Preacher – Call and Response

by: Kelly Kearney

God is coming to Annville and residents have 17 minutes and 22 seconds to prepare for all hell to break loose. When the 10^th and final episode of the season begins, a countdown to God starts and there’s no telling what the town and its preacher could be facing. Everyone in Annville is prepping for the show down on Sunday, even the local beauty parlor is offering half off bikini waxes because apparently that matters to the “All Holy One.” The only person who doesn’t seem ready for Sunday is Jesse (Dominic Cooper) who’s gone missing. Of course, Tulip (Ruth Negga) notices he’s gone only to find out his holed up in one of his nemesis’ homes. Tulip breaks into Donnie’s (Derek Wilson) house, waiving her gun around and demanding to see Jesse. What is going on in Annville that the preacher is shacking up with the wife beater’s right hand man of Odin Quincannon (Jackie Earle Haley)? It seems like everything in the town has been slowly heating up and it’s about to boil over.

Proper Police Procedure with Sheriff Root

It’s 15 minutes and 37 seconds until judgment day and Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) is involved in a little quid pro quo with Sherriff Root (W. Earl Brown). Root arrested Cassidy at the local whore house and is keeping him locked up until he tells him where Eugene (Ian Colletti) is. Root knows Jesse had something to do with his son’s disappearance and he will deal with him on Sunday, but right now he wants the Irish playboy to spill his guts and tell the sheriff anything he might know to help him find the disfigured hell bound boy. Throughout the interrogation Root figures out that the dates of Cassidy’s past arrests didn’t quite match up…mostly because they span decades. Being a man that believes in conspiracy theories and human monsters, Sheriff Root puts two and two together and randomly shoots Cassidy to prove his theory right. Cassidy is a vampire and now that Root knows he can take physical punishment; he continues to shoot him until the bullet ridden vampire gives him information on Eugene.

Back at Donnie’s house, Tulip is getting an ear full on why Jesse is hiding out with the man he tried to force into committing suicide. Custer is on the run from Sheriff Root after he escaped his squad car last week. He’s using Genesis to convince Donnie and his wife that the preacher saved his life rather than tried to take it. Feeling grateful for the “guidance” the Schencks offer to help Jesse and the preacher is more than happy to take full advantage of their misplaced kindness. Nobody would think to find him hiding out with two people who have been very vocal about their distaste of the holy man. Tulip totally sees through the farce and Jesse seems to be enamored with the fact his ex- girlfriend cares enough to come looking for him, especially after how he’s been treating her since Genesis came into the picture. He apologizes and Tulip lets him in on her real reason for searching the preacher out and that reason is Carlos whose hog tied and bloodied in the trunk of her car.

Vengeance for a Stolen Future

In a flashback, we learn the backstory of Carlos (Desmin Borges) and why Tulip and Jesse want revenge. Back in Jesse and Tulip’s “Bonnie and Clyde” style criminal days, they worked with Carlos on a bank robbery in Dallas. Carlos tricked them, causing a shootout with Jesse and the bank’s security guard while Carlos took off with the bags of money leaving Tulip distraught enough to induce a miscarriage. Their feud with the greedy man finally makes sense. The criminal couple lost their child due to Carlos’ backstabbing and they’ve been searching for him to enact their revenge ever since.

With five minutes until God time, we get a quick peek at that mysterious power reactor along with a bizarre conversation between the man on duty and his wife. Back at the prison where Cassidy is pulling bullets from his body, the two have developed a rather odd rapport thanks to Root’s offering of blood. This is not your normal prison hooch, but then again shooting someone over and over until they tell you what you want to hear isn’t exactly normal prison etiquette either. The vampire and the sheriff come to a sort of understanding, but Cassidy is still protecting his best friend Jesse. He asks Root if he’s even sure he wants the disfigured boy back because he was kind of annoying and a disgrace to Root. The sheriff has had enough of the smart talking vampire and puts five bullets in him and then lets him go. He’s not getting anywhere blasting the truth out of Cassidy when the real man he wants is at Donnie’s getting bullied by Tulip.

Tulip is mad, really mad. Jesse won’t kill Carlos because he’s torn between vengeance and finishing his plan to bring God to Annville. Tulip screams she wants an eye for an eye, but the preacher can’t bring himself to do it, no matter how hard he tries. Nothing he does to Carlos will bring their baby back. Tulip is just thankful that Jesse was willing to consider killing the man and the two decide to let him go, albeit battered and beaten. After a quick bait and switch with the local police, Jesse, Tulip and the Schencks prepare All Saints for the heavenly call to God. It seems like everything is falling into place for the holy arrival on Sunday, even the church sign says “Today: Meet God. Tomorrow: TBD (To Be Determined).”

The Great and Powerful God

The stage is set and the church is packed to the rafters for the coming of the lord. Mrs. Loach (Bonita Friedericy) is there with her bed ridden daughter Tracy (Gianna LaPera). Odin and his boys from QM&P are there too, as is Cassidy who’s offering up some friendly support while getting a front row seat to the show. Emily’s (Lucy Griffiths) at the organ, dodging questions about the missing mayor and Tulip. Well, Tulip doesn’t care one way or another as long the three friends get french fries after the show. Apparently holy interventions make her hungry and after this fiasco she should be starving. Following a short speech of shade throwing from Odin, Jesse gets to his Sunday business and to a stunned congregation he whips out the severed angel hand and the heaven phone to start dialing God’s number. At first nothing happens, but then the lights go out followed by a loud boom and glowing ethereal being above the church’s alter. The heaven phone worked and God has come to Annville… or has he? For the creator of all things living and dead, God sure seems kind of clueless. He refuses to answer any questions, although to give him credit if the best question you can come up with is ‘What did you do to the dinosaurs,” I really don’t blame him. The bearded white man (Tulip totally called that) dodges questions until he can no longer hide his deceit. He’s not God. He’s just posing as God so nobody knows that God left his post. I guess the creator of man just “couldn’t even,” anymore and needed a break from his creation. Who can really blame him? Look how crazy just Annville alone is! There’s an entire planet of Annville’s and he’s had enough! Like most people, God needed some time away from his responsibilities. The news of God abandoning humanity doesn’t go over well at all. All hell literally breaks loose. With no hope of a glorious afterlife and no fear of eternal damnation, the town turns into a lawless and violent Lord of the Flies type existence. Children are killing adults, parents are killing their children, suicides and meat babies – all leading to one fiery end no one, including the viewers, saw coming.

Annville Meltdown

After the big God reveal, Jesse leaves All Saints and Annville up to its own devices. Cassidy, Tulip and the disgraced preacher leave on a french fry mission while the town tears apart from the seams. At the QM&P control room, we see a scantily clad woman with a ball gag in her mouth, frantically hitting buttons in the power plant’s control room. It looks like the man from the phone conversation earlier had a sex slave or bondage fetish and the woman on the receiving end of that killed him. Payback is certainly a bitch and the negligee wearing woman take her revenge out on the town. She hits every button 0n the reactor’s panel until methane gases rise to an explosive level and leak from all the available pipes in town. With one spark, all of Annville is wiped off the face of the Earth in a fiery ball of divine justice. The show ends with our three heroes arguing over the merits of the cult classic The Big Lebowski while planning a road trip to find God and force him back to work. Jesse says, “If God wants our help, we’ll help him. If he doesn’t, we’ll kick his ass.” Tulip and Cassidy are game so the three head out on a cross country, ass kicking search for God while leaving Annville in ashes and Eugene working at a diner ironically called the 5 Aces.

With Annville off the map and Genesis still residing in Custer, what happened to the two angels and the cowboy from hell? Now that God is officially MIA and Eugene is slinging hash at 5 Aces, is this a clue that Jesse didn’t bring God to Annville but brought Hell instead? It appears to be so because the blood thirsty cowboy hired to kill Jesse is there and no matter where the search for God takes the preacher, you can be sure the cowboy will be right behind him ready to finish the job Fiore (Tom Brooke) and DeBlanc (Anatol Yusef) could not.