Hawk Ripjaw
The following recap contains spoilers for The Righteous Gemstones S4E4, “He Goeth Before You Into Galilee” (written by John Carcieri, Jeff Fradley & Danny McBride and directed by Danny McBride)
This week on The Righteous Gemstones, we open on Baby Billy (Walton Goggins) water skiing, with, of course, his grotesque junk hanging out for the world to see. You didn’t think the show would create such a magnificent prop and only use it once, did you? We also see the return of Aunt Tiffany (Valyn Hall)! With Baby Billy showing up almost immediately in the season, his wife was very much missed and it’s good to see her again.
The Gemstones have arrived at Galilee Gulch, their lake house, in their squadron of vehicles, for a weekend vacation (and of course Baby Billy has a Cybertruck). Judy (Edi Patterson) couldn’t be more excited, but the wheelchair-bound BJ (Tim Baltz) is despondent, lamenting why he’s even here. He points out the abundance of stairs at the house and wonders how he’s even going to get around. Indeed, this episode feels unusually mean-spirited towards BJ in his incapacitation, from being mostly ignored (stuck at the back behind everyone else for a family picture) to directly lambasted by pretty much everyone. I don’t know—it felt a little cruel, even for The Righteous Gemstones.
Jesse (Danny McBride), Judy, and Kelvin (Adam DeVine) join Baby Billy at the pool, where they discuss whether Eli (John Goodman) and Lori (Megan Mullally) have done the deed, after they confessed their relationship last week. I feel like I definitely say this every week, but Judy of course creates an absolutely revolting visual image of Daddy and Lori having sex. “Can’t Daddy just go back to being lonely and depressed?” asks Kelvin, which is a reminder of how selfish the kids are when it comes to their reaction to Eli’s new relationship. Spurred on by Baby Billy, the siblings vow to sabotage Eli and Lori. Now, I definitely don’t trust Lori, and to a certain extent Baby Billy’s framing of Eli “f*cking your dead Mama’s best friend” is something I can agree with (even if there’s probably no altruism in his intentions), but knowing the Gemstone kids, this will be a chaotic vacation.
Sitting in the car outside with Lori, Eli reminisces about the memories he created with Aimee-Leigh at the lake house, to which he has not returned since her death. Lori offers for them to just leave if Eli’s hesitant to go in, but Eli, stating that “the kids are making an effort,” (if you only knew what kind of effort they were making, Eli) and decides that he will spend the weekend there. Once inside, Eli gazes longingly at a framed photo of his late wife on the wall before being interrupted by Lori, who has found all of Aimee-Leigh’s old clothes in the closet she was intending to use. Lori is fine with leaving them there and just keeping her stuff in her bag, but Eli insists on cleaning it out for Lori.
A running joke of the episode involves the nanny, Sola (Kerstin Schulze), to whom Baby Billy is an absolutely colossal jerk. He is horrible to her. It’s a reminder that Baby Billy, as funny as he is, is still a cruel, self-serving monster who may end up being another antagonist of the season, bringing him full-circle from his intentions in the first season. I’d like for him to have another redemption arc, but it appears that he is pretty far gone here. Hopefully, he’s just going through his own selfish manner of grieving for his sister and will come to an emotional revelation, but I’m not entirely sure.
Jesse and Corey watch Eli and Lori playing a game together, and Corey confesses that he’s actually happy for them: better him that Lori’s previous boyfriend, “Big D*ck Mitch,” who he assumed was still with her. Now that could be interesting, since when the kids try to plant a rift between Eli and Lori by mentioning Mitch, Lori denies it and even gets upset that Corey had said something to Jesse. So what’s the deal with this Mitch? Lori later tells Eli that he was just some guy she saw a couple of times, but Corey made it seem like it was more than that. Either way, for now, Eli and Lori decide to go steady.
The kids’ next attempt to derail Eli and Lori involves them clumsily (and hilariously) singing a song to the family about Aimee-Leigh being in the room and disapproving of the choices Eli is making. Most of the family seems to enjoy it, but Eli and Lori are visibly irritated. Earlier in the episode, Eli thanked his kids for the weekend, understanding how him dating Lori is a big change for him, but he now seems to be realizing that this whole weekend was a ruse.
Judy’s Hail Mary is to go to Lori herself. She goes to her in the bedroom and attempts to seduce her father’s girlfriend with some classic Judy-isms, and is met with a robust slap across the face. After failing to reciprocate, she attempts to bribe Lori with $500,000. Lori’s response is that if she was in it for the money, she would play the long game for significantly more money. That appears to be her play, but mentioning it now feels like the show is overplaying its hand, which I don’t think McBride would do, so what is the play, if there even is one? I still think Lori’s intentions are nefarious, but this muddles things.
Moreover, Judy’s final attempt is to accuse Lori of sexually assaulting her, and she is not only stonewalled, but met with Lori telling her that her acting out is how she responded to Aimee-Leigh becoming terminally ill. She says she understands that Judy is in pain, and that it’s unfair to take it out on her and Eli. Judy finds herself getting emotional and quickly leaves, and Lori’s physical reaction seems like one of genuine care. Now I really don’t know what what Lori’s endgame is.
In bed with Kelvin, Keefe (Tony Cavalero) asks if he can do anything to help. “Not unless you can bring my mama back from the dead,” Kelvin responds. This gives Keefe an idea: he dons one of Aimee-Leigh’s dresses, her glasses and some makeup and—making a big show of moving gracefully across the house in one of the funniest gags of the episode—goes to Eli and Lori’s bedroom as “Aimee-Leigh’s ghost” in the dead of night to try to tell Eli to break up with Lori. This obviously backfires completely as the couple wakes up screaming and Sola beats the absolute sh*t out of Keefe, leading to the entire house confronting each other and the kids revealing their plans, rooted in Eli’s supposed rejection of the many reminders of Aimee-Leigh filling the house. Eli is understandably furious.
The next morning, the Gemstone siblings, after bickering with the extended family, decide that it’s time for them to apologize to Eli. As they stride confidently down the hallway, set to “Bang (Peanut Butter Wolf Remix)” by Melenas, ready to reconcile with Daddy, they throw the door open without knocking and, to their horror, find Eli and Lori performing a sexual act on each other. The kids flee, followed by an irate Eli demanding to know why they barged in on him and Lori. Jesse states their intentions to apologize, and Eli calms down to remind his kids that his still loves them. Jesse tells his father that they don’t want Eli to forget about Mama, and Eli reinforces that he will never forget about Aimee-Leigh. After they notice some, uh, residue, an embarrassed Eli exits the room. The traumatized siblings scream “FUUUUUU–” before a smash cut to credits.
“He Goeth Before You Into Galilee” really exemplified the death-grip that grief has on the Gemstone family, from the kids acting out to Eli clearly being hesitant about returning to the lake house, as well as him looking at the photo of Aimee-Leigh. To boot, he’s clearly trying to smother his pain by cleaning out his wife’s closet to make room for Lori’s stuff, but as he looks out at the lake, he sees Aimee-Leigh and their kids joyfully riding in a speedboat, indicating that he’ll never truly let go of Aimee-Leigh no matter how hard he tries. What remains to be seen is just how hard he will try. I expect we’ll see more of this journey next week.
The Righteous Gemstones airs on Sundays on HBO at 10pm ET, and is streaming on Max.
