What I’m Watching: The Righteous Gemstones

The Righteous Gemstones: Season 2, Episode 5 “Interlude II” (B+)

I enjoy flashback episodes not always as much for the information they provide for the overarching story as the opportunity to see other actors perfectly cast as the younger versions of the characters we know well. It’s hard to remember if we’ve seen them before or not, but it was quite entertaining to watch as teenage Jesse and Judy were horrible to each other and especially to Kelvin, giving their dad hell as he tried to get them to pose and stop screaming profanity ahead of Christmas. His desire to grow the church and make things even bigger caused him to fire his accountant and hire Martin, who started at exactly the right moment to help him clean up a murder perpetrated by his father, who may not have known what was going on in that moment but presented the easiest solution to what would have been a very big problem. It’s particularly great to see Aimee-Leigh, portrayed so fantastically by Jennifer Nettles, and how she was wary of Eli getting into business with the wrong people and shocked by his on-stage announcement that they were going to build an arena by somehow raising the money. Baby Billy’s behavior in this episode was especially pathetic, telling everyone that his wife and son had left him and then spinning a story about how he couldn’t afford to buy him a present when the truth was that he just wanted to be free of any containing responsibility. I’m not sure how he’ll figure into Junior’s blackmail, but things are not going to turn out well for Eli in the near future.