What material do I need to cover to understand the gamma function?

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I'm taking a course on Bayesian statistics, and my furthest understanding of math only extends to Calculus 1, logic, and elementary statistics. I'm learning about the gamma distribution (and the course I'm taking doesn't cover the gamma function aside from it being representing by both n! and (n-1)!) I looked the function up, and do not understand what a residue is, what an analytic function is, how it's plotted on a 3D plane, and so on. What material is essential to cover (in chronological order) to understand this function?

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You may wish to take a look at Artin's little book, The Gamma Function.

You need a fairly strong background in analysis. You should know calculus. Integration by parts is key. Some facility with sequences and series.