He Goeth Before You Into Galilee

Plot

The Gemstone siblings bring Eli and Lori to Galilee Gulch, the family vacation home, hoping the setting will remind Eli of his late wife Aimee-Leigh and break up their relationship. Jesse explains the plan to Baby Billy, but Eli suspects their motives. Corey tells Jesse he now supports his mother dating Eli, as it is preferable to her previous boyfriend, car dealer Mitch. The siblings confront Eli, but Lori dismisses her relationship with Mitch as unserious.

Judy attempts to seduce Lori and is slapped; Lori comforts Judy about her mother's death, leaving Judy emotional. Kelvin, wanting to see his mother again, has Keefe dress in Aimee-Leigh's clothes and confront a sleeping Eli. Lori screams, Eli punches Keefe, and Baby Billy and Tiffany's nanny attack Keefe. The siblings admit their scheme, and Eli scolds them.

The next morning, the siblings find Eli and Lori having sex and walk away disgusted. Eli reassures them he will not forget their mother, but they become further disgusted seeing he has ejaculated in his pants.

Production

The episode was written by John Carcieri, Jeff Fradley, and Danny McBride, and directed by McBride. It marked Carcieri's 21st writing credit, Fradley's 15th, McBride's 31st writing credit, and McBride's sixth directing credit. The crew struggled to find a lake house in Charleston, South Carolina, where the series is filmed, so scenes were shot later in the season despite being the fourth episode to air. Two weeks before filming, McBride considered pausing production due to the difficulty.

Location manager Kale Murphy found a lake house and convinced the owners to allow filming for three weeks. Edi Patterson said the scene where Judy tries to seduce Lori was exciting because Megan Mullally was game for the insane scene she helped write. For the water ski cold open, Walton Goggins told McBride he could perform the slalom for real, leading to the nude sequence; Goggins used a stand-in for his naked scenes.

Reception

The episode was seen by an estimated 0.375 million household viewers with a 0.09 rating in the 18–49 demographic, a slight increase from the previous episode's 0.325 million viewers and 0.06 rating. It received critical acclaim. Matt Schimkowitz of The A.V. Club gave an "A" grade, noting that the Gemstones face a family friend rather than a formidable opponent, and that the disgust elicited by the kids' plan produces the biggest laughs of the season.

Scott Tobias of Vulture gave 4 out of 5 stars, calling the waterskiing bit "cinema" due to the comedic staging of water shooting toward Baby Billy's scrotum. Paul Dailly of TV Fanatic gave a perfect 5-star rating, praising the hilarity of Keefe wearing Aimee-Leigh's clothes to channel Eli's dead wife. Hawk Ripjaw of TV Obsessive wrote that the episode exemplified the grip of grief on the Gemstone family, from the kids acting out to Eli's hesitation about returning to the lake house.