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"Preacher": Hell Hath No Fury Like The Saint Of Killers

By Brian Richards | Preacher | July 25, 2016 |

By Brian Richards | Preacher | July 25, 2016 |


THE STORY SO FAR:

JESSE: Still in the custody of Sheriff Root, who is driving him to the nearest jail cell and demanding to know where Eugene is. Jesse simply tells him that he sent Eugene to Hell, which only results in Sheriff Root reminding him that child-killers aren’t given the warmest of receptions by both guards and convicts. Cue Jesse breaking free from his handcuffs, jumping out of the police car, and immediately making a run for it. After breaking into Fiore and DeBlanc’s room and taking their phone (their only means of communicating with Heaven), he makes his way over to the O’Hare house and sees Cassidy, still in recovery from his encounter with direct sunlight and surrounded by dead bodies, and makes it clear to him that their friendship remains alive and well despite his being a vampire, and after leaving a message on Tulip’s voicemail telling her how much she means to him and that he really does love her until the end of the world, the two of them are soon disposing of bodies and digging up Fiore and DeBlanc’s bodies in order to use their hands to activate the phone.

TULIP: Still finding and adopting animals, from hamsters to dogs, and feeding them to Cassidy to help him recover after realizing that stolen blood from hospitals aren’t doing the trick. After informing Emily of what she’s been doing and that she give no fucks whatsoever about what Jesse has been up to, she makes her exit to go kill a man in Albuquerque. That man is none other than Carlos himself, and Carlos is played by Desmin Borges (Edgar from You’re The Worst), and all that does is make me go from Kermit-flailing to seeing him onscreen to yelling at Tulip to put that damn meat tenderizer down and leave Edgar alone. Bad enough that she’s leading innocent bloodhounds to their deaths, and now this?!

CASSIDY: Feeding off all the animals that Tulip has provided for him hasn’t done nearly enough, which is where feeding off of humans becomes necessary. After he gets better and mends fences with Jesse, the two of them go ahead with the digging up of angel hands in order to contact Heaven.

EMILY: Finds out from Tulip that Cassidy is a vampire in need of blood so he can get better and actually sees him in the (badly-burned and barely even there) flesh while opening up his bedroom door and leaving him a hamster to eat. After a phone call from Mayor Miles in which he acts even weirder and more possessive than usual, followed by a relaxing viewing of Psycho, Emily calls Mayor Miles over and tells him that she desperately needs his help. Mayor Miles comes running over to act as Emily’s Knight In Shining Khakis, only to find himself locked up by Emily in a room with Cassidy, who doesn’t hesitate in the slightest to start eating.

Don’t bother asking why Emily thought that this was anything resembling a good idea or why she thought that this was the best way for her to kick Mayor Miles to the curb or how this is anything other than a completely out of character moment that we’re witnessing, because I got nothing.

SHERIFF ROOT: Still on the hunt for Jesse and makes his way over to Fiore and DeBlanc’s hotel room for assistance, only to find them gone, a whole bunch of blood splatter on the walls, and Evil Samantha Bee with no arms or legs sitting in a bathtub filled with her blood. As he calls for an ambulance, ESB repeatedly tells him, “Kill me.” Sheriff Root refuses her request and tells her that she’ll be getting help soon, only to get the same response from ESB. Sheriff Root, still bearing many a cross from his son being gone and everything that’s happened between the two of them even before he disappeared, finally agrees and strangles her to death with both hands while bursting into tears. He fails to see Evil Samantha Bee as she silently regenerates with a new and improved body behind him as she disappears and resumes her own hunt for Fiore and DeBlanc.

FIORE & DEBLANC: The two of them meet up with another angel who appears to be on the run from Heaven, and who is able to provide them with transportation to Hell. Despite her attempt at getting twenty minutes of quality time with Fiore as payment for her services, DeBlanc refuses to let that happen (for reasons. Possibly ambiguously gay reasons) and the two of them are provided with safe passage to Hell, with the rendezvous point looking awfully familiar to those who are fans of AMC’s earlier output.

FLASHBACK: Back in 1881, The Cowboy (a.k.a. The Artist Not Yet Known As The Saint Of Killers) declares all-out war on the town of Ratwater after failing to save his wife and daughter. Not only does he kill MacReady for preventing him from saving them in the first place, he pretty much unloads his revolvers on every single person who is present, from the polite little boy who offers him a seat, to the singer and piano player who provides him with some very nice music to listen to as he carries out his slaughter. And as The Cowboy waits for the incoming storm to come and wipe out the entire town with him in it…

…we see The Cowboy’s entire story start back up from the very beginning, to when his wife tended to their daughter and sent him to go get the medicine needed to help her get better. And as we see everything that happened to The Cowboy since his first appearance, we see it happening over and over and over again and as it starts playing out faster and faster and faster and faster…

…we see Fiore and DeBlanc make their entrance and walk on over to greet The Cowboy and this is where the lettering in white 48-point font combined with the ridiculously loud horror-movie musical sting announces to us that this is HELL, and what we’ve been seeing is what The Cowboy experiences constantly and repeatedly without fail. The Not-Men In Black tell The Cowboy that they have a job for him. When they refuse to tell him what it is, Cowboy responds with a bullet to DeBlanc’s face and Fiore then tells him that they want him to kill a preacher. And The Cowboy, who has made his hatred for all things God and religion crystal-clear before carrying out the slaughter that resulted in his damnation, seems more than willing to accept.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how The Cowboy became the one and only Saint Of Killers. (Granted, his origin story in this episode, or at least how he becomes the Saint of Killers, his massacre at Ratwater, and how he’s activated to carry out his missions differs greatly from the comics version of his origin, but…it’s late, and I’m tired, and I’ve already repeated myself more than enough regarding the differences between the comics and the television series, and this was done exceptionally well enough that I could shrug it off)

ODIN QUINCANNON’S WEEKLY MOMENT OF WEIRDNESS: Besides the fact that he likes to stand on his desk and watch two of his employees fight and beat the shit out of each other in his office while surrounded by their cheering co-workers, which reminded me a little too much of this man here…

via GIPHY

…he really didn’t do much in this episode, other than chat with Donnie (whose hearing is still damn near nonexistent) about Jesse making a fool of himself with his plans to call God forth to his church and denounce Him in front of everyone.

TO SUM IT ALL UP: A pretty decent episode overall, setting up plenty of things to go down in next week’s season finale: The Saint Of Killers going after Jesse, the return of Evil Samantha Bee, Carlos at the mercy of Tulip, Jesse and Cassidy trying to phone Heaven, and finding out just how serious Jesse really is about telling God to come on down so that the two of them can have a conversation before the people of Annville. Will all of this lead to a season finale worth watching that will make us want to see what happens next in Season 2?

We’ll just have to wait until next week to find out.