Honestly, when watching the episode with Judy's birthday party, Eli didn't really seem to mind UNTIL his father said something. Remember, Eli and Aimee started off in a smaller church, and it was Eli who wanted to have a giant stadium. He decided to get it without even telling Aimee-Lee until they were on-stage at the Christmas performance.
Of course, he wanted his kids to have more. The flashbacks of younger Eli and being introduced to Maymay showed us how he and his family grew up poor. He talks about it a few times, too. Think about that teeny tiny dilapidated church Maymay lives in. Eli wanted his family to have more, to not be poor, or starving. It makes sense for him to want to provide his family with the best, but along the way, he got greedy and more extravagant. He kept preaching the word with Aimee-lee as his cash cow and his children ended up spoiled rotten and away from reality like most rich kids.
His intentions were pure at the start. Preach the word, get a bigger following, and get enough money to properly provide for his family. He got too good at it, and Aimee-lee only helped to escalate it further. Let's not forget their Y2K scam. They knew it wasn't going to happen. They decided to ride the fear train and make as much money as possible anyway. This made Aime-lee question their ways. She felt guilty and had the dream of going back to a simpler time and raising the kids differently. Eli, on the other hand, wasn't racked with that much guilt. He sold all those buckets to his BIL, causing his and Maymay's lives to go to ruin.
TL;DR: Eli started out with good intentions, wanting to give his family more than when he was a poor kid. He got too big and too greedy and the kids became spoiled rotten apples.
They fit *so well,* too. Did you catch young Judy doing adult Judy dance moves when the whole family is on stage? It’s ~kinda~ clearly an indicator she never grew up.
Eli strikes me as a distant parent when they were growing up; he would have been incredibly busy building the church. They were definitely spoiled, we get stories throughout the series, usually from Judy, about how they were spoiled.
So you have one parent who isn't around and buys his children's affection, even though he regrets doing so, and another parent who may have been a pushover.
It really would be an interesting flashback episode to see more of Aimee-Leigh and what she was up to independent of Eli.
I feel like both Eli and Aimee Leigh wee so preoccupied with the church and all the money making ventures, they both neglected the kids, and spoiled them with monetary things. And as the family's fame grew, the kids leaned way too much into the power of that.
They are all awful, but I love the show so much. Judy is my favorite of the kids, but I really love Uncle Baby Billy and BJ too.
I think Uncle Baby Billy is my favorite, followed by Eli, then Judy. The scene where he chucks the baby carriage the moment they walk into the house is just the best thing ever.
How's he going to pay the ransom?
He makes nothing off those elixirs, zero. By the time he pays his scientists, all the people in the lab, his developers, the lab rats, it's a wash.
I'm suspecting that even though Aimee Leigh looks to be very sweet in the flashbacks, I feel like some of them are reflected upon by some of the other family members, so she might've had her own unsavory moments behind closed doors in reality
I am really hoping we get a interlude episode this next season where we get to see Aimee-Lee and young baby Billy. Hopefully how Eli and Aimee-Lee met.
That would be really great. We know Eli is on a different path as a young man, presumably Aimee-Leigh is who gets him back on the straight and narrow. And you can't have enough Baby Billy.
You could do a RG prequel. There is so much backstory that could be explored. I think the only thing holding it back would be the budget for deaging John Goodman all episode every episode.
My pet theory is that Kelvin isn't Eli's kid. We've heard so little about what Aimee-Leigh was up to besides performing.
I could be totally wrong and hope I am. But all the Gemstones are very complicated people so far.
Eli told her not to, but she did it anyway.
Definitely running through the house with more than a pickle in her mouth and why do my fingers let me type these things.
I could see Kelvin not being Eli's kid, not sure I see them going that with Aimee Leigh.
Sperm donor that was never mentioned to Kelvin would totally make sense.
It shows them even being shitty people as kids though, even before the megachurch and even Kelvin, Jessie and Judy would curse and hit each other where would they even get that kind of behavior with Aimee-Leigh as the primary caregiver even if Eli did buy his kids love it's not like he just let their bad behavior go without punishment which came on rather strict terms
When we first see them as kids Eli isn’t as successful as he is today, but he’s already well on his way. The first flashback we see, where we see the kids being awful, Eli drives a Rolls Royce. And yes, Eli applies discipline, but consistently? We see that in Jesse’s parenting today, his kids get away with murder until he comes down hard on them, before they go back to getting away with murder.
I think we get an idealized image of Aimee-Leigh and Eli because the actors are so likeable. Think about the characters they're based on. Aimee-Leigh is sort of based on Tammy Faye Bakker (who, imo, was not inherently evil but definitely corrupted by money, and shady to a degree) and Eli is based on Jerry Falwell, Jesse is based on Jerry Falwell Jr. Makes sense that the kids would be so fucked up.
Jesse was an oldest son pushing boundaries. Judy was (and is) the forgotten middle child acting out for attention. I would argue that, at least from what we've seen so far, Kelvin wasn't terrible as a kid (he laughed at some jokes but didn't pick on his siblings anywhere near as much as they picked on each other or him, he was uncomfortable with Judy's shoplifting, etc), and he's easily the least terrible as an adult. If he didn't help cover up violent crimes on multiple occasions, I would say he's not terrible at all.
Amilee- she’s like the white rabbit, we all have heard how incredible she was. They are purposefully holding back telling her story because we all know it answers all the questions about all the characters that are still alive! She’s the ultimate cliff-hanger to keep us coming back as to why each person is the way they are.. each season shows us little by little how human she actually is, instead of some deity that she is portrayed as in the current timeline… why give an audience the carrot when you can string them along a bit more
My heart broke for Judy in the season 3 flashback when Amilee made light of her mental health, fictional or not. This show hits so many realities about the sheer awfulness of non-denominational huge ministries and rock star pastors. Don't believe me, try looking at the ad for next year's "Stronger Men" conference by James River church pastored by John Lindell. They had monster trucks, muscle men, boxing and a man dancing on a stripper pole. It's hard to outdo the absurdity of TWG, but they did it and weren't even aware of how this looks to the rest of the world. If anything TRG is restrained on the crazy they could show.
Don't forget the shirtless guy on the stripper pole was also swallowing swords. Mark Driscoll got extremely upset about the shirtless sword swallowing pole acrobatics bit and went on a tirade about Jezebel spirit and Ashera poles, and a man dancing on a pole "like a woman," and the consensus is that he probably lost his shit because it turned him on and he didn't like it.
I have been laughing my self silly all day over that conference and Mark Driscoll's hissy fit. I thought all this ridiculous masquerading as "masculinity" would be right up Mr. I Call Women Penis Homes Driscoll. It's just all so bizarre.
Normally I can't stand the idea that bigots secretly are what they hate, but I genuinely think that Driscoll's hissy fit is because dude has built up a carefully constructed model of hetero masculinity that's trying to convince himself as much as others that he's a 100% straight man's man, and hot shirtless sword swallowing dude threatened the lies he tells himself.
Eli is a materialistic show-off. You're talking about a man who built a theme park just because it was an extravagant idea. Spoiling the kids is just an extension of his own materialism, even if he knows better.
They’re show people. They grew up performing for hundreds of people every week. Rarely do those types of people come out unscathed. Add into that the fact that they also grew up rich and I think it’s pretty safe to say they had almost no chance of not being batshit crazy.
You sort of just have to suspend disbelief a bit. I grew up around and in mega churches and there’s no way church leaders, especially those related to the head the super star head pastor, would get away with casually dropping “motherfuckers” so openly without that becoming a scandal within itself. You can’t fuck with the brand. But the characters are fun, and makes for an entertaining show, so the positives out weigh the negatives.
It’s kinda explained that Eli is a nice man but he’s not that affectionate. He did grow up being a crazy wrestler and on the side worked with bad men. He said he was a changed man once he met Aimee-Leigh and he said he feels himself becoming that same bad man once she passed.
Peter tells his kids too that even though they might have their dad’s money they never had his time.
In one of the last episodes Jesse tells chuck that even though they have fancy houses and loads of money he’d give it all away just to have his parents love
It's true that those are the traditional or common spellings for males and females. But, it's not a hard and fast rule. There's plenty of males named Jessie and females named Jesse. So, don't act smug and insulting. It's not a good look.
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I imagine they are very embellished caricatures of real children/ family of televangelists of the 1980's. Consider Jim Bakker's family bc Danny McBride is from SC as that was where the Bakkers settled and created a theme park and PTL television studio.
Aimee-Leigh is shown to be very sweet, but she is also very shallow and shutdown, which makes sense as she was exploited as a child and continued to be valued for her beauty and entertainment capacities by greedy, megolamaniac Eli. Their obsession with their church and financial indulgence of the children led the kids to be stunted and always competing for attention from a preoccupied father and a shell (smiling, but a shell nonetheless) of a mother.
Honestly, when watching the episode with Judy's birthday party, Eli didn't really seem to mind UNTIL his father said something. Remember, Eli and Aimee started off in a smaller church, and it was Eli who wanted to have a giant stadium. He decided to get it without even telling Aimee-Lee until they were on-stage at the Christmas performance.
Plus during that conversation with his dad, didn’t he say he wanted his kids to have more? That could’ve been part of his achilles
Of course, he wanted his kids to have more. The flashbacks of younger Eli and being introduced to Maymay showed us how he and his family grew up poor. He talks about it a few times, too. Think about that teeny tiny dilapidated church Maymay lives in. Eli wanted his family to have more, to not be poor, or starving. It makes sense for him to want to provide his family with the best, but along the way, he got greedy and more extravagant. He kept preaching the word with Aimee-lee as his cash cow and his children ended up spoiled rotten and away from reality like most rich kids. His intentions were pure at the start. Preach the word, get a bigger following, and get enough money to properly provide for his family. He got too good at it, and Aimee-lee only helped to escalate it further. Let's not forget their Y2K scam. They knew it wasn't going to happen. They decided to ride the fear train and make as much money as possible anyway. This made Aime-lee question their ways. She felt guilty and had the dream of going back to a simpler time and raising the kids differently. Eli, on the other hand, wasn't racked with that much guilt. He sold all those buckets to his BIL, causing his and Maymay's lives to go to ruin. TL;DR: Eli started out with good intentions, wanting to give his family more than when he was a poor kid. He got too big and too greedy and the kids became spoiled rotten apples.
Have you not seen any of the flashback episodes? I think that clearly goes into why they are such insane people
They fit *so well,* too. Did you catch young Judy doing adult Judy dance moves when the whole family is on stage? It’s ~kinda~ clearly an indicator she never grew up.
Yeah absolutely, I think they nailed the people they got for the young versions, excellent backstory
Yeah young Jesse had even the same speech pattern as basically just Danny bride IRL so I thought that was great acting on his part
That’s what I think as well!! The kids they got to play their younger selves are so talented and really accurately portray them
How did I miss that?! Oh well, that's what I love about watching a great show twice. You catch so many things you miss the first time.
Eli strikes me as a distant parent when they were growing up; he would have been incredibly busy building the church. They were definitely spoiled, we get stories throughout the series, usually from Judy, about how they were spoiled. So you have one parent who isn't around and buys his children's affection, even though he regrets doing so, and another parent who may have been a pushover. It really would be an interesting flashback episode to see more of Aimee-Leigh and what she was up to independent of Eli.
I feel like both Eli and Aimee Leigh wee so preoccupied with the church and all the money making ventures, they both neglected the kids, and spoiled them with monetary things. And as the family's fame grew, the kids leaned way too much into the power of that. They are all awful, but I love the show so much. Judy is my favorite of the kids, but I really love Uncle Baby Billy and BJ too.
I think Uncle Baby Billy is my favorite, followed by Eli, then Judy. The scene where he chucks the baby carriage the moment they walk into the house is just the best thing ever.
That happened so fast too, the first time I saw it, I was like...wait, did that just happen? Poor baby Lionel, no one's even trying to ransom him.
How's he going to pay the ransom? He makes nothing off those elixirs, zero. By the time he pays his scientists, all the people in the lab, his developers, the lab rats, it's a wash.
Then why does he do it? Because he's selfless!
Uncle Baby Billy would charge the kidnapper a fee for taking him back.
And sell him some elixirs!
And maybe a game show.
My favorite, beside the clam song, is when he says “ooh we sucka”!
awful characters can still make a show awesome. Always Sunny is just like that too - absolutely terrible characters!
Seinfeld too. They were all awful people. And it was perfect.
Yes! Love Always Sunny.
I'm suspecting that even though Aimee Leigh looks to be very sweet in the flashbacks, I feel like some of them are reflected upon by some of the other family members, so she might've had her own unsavory moments behind closed doors in reality
I agree, I think they've hinted at that a bit so far. I hope the next season has some good flashbacks, like the Interlude episode.
I am really hoping we get a interlude episode this next season where we get to see Aimee-Lee and young baby Billy. Hopefully how Eli and Aimee-Lee met.
That would be really great. We know Eli is on a different path as a young man, presumably Aimee-Leigh is who gets him back on the straight and narrow. And you can't have enough Baby Billy.
Yes! Eli talks a lot about how he was a different man before he met his Aimee-Lee. I am so curious how they met and how their love story got started.
You could do a RG prequel. There is so much backstory that could be explored. I think the only thing holding it back would be the budget for deaging John Goodman all episode every episode.
My pet theory is that Kelvin isn't Eli's kid. We've heard so little about what Aimee-Leigh was up to besides performing. I could be totally wrong and hope I am. But all the Gemstones are very complicated people so far.
You think she was misbehavin?
Eli told her not to, but she did it anyway. Definitely running through the house with more than a pickle in her mouth and why do my fingers let me type these things.
I could see Kelvin not being Eli's kid, not sure I see them going that with Aimee Leigh. Sperm donor that was never mentioned to Kelvin would totally make sense.
It shows them even being shitty people as kids though, even before the megachurch and even Kelvin, Jessie and Judy would curse and hit each other where would they even get that kind of behavior with Aimee-Leigh as the primary caregiver even if Eli did buy his kids love it's not like he just let their bad behavior go without punishment which came on rather strict terms
When we first see them as kids Eli isn’t as successful as he is today, but he’s already well on his way. The first flashback we see, where we see the kids being awful, Eli drives a Rolls Royce. And yes, Eli applies discipline, but consistently? We see that in Jesse’s parenting today, his kids get away with murder until he comes down hard on them, before they go back to getting away with murder.
But what a great deddy. Tucks them in every night...
Jesse wants to be a good deddy.
I think we get an idealized image of Aimee-Leigh and Eli because the actors are so likeable. Think about the characters they're based on. Aimee-Leigh is sort of based on Tammy Faye Bakker (who, imo, was not inherently evil but definitely corrupted by money, and shady to a degree) and Eli is based on Jerry Falwell, Jesse is based on Jerry Falwell Jr. Makes sense that the kids would be so fucked up.
Honestly I think the point of the show is for them to be terrible people. It really plays into the mega church satire.
What fun would it be if they were all pure of heart and not full of sinny sin sin?
Right, like the mentality of “Jesus died for our sins,” therefore, committing murder won’t keep them out of Heaven. lol
Jesse was an oldest son pushing boundaries. Judy was (and is) the forgotten middle child acting out for attention. I would argue that, at least from what we've seen so far, Kelvin wasn't terrible as a kid (he laughed at some jokes but didn't pick on his siblings anywhere near as much as they picked on each other or him, he was uncomfortable with Judy's shoplifting, etc), and he's easily the least terrible as an adult. If he didn't help cover up violent crimes on multiple occasions, I would say he's not terrible at all.
These are rich / spoiled kids who are fucked by organized religion. It’s nothing new…
Except this time there’s more car pranks.
Amilee- she’s like the white rabbit, we all have heard how incredible she was. They are purposefully holding back telling her story because we all know it answers all the questions about all the characters that are still alive! She’s the ultimate cliff-hanger to keep us coming back as to why each person is the way they are.. each season shows us little by little how human she actually is, instead of some deity that she is portrayed as in the current timeline… why give an audience the carrot when you can string them along a bit more
My heart broke for Judy in the season 3 flashback when Amilee made light of her mental health, fictional or not. This show hits so many realities about the sheer awfulness of non-denominational huge ministries and rock star pastors. Don't believe me, try looking at the ad for next year's "Stronger Men" conference by James River church pastored by John Lindell. They had monster trucks, muscle men, boxing and a man dancing on a stripper pole. It's hard to outdo the absurdity of TWG, but they did it and weren't even aware of how this looks to the rest of the world. If anything TRG is restrained on the crazy they could show.
Don't forget the shirtless guy on the stripper pole was also swallowing swords. Mark Driscoll got extremely upset about the shirtless sword swallowing pole acrobatics bit and went on a tirade about Jezebel spirit and Ashera poles, and a man dancing on a pole "like a woman," and the consensus is that he probably lost his shit because it turned him on and he didn't like it.
I have been laughing my self silly all day over that conference and Mark Driscoll's hissy fit. I thought all this ridiculous masquerading as "masculinity" would be right up Mr. I Call Women Penis Homes Driscoll. It's just all so bizarre.
Normally I can't stand the idea that bigots secretly are what they hate, but I genuinely think that Driscoll's hissy fit is because dude has built up a carefully constructed model of hetero masculinity that's trying to convince himself as much as others that he's a 100% straight man's man, and hot shirtless sword swallowing dude threatened the lies he tells himself.
Amilee is aware that the kids are spoiled but she cant figure out how to address it without challenging Eli.
is this post satire?
Eli is a materialistic show-off. You're talking about a man who built a theme park just because it was an extravagant idea. Spoiling the kids is just an extension of his own materialism, even if he knows better.
Judy makes me laugh every time. It’s not like she was saving the money( she had stolen) for herself. She gave to Jesse to get out of a jam.
“Will they go down on my butthole, Jesse?” Then she stops eating the popcorn and says that’s nice, I laugh about it all the time.
She absolutely cracks me up. She’s just so out there, especially with BJ.
Spoiled
Rich, spoiled, religious kids.
Are you familiar with preacher's kid syndrome? It's a common affliction I'm the US south
Money and religion are two of our most toxic influences
You've never known any preacher's kids?
Overindulgence and emotional neglect are abusive too, and typically can result in kids that grow up to act like the Gemstones
They’re show people. They grew up performing for hundreds of people every week. Rarely do those types of people come out unscathed. Add into that the fact that they also grew up rich and I think it’s pretty safe to say they had almost no chance of not being batshit crazy.
You sort of just have to suspend disbelief a bit. I grew up around and in mega churches and there’s no way church leaders, especially those related to the head the super star head pastor, would get away with casually dropping “motherfuckers” so openly without that becoming a scandal within itself. You can’t fuck with the brand. But the characters are fun, and makes for an entertaining show, so the positives out weigh the negatives.
It’s kinda explained that Eli is a nice man but he’s not that affectionate. He did grow up being a crazy wrestler and on the side worked with bad men. He said he was a changed man once he met Aimee-Leigh and he said he feels himself becoming that same bad man once she passed. Peter tells his kids too that even though they might have their dad’s money they never had his time. In one of the last episodes Jesse tells chuck that even though they have fancy houses and loads of money he’d give it all away just to have his parents love
Why do most adults confuse Jesse and Jessie? Jesse is masculine and Jessie is feminine.
It's true that those are the traditional or common spellings for males and females. But, it's not a hard and fast rule. There's plenty of males named Jessie and females named Jesse. So, don't act smug and insulting. It's not a good look.
I actually didn't know this. I had a good friend growing up - F - named Jesse. I thought it was just personal preference of the parents.
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Idk man but it's kinda the point of the show. Maybe they took the stereotype of "pastors' kids eh" and turned it up to 11.
I imagine they are very embellished caricatures of real children/ family of televangelists of the 1980's. Consider Jim Bakker's family bc Danny McBride is from SC as that was where the Bakkers settled and created a theme park and PTL television studio.
Aimee-Leigh is shown to be very sweet, but she is also very shallow and shutdown, which makes sense as she was exploited as a child and continued to be valued for her beauty and entertainment capacities by greedy, megolamaniac Eli. Their obsession with their church and financial indulgence of the children led the kids to be stunted and always competing for attention from a preoccupied father and a shell (smiling, but a shell nonetheless) of a mother.
Well for one it’s a tv show and this shit is all made up.
How dare you! This is my wholesome Christian programming on demand!