On the back of May May’s epic rescue which features one of The Righteous Gemstones now trademark action set pieces (yes, you read that right), where the penultimate episode begins to set up the third season’s endgame is from within the Montgomery militia. Peter, and therefore they, are running out of ideas – failed plan after failed plan. There are many, and rightfully so, who believe that they could likely do a better job than Peter at…anything. He is a clown and a loser and always has been. How he managed to generate such an enthusiastic and dedicated following beggars belief. It almost sounds like someone else. A real life figure, perhaps? The only difference is, we haven’t seen Peter’s mugshot in the world news.
That he can’t deliver on a complex plan means that he defaults to a straight up stupid one, and with his one remaining son as his only ally, figures they may as well just fill a van with explosives and blow the Gemstone church to kingdom come.
Meanwhile, the hostage experience has inspired real unity between the three Gemstone siblings, though how long it might last should be anybody’s guess. How they are most unified, however, is against Eli in light of his refusal to pay their ransom. The tired patriarch’s stance at this point is pretty much ‘whatever works’. Riding their renewed enthusiasm for each other, they are able to translate this to a full congregation in an effort to restore their favour with the church. So emboldened, in fact, that Kelvin finally and openly professes his physical affection for Keefe which is genuinely a season highlight.
In what has to be one of the downright silliest plot turns from on of television’s silliest ever characters, Baby Billy suggests one more bright idea that may win back Dusty’s consideration, and therefore, his fortune. This bright idea, of course, is the same persistent idea that Baby Billy has had for the entire season, that being a winner takes all showdown between the Gemstones and the Simkins on UNCLE. BABY. BILLY’S. BIBLE. BONKERS.
En route to spoil the occasion, Peter and Chuck stop to use a Coinstar machine, and while in the store, the truck explodes and Chuck is killed (or so he thinks). Desperate with grief and by a divine stoke of luck, he ends up at the same gas station as Keefe, and proceeds to steal the Smut Busters truck, which he proceeds to load with even more shady homemade explosives before renewing his charge towards the Gemstone center.
Back at Uncle Baby Billy’s Bible Bonkers, Uncle Baby Billy offers to let the Gemstones cheat, but they refuse the opportunity. Perhaps they really have grown? Naturally, their performance is horrendous. Cue the largest swarm of locusts anyone has ever seen. In the madness, Jesse saves Dusty while the Simkins save themselves. Once the building is emptied, a now repentant Peter apologises to the family and is reunited with Chuck, but a single, final locust activates the bomb, and Peter is forced to sacrifice himself by driving it hurriedly to a safe distance.
As it will transpire, he loses but a leg and the Montgomerys and Gemstones are able to fully reconcile without anyone having perished, and with Dusty’s fortune able so set them up for what it sure to be an even wilder Season 4, now that all is right within and the regular cast has doubled in size, for the better.
