Jessie is now a lot more popular after his impressive
conversion of Odin Kincannon last episode – he’s popular with the whole town
(though Emily is definitely suspicious that something is going on) and the most
boring kids in the entire world invite him to play “who is your favourite
gospel?”. He’s using the word of god over and over again
I don’t think this will be the show to examine it, but it’s
grossly not right what Jessie is doing. Even if he thinks he’s doing the right
thing, he is completely removing the choices of many of these town folk to make
them conform to what he thinks is right.
An example of this? Eugene – Eugene comes home to find “finish
the job” and an arrow pointing to a shotgun in his room. This to a man who
tried to kill himself with a shotgun… that’s… cold. His dad is clearly cracking
desperately and while Eugene desperately tries to be the nicest man in the
world – and his dad snaps and basically repeats “finish the job” to him.
Ouch… all the pain
Eugene is duly upset… because his dad is suffering. He
still hates himself, thinks he deserves everything he gets – but his dad doesn’t
deserve to suffer. Jessie decides to deal with this by taking Eugene to see
Terri Loach and her comatose daughter, Tracy Loach (who Jessie helped wake with
his god of voice). Terri promptly loses her shit – screaming at Eugene as a
murderer and trying to kill him – before Jessie uses the word of god on her and
making her forgive Eugene
Ok… I just can’t imagine what Eugene has done to deserve
the level of revulsion he faces and, given how earnest he is, it’s hard not to
feel sorry for the guy. I’m not full on Team Eugene because I really need to
know what he did. But whatever he did it’s not ok to force someone to forgive,
no matter how much it brings peace to other people, no matter how much it will
protect, help and heal clear innocents – you don’t get to force someone to
forgive. Not even if you think it’s good for them. It’s not ok to forgive
But it’s clear this isn’t the only time Jessie’s abuse of
power is going to backfire – one thing we can see if Odin Kincannon. Now serving
god, decides to do so by meeting with the company he refused to meet last
episode by urinating in the mayor’s briefcase – and now decides to shoot them
I have no idea why. I assume it’s part of his command to “serve
god” and, let’s face it, worse things have been done in the name of serving god
Another fallout of the power is Donnie – after Jessie
made him almost swallow his own gun is now extremely traumatised by the
experience. I think this is pretty powerful – because scenes like this, of the
superhero using his power to put some random hoodlum in his place – are not that
uncommon. But when do we examine the mental impact of this random guy suddenly facing
his death at the hands of a force that so utterly eclipses him? I like that, I
like that being included
Meanwhile Tulip has some quick run down about what being
a vampire means to Cassidy (with a nice notice that he doesn’t need blood
except to heal). After some quick questions and answer – and Cassidy declaring
he loves her – she pretty much kicks him out after a brief rant about Jessie
(without mentioning his name) and how she loves him and is desperately waiting
for him so they can go after Carlos. Cassidy pokes a nerve by suggesting maybe
Jessie isn’t who she thinks he is.
Tulip’s not having that – she storms to Jessie’s unofficial
little sermon to tell everyone a story of some of the bad stuff he did in his
past. It doesn’t work out – as Jessie happily owns his bad history – and uses
it to point out that he’s changed. He’s a different man. And so too can Tulip
Tulip is definitely not happy with this – she deals with
this by going to Cassidy, dead-pan professing her own love for him and having
sex with him. Having sex with the same expression on her face as someone being
forced to watch a game of golf. She’s up to something… jealousy?
Oh and the Angels fail to pick up the phone to heaven but
finally do decide to confront Jessie to tell him they’re angels from heaven
and, no, he doesn’t have god inside him. I don’t think he buys it
We also have another odd Olde West flashback with the
strange man arriving in town looking for medicine. In contrast to just about
every other depiction of the old west I’ve seen, this is brutal. I don’t mean
lawless and gun-slingy. I mean rife with brutal genocide of Native Americans
(and displayed as exactly as awful and brutal as it is) and the rape of sex
workers (not the merry sassy sex workers you usually see in the fiction).
The man finally snaps over this and storms back to town… which,
sadly, fails terribly. He’s brutally beaten and a man who recognises him as a
very skilled killer during the civil war shoots his horse. This forces him to
walk back home, to find his whole family dead.
Well that was brutal. Why do I think I just saw an origin
story?
