One thing we have learnt over the past few years is that televangelists really, really love private jets.

In June, a showdown between clearly unhinged televangelist Kenneth Copeland and Lisa Guerrero, a reporter for news magazine Inside Edition, once again highlighted this point.

The timing of that encounter (he’s suffering from an acute case of ‘batshit crazy eyes’) must have been a godsend for Danny McBride, one of the creators of The Righteous Gemstones, a new series that lampoons these ‘holier-than-thou’ charlatans.

A quick review via NPR:

McBride’s fondness for sniffing out the comedy in terrible people continues in Gemstones, which follows the greedy and fraudulent family headed by megachurch pastor Eli Gemstone (John Goodman). Eli’s sons Jesse (McBride) and Kelvin (Adam Devine) and his daughter Judy (Edi Patterson) help run the empire along with Jesse’s wife Amber (Cassidy Freeman)…

There are two basic plot threads in Gemstones. One is Jesse’s frantic effort to contain a possible scandal…The other is Eli’s territorial skirmish with local pastors near the new franchise he wants to open, who fear they’ll be overrun like a small grocery store confronted with a new Walmart.

You had me at John Goodman, to be honest.

Trailer time:

You can almost hear the zealots frothing at the mouth with outrage from here.

NPR also mentions that you’ll be seeing some full frontal, which is no doubt going to erode human decency and move us further away from a life of clean living.

Sign me up.

The show first aired on Sunday (appropriately) over in the US, and the first season looks to be nine episodes at this point.

[source:npr]