The Cowboy walks further down his destined path, Jesse helps out some millenials at a diner, and Cass and Tulip get to know each other really well. Check out our review below that has spoilers for the show and some of the comic.
1. Saint of Bad Timing
This week’s episode again opens with the future Saint on his journey to get medicine for his family. While waiting for the pharmacist in Ratater, the Cowboy spots some heinous as hell deeds that he ignores since he needs to focus on getting back to the family. On his way back to the farm, the Cowboy has a change of heart and goes back to the bar to right some wrongs, only to get his ass handed to him in the process. When he finally gets back home, hella delayed by a corrupt preacher shooting his horse, he finds his family devoured by birds. Having snapped, the Cowboy picks up his guns and assumedly heads back to Ratwater to slaughter the whole place.
This backstory’s pretty much the same as it is for the Saint in the comic, with one major difference. In the comic, it’s a storm that sets the Saint off course and causes him to be too late to save his family. Here, it’s the preacher who shot the Saint’s horse dead. While this change gives the Saint more of an immediate connection to our modern day preacher, the storm thing sets up some pretty big reveals in the comic. Like, how God sent the storm so that he could ensure the Cowboy would lose his family and eventually become his servant as the Saint of Killers. Unless God turns out to be the preacher at the bar in disguise, it looks like the show’s minimizing the fingerprints the Almighty left on the original story.
2. Buzzfeed Diner
In my favorite moment of the entire series, Jesse’s having breakfast at the diner with that woman whose name I won’t remember when he’s interrupted by a table of millenials asking him to join their conversation on which version of the Gospel is better. Jesse proceeds to sit with them for an entire day (the light even changes from day to night) and stays there for 80% of the episode. In a show where two literal angels are running around trying to fit some heavenly being into a coffee can, this is the least likely thing the show’s ever presented to us.
Jesse gets interrupted twice. Once by Tulip who’s trying to remind him that he kind of sucks and this isn’t who he is. But Jesse’s so confident in his powers that he just turns her away and keeps giving people advice and enforcing it with the Word of God. Then Arseface shows up and Jesse gets his first hint that he had something to do with Tracy’s whole coma thing. The whole town’s been calling Arseface a murderer over it, encouraging him to finish the job and kill himself and it’s gotten to the point that Sheriff Root loses his status as Best Character on the Show by telling his son he should kill himself. Oof. Jesse drives Arseface over to Tracy’s house and forces her mom to forgive him and it’s such uneasy television watching Jesse force these people into easy solutions to difficult problems. Tulip goes on and on about how Jesse won’t accept who he is, but it looks like he’s not accepting who anyone else is either.
3. It’s Donnie!
Worst Character on the Show Donnie actually picks up some steam in this episode by being the one guy who notices Jesse’s powers. Jesse forced Donnie to put a gun in his mouth a while ago and that’s not something you easily forget. Donnie’s also noticed Quincannon’s change of fate, after Jesse commanded him to serve the Lord last week, and is just generally freaking out over how this guy is taking over his life. He’s not wrong. Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see Donnie progress from Worst Guy in Town who’s here to be The Actual Worst to a guy who’s not a hero in any way but can tell that Jesse’s doing isn’t heroic.
Continued below4. Irish Rose
Tulip and Cassidy continue to hang out in this episode and it’s giving me the skeeviest of vibes. Tulip mentions to Cass that her boyfriend is tied to his work and Cass is incapable of connecting the dots that spell out “She’s talking about Jesse.” After some more boozin’ and cruisin’, Cass sees Tulip (who’s just been turned away by Jesse again) and they go at it like rabbits. Or one enthusiastic and another less enthusiastic rabbit who’s just doing this to drive her ex up the wall. It’s weird and kind of setting off alarm bells for me because Tulip and Cass getting together is a huge catalyst for some of the worst stuff to go down in the comic. It’s a totally different dynamic here, since Tulip’s more or less in control and not being held captive by Cass, but it’s still going to hurt the friendship that Cass and Jesse have had for like… a month? Okay, not the strongest friendship.
5. Talk about QuinCANNON
Back at the Quincannon Meat Factory, Mayor Miles brings over some businesspeople whose titles include words like “Sustainability” and “Branding.” Quincannon’s excited to meet all of them, joking and inviting them to have some brandy. Then he pulls out a gun and blows everyone but the mayor to hell.
Jesse commanded Odin to serve the Lord and I guess this is his way of doing it. Different people have different ideas of what God means right? And Odin seems like the kind of conservative guy who believes that stuff like sustainability and branding are the kind of buzzwords bringing America down. Jesse thought he was doing the town a favor, but it looks like he just upped the crazy on their craziest resident. Maybe he’ll start to see that his power isn’t exactly perfect divine right, as he finally gets the word at the end of this episode that his power isn’t God. What it actually is, we’ll find out next week.
