Ty Watches "The Righteous Gemstones" Final Season Premiere

The fourth, and final season premiere of "The Righteous Gemstones" was this past Sunday. My wife and I got caught up on it this past Wednesday. Let’s discuss.

I love this show. I have been a fan since day one. In fact, I'm a big fan of Danny McBride. And when he and David Gordon Green work together on a tv show, that is a sweet spot for me as a viewer. With this final season of "Gemstones", I'm curious to see how they wrap it all up. The last season finale felt like a series finale, but I guess HBO wanted more and McBride and co decided they could do one final season.

I figured we would get put right back into where we left off for this final season, but the creators and writers had other ideas. The fourth season premiere took us all the way back to the 1800's. We opened on a church service in Virginia. I figured the preacher giving the sermon was going to be a Gemstone and this would show us the beginning of the family cheating people out of money. While that was the case, the preacher was not a Gemstone. In fact, after the congregation was let out there was one person left in the church hiding out in a pue. That person happened to be Eli Gemstone, and this character was portrayed by Bradley Cooper. We are then taken through Cooper's path from thief to killer to chaplin during the Civil War to huckster to, finally, his coming to believing in a higher power.

Cooper was absolutely fantastic. He was funny. He was rude. He was ruthless. He was brutal. And I couldn't take my eyes off him when he was on screen. He really embodied everything the Gemstones would eventually become. He stayed around in the church to rob the priest. When the priest fought back, he shot him. Then some soldiers showed up to let him know that the preacher was going to be their chaplain moving forward. Cooper then proceeded to steal the preacher's identity and make him look even worse than he did before leaving the church. As chaplain, Cooper was aloof and skating by. He didn't care about these people who were on their deathbed. He wanted to get drunk and play cards. Even when one soldier figures him out, he goes in on a deal with that guy to steal from a higher up in the war, and then he killed him. When he was actually pressed into battle, the cowardice showed. While people were shooting and being shot around him, he ran and eventually hid. When he was about to be executed with the other soldiers, he got a pass because he was a "man of God". Even still, realizing his life would be spared, he was reluctant to give the soon to be dead a sendoff. He finally did, he gave a great speech and then you could see the shift in his attitude. He looked like he cared. His words carried and he finally realized what a bad person he was and it was time to change. Cooper did all of this, did it well, in forty minutes. That's a powerhouse performance. It also got me very hyped for the final season. I love that we got a backstory that showed how scummy the Gemstones have been their entire existence. And I assume it will only grow from here.

Bradley Cooper should get awards consideration for this episode because he was so dynamic. It was wonderful. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

Come and support Ty and the podcast on Patreon.

Follow Ty on instagram.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Ty is pumped for "Wet Hot American Summer" series.

Does this show have horsemen too?

In 2001 a movie called "Wet Hot American Summer" was released to very little fanfare.

The movie was panned by critics and made a very small amount of money at the box office. I don't remember seeing any previews for it and I saw little to no press before it was released. It just kind of came and went and I assume most people forgot about it.  

About two years later a friend of mine told me I had to see this movie she just saw called "Wet Hot American Summer" She said it was so bizarre and hilarious, and she knew that I liked wacky, humorous movies. I remember thinking, oh yeah I've heard of that movie, I thought it was supposed to be pretty bad. She told me to give it a chance, that she was sure I'd love it.

Boy oh boy do I love that movie. It was so off the wall and different than any movie I'd seen before. It was on the same level as "Pootie Tang" for me. I knew, after watching it, why critics may have not liked it so much. Critics, for the most part, are crotchety old men that usually only like documentaries and dramas. So, a ridiculous movie like "Wet Hot", they went into giving it no chance and decided before it even started that they hated it. I couldn't disagree more. This movie is a genuine "cult classic". I have friends strictly based on them knowing lines from the movie. That's how our friendships started.

"Wet Hot American Summer" was also the first place I saw actors who I love today. I had never heard of, or at least they didn't make any lasting impressions on me until after this movie, people like Amy Poehler, Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Ken Marino, Joe Lo Truglio, Michael Showalter, Bradley Cooper, Margarite Mareau, Michael Ian Black, Christopher Meloni and Molly Shannon. Judah Friedlander had a small, but very memorable part in the movie. In fact, the only two actors I truly knew were David Hyde Pierce and Jeanane Garafelo. They are excellent in this movie. The pure silliness and goofiness with which this movie was acted, written and directed with could only be done by David Wain. I, for the most part, have liked all of his movies, my favorite being "Role Models".

"Wet Hot" is great for someone that likes off the wall silliness in their movies. These guys do it to perfection. This movie should be shown in film schools, to show students how to truly make comedic movies. Another hilarious thing that I love about it, the actors playing the counselors and workers at Camp Firewood are much to old to be playing the age of their characters. This was obviously done on purpose because it's hilarious. I cannot say enough good things about it, "Wet Hot" is great.

Which brings me to what I'm truly writing about today, July 31st 2015. Netflix announced months ago that they were in contact with the original writers of "Wet Hot" on possibly doing a prequel movie or series. All of the fans hoped for a series because it meant that we'd get at least four new hours of "Wet Hot". Our dreams were met when they announced that they would do 8, thirty minutes episodes on Netflix. You can stream them right now and watch all 8 in a row if you want to. The only reason I haven't watched it yet is, I have a three year old and I'm a stay at home dad. My job is to watch him, but he's about to go down for a nap and I know exactly what I will be doing for the rest of my day. It doesn't hurt that all the original cast members are back for the prequel, but they've also added some more big time names like, Jason Schwartzman, Kristen Wiig, and Jon Hamm. Most of the people involved with the movie are huge stars now, yet they wanted to come back and do this show. That should tell you how good it is going to be. The addition of some major stars show how much people adore the "Wet Hot" movie. I'm so pumped to watch and 2 pm central time can't come soon enough. As I said, all eight episodes are currently streaming on Netflix, so you can watch it right now.

In fact, I'm probably going to move nap time up to right now so I can watch. Enjoy it everybody.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing. If the show is that good, he may have to extend nap time. Follow him on twitter @tykulik