This week on The Righteous Gemstones, everything went south. After last week’s episode saw everyone seemingly reach positive turning points in their lives, this week threw everyone into the fire.
It is Easter Sunday and this means two things for this HBO series.
First, there is the Easter Sunday church service and second, it is time for the heist that Scotty has been planning since Gideon told him how much money the church has.
The cold opening of the show revealed how Gideon got that video that he used to blackmail his dad and it also had one interesting moment as the camera held on Jesse as he looked regretful at the way the fight with his son went down.
This entire episode was built around the fact that Jesse has reconciled in his own mind that he did wrong to Gideon and is happy the two are back together.
At the same time, Gideon is not willing to go through with the heist with Scotty because he realizes that he loves his family and wants to stand by them.
However, first, there is the matter of the Easter service.
Remember last week when Eli watched Judy performing with Baby Billy and he realized how much she reminded him of his wife. He gave her the honor of performing with Baby Billy at the Gemstones Easter telecast.
Eli then turned to Jesse and offered that he was going to let him preach the main sermon on Easter Sunday. It was a great moment for both kids, who seemed genuinely touched, but only one of them took advantage of it.
Baby Billy is still holding a grudge and convinced Judy not to perform at her dad’s church and she waited until the morning of, to break the news. It clearly hurt Eli, but he knew that he couldn’t trust her.
Judy is the same person she was as a child.
However, things got worse for her when she took it out on her fiance and he finally told her he was finished and left her on Easter Sunday.
With that in mind, Jesse took full advantage of his opportunity and delivered an amazing sermon about Judas and the betrayal of Christ. This played over the scenes of Gabriel and Scotty preparing for their heist — something that Gabriel backed out on.
He beat up Scotty and went home with his family.
It was a great tale of Jesse’s Judas and how he did the right thing.
That wasn’t the end.
Since Scotty became friends with the security, he was able to get back in. He got his van back, took Jesse at gunpoint, told him it was all Gideon’s idea, and then demanded to get into the safe.
Gideon came to his dad’s rescue, but backed down when Scotty threatened to shoot Jesse. Scotty then forced Gideon to knock on Eli’s door and after pistol-whipping the elder, he got the safe information.
Scotty then stole all the money from the safe and left Jesse and Gideon tied up inside.
Next week, expect the Gemstones to take the fight to Scotty, but with Gideon as the true Judas, has he lost his family? And will the foreshadowing of Amber’s massive gun collection play into this battle?
The Righteous Gemstones put the pedal to the ground this week and everything is heating up with two episodes to go in Season 1.
The Righteous Gemstones airs on Sundays at 10/9c on HBO.