An adaptation of Preacher felt impossible some years ago and yet here we are, with a second season already confirmed.
“Today: Meet God. Tomorrow: TBD”
Everything has been leading to this moment. Jesse’s a fugitive but his promise of bringing God to church on Sunday. That has made him some sort of folk figure of sorts because we see grafitti of him, screaming for God to come down. We also see how the town is buzzing about it.
The idea of women getting bikini waxes because God is coming to town is somehow hilarious, and yet I’m sure that’s something that would happen in real life.
Cops are still trying to catch Jesse, but he ends up finding refuge with Donnie, of all people! Turns out that, after Jesse showed mercy to him he just decided to be a better man, which is still a bit of a weird situation.
The situation got a bit weirder with Tulip’s arrival, as she thought Jesse had been captured and she was looking for him because she had plans of her own.
“Uh oh. Manila folder time.”
While Jesse is hiding, Cassidy is in jail. Jesse and him were hiding in the whorehouse, at least until the police came and arrested Cass because Jesse ran away.
This led to a quite bloody scene, which surprised me. In the comic books Sheriff Root ranted about martian n-words and was a rude, violent and unpleasant person. There’s some unpleasantness to this version of Root but he’s much nicer, especially because he seems to care for his son.
And that’s what this whole scene is about, the Sheriff wanting to know what happened to his son. He starts asking Cassidy, and then reveals he put two and two together (mostly after seeing his rap sheet) and knows he’s a vampire, so he just keeps shooting him. And yet, Cassidy is the one who hurts him more after he just says that in some way maybe he’s happy Arseface is gone.
“Hi, Tulip, um, I… I just ate pancakes.”
Tulip comes with a gift for Jesse. The infamous Carlos. And now we finally know what went down between the three of them and why they were so pissed off at him, and to be honest it’s only fair.
I’m only a bit disappointed about it. I mean, betraying someone because you suddenly get jealous of their relationship is a shitty motive. But it makes sense in the context of Jesse and Tulip, they’re great as a couple. I just wish there wasn’t a miscarriage involved because that one feels a bit like too much. Seeing flashbacks is cool though.
I’m not sure how I feel about the whole resolution, because first Tulip is angry Jesse won’t kill him, and when Jesse is going to, she decides he was right all along. So they settle with beating Carlos up. The beating happened offscreen, and I’m still disappointed it didn’t involve that massive dildo. But it had some comedic effect to it anyway.
“Well… God wants our help we help him. If he doesn’t we kick his ass”
And then all Hell breaks lose when Jesse apparently succeeds in bringing God to the church.
The church is full, and at first it doesn’t seem like Jesse is succeeding but the phone works eventually and Annville meets God. The experience brings happiness to everyone, even Odin Quincannon who wanted Jesse to fail.
But then Jesse realises there’s something wrong, and makes the guy confess that he’s just an impostor. God has left Heaven and no one knows where he is. The people of Annville lose their minds after hearing this and our unholy trinity of characters decide to leave because “Tulip wants French fries.”
They establish their plan, go on a road trip looking for God and make him pay, and Jesse vows to get Arseface out of Hell too. Which means we finally got to the Preacher I know and love. True, I loved this season but this prequel-like season was a bit slow at times, but after this episode I understand the reason.
Spending time with everyone in Annville was important because now we see the emotional impact of them hearing about God’s absence and it makes the destruction of the town feel different. In the comic when Genesis attaches itself to Jesse it blows the entire town off. And seeing the town blow up because of human indifference (while seeing that the control panel wasn’t Heaven at all) was more interesting.
And the Saint of Killers is on the chase now, this definitely makes things interesting.
If you ask me, as a fan of the source material, this detour definitely worked. I’m looking forward to season two. Anyway, that’s it for these reviews, at least for the time being. If you’ve been reading these regularly, thank you. I’ll see you again when season 2 comes out.
Angry Spaniard, adoptive Irishman. Writer, reader, tea drinker and video game player/designer.
