This week on Preacher, the Cowboy breaks the cycle, Tulip gets her man, and Fiore & Deblanc go to hell. Check out our review below and watch out for spoilers from this week’s episode.
1. I Want You To Finish The Song
The most apparent takeaway from this week’s episode is everything that happens with the Saint in Hell. Namely, that he’s in Hell. The flashbacks we’ve been seeing all season aren’t actual flashbacks, they’re visions of the cycle of events that led to the Saint’s family dying, which he has to live on repeat over and over again. For what it’s worth, the final part of the sequence where the Saint slaughters the bar housing the preacher who killed his horse is shot phenomenally. The Saint tells the bar’s singer to keep singing as he murders every other person in the saloon, leaving him for last. As we approach the end of the episode, these events keep getting repeated faster and faster until Fiore & DeBlanc waltz in, having taken a shuttle to hell from the bus stop from Breaking Bad. They even let you know that it’s a deliberate nod because the dog from the end of “Ozymandias” runs past as Fiore & Leblanc ride off to Hell. Maybe the same agency that gave Fiore & DeBlanc transport to hell is the same one that sent Walt to New Hampshire. They’re kind of the same place.
Fiore & DeBlanc tell the Saint they can let him out of this cycle if he can do a job for them. The Saint kills DeBlanc impatiently but Fiore’s able to land on the Saint’s safe word. “We want you to kill a preacher.” The Saint doesn’t smile, but he’s the happiest he can be at shooting down the type of folk who let his family die. Unfortunately for DeBlanc, we’ll have to wait to next episode to see if he’s okay. He can regenerate, yeah, but the Saint’s guns in the comics can kill anybody, mortal or immortal alike. But not everything here is exactly faithful to the comics, is it?
2. Saint of Cowboys?
I’m really torn between whether to call this murderous western guy The Saint or The Cowboy. The TV listings imply his name actually is The Cowboy and there’s nothing to suggest that God’s making him an actual saint like he did in the comic. He’s not a secret weapon being rolled out by Heaven. He’s a tortured soul enlisted by an angel and devil(what’s up DeBlanc!!!) to kill the man who’s possessed by their son. Unless a CGI God played by Seth Rogen shows up next week and calls The Cowboy The Saint, we’re going to have to stick with the objectively less cool name.
Oh yeah, and did I mention that DeBlanc & Fiore are Genesis’s parents? It’s not outright stated, and this is something the internet’s been on to for a while now, but since DeBlanc revealed that he’s from Hell this episode it’s much more likely that they’re the demon and angel that sired Genesis in the first place. It makes sense when you think about it. They’re both trying to keep everything about this on the DL from Heaven and Hell, they seem to have no contacts besides each other, and they’ve always acted like a bickering married couple. It’s a huge change from the comic, but I really enjoy it since it streamlines stuff for the sake of the show and gives Fiore & DeBlanc bigger roles than “henchmen who give some exposition and don’t come back forever”.
3. Miles Runs Out
The other big plot in this episode involved Tulip temporarily giving up on Jesse to go kill Carlos, the guy she’s been meaning to off all season. Since Cass is in her bedroom sucking up blood after he got evaporated in sunlight a few weeks ago. She leaves Emily to look after Cassidy and if you’re wondering why I finally started calling her by her name, it’s because she calls up Mayor Miles as a sacrifice to bring Cassidy back completely. To be fair, he was getting really clingy saying stuff like “I should stay over so your kids can see me wake up in your house in the morning.” He said that at a human dogfight, or a fight if you will, held in Quincannon’s office. I don’t feel bad he’s gone.
Continued belowNow, every living character on Preacher has a body count. Not only did Emily lock Miles in with Cassidy but Sheriff Root put a woman out of her misery by strangling her to death. To be fair, the woman was the Seraphi that Fiore & DeBlanc kept locked in their hotel bathroom but watching Root’s face as he strangled the life out of her was unsettling, to say the least. He’s obviously going through a lot with what Jesse did to Arseface and with Jesse still out on the loose I doubt the Sheriff’s in a good way right now.
4. The Gang Rides Again/strong>
Speaking of Jesse, he’s in a bit of a rough patch this week. On the run from a town that thinks he killed a child, a meat tycoon who wants his land, and in possession of a direct hotline to God, Jesse has a lot on his plate. Like the pancakes he gets from the kind hobos living under Annvilles bridge.
Jesse also finds himself making amends with his friends this episode, finding Cassidy post-Miles murder. Now, I’m not totally sure exactly why they end up forgiving each other (especially since Jesse’s the one who caused Cass to need Mile’s blood) but Joseph Gilgun and Dominic Cooper’s chemistry is so good I don’t even care. These guys feel like actual best friends on the show and you can kind of see why. Jesse’s had a weird life with his family and past career as a hitman or whatever with Tulip. Case’s had a just as weird life since he’s been alive since The Easter Rising. It’s hard to make friends when you’re these kinds of fucked up and I imagine that’s what attracts these two characters to each other. They also sure a mutual attraction to Tulip and I really don’t want to be there when Jesse finds out about Tulip and Cass’s seven minutes in heaven. Or purgatory, for Tulip.
Meanwhile, Jesse’s able to use his old Custer charm to win Tulip back, recounting an old time they got pancakes together on the road. Tulip’s won over, hearing the message Jesse left while having Carlos all tied up in Albuquerque. To be totally honest, they should’ve gone full speed with the Breaking Bad references and have replaced Carlos with Tuco. I can’t wait for them to do a Walking Dead easter egg if they ever get to Angeville and subsequently waste an entire season on that farm.
5. God’s Coming to Annville
And with that, we only have one last week of Preacher‘s first season. It’s been an exciting time and it really looks like everything’s lining up to bring us to what’s roughly the first issue of the comic. That sounds like a weird place to start, but the show runners have done a great job establishing the characters and struggles everyone’s undergoing that we can just hit the ground running when we hit Jesse’s quest. If we’re even still doing Jesse’s quest. Maybe we end up spending another season in Annville helping Emily learn how to raise her children in which case I just give up.
