Wonders That Cannot Be Fathomed, Miracles That Cannot Be Counted

The Righteous Gemstones: Season Three is back on HBO where you will find the most hated, greedy family on TV the damned Gemstones. Now that Eli (John Goodman) has retired from the ministry, his kids Jesse (McBride), July (Edi Patterson) and the closet repressed gay son Kelvin (Adam DeVine) take joint control of the church's operations making a mockery of their greedy ambitions. Without Eli other televangelists like the Simkins siblings one of which is played by Stephen Dorff are prying on the Gemstones mockery. This season we learn Eli has an estranged sister named May May who is played by Kristen Johnston asking for help from his big brother. She wants Eli to take her sons Chuck (Lukas Haas) and Carl (Robert Obberst) away from her husband's cult. Her husband is played by Steve Zahn and he plans to bring an end to humanity all because of resentment and jealousy of the Gemstone's lifestyle. The script was much more gory with nakedness and cruel attitude that I couldn't stand. Great actors, good subplots but god I hated them but yet I wanted to see how it all ends up. There is a fourth season in the works and might be out in a year or two.

The strength of this show is the stacked cast, just an amazing parade of laugh-out-loud performers, but the writing often fails them: I know there's a lot of improvisation, but it's disjointed, sometimes there are these weird action inserts with cars and bikes to fill the time, the big overarching stories don't go anywhere or repeat themselves or just fall flat. Okay, there is an occasional good song (like this season Sturgill Simpson doing All the Gold in California).

Edi Patterson was always near the top, but this season she might be the MVP, and Tim Baltz deserves an honorable mention too. Obviously Devine, Cavalero, Goggins, McBride are also great, it's one of the best casts around and not one poor performer, even in the smallest of roles. Just this season had Zahn, Haas, Dorff, (and the season MVP) Stephen Schneider.