While each of The Righteous Gemstones’ Christian televangelists is out-and-out crazy, none are as rowdily unhinged as Judy Gemstone, whom Edi Patterson has turned into an unforgettable vision of insecurity, irrationality, and insanity.
Over the course of the HBO comedy’s four stellar seasons—the last of which concluded May 4—the actress’s religious-empire scion has been a bonkers riot, striving to solidify her place in a male-dominated family business at the same time that she clings tightly (and bizarrely) to her submissive weirdo husband BJ (Tim Baltz) and spews filthy insults that would make a construction crew blush.
In a show full of deranged true-believers—in the Lord, themselves, money, and pleasure—she’s a lunatic who rises above them all.
In its final season, The Righteous Gemstones saddled Judy with an assortment of new challenges that included coping with a grave (and uproarious) injury to her husband that left him wheelchair-bound and in need of Dr. Watson, a service monkey who temporarily replaced her as his BFF.
Between that struggle and her efforts alongside brothers Jesse (Danny McBride) and Kelvin (Adam DeVine) to deal with their dad Eli’s (John Goodman) growing fondness for their deceased mom’s best friend Lori (Megan Mullaly), the series found new, hilarious ways to keep its action fresh. For Judy, it’s been a truly inspired send-off, peaking with a revelation about what matters most, as well as a bevy of creatively crass one-liners that have managed, amazingly, to up the show’s outrageous ante.
From the start, Judy has been The Righteous Gemstones’ electric wild card, and she goes out in style at its conclusion, solidifying her standing as one of TV’s most likable loons.
Greeting the end with more optimism than sadness, Patterson likes to imagine a promising future for her “maniac” character, and ahead of the series’ finale, we spoke with the actress about wrapping up the Gemstones’ saga, Judy’s unconventional evolution, and whether she and BJ are destined for a happily-ever-after.
This is now, officially, the end for Judy Gemstone. Did you and your castmates have a funeral to say goodbye to the family?
[laughs] There was not a full-on funeral, but we did end the season with a church lunch, so it was a lot of us there and you would have thought someone died. I mean, all of us were full wet faces—like very, very emotional. And at that point, we didn’t even know this is for sure the final season. It was still a little unknowable, although we all felt like maybe that was the case.
It was incredibly emotional, but I don’t think I’ll be having a funeral, even spiritually, for any of them. I have this thing where I feel like the world of the Gemstones is a real world that’s happening at the same time as our world, and they’re in it, all alive, and still kicking ass.
Were you surprised that the show returned for a fourth season after what appeared to be a fitting series conclusion at the end of Season 3?
I’m a writer on the show as well, and every single season we have tried to wrap up the season in a way that felt like you could watch that season on its own. That Season 2 ending, though, did hit in a way. It was us doing what we had been doing, but that one packed such an emotional punch. I’ve seen that finale so many times, and it still makes me cry, with mama (Jennifer Nettles) watching us having fun.
Were you happy with the way Judy and BJ ended up?
I am of the mind, always, that Judy and BJ are meant to be, even when Judy does really screw up things to threaten their well-being. I think they’re cosmically destined.
Honestly, I think every couple on the show is cosmically destined. I think Jesse and Amber are supposed to be together. I think that Kelvin and Keefe are supposed to be together. It is hard to imagine anyone other than their partners who would maybe go for them [laughs]. Because they’re all maniacs! But yes, I think Judy and BJ end up in a good place and I think their baseline truth is true and real love.
Despite its absurdity, The Righteous Gemstones has always treated its characters with empathy—and that’s definitely true with regards to Judy and BJ.
For me, and I think for Tim and almost everyone on the show, we came at it just like you would a drama. Sometimes the things you’re saying, or sometimes the thing your character thinks, is wild, but to just mean it. Just to mean what you say and to have everything be true, I think that makes it more hilarious. It shows that the show has a lot of heart, and there’s a lot of actual emotion going on. I think we always are just really playing that.
For my taste, that way the comedy is just funnier. I’m not a big fan of anything that has a wink in it. It doesn’t ever make me laugh if someone knows they’re being funny. “I’m about to say something funny, wink-wink”—you know, it doesn’t ever work for me. Luckily, that’s not the vibe of the show.
I don’t know if Judy has totally matured over the course of the series, but do you feel like she’s grown in some respect?
Totally. I feel like from the very, very beginning of the show, she was in such a battle to be seen and to be thought of as equal to her brothers. I feel like she achieved some of that and got on equal footing with them and in her father’s eyes, and I think throughout the four seasons, they were all dealing in their own ways with the death of their mother and that absence. I think that plays out in weird ways with all of them, but I do think she’s grown.
I think she’s learned a couple of basic things that maybe more humans learn when they’re way, way younger, possibly as children [laughs]. I think it just took her a while to learn that if you love someone, you have to be nice to them. And that there are times when you maybe don’t say everything that springs into your head. I think she’s sort of learning, every now and then, to have a little bit of a filter. I don’t think she’ll ever have a full one, and I think that’s part of what’s fun about her, is that she’s coming at life like a wild animal. But I do think she’s learning interpersonal lessons, and I think BJ is responsible for teaching her most of the lessons she learns in life. Thank God for him! [laughs]
In the first season, BJ seemed like he was going to be the butt of endless jokes. But in the end, he turned out to be the series’ most sincere and grounded character, even if he was pole-dancing—which, I admit, had me in tears.
I can’t claim that one was my idea [laughs] I feel like that was either Danny’s or John Carcieri’s, and when it was mentioned, I was like, wow, that’s perfect. And of course, it’s guileless. He’s doing this and wants to get good at it and doesn’t care what anyone thinks. I was like, goddamn, it’s the perfect idea!
Was it important to focus the final season on the kids’ feelings about their parents—since, at heart, the show has always been about familial hang-ups?
Whenever we can find something that trickles down from our relationship to either our mother who’s passed, or our father Eli, it just infuses everything. Eli dating someone puts every one of the kids on their heels in a weird way that sometimes comes out subconsciously, and sometimes overtly. But it’s really fun and rich when we can get that waterfall coming down off Eli just trying to have a life and be a grownup, and see how that lands on a bunch of crazies.
Obviously, none of you are really like your Gemstone characters. But do you share certain similarities with Judy?
I think Judy is all of us. I think if we pulled out a few filters we have installed, just by being adults in the world, and if we turned up our emotions to 11 and let them out, I do think she’s an everyman that’s just on loudspeakers. Everything she says and does are things that women, at least, feel all the time, and she’s just here to say it out loud.
She also says those things exceptionally profanely.
With every character, we were just going toward making them funny. I like to improvise, and I like specificity, and I like blue things when they’re smart. I don’t like nasty for nasty’s sake, but when it’s done well and specific and real, that kind of stuff can be so, so funny. And there came a certain point for sure where Judy almost goes harder than the boys with that stuff.
Over the course of the show’s six-year history, did you receive any blowback from conservative Christians who didn’t like its portrayal of the church?
The weird thing is, I’ve received none. I grew up in the church—but not a megachurch—and I feel like anyone who’s afraid of it from the commercials they’ve seen or anything they’ve read, thinking it might be blasphemous, they just stayed away from it. And anyone who went, well, let me see—they realized so quickly that it’s not dissing belief or believers.
Yes, it’s not a show you want to watch if you don’t like cursing or seeing d---s or people in the church maybe murdering people [laughs]. But you quickly realize, this just happens to be a family of maniacs who are in this world. This isn’t about being an indictment of this world.
Interesting.
Well, yeah, it is in some ways—we’re very, very rich and we’re taking people’s money [laughs]. But I’ve not received any blowback. I talk to tons of people who either grew up in the church or are currently in the church, and it speaks to them because it’s a world they know and that they’re able to laugh at, which is kind of cool.
Lastly, what do you envision for Judy and BJ’s future? Do they get a happily-ever-after?
For sure, I think Judy and BJ are forever. I honestly also think Jesse and Amber are forever, and I think Kelvin and Keefe are forever. All three Gemstone kids lucked into their perfect person. I don’t quite know how they did it, but they lucked into their perfect person. And I think they’re continuing to crush it in the metaverse where the Gemstones live.
I think Judy keeps rising. I think her music ministry becomes huge. I think she’s probably got some crossover going—maybe she’s pulling some Amy Grant shit where she’s got a big hit, you know? But they’re doing really well and partying and getting into really, really bad trouble without the cops ever catching them.
