Walton Goggins has built a career on disappearing into wildly different roles. From Fallout to The White Lotus, he brings precision and energy to material that can be strange, dark or completely over the top.
That talent makes The Righteous Gemstones a particularly strong showcase. Goggins and Danny McBride previously worked together on Vice Principals, an outrageous HBO comedy about rival school administrators. Their later collaboration gives Goggins even more room to turn absurdity into great television.
A dysfunctional dynasty at the centre of the comedy
The Righteous Gemstones follows a wealthy family of televangelists. Eli Gemstone, played by John Goodman, is the widowed patriarch: a preacher with a public image to protect and personal demons he cannot quite escape.
His children are far less concerned with virtue. Jesse, Judy and Kelvin, played by McBride, Edi Patterson and Adam Devine, have grown up without needing to work for anything. Their entitlement and bad decisions make them vivid examples of what privilege can produce.
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Baby Billy is Goggins at his most magnetic
Goggins plays the Gemstone children’s uncle, Billy “Baby Billy” Freeman. He once had a successful singing career with his sister Aimee-Leigh, the late Gemstone matriarch, but that success has faded.
In the present day, Baby Billy is a hustler. He sells fraudulent supplements during the COVID-19 pandemic, depends on financial support from his in-laws and trades on the Gemstone name whenever it can help his own ambitions.
Baby Billy is almost impossible to ignore whenever he appears. Goggins gives him an exaggerated Southern drawl, a dazzling smile and an instinct for memorable lines. His schemes include the ill-fated Teenjus, a planned teenage-Jesus prequel, and the demand for “an eight-ball and two million dollars.”
The performance is just as committed in the show’s most ridiculous moments. Whether Baby Billy is singing “There’ll Come a Payday” beside a pool while wearing a clam costume or presenting the Bible-themed game show Baby Billy’s Bible Bonkers, Goggins plays every detail without hesitation.
The show’s best kind of scene-stealer
Goggins never appears to be forcing the spotlight. His control makes Baby Billy’s larger-than-life behaviour feel natural, even when he is surrounded by performers as forceful as McBride, Patterson and Devine.
That charisma can make viewers briefly sympathise with him. Baby Billy is not a good man, and his plans are rarely sound, but he is persistent. Like the rest of the family, he is flawed, selfish and often deplorable; the series has never suggested that its “righteous” title should be taken literally.
For viewers who enjoy character-driven chaos, The Righteous Gemstones is an easy series to binge. Goggins turns Baby Billy into one of its most memorable creations, proving that an actor can steal scenes without ever making the rest of the cast feel smaller.
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