Jesse Gemstone

Jesse Gemstone is one of the main characters in the series, *The Righteous Gemstones*. He is the oldest son of Dr. Eli Gemstone and Aimee-Leigh Gemstone. He is portrayed by actor and show creator, Danny McBride, his younger version is played by J. Gaven Wilde.

## Background

Jesse Gemstone is the hot-headed oldest of the three Gemstone siblings, as well as the associate pastor for his father's church, Gemstone Ministries. Jesse is known for his hot tempered personality and foul language, especially when baited by either of his siblings, Judy Gemstone and Kelvin Gemstone. He shows a special level of contempt for Kelvin, due to his status as an oops baby when Jesse didn't want more siblings.

## Plot

### Season 1

As of the start of season 1, he was married to Amber Gemstone. The pair had three sons: Gideon Gemstone, Pontius Gemstone, and Abraham Gemstone. They lived together in a mansion at the Gemstones' gated Charleston compound, nearby Jesse's father and siblings. Jesse's preferred choice of vehicle is a white Dodge Challenger or a white Hummer.

In the first episode, Jesse receives threatening text messages along with a video of himself snorting cocaine, with his friends also in the video, but nude and participating in sexual activity with prostitutes. His friends that participated in the drugs, sex, and drinking included Chad, Levi, Matthew, and Gregory. Chad, in particular, had sex with one of the prostitutes and it is unknown what level of participation the others had.

The sender of the video then demanded a cash payment in exchange for the video. Jesse attempted to get said cash from the church without his father Eli's knowledge, however this proved fruitless because the church administrator, Martin Imari, refused to do so. Jesse enlisted his siblings' help, and attempted to "drop off the cash" in a parking lot of a strip mall.

However, instead of exchanging the cash for the video, Jesse decided to run the extortionists over instead of paying them. He ran over a man in a Devil mask, and another accomplice in full view of an auto parts store's security camera. He would later enlist the friends in the video in stealing the hard drive from the auto parts store so as to wipe the camera footage off the hard drive.

It is later revealed that hitting and running over two of the extortionists didn't kill them, and that there's a third extortionist participating. This third participant is none other than Jesse's estranged son, Gideon. Before the start of the series, Gideon had left the family in favor of pursuing a career in show business in Los Angeles. He left his family on bad terms and disagreed with their lifestyles.

However, with his plan gone awry, Gideon contemplates other ways to obtain large amounts of cash for him and Scotty to abscond with to Thailand. Once Scotty recovers from his injuries, he and Gideon cook up a heist scheme that will net them nearly $3 million from Gemstone Ministries, under the guise of Gideon reconciling with his family and wanting to take a job at the church.

Meanwhile, the wives of Jesse and his friends begin to piece together what happened the fateful night that got recorded. Chad's wife, Mandy discovered emails sent by Chad to Jesse describing the night in question. Originally playing it off as lies or a hack, Jesse convinces his wife that the emails are a nothing burger. However, Mandy and the other wives aren't convinced and believe something more nefarious is afoot. Eventually, Chad, Mandy, Jesse, and Amber have a sit down about the emails, where Jesse reveals they were joking and referring to the film ATL instead of the night in question.

Things start converging and later crashing down when Gideon returns to his family with his colleague Scotty in tow. As Gideon convinces the family to give him a job working for the Church, the two plot a major heist on Easter Sunday, the church's biggest day for collection cash hauls. Gideon would grow cold feet on the operation, choosing to abandon Scotty on Easter Sunday. However, later that night, Scotty would return, and force Eli, Gideon, and Jesse at gunpoint to open up the church vault, and then force Gideon and Jesse to stuff cash bags full of Easter collection cash for Scotty. Scotty would drive off, leaving Gideon and Jesse tied back to back inside the vault.

Upon confronting Gideon, Eli discovered Gideon was in on it and came up with the idea himself. However, Gideon did not throw his father under the bus and reveal the root cause of the heist, which was blackmailing Jesse over the cocaine and hooker video.

Jesse would then be motivated by coming clean to his wife, and his friends' wives, electing to show them the video once and for all. Having realized the depths of his depravity, Jesse's wife Amber and Jesse have a long drawn out fight. Realizing that Jesse is a pathological liar, Amber chases him around their house before grabbing a sniper rifle out of their gun vault. While Jesse runs through the yard towards a nearby forest, Amber picks him off from behind, shooting him through his butt cheek and anus.

The next step for the Gemstones was then to recover the stolen money. Jesse would have an epiphany upon someone mentioning Baby Billy's name. He would return to the crash site and deduce it was Baby Billy that crashed into Scotty. However, his siblings and father would confront him, with Kelvin and Judy spilling the beans about Jesse's indiscretions to their father Eli. Eli then fires all three from the church, disgusted at the recent events regarding all three.

Jesse meets up with Amber again and begs her to reconcile. Amber refuses to do so unless Jesse returns Gideon and reunites their family. Gideon had joined a mission in Haiti to volunteer as a way of paying off his debt to the church, and Jesse tracks him down. Once they meet, however, Gideon rebuffs Jesse's attempts to bring him home, calling his father out for only wanting to solve his personal problems and not actually do what's right.

Jesse returns home to Charleston and reveals the news to Amber. Amber refuses to reconcile with Jesse, leading Jesse to elect to go back to Haiti and join his son.

### Season 2

Season 2 begins with Jesse and his siblings joining their father in a post-COVID service. Through a video montage, it was shown that Jesse was a vehement anti-vaxxer/anti-masker, and protested against COVID restrictions in South Carolina. He was also shown to have contracted COVID, having to touch his wife Amber through a sheet of plastic.

As things progress, Jesse constantly angles to try and take over Gemstone Ministries from his father, seeing himself as the heir apparent. He links up with Lyle Lissons, the pastor of a similar megachurch in Texas. Lionel presents a business opportunity to Jesse and Amber, the Christian timeshare beach resort, Zion's Landing. Due to the extravagant entrance cost of $10,000,000, Eli does not approve of Jesse using Gemstone Ministries' money to buy into the resort project. However, due to pressure from Lyle and his wife, Lindy Lissons, Jesse continues to angle with his father to approve of the investment in Zion's Landing. Meanwhile, Jesse and Amber have created a couples' support group, through which they try and help people in failing marriages/relationships mend their love.

At home, it appears that Jesse and Gideon were able to solve their differences and convince Gideon to move back home. Gideon assists the church's video production team for Sunday services. Gideon is given the residence of Eli's father, Roy Gemstone, Grandaddy Roy Manor. However, the house is shown to be dilapidated and in poor state due to Roy's illness and incapacity while living at the house.

As the season progresses, other people come out of the woodwork seeking information about the Gemstones' past. This includes investigative journalist, Thaniel Block, known for taking down big names in the megachurch world. Block originally approached Eli asking about Aimee-Leigh's background before she died, and Eli would brush his concerns off. However, Jesse and his siblings would become paranoid about Thaniel's digging into their past, and went to go visit the reporter at his country cabin Airbnb. Upon arriving at the house, they would discover many things off - the door being wide open, a damaged car, and eventually, Thaniel's dead body inside the house. Approaching what was certainly a murder scene, the Gemstone siblings would slip into Thaniel's pool of blood and staining their clothes. Kelvin had stayed outside, where he discovered the damaged vehicle and multiple dead bodies near the property. All three would scramble to leave the scene in Judy's white Gemstone Tesla vehicle.

Upon arriving back to the Gemstone compound, they were washing themselves in a water fountain when discovered by Eli, whom was also covered in blood, suspiciously due to the timing of the prior events. When confronting Eli about his blood-stained clothing, Eli tells a story about him dating another woman, his first after Aimee-Leigh's death. Upon realizing he was going to engage in intercourse, Eli tried to "manscape", and ended up cutting his genitals, causing the blood stains everywhere. This would disgust the Gemstone children, who thought Eli engaged in a more violent act.

Also making a random appearance, would be Eli's old buddy from his semi-pro wrestling days in Memphis, Glendon Marsh Jr, or better known as just Junior. Junior would tell the kids about Eli's past as a wrestler, when he was known by the ring name, "Maniac Kid". Maniac Kid's signature finishing move was breaking his opponents' thumbs, which Eli would do to a man that he and Junior confronted in a restaurant for being too active (sexually) with a woman in a public setting. Junior would first tag along with Eli for a little while, going to the famous post-church service lunch with the Gemstone family. There, Junior would regale the Gemstone offspring with tales from Eli's wrasslin' days, even noting the similarity between wrestling and the church ministry Eli was running. Junior's return would trigger some past trauma in Eli, namely over how Grandpa Roy Gemstone mistakenly shot Junior's father, Glendon Marsh Sr., Eli's wrestling manager/promoter from Memphis. Junior's return and Eli's response to his trauma being unearthed was to ride the rollercoaster Exodus, over and over by himself in the seemingly locked/closed Gemstone amusement park. This was only discovered by Judy's husband, Benjamin Jason "BJ" Barnes, who regularly roller bladed at the park to stay swole. Eli's behavior would puzzle Jesse and his siblings, with them surmising that Junior posed a threat to Eli and the family.

Meanwhile, Jesse and Amber struggled trying to come up with the seed investment funds for Zion's Landing. This disappointed the Lissons, whom would press Jesse and Amber further to take a larger role in running the church from Eli. After BJ's extravagant baptism ceremony and reception, Amber and Jesse would try and commandeer the Gemstones' small bus that was reserved for Eli. However, a group of armed assailants on motorcycles would ambush them and try to shoot them through the bus. Coming out unscathed, Amber would actually end up hitting one of the so-called "Cycle Ninjas". The Cycle Ninjas would eventually succeed in hitting Eli in his vehicle, later shooting him at a crossroads, leaving Eli in the hospital in a coma.

Jesse would later hatch up a plan to set up and ambush the Cycle Ninjas. When he and Amber took over pastoral duties for Eli during his convalescence, Jesse publicized the location of Eli's hospital room in an attempt to bait the Cycle Ninjas into finishing the job. Jesse would then hatch up a plan where Eli would be moved to the secure Gemstone compound, while making it seem like he's still at the hospital. Jesse would enlist armored and armed security guards to catch the Ninjas, whom did not show up on time and led to the security guards abandoning Jesse. This left only Jesse, BJ, Martin, and Gideon in the hospital to deal with the incoming Ninjas. The gambit would eventually work, as the Ninjas showed up to the empty hospital expecting to kill Eli. However, Jesse sprung the trap, which resulted in Gideon chasing down the Ninjas individually and crashing them off their motorcycles/dirt bikes. Gideon displays impressive stunt ability and motorcycle driving, which leads him to decide to move to Atlanta to re-pursue his stuntman goals. Jesse and Amber disagree, and shut this idea down.

In the episode, Interlude II, more of the Gemstones' prior history is revealed. In 1993, Kelvin is born and the Gemstones are already at their bickering ways. Their uncle, Baby Billy Freeman, resurfaces after having abandoned his family at a mall pet store, having realized he didn't have what it takes to raise his family properly. Having encountered hard times, he joins his sister's family for Christmas. Young Jesse is shown to be just as mean and savage to his family as he is as an adult, and constantly bullies young Kelvin alongside Judy. Eli's former wrestling manager and promoter, Glendon Marsh Sr., approaches Eli with a proposal to launder his ill-gotten cash through the ministry. Eli originally accepts before reneging and backing out on Glendon. This leads Glendon to confronting Eli via holding a young and ill-experienced Martin Imari at gunpoint, wherein Eli's father Roy shoots Glendon dead. Eli and Martin would then bury Glendon's body underneath the Exodus roller coaster, leading to why Eli in the present day has spent so much time riding the coaster by himself.

Jesse incorrectly connects the dots, and believes Junior is the one behind the Cycle Ninjas' attacks, thinking Junior discovered the truth about his own father and Eli. Jesse would get a group of men together, more or less the same group that had the trouble with the cocaine video in the prior season, and try and threaten Junior. Junior, however, would act confused and had no prior knowledge or recollection about Eli's shooting.

As Eli recovers, he has a new outlook on life and is less hands-on with both the ministry and the family. He finally gives total (financial) blessing to Jesse and Amber for the Zion's Landing project, which kicks off with a huge event alongside the Lissons. However, in a flashback to the beginning episodes of the season, it is revealed that it was actually Lyle and a similar group of men from his church, that confronted Thaniel Block at his cabin. Lyle is revealed to be the main source behind Thaniel's hit pieces, having admitted to giving him the dirt on Makawon Butterfield, whom attempted suicide in the first episode. Thaniel and Lionel would have a falling out over Lyle not giving up the Gemstones, leading Thaniel to threaten to investigate Lyle. Lyle begins to leave in his red vehicle, before one of his henchmen revealing they have a slew of grenades to defend themselves with. One of them accidentally pulls the pin on a grenade, before Thaniel comes outside to see what's going on. When they attempt to exit the vehicle, Lyle's henchman accidentally drops the grenade, which kills him (placed up against the vehicle as Kelvin discovered) and another, whose body ends up hanging from the tree above. In the commotion, Thaniel pulls a gun and tries to defend himself by barricading himself inside the Airbnb. However, in a stroke of stupidity, Thaniel accidentally kills himself when he misfires and the ricochet hits him in the head. Lyle then hides in a closet, where he witnesses the Gemstones coming to the property. He watches in horror as they slip through Thaniel's blood, and his henchman watches them as they struggle to get into Judy's Tesla and leave the property. Lyle then goes back and torches the property and dead bodies, thus saving the Gemstones from potential legal scrutiny, having left finger and foot prints everywhere at the scene. Lyle admits he knows this about Jesse as well as admitting that he hired the Cycle Ninjas, whom were revealed to be former residents of the Lissons' orphanage. This leads Lyle to fight Jesse. Jesse would have the upper hand, leaving Lionel's seemingly dead body under a pile of debris. Jesse would then tell his siblings and enlist their help, and Lyle would end up regaining consciousness. While trying to overpower Lyle, Lyle's wife Lindy would come out with a gun and shoot BJ in the kneecap. The Gemstones would then escape via the ocean, having split with the Lissons for good.

It is revealed a month later, the Gemstones have acquired total control over the Zion's Landing project, with the Lissons having fled to Alaska. Lyle and Lindy were tracked down by Martin, who sent the Cycle Ninjas after them, with the Cycle Ninjas wanting revenge for not having been paid by Lyle for their actions against the Gemstones. Lyle would try a gambit from the film, *Young Guns*, which he and Lindy were watching before being confronted by the Ninjas. Lyle would have Lindy stuffed into a wooden chest, where he pushed her out of the cabin thinking she would burst out of the chest shooting like in the movie. However, the gambit failed and the Ninjas would spray Lindy with bullets before she could even aim. Lyle then attempts to flee in the cold, wearing nothing but sweats and a tank top. This leads to his freezing death, where he was then devoured by wolves.

Eli would also make amends with Junior, explaining the situation with Junior's father. Apparently Junior's father had swindled him out of his inheritance, and planned on laundering the illegally-obtained cash through Eli. Eli's refusal to help Glendon Sr. and Roy then shooting Glendon Sr. actually made Junior respect Eli more. The following Sunday service, the family is seen reunited and Junior is seen in the crowd watching his former wrasslin' buddy at the pulpit.

Season 3

The fifth episode this season was a flashback to the year 2000, when the Gemstone siblings are still kids. We learned a lot about the relationship between Judy and Jesse.