This article contains spoilers through the Season 3 finale of The Righteous Gemstones. Though it uses the register of low comedy rather than moody character study or tragicomic caper, HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones, which follows a family of materialistic and vaguely corrupt religious showpeople, is prestige TV in the classic mold. Like Succession or Better Call Saul, it centers on a richly flawed antihero as he builds his empire, and, in the process, studies the workings of American power and money. The popularity of these shows has led some critics to suspect that closely attending to such protagonists—especially when they are lent the glamour of handsome, high-budget production values—doubles as a form of subtle approval. In applying this storytelling model to a specifically Christian milieu, though, Gemstones upends it. Its characters are also flawed, and also vividly rendered. But for their bad behavior, they expect—and are granted—absolution, a worldview that foregrounds how strange and arbitrary the act of forgiveness is in the first place. The show follows Jesse Gemstone, played by its showrunner, Danny McBride, …