WARNING: SPOILERS ahead for The Righteous Gemstones season 4, episode 1.
The season 4 premiere of The Righteous Gemstones starred none other than Bradley Cooper, appearing for the first time ever in the acclaimed HBO series. The fourth and final season of The Righteous Gemstones has already started off with a bang, heading back to Civil War-era America to introduce the Gemstone family origin story with Cooper’s Elijah Gemstone. Cooper surprisingly joins the cast of The Righteous Gemstones season 4 with a leading role in episode 1, which notably doesn’t feature any of the series’ main cast members or creator Danny McBride.
Cooper is in just about every scene of The Righteous Gemstones season 4 premiere as the dishonest and dangerous Elijah Gemstone. The story takes place in 1862 Virginia as Elijah kills a local priest for his donation money, only to be mistaken for the priest himself by a group of Confederate soldiers. Elijah mutilates the corpse of the actual priest, Abel Grieves, and joins the Confederates as their chaplain, where he is expected to perform a number of Christian duties, such as praying for dying soldiers. Along the way. Elijah learns just how many perks come with the job of a religious man, one that even saves his life.
Bradley Cooper Plays Elijah Gemstone, Eli’s Ancestor During The Civil War
Elijah Is A Cold-blooded Killer, Thief & Con-Artist
Bradley Cooper’s Elijah is a Gemstone, making Eli and his three children – Jessie (Danny McBride), Kelvin (Adam Devine), and Judy (Edi Patterson) – all his direct descendants. While none of the Gemstones are quite as generous and immoral as their great ancestor Elijah, there is certainly a direct line between them, not only through blood but also by personality and motivation. Elijah is not a religious man whatsoever at the beginning of The Righteous Gemstones season 4, episode 1. By the end of it, however, he escapes death and appears to start believing only after committing several murders and other crimes.
Elijah realized that pretending to be a chaplain was one of the best gigs a Civil War-era con artist could have.
Once Elijah started to see how being a religious man exempted him from many of life’s rules and demands, particularly fighting in the war and having to explain his practices, he realized that pretending to be a chaplain was one of the best gigs a Civil War-era con artist could have. He colludes with a soldier who recognizes him from playing poker elsewhere and ends up stealing a lot of money from a Confederate general “fair and square.” This doesn’t stop Elijah from killing the soldier, Ned Rollins, since he could have blown his cover even though the two made a good team.
Elijah Gemstone Is Responsible For The Gemstone Family’s Church Leadership Origins
He Saw Christianity As A Scheme With Many Perks & Exemptions
Through an unusual series of events and circumstances, Elijah Gemstone was drawn to become a church leader after initially pretending to be one. The Confederate soldiers still know him as Abel Grieves by the end of The Righteous Gemstones season 4, episode 1 but it appears that after the war Elijah reclaimed his true name and began the family church organization that Eli leads today. Elijah was the one who started their history as preachers and church leaders, even though it was originally just based on a lie so he could make money and not get caught for murder.
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At the very end of The Righteous Gemstones season 4 premiere episode, Elijah appears to finally be taking the Bible and the world of God seriously after using it to his advantage. He begins reading the first page of the gold-plated Bible he stole from Abel Grieves, which ends up inspiring Union soldiers to spare his life.
Because Elijah’s life was saved, he claims that God spared him, although it’s hard to believe anything he says.
Elijah watches on as a group of Confederate soldiers he was marching with is executed by firing squad. Had it not been for his status as their chaplain, the Union soldiers would have delivered him the same fate. Because Elijah’s life was saved, he claims that God spared him, although it’s hard to believe anything he says.
The Modern-Day Gemstones Are Truly Cut From The Same Cloth As Bradley Cooper’s Elijah
They Are Dishonest About Their Faith & Use It For Profit
The modern-day Gemstones are a milder version of their great ancestor Elijah, who started as a murderer, crook, gambler, and identity thief and turned out to actually become a devout man of god. Eli, for example, has been accused by several characters – such as Steve Zahn’s season 3 character Peter Montgomery – of being greedy, using the Gemstone church primarily as a money-making machine.
The Gemstone kids are all not really religious but use the church to enlarge their own pocketbooks and status.
While Eli is certainly religious, he does have clear characteristics of a con man, as exemplified by his “Y2K” book that sold millions but misled his followers. The Gemstone kids are all not really religious but use the church to enlarge their own pocketbooks and status. All the Gemstones are also dishonest in their own particular ways, mostly in their self-importance and inflated self-image. This makes Elijah’s character and the Gemstone family church origin story make a whole lot of sense in The Righteous Gemstones.
The Righteous Gemstones
9/10
- Release Date
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2019 – 2024
- Network
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HBO
- Writers
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Scott MacArthur