Preacher
Episode 2.4 “Viktor”
Directed by Michael Slovis
Written by Craig Rosenberg
Created by Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen
Starring Dominic Cooper, Joe Gilgun, Ruth Negga, Gianna LePera, Graham McTavish, Tom Brooke, Ian Colletti, Julie Ann Emery
AMC
Air date: Monday, July 10th, 2017, 9pm

Spoilers below for last night’s episode of Preacher!

Last week on AMC’s Preacher, the gang hit Bourbon Street in the jazz capital of the world looking for God. Jesse (Dominic Cooper) was left alone and getting frustrated when he got a tip to check out a lounge act, a sultry blonde named Lara Featherstone (Julie Ann Emery). Her attempts to flee Jesse land her in hot water as she’s kidnapped by a crew of white-clad thugs. Jesse uses the combination of Genesis and kickass fighting skills to rescue her, though we find out later, there is more to Lara than meets the eye. The real crux of last week’s episode was Tulip (Ruth Negga) and her anxiety at being back in New Orleans. She does NOT want to be there, her past is catching up to her, and at the end she has this cathartic moment where she seems to accept any fate coming her way. That fate is a goon squad sent by tonight’s titular baddie, Viktor.

Check out my review of tonight’s episode of Preacher below.

As Tulip is taken to Viktor (Paul Ben-Victor), Jesse meets up with Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) in the morning, and is curious as to Tulip’s whereabouts, but not too curious. Tulip is taken to a gigantic estate where she can hearing people being tortured as she sits and waits. Meanwhile in Hell, poor Eugene (Ian Colletti) meets some of the fellow inmates, including of course, Hitler (Noah Taylor). Hell is like a prison, except in your cell you live and relive your worst memory for eternity. Eugene ends up in Hitler’s room and witnesses the horror of… a nervous lunch as he preps to meet an art dealer. Eugene is informed by those in charge, that he may be too nice. “It’s Hell, act accordingly.”

Cassidy doesn’t understand why Jesse isn’t concerned about Tulip, but he firmly thinks she’s out blowing off steam, since she’s walked off on their casino wedding, and then walked away from their God search. “If there’s one thing Tulip O’hare can do is take care of herself.” Jesse and Cass find out that the fake-God from Annville was actually a New Orleans based actor, and they go to his agent to find him, or at least who hired him. Gilgun steals yet another scene on this show pretending to be a casting director from Game of Thrones. “Even Dinklage flies business class,” had me rolling.

Tulip skulks around Viktor’s mansion trying to rekindle some lost friendships if only to increase her likelihood of survival. No one cracks, especially Viktor’s young daughter who spits on her. Ruth Negga going around flashing a wide grin is strangely off-putting. She’s crafted Tulip for over a season as this hards as nails woman who takes no sh*t, and will gladly kill you to keep going. In this episode, Negga is great at being anti-Tulip. And just then… she’s Tulip again.

Finally, the stress about Tulip being gone drives Cass to crack, and he finally tells Jesse where she went. There’s a reason Tulip warned Cass about ever revealing that they’d slept together to Jesse, because his rage is real. He storms into Viktor’s unleashing Genesis at every turn until there is an absolutely epic part I’ll just refer to as “Uptown Girl.” Dominic Cooper has his second balls to the wall action scene in two weeks and the shaky cam, first hand feel of the fight puts the viewer right in there.

Jesse finds Tulip and we get the reveal that Viktor is actually Tulip’s husband (!), and that suddenly makes all her behavior make so much more sense. It also does NOTHING to quell Jesse’s rage. All that using of Genesis though has its detractions, biggest of all, the power acts as a beacon to The Saint of Killers (Graham McTavish), whom we see is crossing the bridge en route to New Orleans.

This was an episode where for 55 minutes it felt like nothing had really happened to progress the plot, and yet I was fully captivated by each of our characters and their dilemmas. Tulip has her personal demons, Cassidy is caught the awkward place of having to break a promise to a friend with positive intentions, and Jesse is driven by his quest to the point where the thing he wants and needs most is pushed to the back, until he stops and all Hell breaks loose. Speaking of Hell, I love that pop culture usually portrays Hell as demons, hellfire and brimstone, but Preacher presents something far far worse. Hell is a corporatized jail with high school levels of bullying and a TV with one channel… forever. Here’s hoping Eugene makes it out eventually.

Preacher remains one of if not THE best written and acted show on television. While this felt like a really good filler episode, everyone was on their game. Joseph Gilgun is tremendous. It’s funny that Cassidy brought up Peter Dinklage in GoT, because in many ways I feel Cass and Tyrion share a sense of humor. Ian Colletti as Eugene with the massive prosthetic “arseface” manages to emote so much with his eyes. And not enough credit is given to Dominic Cooper who plays the titular character as the straight man, while managing to kick righteous ass and act his ass off. Every Monday night is 60 minutes of pure awesome fun.

Preacher returns to AMC next Monday at 9:00.

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Video

Preacher: ‘Jesse’s Rampage to Find Tulip’ Talked About Scene Ep. 204

Jesse tears through Viktor’s mansion in search of Tulip, only to learn a shocking secret.