'The Righteous Gemstones' star Tim Baltz 'bled for real' during naked fight scene

While The Righteous Gemstones continues to be one of the best shows to watch right now, what's particularly impressive is how in Season 3 the show, created by Danny McBride, continues to work in the extremes.

Of course, a series full of some of the funniest people in Hollywood is going to be hysterical, but things are getting serious for a lot of the relationships that we've seen develop on the show.

BJ (Tim Baltz) is dealing with the reality that his wife Judy (Edi Patterson) was cheating on him with the guitar player in her band, Stephen (Stephen Schneider). Additionally, Kelvin (Adam Devine) and Keefe (Tony Cavalero) have parted ways after Keefe was removed from his position as assistant youth pastor.

Episode 6 of the season is a perfect example of just how genius Righteous Gemstones is. We feel sad and emotional about how hurt BJ is, but his storyline also includes a completely wacky naked fight scene with Stephen.

After the Gemstones pay off Stephen and his wife Kristy (Casey Wilson) to keep the "no sex affair" with Judy quiet, BJ sees that Stephen texted his wife, asking for them to spend one more time together. Seeing the message BJ, who has been working on his fighting skills with his brother-in-law Jesse (McBride), decides it's time to fight the man who had an affair with his wife.

When BJ gets to the house, he find Stephen pleasuring himself to the song “Daytime Friends" by Kenny Rogers. BJ punches Stephen but then things take a turn when Stephen, naked, throws BJ around the house, eventually dragging BJ outside to his yard (all while Stephen is still naked). But BJ makes the last move, with Stephen in a vulnerable state.

"That choreography took two days to film and physically, that's pretty demanding," Baltz said about filming that fight scene during a press junket in May. "Luckily the stunt guy, T. Ryan Mooney, I'd worked with before and so I was able to kind of talk to him and the director about what to expect, and the stunt coordinator."

"But you do have to prepare differently, physically. You have to be ready to take a beating. I bled for real on that day and when you're done, it feels great because you're exhausted in a completely different kind of way. And if you've prepared well, and luckily I had a lot of people telling me how to prepare, then you have a satisfaction that's very different as well. But you have to stay in shape when you're going to get your a— kicked."

'One super loaded one and then just a horrible body blow of a reaction'

But one of the most heart-wrenching moment of that episode happens just after this crazy fight. BJ returns home and instead of sitting down to dinner with Judy he just starts walking upstairs.

Seeing him covered in blood, Judy asks her husband if he's OK and BJ just says, "I hope you like me now."

"My very, very favourite stuff is just things that hit it in a real way, whether it's comedic or whether it's dramatic, I just think real translates if it's truthful and specific," Patterson, who is also a writer on the show, said in an press junket interview with Baltz in May. "It's way more likely to gut punch you with either a cry or laugh."

"It's really exciting and fulfilling to get to be in on the creation of that and also to think about picturing those moments, [like] with BJ on the stairs, and go, oh wow there's a way to strip this all down to where it's very few lines, one super loaded one and then just a horrible body blow of a reaction. To realize that sometimes all you need [is] to show don't tell, sometimes it's funnier, sadder or more dramatic than anything else."

Baltz echoed his co-star's comments, stressing that there are many moments of "show don't tell" in Season 3 of Righteous Gemstones.

"Those moments where nothing is being said and everything is being said, when you read it and something is that raw and emotional, it's very easy as an actor to kind of get your hooks into it," Baltz said. "It can be devastating, but it's so human, it hits primal emotions."

"And then knowing that everyone there is open to maybe a funny discovery or playing it in a humorous way, that's all the more fun. ... We get to play the humour of those human moments and we get to, when someone's being silly, they allow us to kind of be grounded and emotional, because that sometimes helps make it even funnier, too."

'It's a pretty tumultuous season for Keefe and [Kelvin]'

While all the Judy and BJ drama is going on in Righteous Gemstones, another fan-favourite couple, Kelvin and Keefe, are also struggling.

Back in 2022, speaking about Season 2 of the show, Cavalero described the dynamic between Keefe and Kelvin as "fun and romantic, but brotherly," while Devine highlighted that there's a sort of "sexual tension" between the two characters. That really well-established bond is what has made the emotional impact of the two parting ways in Season 3 so severe.

In Episode 6 of Season 3, we saw Kelvin move on with his youth group, replacing Keefe with Taryn (Maggie Winters), but you can see that Kelvin still misses Keefe. Later in the episode, Keefe brings Kelvin a chair he made, but is taken aback when he sees Kelvin seemingly having a good time with Taryn, while both of them are pretending to be totally fine with taking this time apart.

Even though we love seeing Keefe and Kelvin together, in a press junket in May Devine said the development in their relationship is something he and Cavalero had wanted to explore for a while.

"I think it was something that Tony and I have been wanting to do," Devine said. "[We] have been wanting a little more to do with our relationship for the past few seasons and luckily, the fervour online of people clamouring for our relationship to either blossom or dissolve, or do something with it, Danny listens to and put it in this season."

"I think just through the things that Tony and I would do on set sort of pushed that along and helped Danny steer it in that direction. It's a pretty tumultuous season for Keefe and I, it's pretty difficult."

While we won't spoil what happens later on in Season 3 for these Righteous Gemstones characters, it's clear that McBride has very much succeeded in expanding and developing every character in the show.

All interviews were conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike.