Jack Hamilton Says The Righteous Gemstones is a Comedy About Grief

The most hilarious and unexpectedly moving death scene you will see on television this year opens the season finale of The Righteous Gemstones, which airs Sunday night on HBO. The episode begins with a flashback to the death of beloved wife and mother Aimee-Leigh Gemstone, an unbearably sad moment for those present (her husband and three adult children) that rapidly descends into destructive chaos. The best slapstick has always been rooted in pain and a sense of cosmic injustice, and the scene, in all its uproarious brutality, finds the show’s characters processing death in a way that will feel familiar to anyone who’s lost a loved one: by flipping out and breaking shit.

Underlying the satire of megachurch Christianity is a hilarious but poignant portrait of a family coping with loss.