Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Preacher, Season 1, Episode 3: The Possibilities



Jesse decides he has to tell someone about his new shiny powers – and who better than his live in vampire (who is finding odd jobs awkward when he can’t go out in the sun). After a particularly ridiculous demonstration of his super powers, Cassidy declares this super awesome

He’s not the only one, people in town are already hearing of how he opened the comatose girl’s eyes (showing the limit to this power – she’s still comatose. Her eyes are open, but she’s comatose). But we also see the consequences – with annoying Mother-Issues’s guys funeral and the limits – with the paedophile school bus driver noticing the girl he’d been ordered to forget. This little bits are threaded into the rest of the plot quite neatly to show the scope of his shiny new abilities

Tulip has had a series of adventures in Houston with some strange people (and refusing the murder said strange woman’s husband) to finally get some information

That information is the last known address of a man called Carlos. Who is Carlos? I’m not sure but what we do know is he did some terrible things to Tulip and Jesse – so bad that vengeance against him is enough to stir Jesse from his path of goodness and rejoin Tulip in brutal murder

More interesting than this is Tulip’s emotional turmoil, shown partly with her rather funny and poignant traffic stop in which she emotionally talks about going all out to desperately try and save a friend who has gone down a bad road. It’s touching because we see how much Jesse means to Tulip and it’s funny because the whole bad road she’s desperately trying to save Jesse from is being a preacher and bring him back to the right path of mayhem and murder.

Of course it doesn’t last as we follow Donnie – the guy who Jesse brutally beat and left with a broken arm. Donnie has had the awkward conversation of trying to explain to his son that he doesn’t abuse his wife, they’re just in a BDSM relationship. Very very awkward. He also teaches his son the not very great life lesson by congratulating him for beating another boy until he cries. It’s no surprising then that this typical man is feeling all emasculated by Jesse

This is further shown by him working for his boss Odin Quincannon – he who drives around the place levelling farms and sits in his office listening to the sounds of live animal slaughter. A nice guy then. And like last week where Donnie had to struggle with a briefcase and pen with one arm, he again makes Donnie struggle with a task he can’t do one handed, noting he has a “right hands man with no right hand”

Yes, this guy’s pretty much an arsehole. Let’s hope Cassidy eats him.


Donnie with his oh-so-fragile pride decides to hunt down Jesse and threaten him with a gun – which even without Jesse’s new super powers would have Ended Badly For Him (especially since Jesse’s stare alone is more intimidating than the weapon). I'm not being sarcastic (much) here about Donnie's fragile pride. It's actually a really good depiction of hyper-masculinity feeling threatened and lashing out. Between being beaten publicly by Jesse, being embarrassed in front of his son and then humiliated by his boss with more than a little ableism, lashing out is exactly what aggressive masculinity seems to do. The depiction of them all together really underscores the mind set

Of course, with his powers Jesse almost makes Donnie commit suicide: not out of horror though. Or so it seems. Nope he has doubly decided to stay in town and pursue the good fight

Tulip is not happy and yes she is definitely staying until she can drag him out of town and make him abandon his promise to his father – to save this little hole in nowhere.

The immortal guys looking for Jesse and his powers are back – and take the time to thoroughly terrify the sheriff with their somewhat stilted cover story of being from the government. They’re prepared this time, loading up with body armour and many many many big guns

So Cassidy runs them over. That vampire is creative, I’ll give him that. Though he curses about clones and clean up that involves. Killing people is so messy!

And they come back again - which has Cassidy beat on one with a club – before they can finally convince him that they’re not actually there for him or any vampire. They want to take the power out of Jesse before ill-defined bad things happen. Oh and they’re from Heaven. On this show? Yup, I actually believe that

So, maybe, does Cassidy. And he offers to be their middle man with Jesse because Jesse kicks even more arse than he does and those angels are going to die a lot lot lot more times if they try to go after Jesse when he’s conscious and sober.

Y’know, I’m still kind of loving this show. I love Cassidy. I love Tulip and Jesse has a damn mean stare. The plot line is fun with surprisingly moments here and there all scattered with random zany chaos which I always appreciate.