'The Righteous Gemstones' Should Do an Uncle Baby Billy Spinoff

The funniest character on TV

There will come a payday someday. Jake Giles Netter/HBO

I finally caught up on the fourth and final season of The Righteous Gemstones, Danny McBride’s hilarious comedy series about a family of morally bankrupt megachurch pastors. Season 4 is the weakest season, but it’s still very funny, and Uncle Baby Billy is the main reason why. He’s always been one of the best parts of the show, but he’s become the show in Season 4. Walton Goggins has reached that level of being in the zone where he’s not being funny, he just is funny. All he has to do is stand there and it’s funny.

If you haven’t watched The Righteous Gemstones, Uncle Baby Billy Freeman is a dissolute pastor who is the uncle of the Gemstone siblings, heirs to the megachurch empire built by their father Eli and late mother Aimee-Leigh, Billy’s sister. He and Aimee-Leigh were gospel music child stars, and Uncle Baby Billy has spent the rest of his life chasing that success again. He’s selfish, self-absorbed, and egomaniacal. He dresses in ‘70s suits, has hair the color of Ric Flair’s, and talks like his teeth are rattling around in his mouth.

The voice is what makes Uncle Baby Billy. It doesn’t matter what he says, because how he says it is so funny. Goggins clearly has the confidence actors get when their wardrobe is right and they have the thing that unlocks the character for them. And for him, it’s the voice. I don’t know if he's wearing veneers that make him talk like that and he leans into it, or if it’s a totally invented voice. But whatever it is, it makes him lock the fuck in.

In Season 4, he’s making a TV show about teenage Jesus called Teenjus. It’s the follow-up to his hit Bible-themed game show, Baby Billy’s Bible Bonkers. The Righteous Gemstones knows the comedic value in finding earworm phrases and then repeating them over and over again. “Baby Billy’s Bible Bonkers. Top Christ-Following Man of the Year. Muscle Boys.” I can’t remember the names of people I’ve met several times because Baby Billy’s Bible Bonkers is taking up so much space in my brain.

It’s been great to see Walton Goggins’ ascent to the peak this past year. He’s been a cult favorite for decades, revered by a small but dedicated following for his range and charisma, but the triple whammy of Fallout, The White Lotus, and The Righteous Gemstones has made him one of TV’s biggest stars. He earned it.

I read an interview where he said “I am mourning the fact that I don’t get to play Baby Billy anymore because I just love him so much.” But there’s a way he doesn’t have to mourn. He could just go on playing him. We all love Baby Billy so much that we would all watch a Baby Billy spinoff, right? I don’t know what it would be, but whatever it is, it would be great. We’d have the same sort of “Which is better, Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul?” conversation about it and The Righteous Gemstones.

It’s not going to happen, but I wish it would. Oh well. There will always be this clip. “I ain’t asking for the world here. I’m just asking for a eight ball and two million dollars.”