Characters / The Righteous Gemstones The Gemstones

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Only spoilers from the current season will be marked.

The Gemstones

In General

The titular family, an evangelical empire that sprang out of a morning television program helmed by parents Eli and Aimee-Leigh and turned into a multi-national megachurch. However, with the somewhat recent death of Aimee-Leigh, the family has become increasingly fractured and directionless.

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• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: For all their bickering and fighting, they do ultimately come through for each other in the end.
• Berserk Button: All of the Gemstones react fairly violently to Aimee-Leigh being insulted or her memory being invoked to shame them.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: With the exception of Aimee-Leigh, there's nary a well-adjusted Gemstone among them. Eli is a grief-stricken, distant and controlling patriarch, Jesse is a short-tempered hypocrite with a hedonistic streak, Judy is an unhinged walking talking inferiority complex with some deep-seated sexual depravities, and Kelvin is a confused manchild. Their extended families, the Freemans and Montgomerys, only compound just how big and screwed-up they are.
• Chromatic Arrangement: The three siblings display this, with Jesse usually in red, Judy in blue, and Kelvin in green.
• Cool Car: The Gemstones drive expensive luxury cars, all of which are matching in white with a Vanity License Plate referencing the car's owner or the church.
  • Eli has a Cadillac Escalade, and in "Interlude I" it's shown he drove a Rolls-Royce in the late 80s.
  • Kelvin drives a Jeep Gladiator, usually with the doors and roof removed.
  • Judy has a Tesla, and its automatic doors become a point of Black Comedy when they try to escape from Thaniel Block's cabin. She's also shown driving a Jaguar XF in Season 3.
  • Jesse has a garage full of them, but his daily driver is a Dodge Challenger (ironically the Hellcat model). The centerpiece of his collection though is The Redeemer, his old monster truck which is as tacky as it is an efficient weapon.
• Establishing Character Moment: The first time they're seen, the Gemstones are in China trying to baptize as many people as they can in a big wave pool. Eli is competent but fails to maintain control over his sons, whose childish antics threaten to derail the entire thing, only for the wave pool to activate and fuck everything up. When they arrive back home, they're greeted by Judy, who tries way too hard to prove her competence to Eli before trading petty barbs with her brothers.
• Family Business: All members of the family are involved in the business in some way and the future of their empire is a plotline.
• Greed: They share this particular vice in common.
• Greedy Televangelist: They are a family of hypocritical televangelists who make a living exploiting religion for personal profit.
• Hypocrite: While they are all true believers in a sense, they do not practice what they preach. They're greedy, arrogant and don't really care about saving souls or serving God except insomuch as it serves their own interests.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Overall, the Gemstones are not very nice, but there are some hints that buried deep within their greedy, venal and ruthless shells there are some fragments of decency which, if nurtured, could lead them to become better people.
• Manchild: And Woman Child, in the case of Judy. With the exception of Eli, nearly everyone in the family is extremely immature and tend to act in the ways kids do rather than adults. For example, when Judy and Jesse were having an argument, Jesse tried to solve it by telling Eli, their dad, rather than talking it out like rational, mature adults. Another example is, when BJ told Judy he did not want her back, she reacted by throwing a temper tantrum.
• Nice Mean And In Between:
  • Of the kids' generation, Judy is mean, Kelvin is nice and Jesse is in-between.
  • "Interlude I/II" shows Aimee-Leigh is nice, Baby-Billy is in-between and Eli is mean.
  • "Interlude III" has Aimee-Leigh as nice, May-May as the mean and Eli as the in-between. Peter also qualifies as the "nice" during that time.
  • Jesse and Amber's kids invoke the trope as well, with Gideon as nice, Pontius as mean and Abraham as in-between.
• Team Hand-Stack: Invoked as a thing they do.
• Wealth's in a Name: Gemstone, fitting for a family of greedy, rich televangelists.
• Verbal Tic: They all have a tendency to unnecessarily pluralize words, which is fairly common in the South and shows up frequently in Danny Mc Bride's comedy. Judy and Baby Billy do it the most, like when Baby Billy describes the format of Bible Bonkers as "trivias from the Bible" or when Judy tells Amber she's "doing complements".

Eli

Dr. Elijah "Eli" Gemstone

Portrayed By: John Goodman, Jake Kelley (flashback)

"Tell Junior I am very sorry, but he can go fuck himself."

^{Click here to see young Eli} "Introducing...the Maniac Kid!"

The leader of the Gemstone's empire of mega-churches, who has been increasingly distant from his church and family since the loss of his wife.

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• Badass Preacher: Before he was a preacher, he was a wrestler and mob enforcer. Though he's older now, he can still kick the asses of much younger, stronger men.
• Berserk Button: Disrespecting his wife or her memory will drive him to fury. When robbed at gunpoint, he immediately attacks the robber when he breaks a picture of Aimee-Leigh, but he gets pistol whipped for his trouble. In season 2, when Kelvin hits a portrait of Aimee-Leigh with a thrown object, Eli gets mad enough to break out his signature thumb-breaker move.
  • The sight of his ex-brother-in-law Peter or even just hearing his name infuriates Eli.
• Big Brother Instinct: May-May appeals to this when pleading for Eli to help her and despite past bad blood, it works.
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: Most people outside the family, including his household staff, call him "Dr. Gemstone". When he tells Martin to call him Eli in “Interlude II”, it cements his status as Eli’s most trusted advisor.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Season 2 reveals that before the success of his megachurch, Eli was a low-level pro-wrestler who moonlighted as an enforcer for a local mobster.
• False Prophet: Explored and zig-zagged; he's head pastor of a massive megachurch, and uses his wealth to live a lavish lifestyle, as well as providing mansions and endless perks for his three children. However, not only is he shown to be a diligent preacher, but he also struggles with justifying his riches after losing his wife, who is implied to have kept his feet on the ground. He also seems to be a genuine Christian.
  • Accused of this most clearly in season 3, by both Gemstone congregants and later Peter Montgomery after lying about God telling him Y2K would end the world. He shows remorse for the lie, but never really admits it was a lie out in public.
• Greed: Perhaps his greatest flaw is his relentless hunger for more, to the point where he intentionally swallows up the congregation of smaller churches, getting them shut down in the process.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Martin. He trusts him enough to let him handle not only very sensitive church business, but also personal incidents like his “manscaping” accident.
• Large and in Charge: With his towering height, Eli tends to command a room as thoroughly as he does his empire.
• Large Ham: It's John Goodman playing a megachurch pastor. What do you expect?
• Meaningful Name: In The Bible, Eli was a high priest who was punished by God for failing to discipline his sons. Eli Gemstone is a wealthy televangelist who raised three absolutely terrible children.
• The Mourning After: He has never stopped mourning his wife's death, and her absence and his inability to fill the resulting void in his life have had a huge effect on his development as a person.
• Nice to the Waiter: For all his flaws, he's kind to the people who work for him in the church and his household.
• Not So Above It All: Frequently shown to be where his kids get their bad habits from, despite his best efforts.
  • In "Interlude I," while reluctant to let Aimee-Leigh and Billy perform their signature act on-air (and give Billy any more leverage in getting what he wants from her), when they eventually do so Eli clearly gets into the song and can't restrain a smile of pleasure at seeing his wife happy and performing.
  • A flashback in the season 2 premiere shows that young adult Eli was just as prone to bickering with his sister and being obstinate as his own children are, despite his present-day complaints.
  • He tries to be the moral compass of the family and maintain a Godly lifestyle, he is as prone to darker impulses as any of them. Best exemplified by the end of the season 2 finale, where shots of him celebrating and singing happily with the rest of the family during a performance are intercut with the assassins he hired finally hunting down and killing Lyle Lissons, in revenge for Lissons attempt on his life.
• The Patriarch: Head of the Gemstone clan.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He is, relatively, the calmest and most level-headed person in the family. In any other context, he's a smug, arrogant, belligerent asshole, but the rest of his family is just so much worse that compared to them he's a rock of stability.
  Thaniel Block: I've seen you with the press. Very ornery.
• Self-Made Man: His father, according to their conversation in "Interlude I" was a much more modest preacher who was taken aback at the largesse of the family and the huge birthday party Eli threw for Judy. It’s made clear that, for all the rest of his faults, Eli made all his money on his own.
• Smug Snake: He certainly comes off as one in his dealings with the small-town pastors, especially with Rev. Seasons who explicitly calls him out for trying to steal their congregations.
• Surrounded by Idiots: With his wife gone, Eli finds himself surrounded on all sides by inadequate family members: Jesse is a greedy, short-tempered fool, Judy is aggressive, entitled and unable to control herself and Kelvin is just kind of a moron. None of them are remotely capable of steering the Gemstone empire toward future prosperity the way Eli has.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: While he's always been rather cash-focused, "Interlude I" shows Eli at his happiest and kindest during his younger days. He has a loving relationship with his wife, seems genuinely devoted to his church and beliefs, worries about spoiling his children and doesn't demonstrate much in the way of selfish behavior.
• Took a Level in Kindness:
  • In season 1, following his realization that his children have been scheming behind his back to cover up the blackmail attempt which resulted in Scottie stealing millions from them and destroying their family, Eli takes a step back to look at what his empire has become. He approaches Reverend Seasons and promised him an equal partnership in managing the prayer center that Baby Billy abandons.
  • In season 2, we see in flashbacks that this has been the arc of Eli's entire life. As a young man, he was a wrestler by day and a violent enforcer for a small-town crook by night, breaking the thumbs of debtors and threatening women and children. Only later did he find God, and is now ashamed of his past misdeeds.
• We Used to Be Friends: Was clearly closer with Peter than he was his own sister before the debacle in 2000.

Aimee-Leigh

Aimee-Leigh Freeman Gemstone

Portrayed By: Jennifer Nettles

The late wife of Eli Gemstone and sister of Baby Billy, Aimee-Leigh was a former child star who leveraged that fame into an adulthood career as a televangelist. She died about a year before the series start and her absence has affected the Gemstones greatly, particularly Eli.

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• A Day in the Limelight: Each season has a flashback episode, giving Aimee-Leigh more screen time.
  • "Interlude I" focuses on Aimee-Leigh being pressured to tour by Baby Billy after she finds out she's pregnant with Kelvin.
  • "Interlude II" chronicles her responses to Baby Billy abandoning his wife and son as well as Eli's attempt to open and raise funds for a new stadium size chapel.
  • “Interlude III” shows her in the wake of the church’s Y2K scandal and her contentious relationship with the Montgomerys.
• Big Good: Played with. While she is deceased shortly before the beginning of the series, she is still THE guiding force for just about every major player on the show, even appearing as a ghost now and again, directing her otherwise wayward family to do good acts.
• Bespectacled Cutie: Aimee-Leigh’s big glasses have always been part of her signature look.
• Gosh Darn It to Heck!: While Baby Billy questions how she can be pregnant in her early-40s, Aimee-Lee yells at him, telling him it's a "gosh darn miracle", then immediately apologizes for her "harsh" language.
  • Invoked and Subverted in "For I Know the Plans I Have For You"
  Aimee-Leigh: Y'all know I don't like to cuss, but what in the hell is this horseshit I'm looking at right now?
• Loved by All: Before and after her death, nary a soul has an unkind word to say about her. Averted by her sister-in-law May-May, who doesn't seem to like her at all.
• Morality Chain: To the entire family. It seems she kept their more... sinful impulses in check while playing peacemaker, ensuring that everyone got along and the business ran smoothly. Without her, they start to crumble.
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead: The family having this attitude contributes to Aimee-Leigh being remembered as inhumanly flawless by friends and enemies alike.
• Not So Above It All: While in the present day, she is remembered as nigh perfect, flashback episodes show that Aimee-Leigh does share in some of her family's bad habits. She's overindulgent of her manipulative brother, whose faults she sometimes seems willfully blind to, she doesn't seem to have great control over the kids as they bicker and can pick bad times to confront people (like when she called out Baby Billy for lying in the middle of opening Christmas presents.) She is a kinder and more moral person than anyone else in her family, but she is not perfect.
  • Pointedly invoked in season 3, when May-May calls her out for enabling Eli's Fatal Flaw while still playing into her squeaky-clean image while lying to people about Y2K to sell survivalist junk. Aimee-Leigh admits she lied about her Y2K fears privately, but still tries to save face in public.
• Posthumous Character: She's deceased by the start of the series. She appears mostly in old recordings and memorabilia, but each season features a flashback episode focusing on her at different points in her life, and in season 2 she appears as a vision giving Baby Billy advice.
• Silver Vixen: Granted she was on her deathbed and already expired, but she was still a very attractive lady (with some gray at the bangs) when she died, presumably in her early 60s.
• Token Good Teammate: She appears to have been this while alive, being the Morality Chain to her family. From what we see of her, she seems to have been a genuinely devout, kind-hearted and loving person, enabling the otherwise greedy and venal Gemstone empire to have a core of sincerity.

Jesse

Jesse Gemstone

Portrayed By: Danny McBride (adult), J. Gaven Wilde (young)

"You are forgiven for my suspicions of you."

^{Click here to see young Jesse} "If y'all do have this kid, I'll make sure his life is so dumb..."

The eldest son of Eli and Aimee-Leigh who has aspirations of someday sitting on his father's throne, though his own assholish behavior gets in the way.

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• Archnemesis Dad: Unknowingly this to Gideon, who is cooperating with the man blackmailing him.
• Badass Driver: Noted in season 1 to be a skilled driver by a professional stunt driver, and taken up a notch in season 3, when he's shown to be a capable monster truck driver as a young adult.
• Badass Preacher: He definitely wants to be seen as one. Sometimes, he succeeds.
• Bad Boss: To his entourage, whom he bullies and belittles frequently, sending them into dangerous situations for his own benefit.
• Big Brother Instinct: While years of bickering and pettiness have lessened it, Jesse is protective of his siblings, particularly Judy. Shown by him breaking into Judy's school to slap around a boy who embarrassed her during "Interlude III."
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: For all his weirdness and peacocking, when he's actually preaching he's shown to be fairly good at it.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: While nurture made him a conceited asshole, his natural instincts during crises seemed geared towards saving others.
• Cloud Cuckoolanders Minder: By Season 3, after he's become a little bit nicer to them, he actually tries to reign in Kelvin, Judy, and Keefe's more childish actions, showing he's growing into his father's shoes. For example, suggesting that Kelvin and Keefe don't burn sex toys because the fumes could be dangerous, and chiding Judy for her infidelity.
• Everyone Has Standards: When he (erroneously) believes his son Gideon is gay he is completely supportive and is more thankful that Gideon shared the "truth" than anything. He also scolds Pontius for using homophobic slurs.
• Friend Vs Lover: In Interlude III, his sister Judy is jealous of his new girlfriend, Amber, taking all his attention. They end up being civil to each other, but shades of the rivalry still exist into adulthood.
• Happily Married: Jesse and Amber are nothing but supportive of each other. They hit a rough patch when his scandals are revealed, but after patching things up they go back to being a good team.
• Hypocrite: Of all the Gemstones, he might be the biggest in terms of sheer hypocrisy. He's self-righteous and lectures his wife at length on how she should never keep secrets from family, all while keeping enormous life-destroying secrets from her.
• Ignored Epiphany: When a failure to delete sensitive emails nearly results in his drug-and-prostitute-related indiscretions being discovered, the lesson he takes from this is not that he should change his ways or that he should be more honest to his family, but that he should do a better job of destroying the evidence.
• It's All About Me: Jesse is concerned primarily with protecting himself, and extraordinary selfishness is second nature to him.
• Jerkass: He's an aggressive, domineering bully.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Deep down, at the end of the day, he loves his family (siblings included) and will ultimately do right by them, even if he's an asshole to them while he does it.
• Kavorka Man: He's a pretty schlubby man who has managed to marry a stunning redhead. Turns out, they've been together since college.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: He considers himself something of a mastermind who will inevitably uncover the identity of his blackmailers when in reality he's far too reactive, impulsive and outright foolish to get very far without help.
• Meaningful Name: Almost certainly named after the biblical Jesse, a shepherd who is regarded as a patriarchal figure since he was the father of King David. Jesse Gemstone is the father of Gideon who, like King David, committed sins but genuinely repented and turned over a new leaf.
• Only Friend: He is, by all accounts, this to Judy, especially when they're young adults. No one else can handle or stand her.
• Politically Correct Anti-Hero: He's a brutish blowhard who commits petty crimes and a conservative southern preacher, but he's openly affirming of homosexuality. He reprimands Pontius for using homophobic slurs, noting that he has close friends who are gay, tells Gideon he accepts him when he mistakenly believes he's bisexual, and smiles ear to ear with pride when Kelvin finally kisses Keefe. His "gang" is also racially diverse, and for all the insensitive and misogynistic stuff he says to berate them, he never brings ethnicity into it.
• So Proud of You: His reaction to Gideon saving the day with the Redeemer.
• Took a Level in Kindness: At the end of Season 1, he picks up a shovel and does mission work with Gideon, with no ulterior motive besides genuinely loving his son. It seems to stick for the next two seasons, where he's still an arrogant bully but consistently shows more respect to his wife and kids and at least tries to get along with his siblings. Tries, but doesn't always succeed.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: A sibling example with Judy, especially during their younger years; they're constantly sniping at one another, but he's the only one who actually seems to enjoy her company, and she's extremely upset when he leaves home and spends all his time visiting with Amber.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: There appears to be an element of this in his psychological makeup. As the eldest son, Jesse is the one most likely to inherit the Gemstone kingdom, yet despite his pretensions seems to be painfully aware on some level that he's not up to the task and his father looks down a bit on him for this. It is revealed that he was the one responsible for planning the disastrous China mission and is notably squirming and uncomfortable when Eli denounces it as a "shitshow." Part of his motivation for dealing with the blackmail is also to make sure that his father doesn't find out. His arc in the second series revolves around him being placed in a position of power and authority within the church when his father is incapacitated and how he deals with it: he eventually comes to realize that he's not ready for it and decides to step back a bit.
  • He admits this out loud in season 3: he'd trade all the material comforts in the world just to know that Eli is proud of him.

Judy

Judith Leigh "Judy" Gemstone

Portrayed By: Edi Patterson (adult), Emma Shannon (young)

"How was China for you boys? I wouldn't know, 'cause I was stuck here at home, being a secretary."

^{Click here to see young Judy} "I like seeing Jesse get in trouble. It makes my bird twitch."

The middle child, and only daughter, of Eli and Aimee-Leigh, Judy resents her place in the church and wants to be taken seriously, despite being a difficult and unserious person.

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• Ax-Crazy: She was driven to hit BJ's boss's car (after the woman defended him and told Judy she makes him miserable) with shopping carts, both played for drama and laughs.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Judy, being the most dysfunctional of the siblings, has her moments of this.
  • While she doesn't always treat him well, she genuinely does love BJ and will stick up for him to the rest of her family. Her season 3 affair with her guitarist leaves her wracked with genuine remorse.
  • In season 2, she defends Amber from Lindy Lissons's insults, despite their often contentious relationship.
• Bondage Is Bad: Her and BJ's kinky sex life is played for gross-out laughs and is generally portrayed as bizarre, though more for how publicly they're willing to talk about it than the actual acts.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: She'll pull this on any woman who she thinks is her rival for BJ's attention, although she's always wrong. She tries it on his married lesbian coworker and even his own sister.
• Covert Pervert: Underneath the "righteous Christian woman" persona, she has a rather foul mouth and tends to refer to her "feminine" biological urges quite a lot. This is hinted to be both a calculated ploy to throw off the very traditional and patriarchal men she's surrounded by, but also because she has a lot of barely repressed sexual urges going on.
• The Evil Genius: She's easily the smartest of the Gemstone children, in addition to being perhaps the most overtly corrupt. Though she has an even shorter fuse than Jesse, so she's still prone to rash choices.
• Generation Xerox: Baby Billy tries to invoke this by having her sing by his side like her mother. In actuality, she's one to Baby Billy himself; a foul-mouthed, sexually depraved Christian singer with deep-rooted insecurities who longs for adulation.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Of the non-romantic variety. When they were young, Judy was this to Amber, threatened by her being attractive and liked by boys and envious of how she dominated Jesse's attention.
• Hidden Depths: While she's not a technically marvelous singer or dancer, she proves to be a very charismatic stage presence when she gets the chance to perform.
• Hot-Blooded: Verging on Hair-Trigger Temper. Judy has a shorter fuse than even Jesse, and she's much more unhinged.
• Important Haircut: Judy's hair was longer during high school, but she had to cut it to her signature shoulder-length after a boy she liked cut a chunk out of it to punish her for being obnoxious. Hair becomes a sore spot for her.
• Large Ham: It runs in the family.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Judith is a hero in a religious text that has spurned debate as to its inclusion in Biblical canon. As a result, Protestants largely ignore the Book of Judith. Much like Judy's family ignore her.
  • Alternatively, Judy is the feminine of Judah. Judah betrayed his brother Joseph out of jealousy for his coat of many colors, fitting in with Judy's envy of her brothers' place in the family.
• Parental Substitute: She and BJ become this for Tiffany when Baby Billy abandons her.
• Pet the Dog:
  • She expresses what sounds like genuine sympathy for the Butterfields' predicament when their sex lives are exposed.
  • She is also protective of Tiffany after Baby Billy temporarily abandons her.
• Pink Boy, Blue Girl: Not only is Judy more assertive and aggressive than BJ, she literally favors wearing blue while he enjoys wearing pink.
• Politically Incorrect Villain:
  • At first she constantly makes fun of Aunt Tiffany’s poor background and lack of education, frequently calling her some version of “poor, dumb hill person”. This gradually goes away after she becomes Tiff’s Parental Substitute.
  • She also makes fun of Amber’s origins in small-town Kentucky when she first meets her in the early 2000s.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: Like her brothers, she is incredibly immature and maladjusted due to her sheltered and wealthy upbringing, but her personality has a darker streak: she is noted to have committed crimes before, is highly delusional and violently aggressive at times, and has a number of bizarre and disturbing psychosexual hangups. This has been present since she was a kid even before the family was rich.
• The Resenter: She deeply resents much of her family for sidelining her role in the business and the way they treat BJ.
• Small Name, Big Ego: There's a little bit of this to her character. She resents the fact that she's relegated to lower work in the church than her brothers and feels that it's because she's a woman in a man's world. While she's not entirely wrong to think so, it's also worth remembering that her mother was an important and respected leader in the church, suggesting that it's not just patriarchy at fault here and that Judy isn't quite as capable as she thinks or wants to be.
• Spoiled Brat: And she was even worse as a kid.
• Stealing from the Till: Judy's been embezzling from donations for a long time.
• Technical Virgin: Despite her claiming to have experience with many men, BJ’s the only one she’s had actual sex with. Even when she has an “affair” with her guitarist, it never progresses beyond kissing and groping.
• The Unfavorite: She's the child that Aimee-Leigh and Eli both seem to have the hardest time relating to and handling, both in the present day and in flashbacks.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With her brother Jesse, especially when they're younger. They're constantly at each other's throats, but he's implied to be the only person who actually enjoys her company, and she's sent into an emotional spiral when he leaves home and gets a serious girlfriend.
• You Go, Girl!: She seems to think she's in this kind of plot, being sidelined in the ministry in favor of her brothers. In actuality, she's not sidelined because she's a woman, but because she's genuinely an amoral wild card.

Kelvin

Kelvin Gemstone

Portrayed By: Adam Devine (adult), Tristan Borders (young)

"We lift, we pray, and we are mindful of our diets. Clean livin', being ripped, gettin' high on Christ."

^{Click here to see young Kelvin}

The youngest son of Eli and Aimee-Leigh who primarily works as a youth minister, he's often the kindest of the Gemstone kids, though he's an insecure mess.

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• Ambiguously Gay: He's the only one of the Gemstone children to not be involved with anyone at the start of the series, is very coiffed, and shares an eyebrow-raising relationship with Keefe, who moves in with him sometime between season 1 and season 2. Season 3 confirms it.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: He is always the one to push Jesse and Judy just that extra little bit.
• Anti-Villain: While he's a willing participant in his family's corrupt dealings and an accessory to his brother's criminal acts at the beginning of the series, he is otherwise shown to be a surprisingly kind person who is genuinely good at empathizing with others.
• Break the Cutie: Returning to his more Nice Guy nature in season 3, he's put through an emotional gauntlet, resulting in Keefe leaving him and him being abducted by his uncle.
• Break the Haughty: Becomes more arrogant in season 2 after creating the God Squad but gets humiliated through the course of the series. First is an embarrassing incident in which he and the God Squad fall from a human pyramid. Next, he has his fingers broken by Eli in front of them. And lastly, his leadership is usurped and becomes the group's servant.
• Cannot Spit It Out: He's unable to fully voice his feelings for Keefe in season three, calling him his "best dude friend" in a way that makes it clear he wants to say "boyfriend." He grows out of this by the penultimate episode, kissing Keefe in a sudden burst of confidence before the first Sunday service he leads with Jesse and Judy.
• Gosh Darn It to Heck!: Like his mother, he doesn't often swear.
  Kelvin: What the fudge, Keefe?
• Hidden Depths: While he's usually written off as a bumbling dumbass by the rest of his family, he proves to be genuinely talented at his job as a youth pastor. He's also the only sibling that comes up with effective solutions to their problems in season 1, using Keefe's job at the DMV to help them track the blackmailer's van.
• Hipster: Described as a "Christian hipster" by some sources, and sports the trendy metrosexual look to go with it. He gets a little more fashionable in season 2 and beyond.
• Like Parent, Like Child: Invoked by Jesse in "Interlude III"; Kelvin is more like Aimee-Leigh while Jesse and Judy are more like Eli.
• Mama's Boy
• Manchild: Has a room full of arcade games and other toys, and proudly shows off a soda machine with a touchscreen interface he was given.
• Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher: He's used to dealing with young children and teenagers, so he treats his "God Squad" more like kids at a summer camp than fully-grown bodybuilders (Not counting his rather extreme punishments).
• Never My Fault: Has a little bit of trouble taking accountability for his actions, highlighting his immature nature.
• Odd Name Out: He and Aimee-Leigh are the only ones in the immediate family that don't have a Bible-adjacent name.
• Only Sane Man: Kelvin is the most reasonable and level-headed of the siblings.
• Relationship Upgrade: With Keefe at the end of Season 3.
• Practically Different Generations: Aimee-Leigh was pregnant with Kelvin in the late 1980s when Jesse was already in middle school.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Possibly. In season 1 he mentions he isn’t interested in dating, even comparing himself to Jesus in that regard, but he gets a Relationship Upgrade with Keefe in Season 3.
• Token Good Teammate: Of the Gemstone siblings, he's generally the most kind and levelheaded, although that's not really saying a lot.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: After starting the God Squad, his Messianic delusions get worse and as a result, he becomes more of a dick. He gets thoroughly humbled by the end of the season.
• The Unfavorite: A nephew variety. While both of his parents love him, he is by a wide margin Baby Billy's least favorite of his sister's kids and it's very well-known.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: He's eager to prove himself to Eli, who is mostly aggravated by his efforts and confused by his interests. He also has a bit of a chip on his shoulder due to being the youngest of the children and thus the one trusted with the least amount of responsibility.

Gemstone Spouses & Children

Amber

Amber Gemstone

Portrayed By: Cassidy Freeman (adult), Keeley Marshall (young)

"I just wanna know who officiated the wedding. Was it Donald or was it Goofy?"

^{Click here to see young Amber}

Jesse's supportive wife, whose ambitions for her branch of the family sometimes get in the way.

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• Chekhov's Skill: Her proficiency with firearms comes into play after finding out Jesse lied to her, and she uses a rifle to nail him right in the ass. While painful and humiliating, a bullet to the ass is one of the easier bullet wounds to recover from.
• Deadpan Snarker: Her interactions with Judy especially highlight a fairly droll, biting humor versus Judy's broad hamminess.
• Hidden Depths: Her presentation as a good Christian housewife hides a deadly proficiency with firearms and, in later seasons, what seems to be a genuine love of helping people with struggling marriages.
• Mama Bear: She's willing to do anything for her kids. Her main reason for being furious at Jesse isn't the contents on the tape or lying to her, but because Gideon took the fall for him.
• More Deadly Than the Male: A better shot and more ruthless businesswoman than Jesse.
• Ms. Fanservice: At one point, she appears in a very form-fitting nightgown. In season 2 she tries to invoke this by wearing an incredibly low-cut dress to ask Eli for a favor.
• My Beloved Smother: She's incredibly fussy over Gideon in season 1 and 2.
• ...Or So I Heard: She claims to just be passingly aware of Joe Jonas but she's obviously a huge fangirl.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: She appears to be a nice lady but has a very backward view of Haiti, convinced they are full of cannibals, referring to the story about "that Rockefeller boy who went to New Guinea."
• Power Hair: After finding out about the blackmail tape, she starts doing her normally wavy, shoulder-length hair into a high French twist.
• Raised by Grandparents: "Interlude III" implies that Amber was raised by a strict grandmother in Kentucky who died around the time she met Jesse.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Amber may be a proper Christian lady, but she makes it abundantly clear she is not to be fucked with. When Jesse damages her relationship with her son under false pretenses, she pays back the favor by shooting him in the ass. She’s also a good businesswoman, and her “The System” program is one of the church’s few financial bright spots in Season 3.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Mostly averted. She's a housewife in season 1, but she and Jesse appear to be equals when it comes to their attempted business ventures in season 2. She goes into business on her own in season 3, and Jesse's frustrations about it are less about her "knowing her place" and more about Pontius being out of control and him wanting her support during his transition of power.
• Took a Level in Badass: After she finds out that Jesse let Gideon take the fall for the blackmail tape/heist, she takes a gun, watches him run and fires a shot into his ass.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In season 2, when she starts actively scheming with Jesse. Her pushing ambitions on Jesse overwhelms him, and she steps back from it in Season 3, focusing on her own thing.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: She is a gorgeous redhead with a trim figure that she loves to show off in clinging but modest sheath dresses while Jesse is an older-looking, pudgy man with a graying (at the sideburns) perm.
  • The trope gets played with, as they've been together since they were very young, and they were closer to a similar attractiveness level as college kids.

Gideon

Gideon Gemstone

Portrayed By: Skyler Gisondo

"Do you want to make things better? Or do you just want to make the bad stuff go away?"

Jesse and Amber's eldest son who left home to pursue dreams of becoming a professional stuntman, driving a wedge between him and his parents.

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• Antagonistic Offspring: Along with Scotty and Lucy, Gideon concocts a plan to blackmail his father out of resentment for how he was treated and disdain for Jesse's hypocrisy. However, he gradually loses enthusiasm for the plan and ultimately chooses not to go through with it.
• The Atoner: Tries to make up for nearly getting his family killed and getting their money stolen by doing missionary work.
• Badass Adorable: He's kinder and softer-spoken than most of his relatives, has a slight build and soft features, and a somewhat awkward demeanor. He's also a highly-skilled stunt performer, putting his skills to use against the Cycle Ninjas (while armed with only a bike of his own and a cattle prod) and the Brothers of Tomorrow's Fires, doing significant damage to their camp in the Redeemer.
• Badass Driver: His role in season 3 as his Granddad's wheelman, culminating in him using the Redeemer to defend his family from Peter's militia.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: With his stunt career petering out, Gideon is aimless in season 3. The end of the season, he decides to give preaching a try.
• The Dragon: To Scotty, though in practice he's easily the smarter of the two.
• Grandparent Favoritism: Eli loves him very, very much.
• Heel–Face Turn: He betrays Scotty because he realizes he can't screw his family over.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Again, to Scotty, whose plan begins and ends with a failed blackmail attempt were it not for Gideon. He's also this to his granddad in season 3.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: He's a soft-spoken, nice kid who dreams of a career outside of the Gemstone empire, contrasting his boisterous Jerkass father who wants to lead the Gemstone family. However, he does share some traits with his father, like his Badass Driver tendencies.
• Meaningful Name: Gideon in the Bible was a reluctant "Judge" who had to be coaxed into leading Israel against the Minnonites. Gideon Gemstone is reluctant to have anything to do with the church, but by the end of Season 3 seems to have a calling for preaching.
• Mirror Character: To Eli.
  • Both of them were raised by ministers but initially shunned a career in the church to work in show business, Eli as a professional wrestler and Gideon as a Hollywood stuntman.
  • Both men had somewhat strained relationships with their own fathers. Grandaddy Roy, while proud of his son, disapproved of his wealth and excess. Jesse struggles to relate to his son, who seems to favor his grandfather.
  • Both dabbled in criminal activity in their youth, Eli by acting as an enforcer for Glendon Marsh, and Gideon by conspiring with Scotty to blackmail his father and rob the church.
  • Cemented by the end of Season 3, where Gideon asks Eli to teach him how to preach.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: He's muscled but quite lean, which doesn’t stop him from kicking ass due to his martial arts experience. He beats the much stockier and stronger Scotty in a fair fight twice and later jousts one of the cycle ninjas off their bike.
• Not So Above It All: Even good-natured Gideon can't help but shout "Fucking Montgomerys!" as he uses his dad's monster truck to flatten the militia camp.
• Out of Focus: A primary character in season 1, but more of a supporting character in seasons 2 and 3.
• Parents as People: The realization and acceptance of his parents, mostly Jesse, as flawed but not irredeemable is what inspires Gideon to betray Scotty and abandon the blackmail plan.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: He isn't the biggest guy in the world, but he can fight and ride dirt bikes like a pro.
• Straight Man: To the erratic Scotty in Season 1, and his family in seasons 2 and 3. He's very reserved in a World of Ham, almost feeling like a character who walked out of a more serious drama when paired with anybody else.

Pontius

Pontius Gemstone

Portrayed By: Kelton DuMont

"I don't even believe in God!"

Jesse and Amber's foul-mouthed, rebellious middle child.

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• Antagonistic Offspring: He (correctly) blames Jesse for driving Gideon away, and subsequently doesn't like making life easy for him.
• Celebrity Resemblance: Jesse compares him to Pete Davidson in Season 3, given his bleached hair, tattoos, and overall demeanor.
• Dumbass Teenage Son: He didn't get into a single college.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Although he's a very unpleasant person, he's absolutely right about Jesse's pep talk ringing hollow since everything was given to him.
• Like Parent, Like Child: He's argumentative, foul-mouthed and difficult...much like Jesse.
• Meaningful Name: Unlike Gideon and Abraham who are named after biblical "good guys" and who are less openly antagonistic, Pontius shares his name with a biblical "villain" and he has no problem mouthing off to Jesse. He's also the only Gemstone who explicitly doesn't believe in God, though it seems more like teenage rebelliousness than sincere belief, considering he gets "blessed" tattooed on his face in season 3.
• Middle Child Syndrome: His other brothers seem to be more favored by his parents.
• Military School: Gets sent one at the end of season 3, because Jesse wants him to improve as a person. He's not thrilled.
• Phoneaholic Teenager: Seems to be trying to become an influencer by season 3, often seen in the background recording videos.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Pontius becomes an even more unpleasant person in season 3, somehow.
• Took a Level in Kindness: After Jesse and Gideon reconcile, Pontius cheers up considerably.

Abraham

Abraham Gemstone

Portrayed By: Gavin Munn

"The little one is mean." (Karl about Abe)

Jesse and Amber's youngest son.

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• Kids Are Cruel: Middle-school aged and a snarky jerk.
• Like Parent, Like Child: He's shaping up to be a little Jesse.
• Parental Favoritism: It seems like he and Jesse get along the best of any of the kids.
• Tag Along Kid: He's a middle schooler, so his plot relevance is limited, so he's often just kind of there.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Just seemed like a normal, nice kid in the first two seasons. In season 3, he's a dick to his dad's cousins, a trait his dad seems to encourage.

BJ

Benjamin Jason "BJ" Barnes

Portrayed By: Tim Baltz

"I'm an optometrist. We see everything."

Judy's husband, a fairly normal optometrist whose more liberal values and middle-class origin puts him at odds with the rest of the family.

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• Beware the Nice Ones: In "For Out of the Heart Comes Evil Thoughts", his whole storyline of seeking revenge on Stephen and coldly shutting out his wife is absolutely horrifying. (Though still funny)
• Butt-Monkey: Virtually everyone but Judy treats him with contempt, though they do soften on him as the seasons go on. He still takes a lot of crap.
• Extreme Doormat: Takes most of the abuse leveled at him without much of a fuss. The few times he attempts to stand up for himself, he backs off at the slightest pushback. Character Development in Season 3 sees this trait start to go away.
• Hidden Depths: He comes off as a spineless dork a lot, but he's keenly aware of Judy's faults, accurately psychoanalyzing her to Eli and earning his respect.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Is horrified by the lengths he goes to in order to get back at Stephen for he and Judy's affair.
• Morality Pet: He's generally this for Judy and by the end of Season 2, both Eli and Jesse have gone from viewing him as a nuisance to treating him as someone they need to protect. When Judy cheats on him with Stephen, their first reactions are to express disgust at her for betraying him. Jesse even teaches him how to fight, genuinely apologizing for his sister's behavior.
• Nice Guy: BJ doesn't have a mean bone in his body.
• Parental Substitute: He and Judy become this for Tiffany when Baby Billy abandons her.
• Pet the Dog: Declares Keefe part of the family and tells him to stay with them after the siblings are abducted.
• Pink Boy, Blue Girl: He seems to love wearing pink when he's not actively matching Judy's outfits.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Breaks off the engagement with Judy after one too many insults. However, it doesn’t stick and they reunite by the end of the first season.
• Shipper on Deck: Declares Keefe a member of the family, and nods his head in knowing approval when Kelvin finally kisses him.
• Took a Level in Badass: When Peter Montgomery threatens the family and tries to get the cousins back under his thumb, BJ is among the people at the table who pull a gun on him. Later in the episode, he fearlessly rebukes the aggressive Stephen. Then he actually holds his own in a physical fight with the much bigger man.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: A non-biological example. He craves Eli's validation and is ecstatic when Eli finally shakes his hand in season 2.

Grandparents

Roy

Roy Gemstone

Portrayed By: M. Emmet Walsh (old), Kevin E. West (young)

"We goin' hunting, Eli?"

^{Click here to see young Roy}

Eli's father, a simple pastor from a poor town in Arkansas who disapproved of his son's greed.

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• Abusive Parent: Invoked by Eli in Season 3, reflecting that he was significantly harsher to Eli and May-May than Eli was on his own children and that May-May took more after Roy's parenting style.
• Ambiguous Situation: Did he kill Glendon on purpose, or did his Scatterbrained Senior mind really think he was on a hunting trip? He did pull a gun on his own family in the exact same manner, but it’s also clear he always despised Glendon and saw him as a bad influence on Eli.
• Good Shepherd: He believes that a preacher only needs four walls, a flock, and the Bible and he is cordially concerned with his son's wealth and excess.
• Mirror Character: To Glendon Marsh, as Eli's two driving role models in his youth.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Some of his more clear moments during the throes of his dementia make it hard to tell if his killing of Glendon was intentional.
• Papa Wolf: Implied. He shot Glendon Marsh Sr. while the latter was threatening Eli at gunpoint. It may have been out of senility, but the scene implies that he understood more than he was letting on.
• Posthumous Character: He died of natural causes in 1995, long before the show’s present day. He appears in flashback episodes.
• Scatterbrained Senior: He becomes this in his old age, suffering from some form of dementia.
• So Proud of You: He's proud of his son, even if he thinks all his wealth and excess are inappropriate for a pastor.

Ruth

Ruth Gemstone

Portrayed By: Kelley Davis

Roy's wife and Eli and May-May's mother.

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• Posthumous Character: She appears briefly in one flashback, but her main presence in the show is a senile Roy calling for her long after she's dead.

The Freemans

The Gemstones' extended family on Aimee-Leigh's side.

Baby Billy

William "Baby Billy” Freeman

Portrayed By: Walton Goggins

"I am an internationally known talent!"

^{Click here to see younger Baby Billy} (Ominous whistling music)

Aimee-Leigh's self-absorbed younger brother who performed in a children's singing duo with her. He's now a washed-up former child star with a handful of ex-wives left in his wake.

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• Ambiguously Bi: He's been married to at least four women and loves his wife; but he "may have touched dicks" with Dusty Daniels while they were both wasted during Y2K.
• Artifact Title: Continues to go by “Baby Billy” despite pushing 70. Lampshaded by Aunt Tiffany when she’s calling hospitals looking for him:
  Tiffany: Baby William Freeman. No, he’s not a baby. He’s a slender, silver-haired man in his late 60s.
• Attention Whore: Aside from the money, it's clear that Billy basks in attention.
• Big Ego, Hidden Depths: Billy might be a bombastic egotist, but he's also insecure, financially unstable and painfully aware that time is running out to reclaim even a little of the glory days.
• Camp Straight: Has a very flamboyant fashion sense, best exemplified by his clamshell outfit for his performance at Zion’s Landing.
• The Charmer: While he's too selfish and self-destructive to build an empire like the Gemstones, he's still a charismatic speaker who knows just how to work an audience.
• Consummate Liar: Lying is second nature for Billy, who lies to everyone and often does so convincingly.
• Cool Uncle / Evil Uncle: To the Gemstone kids, particularly back in his younger days. He spoils them, speaks to them like adults... but also manipulates them and uses them as tools to get back at their parents for any perceived slights.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He might be a petty, money-hungry sideshow of a human being but Billy does dearly love his family, especially Aimee-Leigh, despite not always treating them especially well. While he does abandon Harmon for the bulk of his life, he regrets it and eventually seeks to reconcile with him.
• Expy: He's a cross between Marjoe Gortner and Peter Popoff.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The foolish to Aimee-Leigh’s responsible. She was considered the glue that held the Gemstone family together, and was highly influential in the success of their church. Baby Billy, meanwhile, is a Serial Spouse, has ran out on his wife and kid twice, had at least two bankruptcies, hawks snake oil on TV…we can go on.
• Former Child Star: Baby Billy rose to fame alongside his sister as child performers, but unlike Aimee-Leigh, Baby Billy never transitioned from successful child star to successful adult televangelist. He ruthlessly claws at his legacy with reunion tours but knows that his target audience is largely seniors who are on their way out. The song he sings with Aimee-Leigh in "Interlude I" makes sense when sung by children but not by grown adults.
• Game Show Host: Becomes one when he finally convinces the Gemstones to fund Baby Billy's Bible Bonkers.
• Happily Married: To Tiffany, despite a season 2 rough patch.
• It's All About Me: In the flashback of "Interlude I" he pressures a pregnant Aimee-Leigh to tour with him for his financial gain, with no thought given to her health. He's also a little put off in season 2 when he realizes Harmon moved on from his abandonment of the family.
• Known Only by Their Nickname: You can count on one hand the number of times someone refers to him as only "Billy." Even his niece and nephews call him "Uncle Baby Billy."
• Large Ham: Like the rest of the clan, the man can put on a show.
• Leitmotif: Any development in Baby Billy's story arc is underscored by an ominous whistle, starting with the moment you meet the man.
• Manipulative Bastard: Back in the old days, he tries to play the Gemstones against one another by pushing Jesse into making a big scene and later using a sob story to convince Aimee-Leigh to join him for the reunion tour.
• Motor Mouth: Once he gets going he absolutely never shuts up.
• Out of Focus: In Season 3, while he has the subplot of trying to set up "Baby Billy's Bible Bonkers", his role in the main plot is mostly to be the Plucky Comic Relief; compared to Season 1 where he was the main antagonist, and 2 when he had a more dramatic story arc.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: He shows a nasty misogynistic streak when he tells Aimee-Leigh she's being "a woman," implying that he views women as fundamentally emotional and irrational.
• Serial Spouse: He's been married at least four times.
• Snake Oil Salesman: In the midst of the pandemic, Baby Billy starts hawking a scripture-based scientific "health elixir", which he testifies can cure "colds, flus, streps... even Covids" and claims that he's doing it purely out of the good of his heart since the lab manufacturing costs eat up any potential profit margin. It's very transparently just branded jugs of coconut water.
• Stealth Mentor: Tries to be one to an unwilling Jesse in season 3.
• Took a Level in Kindness: The major subplot of season 2 is Baby Billy finally owning up to (some of) his past mistakes and paying for them. In particular, he finally reconnects with his son, Harmon, who he abandoned decades ago, and also promises to be a better father to his new son, Lionel.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Even lampshaded by himself: In season 3, the Gemstones have set him up with a cozy residency as a performer at Zion Resort, including a fancy penthouse suite and free amenities for his family. This doesn't stop him from acting as if he'd been Reassigned to Antarctica and instead constantly plugging his game show concept in the most inappropriate moments.
• White-Dwarf Starlet: He was famous as a kid and hasn’t been particularly relevant for decades, but still carries himself like a celebrity. Even his name hints at this, since he still insists on being called "Baby Billy" despite being almost 70.

Tiffany

Tiffany Freeman

Portrayed By: Valyn Hall

"Nephews!"

Baby Billy's young wife, at least his fourth; a girl from a poor, rural part of West Virginia.

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• Ascended Extra: She was pretty much just an accessory to Baby Billy in Season 1, with her youth making him look all the more sleazy. In Season 2, she gets more character development as she starts to become more independent and self-confident.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Tiffany is one of the sweetest characters in the show, and doesn’t seem to have an unkind word for anyone. This doesn’t stop her from shooting Scotty in the head after he crashes his van into Baby Billy’s car.
• Cool Aunt: She desperately wants to be one for the Gemstone kids, despite being closer in age to Nephew Kelvin than she is her own husband.
• Happily Married: To Baby Billy.
• Hidden Depths: She’s a good pianist, and puts her talents to use playing the theme song of Baby Billy’s Bible Bonkers.
• Insistent Terminology: Tends to call the Gemstone kids "niece/nephew (name)" such as "niece Amber" and "nephew TJ."
• May–December Romance: She is considerably younger than her husband, but for all their dysfunction, she and Baby Billy do seem to genuinely love each other.
• Morality Pet: To Niece Judy, who actually acts... at least adjacent to motherly with her.
  Judy: Love you, Aunt Tiffany.
  Tiffany: Love you, baby.
• Toothy Issue: Due to growing up without access to proper dental care, she starts out the series with several imperfections in her teeth. After she and Baby Billy embezzle the money Scotty stole from the Gemstones, she gets a new smile to match her husband's Eternally Pearly-White Teeth.

Harmon

Harmon Freeman

Portrayed By: Jeremy T. Thomas (young), Macaulay Culkin (adult)

"Meep meep!"

^{Click here to see adult Harmon} "Can I hit you in the face with a closed fist just one time?"

Baby Billy's son by Gloria, one of his ex-wives.

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• Ambiguous Disorder: He's got strange posture and is largely non-verbal as a child and as an adult still seems to avoid eye contact and remain mostly silent.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Season 2 reveals that he has managed to build a successful life for himself, with a lovely wife, two kids and some cute dogs.
• Kind Hearted Cat Lover: A soft-spoken, kind husband and father who still has fond memories of his childhood cat.
• My Fist Forgives You: He forgave his father, but Baby Billy begs for a harsher punishment.
• Parental Abandonment: Baby Billy left him and his mother in a pet store.

Gloria

Gloria Freeman

Portrayed By: Chloe Traicos

One of Baby Billy's ex-wives with whom he had a son, Harmon.

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• The Voiceless: Never seen speaking. Baby Billy seems to do most of the talking for her and Harmon, highlighting his status as a shitty husband.

Lionel

Lionel Freeman

Baby-Billy and Tiffany's young son.

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• Like Parent, Like Child: Much like his mother, he's a toilet baby.

Aimee-Leigh Jr.

Aimee-Leigh Freeman Jr.

Baby-Billy and Tiffany's baby daughter, born somewhere in the Time Skip in the season 3 finale.

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• Dead Guy Junior: Named after her late aunt.

The Montgomerys

The Gemstones' extended family on Eli's side, branching off from his younger sister Mary.

May-May

Mary "May-May" Gemstone Montgomery

Portrayed By: Kristen Johnston (adult), Adara Huntington (young)

"I gave them everything I had. Problem is, I never had a damn thing."

^{Click here to see young Mary}

Eli's estranged younger sister who had some kind of violent falling-out with the family over 20 years prior to the series, but reappears needing her brother's help.

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• Abusive Parent: In "Interlude III" Eli sadly notes that he rarely sees Chuck or Karl smile due to May-May's harshness.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Her flashback introduction in season 2 features her irritating Eli, and even as adults with grown children she can't help but needle him a little.
• Cool Aunt: She intends to rescue her niece and nephews from an armed militia single-handedly. Luckily, her great-nephew and a monster truck help out too.
• Dark and Troubled Past: The Montgomerys were a modest but relatively content family until May-May's husband murdered a security guard while attempting to rob a bank because she would not accept money from Eli after Peter squandered their life's savings on survivalist buckets. Then her brother took out a restraining order against her after she attacked Aimee-Leigh, completely severing any relationship she or her sons could have with the Gemstones.
• Everyone Has Standards: Despite seemingly never really liking Aimee-Leigh, she's still appalled by Baby Billy's creepy, exploitative hologram.
• Foil: To Baby Billy. Both are the less financially successful younger sibling to a Gemstone, both have Never My Fault The Resenter tendencies towards their respective sibling-in-law (Baby Billy blames Eli for taking away Aimee-Leigh and therefore his claim to fame, while May-May blames Aimee-Leigh for enabling Eli's greed, leading to Peter's incarceration.) However, May-May is fine with a modest life and wants nothing from Eli whereas Baby Billy thinks Eli's fame and wealth are owed to him. As a parent Baby Billy and May-May are both shown to have serious flaws, but he's a Disappeared Dad and she shows more overbearing My Beloved Smother tendencies.
  • She's also one to Judy, between her prickly personality, resentment of living in her older brother's shadow and domineering treatment of her husband; season 3 implies that May-May and Peter's current situation is what could happen to Judy and BJ if they aren't careful.
• Girlish Pigtails: As a tween in the late 60s.
• Good Is Not Nice: While she's a prickly, unpleasant woman who doesn't have a kind word to say about most anyone, she is ultimately one of the more moral, principled members of the family.
• Huge Girl, Tiny Guy: May-May is 6'0" and her ex-husband Peter is 5'7"
• Mama Bear:
  • Willing to risk jail by violating the Gemstones' restraining order and face down armed militiamen to protect her sons from their father.
  • Faces down her gun-wielding ex-husband to protect her son and nephews and niece.
• My Beloved Smother: She's (maybe justifiably) overly fussy and concerned about her adult sons' safety after their father is released from prison much to Chuck's annoyance.
• Never My Fault: In the Cold Opening of season 3, it's clear she blames the Gemstones for what happened to Peter, despite it being at least partially her fault, as "Interlude III" reveals that her refusal to accept Eli's offer of financial help for her family is partially responsible for Peter's failed bank robbery attempt in a desperate act of providing for his family. By the end of the season, she realizes this about herself.
• Non-Residential Residence: She lives in a disused church that's falling apart.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Everyone calls her May-May, even as a grown woman with adult children.
• Pride: If her big brother's chief sin is Greed, May-May's is Pride.
  • Despite desperately needing help, living in squalor and in terror of her ex, it took her boys being in danger for her to reach out to Eli, too proud to ask her brother for anything.
  • This is laid bare in "Interlude III" when her pride directly leads to Peter's Start of Darkness. Her refusal to accept anything from her more successful brother, even if it was just a refund for things Peter had made the decision to buy, leads a desperate Peter to decide to try and rob a bank.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: She's a plainly dressed woman who has struggled financially after Peter went to prison whose sons have left her behind, contrasting her fashionable, decadent brother whose children won't leave him alone.
• Took a Level in Kindness: May-May in 2000 is nothing but contemptuous of Eli and Aimee-Leigh, slaps her teenage sons around and is more concerned with principle than the well-being of her family. The last 20+ years seem to have softened her, and now she simply wants to protect her sons and reconnect with her brother.
• The Unapologetic: May-May doesn't apologize for anything. Lampshaded by Chuck and Karl when she finally does.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Absolutely rages at the kids for upsetting Eli with the Aimee-Leigh hologram and their constant bickering.

Peter

Peter Montgomery

Portrayed By: Steve Zahn

May-May's husband and Eli's brother-in-law, a doomsday-prepping militia man with an ax to grind.

See entry on Antagonists page.

Chuck and Karl

Chuck and Karl Montgomery

Portrayed By: Lukas Haas & Robert Oberst (adults), Ian Winningkoff & Michael H. Bishop (young)

^{Click here to see young Chuck & Karl}

May-May and Peter Montgomery's sons, Eli's nephews and Jesse, Judy and Kelvin's cousins who get wrapped up in their father's schemes when he gets out of prison.

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• Archnemesis Dad: Peter believes they or their mother ratted him out to the feds. This is later averted when he comes back to apologize for accusing them.
• Berserk Button: Karl's kinder nature is set aside when his father needlessly tortures one of his men and calls Karl 'dumb.'
• Big Brother Instinct: Chuck looks out for Karl and acts more fatherly to him than their own dad, which makes sense considering Peter spent a good chunk of their lives in prison.
• The Dragon: Deliberately set up to seem this way when they're introduced, but then harshly averted. Peter turns on them almost immediately and they flee. They go back to him, however, and Chuck plays this trope straight.
• Dumb Is Good: On the Montgomery side, Karl is the dumbest but also the nicest.
• Easily Forgiven: Discussed and subverted. Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin despise Chuck for betraying them and treating them like shit while they were kidnapped. But when it's revealed he stopped an explosion meant for the church, saving all their lives, Kelvin and Judy concede it at least a partial atonement. Jesse takes a little longer, but eventually forgives him after a heart-to-heart.
• Freudian Excuse: Chuck talks about this with Jesse, explaining that he betrayed them because he wanted to make up for those lost years with his father.
• Gentle Giant: Karl seems to be a sweet-natured guy, horrified by violence despite being a hulking behemoth of a man.
• Hidden Depths: They’re both talented bluegrass musicians, as seen when they perform “Sinner, You’d Better Get Ready” for May-May and Eli.
• Lower-Class Lout: How their cousins view them. They swim in dirty lakes and don't understand the "finer things."
• Mama's Boy: Karl.
• Manchild: Karl doesn't seem to have emotionally matured past childhood. He's a sweetheart, but he struggles to comprehend things like the animosity between different sides of his family or chewing his food properly. Chuck, while more aware than Karl, is emotionally stuck as an angry teenager which makes him a little meaner.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Peter certainly treats him significantly worse than his brother, and as a result Karl abandons the militia to help the Gemstones.
• Morality Chain: Karl, who's the sweeter of the two, almost choking to death inspires the cousins to put aside their differences and save him.
• Nice Guy: To contrast his father, brother, cousins, and... almost everybody in the series, Karl doesn't have a mean bone in his body. His first reaction to seeing his estranged relatives is to gleefully shout, "Hi Uncle Eli!"
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Chuck is an angry asshole who shares a lot of his father's toxic views, especially about women. However, he's also fiercely devoted to his little brother and warms up to his uncle and cousins when they stick their necks out for the two. In general, a lot of his asshole traits can be explained by a lifetime of abuse and instability; but once you've proven you're not against him he can be a sweet guy.
• Nice Mean And In Between: When the Montgomery men show up together; Peter is Faux Affably Evil enough that he comes off as the "in-between" even though he's undeniably eviler than his sons; Chuck, who's hostile from the start and still a belligerent jerk during Cousin's Night, is the "mean"; and Karl is definitely the "nice".
• The Resenter: Chuck seems to have a significant grudge against his mother.
• Small Parent, Huge Child: Karl is 6'7", a full foot taller than his father. Invoked when Eli, who hasn't seen Karl in almost 25 years still calls him "Little Karl." Chuck is also 4 inches taller than Peter (but still shorter than May-May.)
• Straw Misogynist: Probably due to his father's influence, Chuck dismisses Judy's opinion with "the menfolk are talking." He also tells Karl that women are incapable of controlling their emotions.
• Token Good Teammate: Peter is an abusive dictator, most of his militia are fringe trigger-happy fanatics, and Chuck is a misogynistic jackass. Karl, on the other hand, is a sweet-natured man who's only really wrapped up in that group because of his parentage. This leads to him defecting to the Gemstones, calling his mama to come pick him up and save the cousins.
• Too Dumb to Live: Played for Drama when Karl almost chokes to death. Chuck tearfully berates him saying that he told him to chew his food, which implies this kind of thing has happened before. Without Chuck around, Karl probably would have gotten himself killed by now.
• The Unfavorite: Peter favors Chuck over Karl.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: They betray the Gemstones to win their father's approval.