Righteous Gemstones Season 2 is my favorite. Season 1 muddled the Gideon-Scotty plotline, Season 3 had some infuriating queerbaiting, and Season 4 was rushed and muddled, but Season 2 did the Kelvin/Keefe and Junior/Eli romances exactly right.
Title: "I Speak in the Tongues of Men and Angels." I Corinthians 13.1: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." Charity means "love," of course. We'll see who is lacking.
Memphis Soul Stew: Memphis, 1968. Teenage Eli Gemstone, the Maniac K*d (Jake Kelley), is playing a heel, a pro wrestling villain: "from the wrong side of the tracks, a newcomer to the League, all muscle, all attitude." He fights dirty, pretending to reconcile with opponent Kyle Hawk, then throwing him out of the ring.
As he fights, his manager Glendon Marsh (Wayne Duvall) cheers. Glendon's teenage son Junior (Tommy Nelson) watches, sometimes happy but usually disturbed.
Is he jealous of the attention Eli is getting? Is he a rebellious teenager during the era of the Generation Gap?.
Nice Cock: In the locker room, Glendon offers Eli "some bonus pay on the South Side," while Junior looks on, smoking a cigarette, still either jealous or angry. As they leave, they pass a naked guy. "That's a nice cock, Ernie," Glendon says. Junior is so busy looking that he trips, and then looks back again.
The teenager is definitely into cocks and butts.The Loan Enforcer: Glendon is a loan shark as well as a wrestling manager: the job involves beating up a deadbeat. Eli and Junior both go, squabbling over who's the boss.
"Kill 'em!" we hear. Psych! It's the tv. We meet a slovenly, drunken, foul-mouthed, abusive jackass of a husband. While Junor subdues his wife and son, Eli punches him a few times and asks for the money, and when he doesn't have it, breaks his thumbs. Junior laughs "derangedly" (according to the subtitles).
Afterwards Glendon drops Eli off, hands him some money, and tells him, "Buy yourself something nice." This is a feminizing statement.
As Eli drives off on his motorcycle, we hear Buck Owens' "Tall Dark Stranger":
They say a tall dark stranger is a demon, and that a devil rides closely by his side.
So if Junior is the demon, Eli must be the devil riding beside him. How long will they ride together?
Abusive Daddies all the way down: Eli drives to the Gemstone residence (it's not a stage name, apparently), where his abusive dad chastises him for being late for dinner. So they're eating after Eli's wrestling match? Like at 11 or 12 pm? There's also a mousy, skittish mom and a little sister, May-May (important in Season 3).
Ordered to say grace, Eli jokes: "Good food, good meat, good God, let's eat," which makes May-May laugh. Dad slaps him. End of flashback.
We're fine with the f*ggots: In 2022, elderly Eli Gemstone is a megachurch pastor and televangelist. He and the satellite church ministers are discussing the case of Pastor Butterfield (Victor Williams), caught videotaping his wife and another woman having sex in a dance club restroom, while they were all high on Molly ("we thought they were Sweetarts"). The story made the front page of
The New York Times, thanks to reporter Thaniel Block (Jason Schwartzman), who has made a career of publicizing ministerial sex scandals. Eli wants to be lenient, but the others object. (
Left: random pecs)
A Spanish speaking pastor explains: "My church is ok with the maricones (roughly f*ggots), but we're not ready for swinging and tropus." Pastor Diane translates: "His church is really cool with the gays and the queers, but not so much about the swingers and the thruples." They fire Pastor Butterfield; he tries to commit suicide.
Next we see Eli's grandson Gideon, back from a job as a stuntman to assist with the Gemstone ministry. He's going to move into the house that Eli built for his abusive dad.
In other news, Gideon's younger brother Abraham has been masturbating, and leaving "semen loads" all over the house, like in the freezer next to the Dreamsicles.
Left: Selfie. Not Gideon or Abraham
We cut to a church service with Eli Gemstone, Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin, announcing the start of their streaming service, GODD. We see Jesse's wife Amber, their sons, and Judy's husband BJ in the audience. No partner for Kelvin. He must be single
F*ck, yeah: After the service, the family drives in a caravan to Jason's Steak House. They get out of their cars in slow motion and walk past the al fresco area, heterosexual couples reveling in their nuclear family conformity, the "job, house, wife, progeny" litany of my youth made visible. The background song brags about their heteronormative success:
Turn your head when I walk by -- I got the world at my feet.
All I want out of every day, is to wake up every morning
Sun is shining, smiling, and we've covered every room
Wait -- where's Kelvin?
Suddenly the record scratches off. Two vans pull up with a flexing muscle Christ and the logo "Strength above All Else." Twelve muscle men emerge, wearing identical canvas gis: the God Squad! Biceps and pecs, abs, bulging flexing intruding on the smug primness of the nuclear families.
Wait -- where are the bulges. They wear cargo pants that don't show anything.
There is no romance here. There is no heterosexual desire. It is raw homoerotic power. The song changes to:
Fuck, yeah! Fuck, yeah! Fuck, yeah!
We see their leader from the back of his tiger-splashed leather jacket. Who is this Messiah of Muscle, this Pope of the Phallus, demolishing the iron cage of heteronormativity, leading us to homoerotic Eden of masculine power?
He turns around for the big reveal.
Kelvin! The prissy little femme giy from church earlier? I thought it would be Junior.
He has changed his jacket: more shiny buttons, a gold bracelet. And his pants: a porn-star bulge and a bright gold zipper to help guide us to his.... Obviously gay, but hardly closeted. His life, career, and religion all center on masculine beauty.
A man we haven't met before stands beside him, identified as Keefe. His relationship to Kelvin is unclear. Assistant or boyfriend? Acolyte or lover?
Kelvin gives his God Squad some micromanaging instructions about "eating light," and starts to walk toward the steakhouse. Keefe stops him. "Excuse me, sir. Will you be dining with the men and I?" Sir? Assistant.
Kelvin says no, he'll be dining "above you" with the family.
Keefe: "Shall I join you?" Boyfriend.
Kelvin: No. "Upstairs church lunch is only for family...and Daddy's closest work associates."
This upsets Keefe. He looks like he's about to cry. Apparently they have enjoyed intimacy before, so he thinks he should be treated as a boyfriend. Never hook up with your boss, Dude: it only leads to trouble.
Kelvin: "Do not take this personal. No matter how many disciples we gather, you're still my Number One." So Kelvin is Jesus, and Keefe is the Beloved Disciple.
Keefe still looks upset, so Kelvin says "Let me tickle them titty meats" and reaches out to squeeze his nipple through his shirt.
Hey, that's inappropriate with an employee. Boyfriend.. Then he swishes off with a jaunty over-the-shoulder smile, pushing up the gay stereotypic behavior Boyfriend.
Now we see Kelvin's central conflict: he is closeted after all. He imagines that being gay is incompatible with the cozy families sitting upstairs in Jason's Steakhouse, so if he wants a career and a family, he must deny Keefe like Peter denied Christ: "Him? Oh, he's my...um...assistant." During this season, Keefe will be pushing for a place at the table, recognition as a romantic partner. Will Kelvin find a way to admit him?
The Dinner: Judy and BJ are accused of betraying the family because they got married at Disney World (by Prince Eric, the "hottest guy in the Disney catalog").
There's also a jab at Kelvin's muscle obsession. But it’s not just homoerotic desire. Heterosexual desire is also incompatible with the family: when Jesse disses Judy for not being a mother, she argues that she's trying to keep her body "foine" to incite BJ's desire. Nope, they need to have a family.
Left : Jonah Hauer-King, who played Prince Eric in the Litle Mermaid movie.
More Disruptions: We cut to Eli playing croquet, gazing at women's butts, and flirting with a lady.
Suddenly Junior, his friend from his wrestling days, appears amid sinister music! Eli ignores him and drives away.
A homoerotic disruption of Eli's heterosexual dalliance, parallel to the God Squad disrupting the nuclear family procession earlier. Next, the Jesse-Amber plot, a new Christian-themed resort, Zion's Landing, proposed by their megachurch pastor chums, Lyle and Lindy Lissons. Jesse doesn't have any money of his own, so he'll have to convince Eli to invest. He's got a job at the church; he should get a salary. Daddy Eli is super over-controlling, like his daddy was, and like Kelvin will be with his homoerotic Band of Brothers.
More after the break
