The Most Recent Episode of PREACHER Delivered The Show's First True "Holy Sh*t" Moment
The pilot episode of AMC's Preacher was an excellent introduction to the characters and the world of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's seminal comic series, but I have to admit that the subsequent episodes have been pretty damn slow. It's certainly had its moments, and it's done a good job of capturing the essence of the characters (especially Tulip and Cassidy). The decision to keep the first season set in Annville instead of having the characters immediately hit the road like they do in the comics (at least I think that's how it goes down — I haven't revisited the comics in probably ten years) is understandable from a budgetary perspective and from the angle of trying to give an audience unfamiliar with the comic a little bit of solid ground to stand on before the story really gets crazy. But at the same time, it's largely slowed the pacing down to a crawl. I'm grateful the show has been renewed for a second season, because that should let showrunner Sam Catlin feel like he has some breathing room, and I'm really hoping they start to embrace more of the comic roots in season two.
(Spoilers ahead.)
The pace finally picked up in the show's fifth episode, "Sundowner," which was directed by famed cinematographer Guillermo Navarro (Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn, Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth, Pacific Rim). It opened with the explanation of Jesse Custer's powers (it's not God giving him these abilities, but Genesis, the offspring of a forbidden romance between an angel and a demon) and transitioned into a bloody, brutal, no holds barred fight that pitted Jesse, Fiore, and DeBlanc (the angels who want Genesis back) against a seraphim, with Cassidy getting in on the action as well. It recalled the insane violence we saw in the airplane fight scene from the pilot episode, which I'm sure many of you would choose as the show's first "holy sh*t" moment.
Maybe it's because I read the comics so I knew what sort of tone the show would have, but the violence never really surprised me too much. Thus far, the show has played out more or less the way I expected it to, albeit a little slower than I would have liked. But the end of "Sundowner" was the first time the series did something to make me audibly gasp and cover my mouth with my hand (I realize that's a cliched reaction, but it actually happened for real): and that was having Jesse send Eugene to hell.
We spend a decent chunk of time in this episode worried about Eugene as a couple of his peers suddenly start saying hi to him, sitting with him at lunch, and invite him to a dark tunnel after school. Eugene suspiciously goes along with them, waiting for a cruel prank to come at any moment...but it never does. It seemed to me like this revelation was what caused him to confront Jesse later in the episode and ask him to take back what he said to Tracy Loach's mother about forgiving him. Though he doesn't know about Genesis specifically, he does know something's going on with Jesse, and when calls him out for "cheating," Jesse gets furious with him. An argument erupts, and it ends with Jesse yelling "Go to hell, Eugene!" with "The Voice" (which forces people [and, as we discovered in this episode, angels] to do anything he says), and Eugene disappearing into thin air.
It's a horrifying moment centered not on shock and awe or crazy violence, but on character. Eugene has proven to be the most innocent, purely nice character on the show so far, and while it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to imagine Cassidy or even Tulip maybe holding their own in hell for a little while, thinking about poor Eugene being there is just awful. To make matters worse, Jesse knows deep down that Eugene is right, but he's let the power of Genesis go to his head.
What did you think of last week's episode?