Review | What to stream this weekend: HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones, starring John Goodman and Danny McBride, back for a third season making fun of megachurches
- The Righteous Gemstones is back on TV to take down televangelism, and season 3 sees John Goodman’s megachurch founder retire and pass the torch to his son
- Meanwhile, stoic hotel group heir Lee Jun-ho and sunny hotel employee Im Yoon-ah clash in Netflix K-drama King the Land – and sparks inevitably fly
Risen for a third satirical series of skewering the hypocritical hell of American televangelism is The Righteous Gemstones (HBO and HBO Go, continuing).
With “America’s Jesus Daddy” and Gemstone Salvation Centre founder Dr Eli Gemstone (John Goodman) now semi-retired and on the book-signing circuit, the blustering, ineffectual new leader of the megachurch is his eldest son, Jesse (series creator Danny McBride).
His fractious rivals for control of the holy money-spinner, in which every service looks and sounds like an arena-sized rock show, are sister Judy (Edi Patterson) and brother Kelvin (Adam DeVine).
The entire family – damned by a rival as “entertainers, performers, charlatans, […] phoney fakers” – continues to live in luxury thanks to donations from the easily swindled.
Season 2 of Apple TV+’s The Afterparty: another inventive murder mystery
Celebrating all things reactionary, conservative and capitalist, and accordingly set in the Christian fundamentalist American South, the third season of The Righteous Gemstones takes the lampooning of these profane, violent, self-satisfied, debauched miracle peddlers a step further by having Jesse join a Masonic-style secret sect called The Cape and Pistol Society.
The all-male fraternity, whose members dress up in garish robes and swing handguns around, encapsulates the spirit of all those latter-day, successful saints of the United States, the ones as familiar with a balance sheet as a Bible.
Their enlightenment comes through exclusivity; for the fleeced flock, meanwhile, there is always the Gemstones’ Christian-themed beach resort, Zion’s Landing, to go to for deliverance – and the afternoon gospel songs of a washed-up poolside crooner in a shiny suit. Hallelujah.
Divine rights
Awkwardly named, at least in English, “King the Land” denotes a fabled VIP lounge on a high floor of the hotel that is out of bounds to grubby mortals – meaning almost all the hotel staff.
To them, it is more like the promised land, which is appropriate given that the series takes a satirical look at the know-your-place nature of Korean culture.
Keeping the hotel’s lights on are the workers; lording it over them are the higher-ups, comprising the owner, his cronies and top-level management, all looking down on those whose efforts ensure their elevated status.
Sa-rang is “a mere employee”; Won an eligible bachelor. And although neither can ever contemplate hooking up with the other – she even considers him “a stuck-up jerk” – a certain humanity begins to emerge in him, thanks to her. Which, of course, precedes the inevitable, if never straightforward, spark of romance.
She takes great pleasure in life’s simple treats, such as going to the seaside; he is a spoiled, taciturn rich kid with all the personality of cardboard. He cannot smile; she cannot stop.
He must also contend with wicked half-sister Gu Hwa-ran (Kim Sun-young), trying to safeguard her position as hotel managing director by sabotaging a career Won does not even want; as well as a wealth-obsessed father (Son Byung-ho), who cannot address Won without screaming at him for his lack of interest in money.
There is a lot happening here, but none of it in any great depth. Fluffy, cheesy and of no intellectual import, King the Land is a romantic comedy whose hour-long episodes run for twice as long as they should. Nevertheless, there are worse minibreaks to be had.
