Grab your beads, mix yourself a hurricane, and make your way down to Nawlins, it’s time for a new Preacher y’all! This week Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy follow God down to the Big Easy. So tune your horn to b-flat, because here be spoilers for season two, episode three: “Damsels.”
1. The Secret Origin of Arseface
Last season established that HELL is reliving the worst moments of your life, in an endless loop. Ever since Jesse sent poor Eugene to the hot place, he’s been living his. In a huge departure from the comic, Eugene tries to comfort his suicidal girl-next-door friend, but things take a turn for the worse when she blows her brains out. Sweet, dumb Eugene, who can’t tell Mary Poppins from The Sound of Music, tries to shoot himself, but hesitates and looks into the barrel of the gun, resulting in the butthole he now calls his face.
In the comic, Arseface tried to kill himself in an imitation of Kurt Cobain’s suicide. That reference is clearly dated, but strongly tied the character to the nihilistic malaise of the early 90s. I don’t know what the modern equivalent would be, so I guess it’s good that they made the failed suicide attempt a bit less specific, but I still feel that something was lost. It’s a small quibble, because all of the Eugene stuff worked excellently, and HELL was totally freaky. Extra credit for a run in with Adolf Hitler himself.
2. These folks are looking for god. All three of them.
Preacher works best when it stumbles through absurdity, profundity, gross horror movie imagery, and fantastical conspiracy. In other words, the more unhinged and surreal, the better. This strategy has gone off the rails, like with the human dog cage in the first episode of the season, but the freaky human/dog show in the basement of the New Orleans bar was perfect Preacher.
The setting change is also doing us wonders. “You are now leaving Texas: your loss dipshit” reads a sign, signifying the transition with a blown kiss and a middle finger. Every set from the various bars, to Dennis’s decrepit old house, to the streets and alleys wonderfully transports us to New Orleans.
3. Until the end of the world
The end of the world crops up a number of times in this episode, as do some mind-meltingly exciting moments for Preacher comic fans. It looks like this season is doing a heavily altered version of the New Orleans story of the comic, but we’re speeding on to “Until the End of the World,” the only Preacher story that entirely still holds up today, with absolutely no reservations.
“It’s the swamps I don’t like,” Jesse says, “It’s a family thing.” That’s not the only reference we get to the horrifying L’Angle family- Jesse also sweats over a poster with the name in the street. Before we get there though, we’re taking a detour for Tulip to confront some demons from her past. On the one hand, I’m a little impatient to get to the best part of the story, but on the other hand, Ruth Negga is the greatest thing this show has to offer, so I’m just fine with some extra Tulip.
4. A Super-secret crypto-facist organization with designs on world domination
The big reveal in this episode happened slowly, and then all at once. Jesse amusingly meanders through the city, listening to jazz, before he meets a jazz singer named Lara. He saves her from some would-be kidnappers, who she describes as the main recurring bad guys in the Preacher comics, the conspiracy known as the Grail. The twist that Lara was in fact Lara Featherstone, a Grail operative, should have been an obvious move from the film noir playbook, but it totally blindsided me, and I was delighted.
Then we got our look at Herr Starr, probably one of the most memorable bad characters in all of Preacher. Not an blurry shot, or a look from behind, but a head-on reveal of the man who will menace Jesse as much as any mortal. I can’t wait!
5. Abuses of power: Could you make me stop?
Jesse is trying not to bring the Saint down on him, so uses of his power are somewhat limited. He’s got a different power though, one we talk about less- a propensity for violence. That guy at the bar was hardly being rude to him, and he broke a drink over his face! Ouch dude.
I’d say the biggest abuse of power came when he used the voice to stop the Grail guys. It wasn’t his use of the voice itself, but the old fashioned ass-kicking he gave afterwards. He could have easily used the voice one more time (he uses it again moments later) to avoid that entire fight, but he doesn’t. He’d rather get his hands dirty, and show off for the titular damsel in distress. Jesse’s chivalry is one of his biggest flaws, and he thinks that just because he can save a lady means he should. This time, it plays him right into the hands of the bad guys.
