No Gemstone Left Unturned: Danny McBride Digs Deeply Into the Fourth and Final Season of THE RIGHTEOUS GEMSTONES

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede Danny McBride is a great talker, so he didn’t really need any help setting up the fourth and final season of his HBO series THE RIGHTEOUS GEMSTONES, which premieres Sunday, March 9 on Crave. But in addition to the valuable insights of McBride – the creator, writer, director, executive producer, and star – Tim Baltz, who plays B.J., took a stab at explaining the widespread appeal of the show. “I grew up religious, not in a megachurch, but I was worried about how my family, friends, and neighbours back home would react to it,” Baltz said. “But they are the biggest fans. And they all think it’s about the other church, you know what I mean? They’re like, ‘oh no, it’s not about mine. But that other church, a couple of towns over? It’s like that church.’ Then you’ll talk to people who go to that church, and they’re like, ‘oh, it’s like this other church.’ ” As televangelists and megachurch pastors leading opulent lives funded by donations, the extended Gemstone family – with a vast and stellar cast that includes McBride, Baltz, Walton Goggins, Adam Devine, John Goodman, Edi Patterson, Cassidy Freeman, Tony Cavalero, and new additions Megan Mullally and Seann William Scott, among many others – always provides plenty of laughs. But the series has heart as well, and the first episode of Season 4 in particular is one that fans won’t want to miss, as it features some very important and emotional moments. During a media panel to promote the fourth season of THE RIGHTEOUS GEMSTONES, McBride revealed that when he first sat down to write it, he hadn’t firmly made the decision that it was going to end. “But I started to notice as we were getting these ideas, so many of the themes and storylines were about conclusion, and about moving forward, and about moving on, that it really, to me, creatively became apparent,” McBride recalled. “I didn’t even make a big announcement about it. Maybe I didn’t have the ability to kind of communicate something like that to these people (fellow cast members) that I love, and bum everybody out the whole time we were shooting.” McBride admitted that he was leaving himself some wiggle room, too. “Also, in case we didn’t stick the landing, I didn’t want to make an announcement that we’re not doing it again, and then be like, ‘wait,’ ” he said. “But it really felt to me like we did it. We did what we set out to do.” When it was suggested to McBride that THE RIGHTEOUS GEMSTONES could always return in the form of an HBO movie or something like that, he blurted out, “or maybe a live show, who knows?” But for now, this is it. While the Gemstone clan lives in a world that is ripe for outlandish comedy, McBride reconfirmed that there has always been a firm guardrail for him. “What makes people go towards religion is they want to find sense in things, they want to find peace, and where their place is in this world, and I have zero judgment on that at all,” McBride said. “I’m constantly trying to figure out what this is all about, and where I’m going. So we really worked hard to never make religion the butt of the joke. I told these guys when we first started, I didn’t want jokes about people’s faith. I really wanted the Gemstones to be the butt of the joke, that the story is about them, and it’s about their idea of not really practising what they preach, and how that works out for them. By doing that, I think it allows people of faith to be able to watch the show. At the end of the day, it’s not against them.” And even though some viewers might still be taken aback by the often hilariously obscene dialogue in THE RIGHTEOUS GEMSTONES, McBride insisted there’s a philosophical method to that madness, too. “That’s the beauty, honestly, of working at HBO, on all the shows I’ve done with them (including EASTBOUND & DOWN, and VICE PRINCIPALS, both on Crave), they’ve never once pushed back about the content being too much,” McBride said. “Their notes are always about story and about character, and that’s refreshing. I’m good at cursing, but I feel like with this, how we approach it is, the way they curse, the way they swear, it kind of comes from character. We don’t want it to feel like it’s just us throwing in F-bombs. It’s their inability to sort of articulate what they want to say. So sometimes, just swearing, or just saying something f—ed up, gets their point across. When you use it that way, it just becomes more fun.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv