Going into the fourth season of “The Righteous Gemstones,” costume designer Christina Flannery didn’t know that this year was going to be the show’s swan song — or perhaps more accurately, after Episode 8, its gator song. Series creator and star Danny McBride kept that information close to the chest during the prep process, but Flannery told IndieWire that knowing whether or not there would be more “Gemstones” hardly mattered.
By the time the show had gotten to the civil war prelude that opens Season 4, to say nothing of the troubled production process of “Teenjus” and Eli’s (John Goodman) equally troubled retirement, there was no bucket list left for the costume design team. The challenge and the joy of designing for “The Righteous Gemstones” is that it has been maximalist from the very start. Finding new degrees of colorful suits, flowing capes, and animal print jumpsuits supported the show’s tone from the beginning, but has increasingly become part of the HBO series’s comedy in its own right.
Flannery, who picked up the costume designer baton from Sarah Trost in Season 3, credits a collaborative openness, as much as the continually varied and hilarious scenarios provided by the writers, with helping her and her team find “The Righteous Gemstones” fits that, well, fit. By focusing on the performers — what might be fun for them or give them comedy tools to play with — the costume department never gets lost in a sea of ruffled collars and furry suits. But they also know that absolutely everything, clothes-wise, is on the table to try.
That balance has helped Flannery find a nuance in showing the ridiculous ego, say, of Kelvin’s (Adam Devine) sequined suit, while also using those silver sparkles to set off his coming out speech at the Top Christ Following Man of the Year competition. Flannery sat with IndieWire to unpack, or perhaps to finally pack away, the best of “The Righteous Gemstones” Sunday Best.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
IndieWire: Was there anything left on your bucket list for the show, going into this last season? How do you think about capping the work on a comedy that’s this vibrant and big?
Flannery: I didn’t know it was the last season because Danny didn’t tell anybody. It’s always been this mysterious thing that’s going on with “Gemstones,” and we just never know anything. But because of Season 3 and how much Danny let me push it, I said, “Fuck it, let’s push it even more,” you know?
Danny is just always throwing shit at me and Richard [A. Webb, the production designer]. When I got the script for the Civil War episode, I was like, ‘I thought you said that it was going to be chiller this season?!’” But everything I want to do, I’m allowed to do, and I have the money and the support to do it, and the crew. So, [we] shoot for the stars.
With that Civil War episode, for instance, as a costume designer, I really, really love filthy stuff. There’s this film, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” and I feel like that was one of the references I used to make sure we went filthy. These people are wearing the same clothes forever. So we just had a station posted up and we were slathering all of us, everybody was filthy themselves from covering [all the actors] head to toe with dirt.
And Bradley [Cooper], he’s a badass. He very much wanted to push it and go super filthy as well.
You do push it, whatever direction that means, and with the contemporary clothes, too. Knowing the characters as well as you do now, how does that help you accentuate what’s going on with them through their clothing?
You take whatever the storyline is. For example, with Baby Billy [Walton Goggins], he had an interesting storyline that was different from last season, and every season before, really. I feel like he’s changed a little bit. So with him specifically becoming a director and all that, I wanted to lean into the gross porn star from the ‘70s for his vibe. And the work is just continuing to push that.
Like, especially with Judy [Edi Patterson], you’re always checking in [to find] that stunted element in her. She has an outfit this season that looks like if “Pretty Pretty Princess” met that Versace J-Lo dress. She’s trying to be sexy, but she can’t pull it off.
All the Gemstones’ senses of grandeur are stunning and don’t quite match up to what’s happening. That’s a great way to think about their fashion.
We’re just trying to stay in that world, but then follow the storylines as they go. Like, with BJ [Tim Baltz], his storyline in Season 4 is so different, and how do we make that work? Everybody’s stylized, but how do we strip him down because he’s in a wheelchair now? That was one of the more complicated challenges of the season was this question of how do we come back a bit? How do we bring him down a little bit? That’s kind of how we think about it.
You know, spending so much time developing even more of these weird, special builds that kind of set us apart from most shows that I see — I haven’t seen a lot of this stuff done.
Certainly not on a comedy budget.
Of course, there are going to be shows that are going to be, like, “Holy shit, this lady is way too far.” But my hope is that people will see my work and [be more open] to bring weird shit to the table that you normally wouldn’t be able to.
Just learning how to manage doing it all at the same time, and jumping from the Civil War, which is insane, to the telethon, which is also insane, and doing 500 million costumes on top of that, you know, jumping all over at the same time really sets you up for success. I’m coming into my next show, and I don’t think I’m ever going to come across a show that was as challenging and over-the-top as “Gemstones.” So my hope is that it’s given me a lot of growth as a designer, and I’m a little bit more confident with myself.
Like, Danny allowing me to blow it up and go crazy this season, it all just depends on what we’re doing. But something that was really important to me — I am queer myself and just seeing, finally, Keefe (Tony Cavalero) and Kelvin actually doing something that’s so amazing. I [thought about] Siegfried and Roy, leaning into that crazy shit, but also closing the chapter on them. When we started early on, it was really important to figure out what they were going to wear and how to make that story such a powerful, amazing thing.
I think all of us in the show, and honestly, viewers as well, we’re like, “Finally, man!” We have waited so long for these two to be out and to have this thing called Prism, where we got to do ridiculous costumes and so much stuff that you don’t even see behind the scenes. You see bits and pieces, but there’s so much that goes into this show, and we’re just very lucky that you get one snippet of it. But it takes days and days of fittings and tons and tons of shopping and just a ton of effort to get those little pops [from the background].
But that’s how it is working in film, you know? You never know what’s going to actually make it on the screen, but you have to create a whole world.
“The Righteous Gemstones” season finale airs May 4 on Max.
