Welcome to a fairly short newsletter as it's been a busy week. Here are some thoughts on the new season of The Righteous Gemstones plus the latest episodes of The White Lotus, Paradise, The Pitt and Severance!
The Righteous Gemstones made a very unusual decision for its fourth and final season premiere. The series did an origin story of the Gemstones set in 1862 and featuring none of the regular cast members. It instead starred Bradley Cooper as the first Gemstone preacher, a Civil War-era criminal who pretended to be a minister (yes, the Gemstones were scammers way back then).
This was certainly a big swing for the series. The series has done "prequel" episodes before but it's always been directly related to the main characters. Some of those break-from-form episodes have been the best of the series. This was probably the biggest swing and it didn't totally work for me. I think it's rough to do for a season premiere of a show that drops weekly episodes after nearly two years away. I was ready to see Danny McBride, John Goodman, Edi Patterson, Walton Goggins and the rest so it felt like a letdown. I think this probably should have been a two episode premiere if they really wanted to do this episode.