Season 3 / Episode 2, “Sonsabitches” / AMC
Somewhere on a studio backlot in rural New Orleans is a very large box filled with the f@&#$ AMC’s Preacher had to give. If you are easily offended, please make your way to the BNP videos for some friendly laughs. Everyone else: come get this work! Welcome to season 3, episode 2 of Preacher!
Fast Times At Angelville High
Episode 2 opens with a flashback of teenage Jesse dealing out his grandma Madame L’Angelle’s services. If he was sitting on a couch in a vacant lot the middle of the projects, it’d be like The Wire. Anyway, Jesse’s looking to help a high school science teacher dodge a middle school girl “obsessed” with him. Cool Hand Jesse plays it real chill, and offers a deadly serious warning:
After which, Jesse, TC, and Jody bring him back to dollar store Eve’s Bayou, where we learn the secret to Madame L’Angelle’s long life: she eats souls.
…And The Temple of “Damn!”
We get the ill Indiana Jones ‘travel by map’ moment to catch up with none other than Herr Starr! Ringing a doorbell, at Krishna Headquarters. (Which left me with mad questions about whether every spiritual practice has an elite black ops team in this world.) Things go from zero to one-hundred, real quick. Starr shows himself;
and that’s all it takes to get all John Wick-y in this piece.
Easily, one of the best ‘bullet ballets’ in television history – studios usually save that for a feature-length film. Either way… Shit. Went. Down. Starr asks the Krishna leader if he and his followers will accept Humperdoo (the inbred last scion of Jesus Christ (I shit you not) as the one true ‘leader’.
This is Humperdoo:
The Krisha leader declines, but Starr takes the time (mid assassination) to take a call from Jesse, about getting his soul (and Genesis) back.
My Name Is My Name
Meanwhile, Tulip recalls moments of her time in Purgatory, mostly the guy in the dog costume (aka God) charging her with ‘getting those sonsabitches!’. She takes that unease out on some cans in the yard via target practice, where she meets the Incredible Jody. He calls her ‘Jesse’s dead lady friend’ and she lets him know what time it is.
As Jody hands her yet another big ass gun, and she looks so right holding it, match made in Purgatory, really. Through the scope of the gun Tulip sees something moving in the distance and LITERALLY runs, jumps into the bushes and beats the brakes off Agent Featherstone – the Grail member that killed her in New Orleans!
Dazed and Disturbed
We are given a disturbing moment with TC as he attempts to bond with Cassidy over hallucinogenic inhalants (or drugs, whatever).
TC casually interrupts Cass mid-sentence to recall a ‘dream’. Wherein, he sexually assaults a celebrity, who in their terror TC says their face reads like, “I don’t entirely hate you.” As a viewer, I was like, “Damn, this TC is a menace to society.” Cassidy is shocked, and asks, “TC, please tell me you’re the worst person here.” To which TC humbly chuckles responds, “Definitely not.”
“We Out.” — Harriet Tubman
We come back to Tulip with Featherstone in a headlock, and Jesse arriving on the scene. They apprehend Featherstone and start to question her when Jody (holding Agent Hoover), TC, grandma L’Angelle, and Cassidy show up. Jesse reassures everyone that this is a loose end to be tied up and killed in the swamp. L’Angelle orders Jesse to bring Jody along for confirmation.
At the murder site, Hoover slips his bonds and escapes. Jesse splits everyone up to search for him, when the coast is clear he SETS FEATHERSTONE FREE! He sends her with a message to Herr Starr to get here asap with is soul, and agrees to be The Grail’s new messiah (replacing Humperdoo). As Featherstone slithers away, the camera pans over Jesse’s shoulder to a very, very angry Tulip. Who only has one question: “Jesse Custer, what the hell did you just do?”
God’s Plan
Back at L’Angelle estate, aka Voodoo WalMart, Marie suspects Jesse is looking to leave and break his deal with her. (My bad y’all, in episode 1: Marie had Jesse make a blood oath in order for her to bring back back Tulip. Marie kept the blood on a hankerchief, which she keeps on her person at all times.) Marie confirms her suspicions with Jody and TC, who agree.
Cut to: Jesse detailing to Tulip and Cassidy his master plan on getting out of his deal with Marie. It looks something like this: Needs Genesis back to defeat Marie –> needs soul to get Genesis back –> needs Starr on his side to get soul back –> needed to free Featherstone and Hoover to get Starr to come back. Tulip nods in understanding and simply asks, “Then we kill her (read, Featherstone)?” Jesse says, “We kill them all: Grandma, Jody, The Grail.” Cassidy votes in favor.
Tulip and Cassidy work the plan to keep Jody and TC busy by provoking the rival voodoo clan. In the midst of it, Cassidy turns to Tulip and suggests that she could just ‘keep driving’. Tulip recalls Jesse sacrificing his soul to save them. While the voodoo clan war kicks off, Jesse meets with Herr Starr. Jesse hurriedly agrees to Starr’s terms and gets his soul back! As soon as he does: he uses Genesis to make Starr get on his knees and kiss his ring. On his way out the door Jesse can’t resist one more Genesis-powered command:
Starr does not comply! He informs Jesse that he just took a genetically modified placebo soul. Imagine that? A GMO version of a soul (Monsanto agent scribbles notes furiously in notepad)? The clan skirmish dies down after Cassidy takes a bullet (again!). Cassidy says he’s okay, and tells Tulip it was hard to watch her die the way she did. To avoid telling her he’s in love with her he cracks a joke about how her corpse smelled terrible. Tulip laughs and says, “I love you Cass.”
sidebar: I know she means ‘as a friend’, you know she means ‘as a friend’; but Cassidy took that shit to the heart.
Cassidy sends Tulip in to check on Jesse while he’s wrapping up with Starr. Starr offers his last gift: that Jesse’s soul is in his car right outside, and all he’s got to do is follow through on being The Grail’s messiah. Jesse and Starr head out to the Grailmobile (a very large, white SUV) and Tulip sees them out the kitchen window. She glances at the table to see the ‘soul’ vial empty and Jesse on the move. Tulip is struck by a memory of her time in purgatory: she sees the Man-Dog and hears his message: “I’m counting on you…To get those sunsabitches!” She remembers Jesse’s plan: get the soul, kill ’em all.
Featherstone rolls down the window in the SUV and hands Jesse his real soul. Jesse reaches for it and is interrupted by gunfire – Tulip mows down the Grail team with Jody’s gun and sends them running. Running with Jesse’s soul still in agent Featherstone’s hands. Starr picks up on Jesse’s master plan and leaves.
Jesse chases down the Grailmobile but finds himself short of breath, we cut to his grandmother, wringing the handkerchief with Jesse’s blood on it. Tighter and tighter. He points to his throat, and lets out one word, “Grandma.” Tulip’s eyes widen as she now understands what they’re dealing with. She apologizes and quotes what her father said in purgatory, “Why can’t I do one right thing?”
Herr Starr is bleeding from a grazing bullet wound and simply suggests Jesse will come back to the Grail after he spends some time in his own ‘personal hell’.
Catch-22
We come back to Jesse telling Marie, that he’s going to find a way to leave. Marie says he’ll try, and puts Jesse to work in the position he had as a teenager: managing ‘The Tombs’, where L’Angelle used to keep those who didn’t make their payments. Jesse descends the stairs and clicks on a light in an old cement dungeon. He takes out a mop and bucket and starts cleaning slowly. A shuffle in the corner startles Jesse, and we see that high school science teacher is STILL chained to the wall, one eye sewn shut and certainly without a soul. The teacher asks for help. Jesse says, “I can’t. I’m sorry.”, puts his head down and furiously mops the dungeon floor. Episode 2, ends.
Catch Preacher on AMC, Sundays at 10 PM EST / 9 PM CST
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