‘Things got testy, then things got rough’
We open with a classic horror movie image: a woman running through a field at night, fleeing from men with guns. The scene is shot with a sense of urgency, and eventually it looks like she’s going to be caught and killed. But because this is Preacher, nothing is quite as it seems. It turns out that this is all part of a game Quincannon’s men play from time to time, chasing the women of the whorehouse with paintball guns in a sort of low-stakes Most Dangerous Game. And this time, Lacey, the woman we’ve been following, falls into a hole and dies.
Over in the church, Cassidy tries to convince Jesse of the threat posed by the angels – and whoever else might come after the power the preacher now contains. But the situation, which now involves a bizarre double (quadruple?) murder, angels, and some shadow conspiracy stuff, is too complicated, and it goes in one of Jesse’s ears and out the other. “Road trip, you’ve got to know that’s where this is headed,” Cassidy pleads, which also serves as a wink at the audience. (Season two?) But Jesse is having none of it – he has other plans.
Like Cassidy, the angels are getting nowhere fast. They try to explain their plan to the vampire (singing the lullaby to get the entity inside Jesse back into its “domicile”), but he just tries to scam drugs out of them by pretending to be the middleman between Heaven and Jesse. This is a problem, since it turns out the angels are on Earth without permission from Heaven. A phone sits on their nightstand, a direct line to Heaven, ready to contact the afterlife when they decide to finally call for backup.
‘We grow or we die’
Quincannon finally comes into his own a bit as a character in this episode – and he continues to be kind of a dick. First, he gives a brief, unhelpful eulogy for Lacey that consists in telling the men to “watch your roughhousing” and essentially blaming Lacey for not paying attention to where she was standing. Then, he literally pisses on an offer from a company trying to muscle in on his territory, much to the shock of Niles, the mayor and representative of the deal.
It’s a tough night for Niles overall. He babysits for Emily, the woman who helps Jesse run the church, in the hopes that it will maybe get him some action. (I haven’t mentioned Emily yet in these reviews because she doesn’t really do anything, and honestly … that doesn’t really change here.) The mayor even cleans the house in his attempt to put the moves on the put-upon widow, but Emily is clearly in love with Jesse, which might make it difficult for her to let anyone else into her life. A shot early in the episode tries to establish this connection, maybe as a threat to Jesse’s relationship with Tulip, but it’s going nowhere fast.
Speaking of Tulip, she doesn’t get much to do in this episode – not even a scene with Jesse – other than steam at the conditions that led to Lacey falling into a “bottomless shit pit”. Frustrated with the injustice of a woman’s senseless death, she goes upstairs to beat up the idiotic and at least partially responsible Clive, only to mistake Cassidy for the other goon and knock him out of the whorehouse window on to the curb. (He’s blowing the money the angels gave him on women and controlled substances.) Tulip rushes Cassidy to the hospital, even praying to God on the way, before stumbling on him covered in empty bags of blood.
‘Some people just can’t be saved’
Several flashbacks throughout the episode give us a bit more (mostly unnecessary) insight into Jesse’s relationship with his father, including the boy preparing the church and getting his ass beat by his father. These blasts from the past end in a confrontation between Jesse’s father and Odin Quincannon, the most godless man in Texas.
The son, however, appears to have at least something of a working relationship with the tycoon, working on a model reconstruction of the Alamo with him. Jesse’s plan, it turns out, is to get Quincannon back into the church, to set an example. In another climactic sermon, Jesse blames the sorry state of the world on its people, and their lack of righteousness. Not love, not children, not even the TV will serve as a stand-in for the faith that Jesse possesses. It’s the most compelling he’s ever been from the pulpit, because this time, he actually has some power.
“Serve God,” Jesse commands, and Quincannon appears ready to obey. It’s a public display of authority calling attention to the preacher’s mysterious abilities in a way that will almost certainly bring catastrophe down on the town. But for now, Jesse is finally starting to take action. And other people will start to take notice: the angels’ phone is ringing.
Notes from the nave
Before he takes the meeting with the mayor, Quincannon is playing Qbert.
Tulip is sidelined a bit this week, but we do finally learn why she spends so much time at the whorehouse – her mother worked there.
Spoiler warning for the comics: Cassidy asking Tulip to kiss him is not going to end well for anyone.
“I don’t talk how my meat gets made, you don’t talk your magic man in the sky.”
During the final church scene, there’s a distinct music sting which you might recognize as the Heisenberg cue from Breaking Bad. (Dave Porter, the composer for Breaking Bad, does the music for Preacher as well.)
Scripture of the week
Our verse this week is Proverbs 14:3, read at the impromptu funeral for Lacey at the whorehouse:
“In the mouth of the foolish is a rod for his back, But the lips of the wise will protect them.”
Worst job in Texas
Whoever has to clean up the trail of blood left by a wounded Cassidy.
Kill count
One. RIP Lacey, killed by obnoxious men, bad construction habits and poor balance.
