SPOILERS FOR SEASON 1, EPISODE 7 FOLLOW!
By: Tyler Miller
At this point, I don’t know why I’m surprised that Preacher reverted back to a slow episode where not much happened after last week’s amazing episode. This week we got another episode where not much happened, but it wasn’t a completely bad episode.
Things picked up right where last week’s episode left us. Jesse’s sent Eugene to hell and he totally can’t believe he did it. He takes a moment to look at where Eugene was standing before going opening the church to everyone, but it’s revealed that Cassidy saw the entire thing play out from the floor above him. The church service goes well though and everyone walks out pleased with the way that things went. It’s clear though that Jesse is a bit off though as a result of what happened between him and Eugene.
After getting a short scene of Quincannon in his office listening to cows get slaughtered, we get the first of many flashbacks to Jesse’s childhood. These flashbacks serve the purpose of fleshing out his childhood relationship with Tulip, showing why they have/had such a strong bond in the present day. We first see the two of them in trouble at school for getting into a fight with some bullies. Jesse’s dad talks to the principal and then takes the two of them back home, allowing Tulip to live with them because she has no one to take care of her. As time goes on though, Jesse’s father begins to not want Tulip to stay with them because her family is only trouble, so he contacts child services and has her taken away. This only results in Jesse praying for his father to be killed, which ends up happening that same night right in front of him. We’ve seen his death in previous flashbacks earlier in the series.
Back in the present day, we catch Tulip running down the street trying to intercept these kids that stole some pants from an old friend of hers named Walter. She gets them and then returns them to Walter who’s passed out on his stoop while nearby townspeople look on with disapproval. Over at the church, Jesse is busy with everything going on there when Cassidy tries to talk to him about what happened with Eugene. Jesse seems totally unfazed by what happened though, and goes on to do bible study. Tulip then comes in and she talks with Cassidy, leading to the two of them essentially competing over who knows more about Jesse than the other. Their competition eventually leads to Tulip figuring out that Cassidy never really revealed to Jesse that he’s a vampire, so she tells him that he should do it.
As Jesse is watching a performance rehearsal with Emily, Quincannon comes in to talk with him. He starts off by talking about how he’s finished his model and then leads into how he has a deed for the land that Jesse’s church is on. Jesse is confused by this since Quincannon agreed to serve God when he came to church, but Quincannon tells him that he’s not a Christian man, so Jesse never really won in their deal. Jesse refuses though, causing Quincannon to threaten him and say that he’ll be back for the land.
Jesse then shares a meal with Cassidy, Emily, Jesse, and Tulip at the church and it’s incredibly awkward. Emily and Cassidy know that things are weird with Jesse due to his interaction with Eugene, but Tulip has no idea what his issue is. This leads to her having a mini outburst, demanding to know just what the hell is going on. Things get interrupted though when the sheriff comes in and asks Jesse if he’s seen Eugene. The oven catches fire and distracts everyone for a moment, but after they take care of it, Jesse says that he never saw Eugene before church. Emily corrects him and says that he did, but then lies and said that she saw him leave afterwards.
We then get the best moment of the episode. Jesse walks the sheriff out of the church and Cassidy meets him outside with a fire extinguisher to the face. The two of them finally talk about what happened with Eugene and Cassidy is pissed that Jesse feels no kind of remorse about what happened. Jesse explains that Eugene wasn’t an innocent kind and we finally learn what happened to cause Tracy to be bed ridden and why Eugene tried to kill himself. It turns out that Eugene had feelings for her, and when he confessed them, she rejected him. His response was to try and kill her with a shotgun, but he failed and only rarely injured her. He then tried to kill himself, but failed that as well and ended up with an asshole for a face. For all of this, Jesse doesn’t feel bad about sending Eugene to Hell and feels that it’s part of God’s plan for him to stand on the side and watch him burn.
Cassidy then goes on about how he’s not an innocent person for a number of reasons before tossing the fire extinguisher over to Jesse. He then removes his shirt and steps into the sun, causing himself to catch fire and be revealed as a vampire to Jesse. Jesse simply returns inside the church where Tulip and Emily both wonder what happened to Cassidy. Tulip figures it out though and berates him for turning his back on Cassidy just because he didn’t fit his perfect image. Jesse then berates Tulip about herself and her family, causing her to get pissed and leave. With only himself and Emily left in the building, Emily tries to make him feel good by saying she’s believed in him ever since he’s returned. He responds by saying that she’s stupid for doing so, causing her to leave as well.
A couple hours later, we see Jesse starting to actually have a conscience and start to regret what he did, as he breaks the floor panels of the church where Eugene was when he got sent to Hell and uses his powers to try and tell him to come back. Of course it doesn’t work at all. At the sam time, outside the church is Quincannon and a lot of his men coming to take down Jesse’s church and take over the land.
Other thoughts:
- Jesse was just a giant dick in this episode. Everything he did to everybody was just wrong and selfish. I’m starting to think that Cassidy is right about Genesis messing with his head because he’s changed into a character that’s really just in it for himself. He can tell himself over and over that it’s just God’s plan, but what he’s really acting out is his own plan as he tries to atone for whatever sins he may have and fulfill his promise to his father in whatever way he thinks will be fine. Hopefully his change in attitude at the end of the episode is a sign that this was just a phase and he’s got some common sense again.
- The scene between Cassidy and Jesse outside the church was a pretty good one. Seeing Cassidy plead with Jesse to try and give a damn about what’s been going on was great as Cassidy is someone who really cares about Jesse and the people of the town although he’s a pretty bad guy himself. The fire effects could’ve been a bit better, but you can’t have everything right?
- Did Jesse’s powers just wear off on Quincannon or what? Because he seemed to be a totally different person a few episodes back, but now he’s back to the way he was before. A scheming, murderous guy that listens to cows get slaughtered in his free time.
- What ever happened to the whole mayor killing the Green Acres people? That story popped up at the end of last week’s episode, but just totally disappeared this week. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to come back, but I just expected it to.
This wasn’t a completely bad episode of Preacher, it was simply good. The scene where Cassidy comes clean to Jesse and the flashbacks establishing Tulip’s relationship with Jesse were good enough to outweigh the sense that nothing really happened this week, on top of Jesse’s behavior. Luckily it looks like we won’t have to go weeks before we get another episode that ramps things up. We’re getting close to the end of the season, so now isn’t the time to bring things back to a crawl. It’s time to start going big so that the season can end with a bang and have people excited for season two.
TheComfySpot 