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Did Lucas Neff Get the Brother Chuck Treatment on 'Preacher'?

By Dustin Rowles | Preacher | May 23, 2016 |

By Dustin Rowles | Preacher | May 23, 2016 |

First of all, let’s get this out of the way: The pilot episode of Preacher was fantastic. It was an orgy of violence, jokes, dusky Texas skylines and old-timey religion. I adored it, and I maintain that — by the second season — it will be The Walking Dead big if it continues to be as good as the pilot episode. I think Dominic Cooper is a very good Jesse Custer; that Ruth Negga is a brilliantly progressive Tulip, and Joseph Gilgun is the perfect Cassidy. We’ll be covering it extensively throughout the summer.

Now onto the Lucas Neff question. Many of you may remember Lucas Neff from Raising Hope. He was the lead character, Jimmy. Ironically, Raising Hope had its own Brother Chuck — a character who disappears without explanation — in the cousin of Jimmy, who lived with the family in the pilot but completely disappeared in the second episode (I believe he made an episode return in later seasons, when Hope starting getting delightfully meta).

I think Lucas Neff may be a Brother Chuck in Preacher, too. He was in the pilot for a split second. If you weren’t paying close attention, you probably missed it. He was in the pews at the end of the episode when Jesse was addressing his congregation.

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That’s Lucas Neff on the right, next to the woman with the big hat. I wouldn’t have spotted him but for the fact that I am a huge fan of Neff and Raising Hope (and because of that, I am super excited for Westworld, which will feature Shannon Woodward from Hope). I quickly double checked to ensure that it was Neff, and, indeed it was. Last June, the Chicago Tribute reported that he’d been cast as JJ Quincannon.

There is no JJ Quincannon in the Preacher series, but there is an Odin Quincannon (a major-ish character who will be played by Jackie Earle Haley) and a Conan Quicannon, who plays the brother of Odin. I assume that JJ is the TV version of Odin.

But I am not so sure that Neff will return. For one, he’s not listed on IMDB as a character. he’s not listed on the opening credits of the episode, and he hasn’t made mention of it on his social media account in months. In fact, an Instagram photo posted last September from Preacher has since been deleted.

He has since, however, been cast in Alison Tolmann’s new series, Downward Dog, and he also got a 30-day ban from Facebook last night for mysterious reasons.

He also looks different.

All of which is to say, if you’re one of the four people who spotted Neff on Preacher last night and were excited about his future on the show, I don’t know that he’s going to have a future. That’s too bad, although for Neff (and Tolmann), I will check out Downward Dog, even though it’s a sitcom starring a talking dog.

Best of luck to Lucas Neff in his future non-Preacher endeavors and in getting unblocked by Facebook.