Heaven Heard Our Prayers Because 'The Righteous Gemstones' Is Here to Stay

After an unexpected two-year hiatus (all thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic), the long-awaited second season of HBO's black comedy The Righteous Gemstones made its return to the small screen.

The half-hour comedy follows the Gemstone empire and its lineage of televangelists and megachurch pastors, all led by the widowed patriarch Eli Gemstone (John Goodman). Next in line are Eli's three immature adult children, Jesse (Danny McBride), Judy (Edi Patterson), and Kelvin (Adam Devine).

As the dynasty lead excessively wealthy lifestyles full of deviance and greed, they must defeat scandal and competition to expand their empire. However, with the arrival of outsiders who wish to destroy the Gemstone empire in Season 2, can they manage to save themselves and their institution?

Well, with an official renewal of The Righteous Gemstones for Season 3, we can safely assume everything works out in the end. Hopefully, there will be a much smaller gap this time between seasons.

In Oct. 2021, director, executive producer, and longtime Danny McBride collaborator David Gordon Green officially revealed to Collider that The Righteous Gemstones would return for Season 3.

"We've been picked up for a third, and [HBO] want us to do another one," he said about the dark comedy. "So we're cooking on ideas for that right now. It is so sprawling and epic with its ensemble."

Ahead of the series premiere, series creator Danny McBride spoke with Polygon about the show and disclosed plans to develop multiple seasons.

"This one, I’ve set to be longer than anything we’ve done before. If I had my way, when this is done, it’s like this epic, sprawling tale, like the f--king Thorn Birds or something."

He added, "You’ll know everybody in this family, cousins, great uncles, all these people. In my eyes, [Season 1] is chapter one. It’s just setting the table for who all these people are and what’s about to happen."

We don't know about you, but we couldn't be more excited about the prospect of The Righteous Gemstones staying on air for several more years. However, our only condition is that Uncle Baby Billy (Walton Goggins) has as much screen time as possible.

In conversation with Polygon, Danny revealed that specific elements in his real-life sparked an interest in developing The Righteous Gemstones. After he and a few of his coworkers moved their families to Charleston, S.C., Danny noticed the excessive amount of churches in the area.

"I went [to church] a lot when I was a kid. It just made me think, like, 'Oh yeah, church, I used to go to that all the time, and people still do it,'" he told the outlet.

"It made me curious about what church is like now, so I started researching these megachurches. Down there in Charleston, you’ll even see these old closed-down box stores that people will put churches in."

He concluded, "I started reading about a lot of these different characters and these different ministers, and it seemed like the setting was right for what we’d like to do."

New episodes of The Righteous Gemstones air Sundays at 10 p.m. EST on HBO and HBO Max.