Preacher
Episode 1.7 “He Gone”
Directed by Michael Morris
Written by Mary Laws
Starring Dominic Cooper, Joe Gilgun, Ruth Negga, Lucy Griffiths, W. Earl Brown, Anatol Yusef, Tom Brooke, Ian Colletti, Jackie Earle Haley
AMC
Air date: Sunday, July 10th, 2016, 9pm

Last week on AMC’s Preacher, chaos ensued inside the Sundowner Motel, when angels Fiore (Tom Brooke) and DeBlanc (Anatol Yusef) confessed to what the power is inside of Jesse (Dominic Cooper). It is Genesis, the unnatural and ungodly spawn of an angel and demon that is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. When a seraphim comes for the being, the motel is turned into an all-out bloodbath. Jesse refuses to surrender Genesis, and figures that this is all part of God’s plan, despite being told straight by two agents of God that it is not. Genesis may be too powerful for Jesse to handle, as shown when Eugene (Ian Colletti) prods him too far about ethics and morals, and is told to go to Hell… you see Genesis takes things way too literally and poor Arseface is juggling the levels of Dante’s Inferno.

Spoilers below for this week’s Preacher:

Jesse’s reach is growing, the Sunday church crowd is overflowing, and the preacher has installed a bullhorn outside to spread his message, “Serve God,” to the people of Annville. Sheriff Root (W. Earl Brown) can’t find his son Eugene, who seems to be the only one in Annville not in church… well not the only one. Odin Quincannon (Jackie Earle Haley) spent the morning enjoying his favorite pastime — listening to the sweet sounds of the slaughterhouse. We see some more flashes to Jesse’s past, and him and Tulip getting into trouble together as kids. Her mom was in jail, her uncle a drunk. Flash to the present and Tulip (Ruth Negga) is chasing down kids who stole her drunk uncle’s pants.

Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) tries to get some answers from Jesse. “To me, I think what’s up with you is the much more interesting question, don’t you think?” See, unbeknownst to Jesse, Cassidy witnessed Eugene’s banishment to Hell. Cassidy and Tulip have a conversation about Jesse, their relationship, who knows him better (obviously Tulip), and the nature of what exactly Cassidy is. To be fair, he did confess his vampire-hood to a very drunken Jesse. I love when Tulip asks who Jesse’s favorite movie star is (John Wayne), and Cassidy’s response is Ryan Phillippe! Of course, Cassidy does know one thing about Jesse that Tulip doesn’t.

We learn more about young Jesse and Tulip (Dominic Ruggieri and Ashley Aufderheide). Jesse’s father, Preacher John Custer (Nathan Darrow, Gotham & House of Cards), took in Tulip, and the kids formed a life-long bond. That is, until John called child services and had Tulip removed, citing the reason as her being an “O’Hare.” That night, young Jesse prayed to God for Tulip’s safety and his father’s death and damnation.

In the present, Odin Quincannon shows up at the church. He has a deed transfer for Jesse’s church based on their bet. Quincannon appeared Christian when he left the church, but since then he’s murdered several people and is obviously not behaving very Christian-like, it appears that the slaughterhouse owner has won the bet. But, Jesse’s not handing over his father church.

An awkward dinner is broken up by the sheriff, who is still looking for Eugene, and Jesse lies straight to his face, saying he hasn’t seen the boy. Cassidy confronts Jesse outside, and it is my favorite scene in the 7 episodes so far. (Watch this ‘Step into the Light’ scene here below.) Cassidy calls him out on Genesis eating him alive. When Jesse tries to call it God’s plan, Cassidy’s “THERE’S NO PLAN!” is actually chilling. Cass wonders how many people Jesse will let burn, which led to a very painful scene for him. For 6 episodes, Gilgun played Cassidy as the loud-mouthed, drug-using, alcoholic, Irish vampire with a hilarious sense of humor who made light of everything. In one scene, he completely added layers of dimension to the character.

Jesse is left a broken man, and starts breaking through the floorboards of the church calling for Eugene in an effort to bring him back from Hell. As he does that, Quincannon and the entire Q, M & P gang come like the pitchforked townsfolk in Frankenstein, only this time, led by a bulldozer.

Holy crap. This was far and away the best episode so far, and nothing overly insane happened. They gave the characters time to flesh out some incredible dialogue, and you can feel the struggle each character is dealing with. This episode belonged to Joseph Gilgun. He completely rewrote the book on Cassidy, transforming him from comedic sidekick to multilayered tragic hero. I cannot say enough of how much I am loving this show.

Preacher returns next Sunday night at 9pm ET on AMC.

Video

Preacher: ‘Step into the Light’ Talked About Scene Episode 107

Cassidy confronts Jesse about Eugene and takes drastic action to prove that Jesse is spiraling out of control.