Preacher, Season 3, Episode 8: The Tom/Brady

Jesse has been delivered by the All Father with Starr pretending to change sides while secretly on Jesse’s side. But still overwhelmingly in awe of the Allfather and his fascist power that he can’t bring himself to actively fight him, even while helping Jesse

Jesse does kill the first wave of Grail minions, quite easily, in the lift before shooting the Allfather. Who is, of course, too fat to be hurt by bullets. Because “fat” is pretty much all the Allfather is

Jesse is captured and strapped to a gurney so Genesis can be extracted. Starr puts a gun in his pocket to shoot the Allfather in the head which sounds good… but he’s tied up. Starr kind of needs to do more - but Starr continually bottles it. Jesse makes an epic speech about faith and how he is sure God chose him to have Genesis, that everyone else splatters and he has been tested over and over and proving his worth.

The Allfather wants to extract Genesis and put it into Humperdoo, the Christchild. Who  promptly explodes into a huge splatter of guts and blood and Genesis returns to Jesse

Let me say again how utterly awful the Allfather (fat man of fatness) and Humperdoo (disabled man who doesn’t even get a name, watch him explode!) is.

Jesse is smug. But it doesn’t do to underestimate the vast resources of the Grail: they are not foolish; they’re an ancient powerful organisation of vast wealth and knowledge and it would be a mistake to underestimate them. Though it’s understandable that you would given we have Allfather and Humperdoo crushing this at every turn with their ridiculousness. It can make it hard to understand that they are at least All Powerful Adjacent

One of the Grail’s clever scientists has an army of Christchild clones. Genesis, as the product of an angel and a demon, is a mix of good and bad. So they just need to inject the clone with a mix of genetics from two human to hit the perfect balance which Jessee coincidentally has (can’t they just use Jesse’s DNA? If we’re going to run with DNA = good or evil and can change things via injection).

Starr assumes this won’t work - because he’s a misogynist and the scientist is a woman so he doesn’t believe she could possibly succeed

And because his misogyny is utterly wrong, he is wrong. And she does succeed with a genetic mix of Wayne Brady and Thomas Jefferson: the Tom/Brady. Humperdoo manages to hold and control genersis, is shot in the head and the Real Christchild is to be brought in.

Outcast, Vol. 1: A Darkness Surrounds Him (Outcast #1) by Robert Kirkman, Paul Azaceta (Illustrator), Elizabeth Breitweiser (Colorist)

Trigger warning for discussions of child abuse 

All of his life, demons have surrounded Kyle Barnes in one way or another.  With his is life in shambles he is haunted by memories he just cannot seem to shake; Kyle lives alone, wanting nothing more from life than to be a hermit in peace.  The demons however aren't done with Kyle yet and if he has any hope of getting his wife and child back, he needs to find out the extent and limit of his power and why they are so attracted to him.

A Darkness Surrounds Him, is the first graphic novel in the Outcast series from the creator of The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman.  Just like its predecessor, though Outcast ostensibly is about demons, it's actually about what happens when someone is confronted by the impossible and how they survive. What happens to a child when a loving mother suddenly turns abusive and violent and how does this then effect said child into manhood?  Kyle is so obviously suffering PTSD that his pain simply echos off the page.  It is symbolized in part by the locked door in his home that he cannot bring himself to enter - the room where he finally fought back against his demon possessed violently abusive mother. Kyle lives in filth, there's no food in his home and all he wants is to lay his memories of violence to bed - to stop them continually playing in his mind.

Kyle at least has his foster sister Meagan, who tries valiantly to lift him out of the abyss but even this relationship has been tainted with violence.  As a child, Kyle started sneaking into his Megan's bedroom to sleep on the floor.  Kyle became Megan's only defense against an older foster brother who would sneak into her room and molest her.  By the time Kyle ended up as Megan's foster brother, he was already used to taking a beating and so he took beatings repeatedly to protect Megan. It is why his brother in law staggers to understand why a man like Kyle would be abused of beating his wife and child.

The violence against children doesn't end there.  Kyle runs into a local preacher who knows a little bit about Kyle's past.  When a local child needs an exorcism, the Preacher approaches Kyle in a parking lot in belief that Kyle somehow chased a demon out of his own mother.  Kyle is completely resistant to this but decides to help anyway.  This is when he sees demon activity for the first time and discovers that somehow, his blood scares them away.  Thus begins Kyle's work to cast out demons; he is the Outcast. Kyle begins to visit his comatose mother and for the first time realises that she doesn't hate him and had been possessed. This realisation however leaves him with questions that are in need of answers if he is ever to get his life back.

Make no mistake about this, none of this is easy to read whatsoever.  It seems at every point, someone is being abused. Even a good deed leads to violence.  When Kyle exercised the demon out of the child, he was in a physical fight with said child which entailed, punching and kicking. Think about that for a moment.  A grown man is punching and kicking a child with all of his strength.  It is absolutely unrelenting and serves to show how dark and grim this world is.

Decide (Hellbound Series #3) by Tim Hawken

Michael continues his battle against Asmodeus – not just through revenge but also to end the injustices that God has created and fix the flaws of his creation

But how does one fight someone who can predict your every move, someone who can see the future, some who will always be 2 steps ahead?

Only by being unpredictable. Only by trusting others. Only by not even knowing what you yourself are going to do next

But not knowing your own plans also means you do not realise what you have chosen to sacrifice…

This book is nearly impossible to review without giving away spoilers, while at the same time even a hint of spoilers would ruin some of the major issues of the book.

The world of this book continues the previous two books in the series with its complexity and nuance: the nature of hell, purgatory and heaven, of demons, of their sins and of the denizens of each realm is maintained and revealed with the same steady, well paced, well balanced skill. From the manipulating of the elements (the nature of magic) to the way the three realms are separated and the very nature of angels, demons and the powers that shape the world we have a huge world here with lots of elements that need to be carefully balanced and explained so the reader doesn’t get lost – and it really is well done. Not only over this book, but over all three books, each building on each other, revealing more and reinforcing what has already been learned: here we have some excellent development on the very nature of foresight, the core of the battle against Asmodeus and further display of just how very broken the current system is. This isn’t done in clumsy info dump – but through a lot of showing of injustices, of seeing people time and again caught in the clumsy simplicity of the system Asmodeus has created. Not out of malice – it’s far too simple to have the bad guy be just malicious – but out of complete lack of understanding and an overwhelming self-centredness.

What I particularly liked was seeing how the flaws of Asmodeus’s creation is reflected not just in Hell – where the flaws are writ large – but also in Heaven with the constant dual refrains maintained: deception and ego. The whole of creation is Asmodeus’s lie – not just a lie to everyone else, but to himself about what he has created – and his willingness to twist everything (certainly what people believe) to further elevate his ego. Even Heaven itself is hierarchical, constantly requiring people, driving people, to seek Asmodeus’s favour. It’s excellently presented because it is a continuation and development of the books that have preceded it, this world constantly being reinforced and unfolded before the reader without any inconsistency.

But with lots of questions. These books are never going to be easy reading. They beg lots of difficult questions about good and evil, truth and lies, authenticity and honesty and control. Even relatively minor elements in the book have vast questions attached – like the demonic angels, the avatars of sin; in theory evil but also inherently what they are, inherently honest avatars of their true natures. Or the furies, old powers with their own city – powerfully displaying the very wrongness of blanket condemnation without nuance or examination – a city of women who have been wronged and have sought to defend or avenge, condemned without any reasonable examination of their crimes.

And rarely have I seen a book adequately present foresight and its power as well as this one. Ultimately, an enemy who can predict your actions is one who is nearly impossible to defeat because he will always be ahead of you – the complexities this brings derailed the entire campaign and requires vast conspiracies, secrets and some truly excellent manoeuvring to actually have a chance in the final battle against Asmodeus.

Luck of the Devil (Speak of the Devil #1) by Patricia Eimer

We all love of our families but if we're honest, family get togethers do have a tendency to become stressful.  This is especially true, if your name is Faith Bettincourt and your father is the Devil.  When her entire family descends upon her apartment, Faith knows that her plan to spend her week of vacation watching reality TV, is officially out the door.  If that were not enough, her succubus roommate has accidentally killed her boss and his ghost keeps popping up because his paperwork keeps getting messed up.  Life was simpler when she was simply flirting with the hot guy next door. Just having the Devil, your wiccan mother and police attention would be bad enough, but things get even worse for Faith, when an angel begins to stalk her, intent on stealing her powers and ending her immortal life.

Luck of the Devil is absolutely laugh out loud funny.  It takes the average (if there such a thing) dysfunctional family dynamics and throws in demons and angels. It's completely irreverent and despite it's supernatural cast, completely relateable.  No child, not matter how old they are, ever wants to walk in on their mother giving their father a blowjob.  The therapy bills alone would be horrific, never mind, the push to scrub the image from your mind.  But isn't that what family is all about?

But what do you do if your human mother keeps going on about Gaia, and refuses to believe that her Devil husband is immortal?  Then there's the little issue of your demon brother in-law "falling up."  Your half brother Tolliver, who is the son of Lilith and Satan, who is not happy with your mother and just happens to be in love with your succubus roommate, who he turned because he is in love with her. Speaking of  the Succubus roommate, what if she cannot control her powers and keeps accidentally killing people? And Then there's your uncle The Alpha with a mean streak for vengeance.