HBO Max’s brilliant megachurch comedy The Righteous Gemstones has been renewed for a third season, as the second season continues airing through next month.
The show follows a world-famous yet slightly dysfunctional televangelist family, led by Eli Gemstone, played by John Goodman. He and his children, Jesse (Danny McBride), Judy (Edi Patterson) and Kelvin (Adam DeVine), work to expand their network of megachurches while threatening smaller churches. Hilarity ensues, obviously, but the show sometimes feels too specific, almost as if it’s based on a true family. Could there be a Gemstone family really out there?
The quick answer is no — Eli and Co. are all fictitious. But, the mega-church culture and the televangelist business is definitely real.
McBride, who created the series, drew influence from growing up as a Baptist being raised by his single mother, and the cutthroat world of religious families and drama. After moving to South Carolina, McBride did research into mega-churches.
He told Uproxx in 2019, “I went to a few different mega-churches and talked to a few different pastors there and my aunt is a minister at a pretty big church in Atlanta. So yeah, I did try to research it and figure out what goes on in someone’s head when they’re creating something like this.”
So, while you won’t see the Gemstones out and about, you just might encounter another real-life family who likes to sing and tap dance the word of the Lord.