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Despite HBO canceling many of its series early, The Righteous Gemstones is still flying high. While it may not have been the most popular series of 2022, in part due to the overwhelming success of Euphoria and the Game of Thrones spin-off series, House of the Dragon, Danny McBride's show is still top-tier.
In an interview with Vulture, Danny (who serves as creator, executive producer, and head writer) explained how he and his team create the televangelist preacher family satire.
Why The Righteous Gemstones Breaks Genre Conventions
There's no doubt that The Righteous Gemstones blurs the line between over-the-top comedy, cutting social satire, and gutwrenching family drama. In his interview with Vulture, Danny admitted that he doesn't think about fulfilling certain genre requirements while writing his show.
"I just work from, What’s a story that is going to interest me? And then I feel like, Why limit yourself to the traditional tools of a genre? Why not use all the tools of any genre as long as you can make them work?" Danny said.
Danny went on to explain how he first really started to understand the benefits of breaking genre requirements. It happened while he was making his previous HBO show, Eastbound & Down.
"When we first sold Eastbound & Down, HBO wanted us to look for a cinematographer; part of the notes were like, 'We need to find a cinematographer that can shoot comedy.' To us, what that meant was to not make it look as good; they don’t want it to be moody, they want it to be bright. I feel like that was a note that you got around that time from a lot of studios, too — that comedy needed to be shot a certain way in order to make it a comedy. We’ve just always wanted to do it our own way."
Danny really wanted to invest in things like the soundtrack and production design despite it being a comedy. He wanted to make the world of his comedies more dynamic and interesting.
"You never want to be put into a lane and start a story where there’s already certain expected limitations that are set upon you. I feel like the biggest limitation that you have to accept and deal with is financial when you come to tell a story. Making creative decisions around that, that’s another issue. But I definitely feel like it’s a good thing to push any of the sort of preconceived ideas of what a genre should be."
How Danny McBride Writes An Episode Of The Righteous Gemstones
"Writing it is very, very difficult," Danny said to Vulture.
This is no doubt a truth that every person who has ever put pen to paper has had to come to terms with. But writing a successful series that is juggling multiple genres, a full cast of characters, a meaningful message, and pure spectacle simultaneously is downright brutal.
One of the ways Danny is able to make this a bit easier is by keeping a very small writers' room. This allows the show to feel more cohesive.
"Even though we do go wild — tonally, the show can shift from episode to episode, depending on which director’s in there — there has to be a cohesiveness to the story that’s being built," Danny explained.
"I break down the story like I would a screenplay, but over the entire season. Then I’ll kind of break up my writers on each episode, and then I’ll just jump from episode to episode with them. And we rewrite the h*ll out of it."
Danny said that he does this because he realizes, for example, that something that was supposed to happen over the course of 4 episodes needs to happen in one.
"So take all those beats, let’s put them into here, let’s give that real estate now to Judy. You’re constantly just writing, and there is no delineation of what is going to be in which episode. You’re just constantly pumping out this material and then constantly rewriting and moving things around, and then the more you write, you can start to see more themes emerge. It’s one of those deals where we never finish a script and then turn it in and it’s done. We usually have every script open up until we’re shooting it."
How Will The Righteous Gemstones End?
Yes, Danny McBride has an ending in mind for the series.
"I definitely have an idea of where it all goes, and that can be challenged as we bite off more of this story," he said, although he didn't offer any clues as to how he would conclude it.
Instead, he focused on why he likes going back and filling in story gaps as he makes his way toward the end of the series.
"One of the things that I like about the interlude episodes is that they fill in some of the blanks about what’s happening in this story, but they’re also together working to tell another story, which is: How did the Gemstones get here? What you’re seeing as time moves on from interlude to interlude is the choices that were made and the steps that were taken to end up in the position of where our characters are when we meet them at the beginning of the series.
Danny continued by saying, "I like that idea of telling a story in two different timelines, and that also just taps into religion. So much of religion is just generation upon generation passing down the rules to the next generation of how you’re supposed to do it and what you’re supposed to think. For us, it kind of made sense to tell a generational story in which decisions back in the day affect things in the present and affect people’s mindsets and what they think."
