Danny McBride is not an artist I have ever been especially drawn to over the years. Whenever I dipped my toe into his world, I never felt like it was for me. For some reason though, I felt compelled to give Gemstones a proper chance finally. And I was blown away by how much I enjoyed. Danny McBride has relatively quietly become one of the best television producers on HBO’s roster. They do not really gets awards or ratings. They are not even huge discourse drivers. They are high quality though and worth watching. Here is how I have the shows ranked.
3. The Righteous Gemstones [2019-2025]
Gemstones almost feels like Danny McBride’s attempt to be respectable in the context of what shows he made before it. In fact this show feels like a a blend between themes acceptable in the prestige television zone and what came before from this company. By the end of its run, I decided it probably strayed too far to the zone of respectability, and it was missing a little of the edge that his first two HBO shows had and that was the deciding factor in my rankings. However, that is 100% nitpicking, and this show was clearly very fucking good.
2. Eastbound & Down (Co-created with Jody Hill & Ben Best) [2009-2013]
Watching the Danny McBride shows in a very jumbled order was very jarring but endlessly fascinating. Gemstones was what I needed to go back and explore everything, but that also allowed me to appreciate what McBride was doing with fewer resources. While the final product with Eastbound is far less polished, it does have this “raw” feeling that he would lose by the time Gemstones came around. This is a NASTY show that makes no pretense to cloak itself in respectability. I could see myself going back and forth on how I rate these shows, but for now I am more drawn to the tone McBride was able to establish here.
1. Vice Principals (Co-created with Jody Hill) [2016-17]
I first attempted to watch Vice Principals when it premiered in 2016. I was in no way prepared for what it was gonna be like. Unfortunately, I did not stick around long enough to get oriented to it. Only after watching Righteous Gemstones did I realize that I needed to go back and give it another chance. Thankfully, I did just that because not only is Vice Principals my favorite Danny McBride show, but it in general became a show I really just loved and could not take my eyes off of at all. If McBride was a talented amateur with Eastbound, it seems like he grew into a seasoned professional by the time Vice Principals rolled around. Everything is more polished and better crafted but without sacrificing any of the shock and awe comedy that made Eastbound great. This is frankly one of the nastiest shows I have ever seen. It is a deep exploration of how depraved and self-involved humans can be. And it was great.
The Reel World 