The Righteous Gemstones' Edi Patterson Thinks Judy Will Be 'Out There Doing Bad Things' Forever

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Righteous Gemstones' series finale, "That Man of God May Be Complete."]

Of course The Righteous Gemstones had to go out with a literal bang.

In the comedy's hour-long series finale, Eli Gemstone's (John Goodman) adult failchildren — Danny McBride's Jesse, Edi Patterson's Judy, and Adam Devine's Kelvin — find themselves the targets of an attempted murder spree at the hands of their longtime family friend, Corey (Seann William Scott), after he's traumatized by the murder of his own father and disillusioned by his own loneliness. But the Gemstones are not a family that gives up easily, and in a last-ditch effort to fight for their lives, Judy calls upon her former nemesis Dr. Watson, the capuchin monkey who has been acting as a service animal to her husband BJ (Tim Baltz) all season, to retrieve Jesse's gun. The monkey comes through, and the scuffle ends with Jesse fatally shooting Corey, who immediately resigns himself to death and has only one final, sobering request for the siblings: to pray with him.

It's the kind of ending that strikes the ideal Gemstones balance between absurdity and sincerity, with the trio using what could be their last breaths to bicker childishly over whether Jesse's "everyday carry bag" is or is not a purse, before elegantly switching gears as they pray over Corey's body. This has always been a show about how the past affects the future, but the final episode takes on a particularly reflective tone as the three are forced to confront their own mortality.

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Ahead of the series finale, Edi Patterson, who stars as Judy and serves as a writer on the series, caught up with TV Guide to reflect on the final season, discuss the Gemstones' penchant for Gen Z internet lingo, and theorize about what she sees in Judy's future.

All the seasons have had these really complete stories, so what was most important to you guys in the writers room to communicate for the characters for this final season?
Edi Patterson: Every season, like you're saying, we have tried really hard to make it a full story. I think that just with Danny guiding it, we probably leaned a little more into making sure that it felt like a good wrap-up for everyone, and for the story as a whole. That was the lucky thing of every season; we tried to wrap it up with a bow, so that it would be fun if you went in and you were like, "I think I'll start with Season 2." It's not a big cliffhanger thing. It's more fun to watch it from the beginning, because you see everyone's arc, but even if you think about the end of Season 3 — it's our dead mother watching us have a good time together. Every time I watch that, it crushes me. Man, oh man. It just really captures the love and the fun.

There are so many Judy lines per episode that lodge themselves into my brain, but you have one in the finale that you deliver to Eli that I haven't been able to stop thinking about: "Whether it be with Miss Lori, or some other skibidi toilet cum guzzler, we support you."
Patterson: Oh my god, do you know — that is so funny. God, I'd have to go back and look… I think "cum guzzler" was already in [the script]. For sure, "skibidi toilet" showed up the day of, because Danny and Adam and I were very obsessed with and thought it was hilarious to try to talk like children.

Who taught Judy about skibidi toilet?
Patterson: I think she just knows what's up. But in real life, I had weirdly deep dived that one in particular — skibidi, and skibidi toilet, just because I was so weirded out. I was like, "It's a face? In a toilet? What does it mean?" Danny's son was always a good source for us, of what people were saying. So almost every day that the three of us worked together, we would go, "OK, what are the words?" We would end up just sort of throwing them in that day if they seemed to work. That might've been the same day that we learned about f---ing mewing, and jawlining — I can't remember if that showed up anywhere, but I was like, "Let's get some skibidi toilet in here." There's an episode earlier, it's maybe the second or third episode of the season, where Kelvin's telling Eli he's "rizz-less." We just think, always, it's funny if the Gemstones are constantly thinking they're cool. I do think they usually are pretty cool, but a certain amount of awkwardness in it is pretty awesome. The fact that they're coming off cheugy while they say this stuff is pretty great.

Big action sequences are such a staple of this show, so it's really fitting that the finale goes out with one in the form of the shoot-out. What was it like filming that? Judy goes down first!
Patterson: Judy goes down first. First of all, that house on Lake Murray was so enormous, and so beautiful. None of that is effects; that is a massive mansion on a lake. The shoot-out was wild, and so fun to do all of that weird crawling with Danny and Adam for days. I don't know which one we used, but you do squibs when you get shot in something, and it explodes out, and makes it look like a bullet's going in. But the fabric of my bathing suit cover-up — I don't know if you knew, but that elaborate dress is a bathing suit cover-up. Everything I wear in that episode is a bathing suit cover-up. If you zoom in on that crazy, Grecian, baby blue, teal dress, that's a full on string bikini I have on underneath. That fabric was crazy — ice skating uniform fabric, or something. I think it was just assumed that the squib would explode, and it couldn't escape the fabric. One of the two [takes] that I did, the fabric held it in and it exploded back on to me. The reaction is real, because I'm like, "Did I just get shot? What?" I think that's probably the one where I think I might've gotten shot. But yeah, doing all that was so fun, and so action-y, and calling Dr. Watson as we're in pools of blood. Just the best, and the best to do it with those guys, and with Seann. We genuinely had a ball. It felt exciting. After I'm shot, I was at the monitors watching Danny and Adam run through the house with things exploding around them. Sometimes, not until you go look at the monitor do you go, "Oh! Right! We are doing a full-on action movie."

One of my favorite things about the show that the finale hammers home is how unique Judy, Jesse, and Kelvin's relationship is. We see it here with Corey, who wants to be part of the rippin' so bad and he just can't really get there. Over the seasons, how did you, Danny, and Adam consistently strike that balance between sibling bickering and the genuine love they have for each other?
Patterson: Honestly, I think it's just to go really hard and true into both things. A huge part of it was to know that, always, no matter what, at the end of the day they do have each other's backs. You may be able to tear your sibling to shreds, but if anyone else does it, f---ing God help them.

Yeah, they'll get shot in the head.
Patterson: Yeah, they will get got. It's not going to end well for them. It's letting it rip when we are doing rips on each other, and to know that the core of it, always, they would never, ever truly throw each other under the bus.

I loved the moment where they think they're dying and Kelvin says, "At least we'll be able to see Mama," which is followed by each of the Gemstone kids getting a moment of prayer with Corey as he's actually dying. How much does the show's depiction of religion and faith come from a place of sincerity?
Patterson: I think all of the Gemstones' faith and belief is from absolute sincerity. I think they're all believers. And I think that's part of the fun of the show, we've never been out to make fun of belief or believers. We just happen to be a family of maniacs in that world. I think they all truly believe, it's just that there's some extra beliefs tacked on to it that make it muddy. I mean, they also believe they're chosen. They believe that they're entitled to all they have. I think it's just super, super muddy, but I like that. It makes it confusing for people. You can't say to them, "They don't really believe," because they do! They just happen to be pretty messed up people.

With that in mind, what kind of impact do you think their near-death experience will have on them going forward?
Patterson: Just like any human, I think that it'll propel them forward a little bit. But I don't think any of them will be absolutely different people. [It won't be like,] "Suddenly they're all three not selfish," you know what I mean? It just hammers in that family's what matters. All their experiences through this entire season, whether it be the stuff that Judy's going through with BJ and Dr. Watson, or with Kelvin with the Christ Following Man stuff, or with Jesse feeling threatened that Gideon likes his grandfather more than he likes his father, or any of that — I think that all of it usually can be kind of traced back to unresolved grief with their mother dying, and I think this near-death experience propels them forward a little bit in that, into just getting a little more clear around that, and a little more forgiving of themselves, and of the world, and God in general for taking her. I think they get a little more mature, but I don't think it's like old school movie style, where suddenly they're completely different.

No one would want that, anyway.
Patterson: I wouldn't want that!

You brought up what Judy and BJ were going through this season, with her having to take care of someone else and being treated badly in return. How did you and Tim Baltz approach that shift in their relationship?
Patterson: For me, Tim Baltz can do no wrong. Whether it's him being light and fun, or whether it's him being, as he says in the script, "crippled angry BJ," I just think he's so good, and I find anything he does so endearing. It was really fun to get to see him play bitter and desperate and frustrated. To see Judy's almost immediate overwhelm with the way that he is was really, really fun, and to see it come out in certain ways. Even just coming out of the hospital and going to threaten those guys sitting on the bench, I get that. I think sometimes when we're panicked about someone we love, it shoots out. It shoots out in weird ways.

I couldn't believe how sad I was to see BJ injured.
Patterson: Isn't his accident so shocking? It looks so violent. That day was a lot of moving parts. Tim learned so much pole stuff. He could even do a couple of different inversions. I don't know how he got there in that short amount of time. But that stuff from the competition definitely required an incredible stunt guy and an incredible professional pole athlete. 

I also have to ask about filming with the monkey all season. What was that like?
Patterson: So, he is a she. Dr. Watson was a monkey named Allie, and she is so cute. For me, it was just a lot of teeth gritting, because I just wanted to always hold her, and you can't. You can't even really totally deal with her because they need — I don't know, I don't totally understand all of it, but they need the trainer to be the main voice, the only voice in the room that the animal is paying attention to. It's a lot of fighting impulses you'd have if you saw a puppy or a kitten, or the cutest baby. It's just constantly having to tamp down a feeling of wanting to drive away with the monkey in your car so that it can sit beside you and watch movies. I would literally ask the trainer the dumbest stuff. I would ask, "So, does she sit with you at night? Does she sit close to you?"

Well, does she?
Patterson: He kind of acted like, "Sometimes." I don't know. None of it was how I wanted it to be. I just wanted to hold her and pet her. She jumped on my leg at one point, and it was just like a feather landing on your leg, and you're like, "Never leave me."

The arc ultimately ends with Judy realizing that she is Dr. Watson. She ends up seeing herself in this animal that she hated.
Patterson: That was really cool, to find that. We had some of the monkey scenes, and then we talked about making sure that they had a good amount of the core emotional thing in them. I was really happy that we found that thing. I mean, they're almost us, genetically. You are me, I am you.

If you had to imagine a future for Judy post-finale, what do you think she's getting up to?
Patterson: First of all, I think that she and BJ are together forever. I think she's still with the church, and I think she's crushing it. Her music ministry is at another level, and she's probably getting into some pop stuff, too. Maybe pulling an old school Amy Grant. And I think she's probably still out there doing bad things. Bad girls club for life, baby.

What will you miss most about playing Judy?
Patterson: Here's part of the thing is, I think Judy just lives inside me. She's in me forever. Mostly the thing that I'll miss is getting with those people, the rest of the cast for my show, Danny and Adam and Cassidy [Freeman] and Tony [Cavalero] and Tim, and just knowing that I can let Judy rip in that context. There's a no filter-ness and a wildness to Judy, and a do it now and ask questions later thing that is just the most fun thing on earth to play. To be able to play that, and also have all the heart and emotion in it, to be able to let it rip in every way, not just saying wild sh--, but to also know that it's coming from a real place. She's an absolute gift.

The Righteous Gemstones is available to stream on Max.