SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES PREMIERE OF PREACHER FOLLOW!
By: Tyler Miller
Preacher is a series that I never heard of until word got out that it was being made into a tv show. Even after that I didn’t really follow any news about it until we got closer to the series premiere. With all the buzz surrounding it I decided I’d go ahead and watch the show. Sure I have not a single clue about anything in the show outside of the basic premise, but I figured why not jump on and see what the show is all about. After seeing the pilot I can say that deciding to watch Preacher was one of the best choices I’ve made.
Preacher starts off in outer space, the last place you would expect a show titled “Preacher” to start. Something is flying through space and it lands in Africa, right outside of a church where service is going on. It bursts in and enters the preacher for a moment before causing his body to explode all over everyone and heading elsewhere. If you weren’t sure how crazy this show would be, this should give you a good idea.
We then get a quick flashback of our main character Jesse Custer talking to his father before waking up in present day Anneville, Texas. It’s clear that Jesse is something of a worn down man that has a dark past due to his tattoos, scars, and bottles of beer lying around his room. He heads off to church for the day but totally fumbles his way through the sermon since he forgot some of his notes at home. Thankfully the organist Emily is there to cut things short and get everyone out of there before Jesse can embarrass himself some more.
Outside the whole town is enjoying itself while Jesse listens to one of his parishioners complain about his mother. A kid comes over with a beer for Jesse and asks him to hurt his father Donny because he’s been abusing him and his mother Betsy. Jesse says he’ll help somehow since he doesn’t want to hurt Donny himself because he knows he’ll hurt him bad and he’s trying to be a good person. Later that night he even tells the town sheriff about the situation to try and have him take care of it, but the sheriff will only hear a formal complaint from the Betsy. The sheriff also tells Jesse that his son Eugene wants to talk to him at some point, so to come by later.
Having met Jesse it’s now time to meet our next big player, and his name is Cassidy. We meet him on a plane with a bunch of other people as they drink and tell jokes to each other. The thing is, Cassidy is a vampire and the people on the plane are hunting him down, something that’s unknown to him. He figures it out pretty fast though when he goes to the bathroom and finds a bible with a bunch of crazy looking writing in it. When he comes back out he kills them all in spectacular fashion using axes, golf clubs, trays, and wine bottles. It’s absolutely insane. To top it all off, he fills an empty bottle with the blood of one of his victims and then proceeds to jump out the plane without a parachute because he’s just that crazy. Oh and he’s a vampire so there’s that too. Getting more of an idea as to how crazy this show is? He ends up landing in Anneville with his guts all out of his body, but he’s still alive since he’s a vampire and all. Lucky for him, there’s a nice looking cow that comes by and serves as lunch for him.
Things then jump back to the church in Africa where two guys drive up and go inside the church to investigate what happened. These guys are kind of weird in their mannerisms, making me think that they’re not normal people. They appear again later on in Russia where a similar incident happened to a preacher there, showing that they’re tracking down whatever this thing is that’s possessing preachers and then blowing them up from the inside.
Back in Anneville, Jesse goes to the house of a man named Walter to check on him. When he’s there he realizes that someone is in the shower and recognizes some of their clothes, causing him to rush out as fast as he can. We’re introduced to this mystery person through a flashback to the events of the day before, and they’re even crazier than the events of Cassidy’s introduction. Meet Tulip, a woman that is violent as hell and even more insanely awesome than Cassidy. She’s dealing with a dead guy in her car and another guy that’s trying to kill her in the backseat while she’s driving through a cornfield. The fight ends up going her way though when she pulls a Mike Tyson and bites his ear off, giving her the opportunity to pull the car over and kill him by shoving a stalk of corn in his mouth.
She takes back a map that he took from her only to see a little boy and girl watched the whole thing go down. More people are on the way though to kill her, so she does some arts and crafts with the kids and makes a goddamn bazooka out of tin cans, duct tape, and metal toy army soldiers. She then has the kids hide in the basement while she kills everyone that comes after her. After everyone’s dead they come outside and see the carnage that Tulip left behind, causing the little girl to admire Tulip in a way that any kid that just met their idol would.
Back in the present day, Jesse goes to talk to Betsy at her job about the abuse she’s suffering from her husband. He wants her to go to the sheriff about it but she doesn’t want to because she actually likes it in a weird, sexual way. This throws Jesse off since he wasn’t expecting that at all, so he leaves. Later that night he finds Tulip and the two of them talk with each other. Tulip’s come back to Anneville because she has a job that she wants him to help with, but Jesse is having no part of it since he doesn’t want to go back to who he was in the past so he leaves her as well and heads over to the sheriff’s house. He gets there and goes to talk to his son Eugene who’s horribly disfigured, causing him to have the name Arseface (though they haven’t called him that on the show yet). He just wants some reassurance that God is out there and will forgive him for what he’s done in the past, and Jesse promises him the God will forgive him.
Jesse then goes to a bar where he meets Cassidy and barely understands him due to his strong accent and fast speaking ways. Cassidy heads off to the bathroom and then Donny comes in with some of his buddies, ready for a drink after a long day of Civil War reenactments. He’s pissed at Jesse though for talking to Betsy about how he abuses her and threatens to hit his son because he knows his son told Jesse. This is what sets Jesse off, causing him to threaten to hurt Donny pretty bad and make him hear a high pitched sound. Donny then goes to hit Jesse, but Jesse knocks him down with ease and then proceeds to kick the rest of his entourage’s ass with ease and a smile.
Cassidy even helps out a bit, kicking a chair into one of the guys before he snuck up on Jesse. The sheriff comes in to stop the fight, but Jesse still has one thing left do. What’s that last thing? Oh just snapping Donny’s arm and making his bone pop out. There’s the real Jesse! This lands both Cassidy and Jesse in jail where they formally introduce theirselves. While in there, Jesse decides that he’s done being a preacher. He’s been trying to help and do good, but he just can’t so he’s done. He gets bailed out though and is taken to the church by Emily. Before he goes in the church he tells her that he’s quitting and is going to the make the announcement in church, causing her to get upset and break her kid’s tablet.
He goes in the church and tells God that he’s going to pray one more time, and if he doesn’t get an immediate answer he’s done. So he prays for forgiveness and doesn’t get an answer. What he does get though is the alien thing from earlier to walk up in the church and possess him. We get another flashback of Jesse talking to his father before he died and promising to be a good person because here are too many bad people in the world. He then wakes up to see Emily at his bedside, finding out that three days have past and he’s done some things in the past few days that he doesn’t even remember. The two of them head over to the church so he can make his announcement when he comes across the guy with mommy issues and tells him to be strong and open his heart to his mother. This guy then repeats everything that Jesse says over and over as he runs off to go just that. He goes on a long journey to his mother and finally tells her how he feels, only to then literally cut his heart out to give to her. It’s at this moment that we realize the alien thing has given Jesse the power of persuasion, except whatever he says is taken literally.
The church service is going on and Jesse is at the podium getting ready to make his announcement when he changes his mind and decides to be the best preacher that he can be. Down the road from the church we see the two weird guys that were in Russia and Africa getting out their car and heading towards the church, on the hunt for Jesse and the alien possessing him.
Other thoughts:
- Tom Cruise being possessed and killed by the alien was a funny little side joke that I’m very glad was made. What are the odds that the leader of the church of Scientology would be killed by the very being he believes in?
- The action scenes in this episode were absolute standouts. They were the type of thing I would’ve expected to see in a Hollywood movie, so it was surprising how good they were. If we get more action scenes like these though, I’ll be more than pleased.
- Cassidy and Tulip are already some of my favorite characters on any TV show that I’ve seen, and we’re only just meeting them. They’re both just the right amount of crazy and badass to make them great characters and I can’t wait to learn some more about them.
- The humor was something that I wasn’t expecting at all from the show. It was all little things like the kids looking in awe at Tulip’s massacre or the way that Jesse looked every time the guy with mommy issues complained to him that were just hilarious. Just like with the action, if we’re getting more humorous little touches like this I’m more than happy.
Preacher has started off on the right foot, establishing itself as a show that’s crazy and out there where anything can happen, but also grounded in a world that’s still normal and the one we live in. Everything about this first episode was just great, with the characters, the action, and the way everything fit together. We may not have that much of an idea as to what the general plot is for the show, but this first episode has done enough to just get me on board and figure things out as the show goes on. It’s a shame we have to wait two weeks to continue the adventures of Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy. It’s sure to be more than worth the wait though.
TheComfySpot 