Television 

Five Thoughts on Preacher’s “Angelville”

By | June 25th, 2018
Posted in Television | % Comments

Gas up your ’72 Chevy and start heading south- it’s time for some more Preacher y’all! It’s been a while, but we are back for season three. I hope you’ll take this journey with me. Maybe we’ll find God, maybe we’ll just share some laughs. All I can promise is that it’ll be one hell of a thing. I’m with ya ’til the end of the world dear reader. The end of the world. Let’s see what’s in store for us in the season three premiere, “Angelville.” I’m sure nothing bad will happen this week.

1. The place which burrows into your heart and will not leave
We pick up pretty much exactly where we left off. Tulip is dead! Cassidy hates Jesse. And the Preacher himself is taking his crew to Angelville to let his evil grandmother fix all their problems. This season looks to be covering my favorite arc of the comics: “Until the End of the World,” the second trade paperback in the series. It introduces us to the most memorable characters and ends with the most violent, disturbing, and Romantic moment of the series.

And speaking of disturbing, it’s immediately clear that Preacher is up to its old tricks. It’s not clear what Angelville is all about, but it is clear that it’s some seriously wackadoo voodoo bullshit. It’s a serious operation; there are tours, a staff, a gift shop. But we’re treated to that messed up Preacher magic almost immediately in a flashback. When Jesse’s mama eats a photo, her own mother has her pinned down and she literally cuts it out of her daughter with a scalpel. Welcome back y’all. Cue credits.

The new credits are colorful and disturbing, a word which I’m sure I’ll wear out real fast. There’s even a glimpse of that creepy dalmatian. Oh god.

I just want to quickly note that these new credits are filled with actors playing characters I grew to love last season, and very few of them actually show up. This season is gonna be packed!

2. Look what the cat cough up
The urgency of Cassidy and Jesse’s beef has sort of faded for me, but for those two it’s only been a few minutes. Their scuffle is beautifully directed, letting the focus fade from the action to instead stare at still objects. Objects like Tulip’s dead body, and the creepy freaky hand of Gran’ma. The direction remains excellent for the whole hour. This show can look sort of cheap at times, but what it lacks in effects budget, it more than makes up for in style.

What can I even say about Gran’ma here? She’s awful, one of the worst villains in all of comics. Seriously, come at me. She’s evil beyond evil. But also, we meet TC! Now, comics readers will know that TC is most famous for having sex with literally anything and everything he can. Man, woman, animal, mineral, vegetable, willing, unwilling, alive or dead, if it’s got a hole, he will stick his dick in it. If it doesn’t got a hole, he will cut one with a knife. Blessedly, he keeps his pants on for this whole episode, but Colin Cunningham brings that necessary skeevy pathetic aura to TC. So far, he’s just been shown as a janitor, but something about him makes my skin crawl.

3. Welcome to Purgatory Tulip, hope you… survive… the experience?
Sometimes, Preacher leans into its cheap sets for effect, which was demonstrated brilliantly by our look at Purgatory. Tulip hasn’t passed on to the true afterlife yet; she’s just on a laugh track sitcom with a terrible set. It looks awful, but then again, who is surprised that purgatory looks laughably bad?

Most of the action of this episode concerns Tulip’s escape. Jesse, Cassidy, Gran’ma and her goons all need to collect the ingredients for the voodoo ritual that will bring Tulip back. Most of the details are just weird, but there are a few things worth noting. One is that the main ingredient is a collection of all of Tulip’s favorite things, including Boo Berry cereal.

The other is what she actually sees in purgatory. She just lives though her shitty childhood, watching her felon dad break promises and her prostitute mom hurl abuse. Tulip is still one of my favorite characters on TV, and she’s mostly focused on telling a younger version of herself important things. Being an orphan is going to suck, but not any more than growing up in an abusive household. I love that even when her literal soul is on the line, Tulip is brave and badass enough to put a child first, even if its the meaningless apparition of her young self. Damn Preacher is weird.

Continued below

4. We got some catching up to do
Aw damn, Jody is here, and we gotta talk about him. Despite only really existing for about a dozen issues, Jody is probably the character who leaves the most lasting impression in the whole comic. He even got a weird spinoff one-shot where he was sort of cast as a southern-fried Arnold Schwarzenegger type, putting the pansy beta-boys in their place.

Jeremy Childs is incredible casting. He’s huge. He’s imposing. And yet… he seems sort of laid back? He’s going to amass an enormous body count this season. He’s probably going to enjoy it. But somehow he doesn’t seem nearly as evil as Starr, or the Saint of Killers, or Gran’ma. He just seems like a dude. A murder dude.

This is best demonstrated when he demands that Jesse “catch up” with him, which means fight. Jody is superhuman, and whips the crap out of Jesse, establishing that the Preacher has never ever beat him in a fight. Once Jesse is bloodied and on his back, Jody lifts up a freaking truck to crush the Preacher’s head with it, only to be stopped at the last minute by Gran’ma. He drops the truck and shrugs. Oh well. Guess he’ll have to kill Jesse some other time.

You really believe that he loves Jesse and wants to kill him for some unfathomable reason. I can’t wait for Jesse to finally whup him. He’s gonna be so proud.

5. Scorpion peppers
Besides Jesse kicking Jody’s ass, there’s one other seed planted. Cassidy eats hot peppers with Gran’ma as part of the resurrection ritual, and she tells him an interesting story. There was once a man who she was in love with who loved another, so she did some magic and got him to love her. And only her. It was great until she got sick of it and killed the fella. It’s not stated but it sure sounds like the story of how she met Jesse’s granddad.

This is the crux of the conflict this season. Cassidy has a dark heart, but he knows right from wrong. Putting him on the same level as the evil Gran’ma is a line he can’t uncross. Is he going to try and brainwash Tulip into loving him, or is he going to return to the side of good? Jesse has a ton of external conflicts this season, but Cassidy’s is totally internal.

And then Tulip comes back! Through magic and a conspicuous Felix the Cat clock (which I guess is like her soul or something?) she returns to the land of the living. That didn’t take too long at all!

But at what cost? The episode closes with an ominous promise: “Gran’ma loves you.”

I’m shuddering. What do you say we close this sucker out with Tulip’s favorite band, DragonForce?


//TAGS | Preacher

Jaina Hill

Jaina is from New York. She currently lives in Ohio. Ask her, and she'll swear she's one of those people who loves both Star Wars and Star Trek equally. Say hi to her on twitter @Rambling_Moose!

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