shrinking.

"We all know what they should do.  Why not just tell them?"  

"They have to figure it out for themselves."

After they criticize him some more, Bizarre Guy agrees to shrink patients "by the book" from now on.

Scene 5: Bizarre Guy is on his way out, when Sister/Daughter stops to flirt with him.  Ok, not his Sister/Daughter, his Flirtatious Coworker.  But why do the two characters look identical?  .

After flirting, she gives him a referral: young soldier, just back from overseas, keeps assaulting people, and his parents are worried.  What about the victims and the police?  

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.