SPOILERS FOR SEASON 1, EPISODE 4 FOLLOW!
By: Tyler Miller
Last night Preacher delivered a good episode that brought some attention to the main bad guy in the town, Odin Quincannon after not getting much from him these past few episodes. Unfortunately, the episode was also bogged down a bit by feeling like it wasn’t going anywhere.
Things started in a creepy, horror movie style with one of the women from the local brothel running through the town as she’s being hunted by someone. She eventually gets cornered by the person chasing after her turns out to be a QM&P employee, and they’re just playing a real messed up version of paintball. After he shoots her though, she falls into a small hole in the ground and dies (whoops). The next morning, all of the men and women that were involved in the game and Tulip are at the hole where the girl (Lacey) died, and they watch as the sheriff and some other officers help get the body out of the hole. QM&P owner Odin Quincannon addresses the situation briefly by simply saying that everyone needs to be careful when they’re playing, causing Tulip to get upset (and rightfully so).
As for Jesse, we catch up with him after he has a flashback to when he prepared the church for his father’s service as a child. He goes to get what he needs for the day as Cassidy tries to tell Jesse about the guys from Heaven that want his power. Jesse isn’t buying anything that he’s saying though and just goes about his day. Jesse heads over to Emily’s house to talk to her about doing a raffle to attract more people to the church so they can have a full house. He manages to convince her to get a nice flat screen TV for the raffle and then heads on out to continue doing what he can to fill the church up on Sunday. We’re then treated to another flashback to Jesse as a child, except this time he’s caught smoking by his dad with Tulip and some other kids. His dad pulls him to the side and beats him with a belt in front of the kids to serve as an example for them.
After Jesse left him, Cassidy went to the guys from Heaven and discovers that they’re really angels. He proceeds to talk to them about their plan to try and get Jesse so they can retrieve what’s inside of him, and takes some money from them before heading out so that he can continue “helping” them. What does he do with this money? He proceeds to buy lots of drugs and a hooker from the brothel. Vampires gotta have some kind of fun to right?
The angels are nervous though and want to call someone up in Heaven for help with their trusty Heaven phone, but they can’t do this because they technically don’t even have permission to be on Earth. So they’re screwed and stuck having to try and figure this problem out theirselves.
Over at Quincannon’s office is the mayor having a nice little chat with him. As they’re talking, the Green Acre company comes up because the mayor has been given an offer from them that just so happens to overlap with Quincannon’s territory. Being the asshole that he is, Quincannon literally pisses all over the brochure from the Green Acre company that’s still in the mayor’s briefcase, because saying no is far too simple and nice for him to do. Later that night, the mayor babysits for Emily’s kids while she goes to get the TV for the church raffle. When she returns home, the two of them have some drinks and talk some before they end up going to her room for a little late night fun.
On the other side of town we have all the QM&P guys at the brothel with the women and Tulip, where they’re holding a memorial service of sorts for Lacey. It’s pretty pathetic though as it highlights how unimportant Lacey was to everyone there. Well everyone except for Tulip who gets upset about her death again and tells off Clive for causing her death. After everyone adjourns, Tulip has a seat and starts to read a magazine when she hears two people in a room above her having sex. She assumes it’s Clive and goes up there and proceeds to beat him until he falls out of the window and onto a car. The things is, it was actually Cassidy she attacked, not Clive. So she ends up rushing him to the hospital while he has a shard of glass sticking out of his neck. He even manages to have her kiss him, something that makes him very happy.
Once they get to the hospital, Tulip tries to get him to see a doctor ASAP, but the people at the hospital aren’t cooperating and require her to fill out some paperwork. As this happens, Cassidy walks off to where the hospital has all their blood stored and drinks some when Tulip comes and finds him.
We get another flashback of Jesse as a child, and this time he goes with his dad to Quincannon’s office in the middle of the night so that his dad can try and preach to Quincannon. Things don’t go well though, so the two of them end up leaving. As they leave though, Jesse sees something inside the office that noticeably disturbs him. Back in the present day, Jesse is at Quincannon’s office helping him put together a diorama and trying to convince him to come to church on Sunday and be a Christian. After offering his father’s land if he fails to convert him, Quincannon agrees to attend the service.
So then we finally arrive to Sunday service with preacher Jesse, and he essentially tells the town that they’re the reason to blame for everything in the world going to shit. He’s going to help them come back to God though and he’s going to start with Quincannon. The big guy refuses though and starts walking out when Jesse continues asking him to serve God. After multiple failed attempts, Jesse finally uses his power on Quincannon and he agrees to serve God. Having successfully converted the worst person in the town in front of everyone, all the other attendees are shocked and happy with Jesse’s work.
Back in their motel room, the angels are just sitting around waiting for Cassidy when the phone rings. They answer the phone believing it to be the motel phone, but when the phone rings again they realize it’s their Heaven phone ringing. The jig’s up guys!
Other thoughts:
- Cassidy mentioning to Jesse that they’ll have to go on a road trip was a nice little bit of foreshadowing for what’s to come in the future, since the comic starts off with our core trio of Jesse, Cassidy, and Tulip going on a road trip.
- Although it may appear that Quincannon’s gone and changed entirely since Jesse used his power on him, I feel like things may go badly with Jesse’s command to serve God. Quincannon is a messed up guy, so telling him to serve God could cause him to do the things that he believes God wants him to do, but isn’t what Jesse believes God wants him to do. Or he could believe in a totally different type of God and end up doing what that one wants. We’ll just have to wait and see though.
- I wonder who’s on the other line of the Heaven phone. Is it God? I bet it’s God. That’ll explain why the angels are so afraid to have to answer the phone at the end of the episode.
This was a pretty interesting episode of Preacher. We got a much better look into the type of person that Quincannon is after only getting fleeting glimpses at him in previous episodes, and got to understand the angels a bit more as well. At the same time though, it felt as if things weren’t really going anywhere for most of the episode. For me, I feel like that’s a result of the show trying to focus on the townspeople as well as our core trio, and unfortunately the majority of the townspeople aren’t nearly as interesting as our main three characters, so things drag when they’re the focus. Things changed though at the end with Quincannon’s conversion, but the rest of the episodes this season need to feel like they’re moving forward throughout the entirety of the episodes and not just the end of them. Whether that’s by making the townspeople more interesting or focusing less on them and more on Jesse, Cassidy, and Tulip, as long as things improve on the show.
TheComfySpot 