Odin Quincannon Makes a Considerable Contribution to the Weirdness of This Week's 'Preacher'

By Brian Richards | Preacher | June 27, 2016 |

By Brian Richards | Preacher | June 27, 2016 |

The Story So Far:

THE COWBOY (a.k.a. The Saint Of Killers who won’t be referred to as such until the end of the season, I’m guessing) — The best and most fascinating part of the episode, in which the story takes a pretty big leap forward and we can’t wait to see what happens next, even though we know that whatever happens next is going to end SO very badly. All because The Cowboy, despite getting his hands on the medicine his daughter greatly needs and ignoring the horrible jokes/attempts at drunken conversation by McCready, failed to heed the wise words of one Bunk Moreland: “There you go giving a fuck when it’s not your turn to give a fuck.” The Cowboy’s attempt to stop another family from being raped, tortured, and murdered in the town of Ratwater only result in him getting beaten up by McCready and his men, his horse being shot to death (please, no more horses getting shot. The last thing we all need or want is for PETA to lose its shit and get Preacher canceled before Season 2 like Luck), and his own wife and daughter dying as a result of him not getting to them in time. Cue The Cowboy breaking out all of his guns and getting ready to use every last one of them like his name is William Munny.

JESSE — You would think that Jesse, being the protagonist of this story and who has been blessed/cursed with the ability to make anyone do anything and everything that he commands, would be doing far more interesting things onscreen than spending nearly an hour listening to the very uninteresting problems of many an uninteresting extra in Annville and using The Word to give them advice. Sadly, you’d be mistaken and if you left the room during Jesse’s scenes to go and make many a grilled-cheese sandwich to tide you over until Jane The Virgin finally comes back, no one would blame you. Besides going with Arseface to the home of Tracy Loach (the comatose girl who Jesse made open her eyes) and convincing her mother to stop trying to beat up on Arseface as if his name is Joffrey Baratheon and forgive him for whatever he did to make her so upset and hateful towards him (via The Word, of course), followed by him being confronted by Fiore and DeBlanc at the end of the episode about them getting Genesis out of his body, we’re not really given much reason to stay glued to our seats and care about what happens next.

TULIP — Like many of us still watching, Tulip seems just as disappointed as we are that Jesse doesn’t want to join her to get this road trip far, far, FAR away from Annville started, and decides to give her attention and her affection (along with some stolen drugs from the local pharmacy) to someone who wants it: Cassidy. The look on her face during their backseat sex is clearly not one of pleasure, but more of someone who is tired of waiting around to get what she really wants and is willing to put up with what Cassidy (and the town of Annville) has to offer in order to pass the time and keep herself occupied. You know, like many of us who are still watching.

CASSIDY — Besides dealing with a lot less shock and disbelief on Tulip’s part about the fact that he’s really a vampire and all that it entails, he also makes it very clear how much he’d like more kissage between the two of them that doesn’t involve falling out of windows and massive bleeding from the neck. And other than his aforementioned backseat sex with her, he doesn’t get to do much this hour. Which is exactly how we want this hard-drinking, hard-living, fun-loving vampire who is being hunted by a mysterious organization hell-bent on his destruction to be treated on the show.

ARSEFACE & HIS DAD — We still don’t know what it is that Arseface did to Tracy to make her mother hate him so or what drove him to attempted suicide (something tells me that losing Kurt Cobain no longer has anything to do with it), but we do see how much tension there is between him and Sheriff Root when he finally lets his anger boil over and makes it clear that things would be easier if he’d do like the mysterious graffiti in his room left by unknown intruders says and finish himself off. The attempts to make Sheriff Root a lot more three-dimensional than the comics version who beat up on his son and drunkenly shoots at the sky while yelling about “MARTIAN NI**ERS” (and you can tell W. Earl Brown is doing his best to make that happen, even without saying a word), but he’s not being given enough material of substance to make that happen.

DONNIE & BETSY - Considering how powerless he feels about what’s happening (Jesse making him put his own gun in his mouth, Betsy threatening to fuck Russell from Accounting if he doesn’t get out of bed and go to work, Odin Quincannon agreeing to meet with the Green Acres Group for a possible partnership instead of letting him kick their asses like he wants to) and Betsy comforting him to let him know that he’ll get his revenge and strike at Jesse when the time is right, something tells me that these two will end up as the Macbeth and Lady Macbeth of the show, and she’ll be the one giving Donnie advice on how to unleash the most damage against Jesse and anyone else, while smiling with pride when he does.

FIORE & DEBLANC - The Not-Men In Black are still not answering their phone calls from The Powers That Be, and instead decide to stop sitting around and doing nothing and instead give themselves and Jesse something to do that we viewers will actually want to pay attention to confront Jesse at the diner face to face and explain to him who they are and what they want. It’s not enough to make me completely forget the grilled-cheese sandwich that’s calling out to me, but it’s a start.

And for tonight’s newest entry in ODIN QUINCANNON’S WEEKLY CONTRIBUTION OF WEIRDNESS — I have been saying that Preacher really needs to recapture the gonzo, go-for-broke, action-packed energy and “I can’t believe this is being allowed on television” humor and tone that we saw in the Pilot, and…well, seeing Odin meet with the president and vice presidents of the Green Acres Group right before taking out his shotgun and blasting them all in the chest with it like his name was Anton Chigurh certainly is ONE way to do that. (I was convinced that Odin would go the Gustavo Fring route and poison them all with his liquor).

TO SUM IT ALL UP — It’s probably not a good sign when the only significant progress that’s being made in the story you’re telling is in the flashback sequence at the beginning of your episode. (And honestly, everything we’re seeing for the Not-Ready-For-Primetime Saint Of Killers probably could’ve all been shown in one full episode). The still-as-slow-as-ever pace and lack of any real story momentum is still hurting Preacher quite a bit, and I wouldn’t be all that surprised if it goes the HBO route of saving their best and most exciting stuff for the last two episodes of the season, and in a way that will make many of us say even more than we have already, “You couldn’t have done all this for the first eight episodes?!”

In comics form, Preacher is quite the action-packed story. And when there aren’t action scenes, it still keeps us entertained and amused with great conversations filled with memorable and wonderful(ly profane) dialogue, and dark humor that would make the writers from Veep feel a tinge of jealousy. But the live-action version we’re all seeing now continues to give us neither of these things. (At least not since the Pilot or the second episode) Yes, I’m fully aware that I’m repeating myself but if this keeps up, especially now that there are only five episodes left in the season, any and all goodwill that Preacher had because of the Pilot will soon be gone and not too many viewers will be feeling patient or charitable enough to want to come back for Season 2. And if this is because AMC is limiting the show’s budget and/or telling the writers and producers to stretch this story out as much as possible so that they can get seven seasons out of it, then we’re all in for a world of continuing to watch Preacher like this…

…when we’d all rather be watching Preacher like this.

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