Order yourself some plum cake, it’s time for a new Preacher y’all! With a lot of villains in play, is this the week our heroes come close to finding God? Ready your tape recorder and go pet a puppy, because here be spoilers for season two, episode eleven, “Backdoors.”
1. Welcome to Angelville: Hell on Earth
This horrifying torture inflicted on Jesse Custer as a child has haunted me since I read about it in the second collected volume, Until the End of the World. Seeing it on the show brought back some feelings for me. If it was unclear to you, not only is Jesse being lowered to the bottom of the swamp while locked in a coffin, air is being pumped down through a narrow rubber hose and a pump. He’s down there for days, weeks sometimes, going mad from hunger and oxygen deprivation, marinating in his own bodily fluids. It’s horrid.
So smash cutting from a flashback of that abattoir of trauma to the can he submerged the Saint in is also… oh damn. Jesse has some issues folks. Also, the Saint has escaped.
2. ADOLF F**KING HITLER
I’m pretty sure you’re allowed to drop an f-bomb on AMC, but few shows go for it. So when Hitler asserted his evil by shouting his name with a dash of profanity, you knew he was serious.
This story was sort of confusing, but it was fun to watch. The inmates of hell were subjected to an unexplained but fascinating test, to determine whether or not they were really evil. During that time, Eugene, Hitler, and a recurring no-goodnick evidently named Tyler take a trip to Hitler’s worst memory (foreshadowed earlier in the season). Hitler’s worst moment: not getting his cake.
It’s a bit more complicated than that, but still feel undercooked. Hitler handled his terrible day with more dignity and self-control than any of us could have boasted. He was mocked as a professional artist, so frightened he gave communist extremists their gun back, and then his girlfriend left him for an assertive guy who knows how to put together a good picnic. Oh, and then the restaurant ran out of plum cake and gave the last slice to a random Jewish guy. This is Hitler’s worst memory because it reminds him what it was like before he went evil.
I don’t fault Preacher for going there. “Going there” is what I want out of the show. But I’d hope that a reveal like that would carry some weight, and it doesn’t for me. It seems to be saying that Hitler was a decent guy until he had one bad day (like the Joker) and then sort of snapped, latching onto random ideologies that relate to his memory of his humanity (like hating Jews and Communists). I’ve liked Noah Taylor’s understated Hitler performance this season, but this development wasn’t that funny or insightful. It just sort of was.
3. Vancouver is great
I just got back from Vancouver, and I can confirm that it is great. Can’t speak to the meth though. Tulip and her new, totally-not-an-evil-spy friend Jenny go to a smelter to melt down the Saint’s weaponry, but you can’t destroy that which was forged in the frozen pits of Hell. They fail, and decide to mail it to Rio. This is one of those times that Preacher tries to have its plum cake and eat it too, but at least it was pretty funny. After Tulip being so disturbed by the very thought of the Saint, I don’t know if I buy her randomly mailing his weaponry to Rio, but damn if those packages weren’t funny. I give the gag a B-, mostly because I’m still miffed that Tulip has been sidelined for so many episodes
4. Maybe it is about the dog
It turns out God was right under our noses the whole time! The freaky man/dog thing from early in the season was an unforgettable image, but now Jesse thinks that maybe, just maybe, God has become a furry and is just sort of chilling. If it’s true, it’s amazing, and if it’s not true, it’s still a pretty great callback.
Herr Starr also makes his move, and plays all of Jesse’s prayers in an excellent scene that was quintessentually Preacher. Jesse’s rap sheet is amazing. He’s robbed everything from convenience stores to zoos, feels that Christian guilt that comes with pleasuring oneself, and truly cares for his daddy and for Tulip. The thought that gets put into what Jesse of different ages would pray for was funny, and touching. On point.
5. Abuse of power: Ass and prayers edition
Jesse’s use of the word this episode is pretty subdued until the end. He gets confronted with the question that’s at the core of the story: with all his masculine assertiveness, American exceptionalism, and actual divine powers, does Jesse deserve to be elevated above other mortals? He answers that with a poignantly hypocritical “shove it up your ass.” Instead of letting Starr goad him, Jesse forces him to actually insert all of the tapes of all of his prayers into his butt. That’s yet another thing that Starr didn’t want in his ass ending up going in his ass, but something about the gesture felt like a good old fashioned American middle finger. It’s also a reminder that, oh yeah, this is a show based on a Garth Ennis comic. What was the name of this episode again? Oh, I get it now!
