Preacher – El Valero

By: Kelly Kearney

This week Jesse (Dominic Cooper) is completely lost it. With Odin (Jackie Earle Haley) set to take the Custer’s land, Eugene (Ian Colletti) stuck in hell and Genesis isolating the preacher from his friends it seems Jesse has finally started to crack. Can he control Genesis long enough to rescue Eugene and stop Odin’s meat worshipping army from turning All Saints into an International food court? By the God’s of Meat, he better!

Tragedy Turns Good Men Bad

The episode begins with a flashback into the evil businessman Odin Quincannon’s past. Quincannon, a longtime Annville resident, wasn’t always the heartless and bloodthirsty man he is today. Everything for Odin changed the minute his entire family was killed in a skiing accident, leaving the man angry and faithless. Jesse’s father, Preacher John (Nathan Darrow), became the brunt of that anger when Odin demanded he denounce God and John refused. Apparently there’s been decades of bad blood between Quincannon and the Custer’s and All Saints is the about to become the ultimate consolation prize…that is if Odin’s men can actually outsmart the holy man. So far, they’ve had no luck. In between ripping up the church’s floorboards and pleading with God to release Eugene from Hell, Jesse single handedly defends his land from the armed Quincannon men.

While the preacher is shooting off people’s manhood, Eugene (or rather what he thinks is Eugene) returns from hell with an interesting message: return Genesis to the Adelphi’s coffee can because using its powers to force people to turn to God is cheating. Jesse, who’s pretty sure he never told Eugene about DeBlanc (Anatol Yusef) and Fiore (Tom Brooke), starts to realize Eugene isn’t real. He’s all in Jesse’s head. Eugene never heard Jesse’s voice calling him from the great beyond nor did he dig himself out from hell (which he claims is not that far of a dig). This is just an illusion. Jesse admits that Eugene, or should I say spirit Eugene, was right and that using his powers to force people to change is cheating and he should return Genesis to DeBlanc and Fiore. Easier said than done.

Food Court Wars

While Jesse is distracted with the illusion of Eugene, Odin readies his men with a pre-war pep talk. He lets them in on the plans for the Custer’s land that he won fairly in a bet. The meat tycoon will expand his meat packing and slaughter business and even open an international meat inspired food court. Odin literally worships meat, he’s the enemy of not only Jesse but of vegetarians everywhere. It seems there is nothing the preacher can do, not even shooting his men’s “peckers off” will stop him. Odin wants revenge and his army of civil war fashion fails are ready and willing to serve it up to him…as long as he makes good on those food court promises.

Odin’s right hand man Donnie (Derek Wilson) has his own reasons for wanting to see Jesse suffer. He’s still not over the fact the preacher used his powers of suggestion to force Donnie into almost killing himself by eating a bullet. The embarrassment of knowing he is weak to his enemy’s power is too much for Donnie so he steps away from Odin’s pep talk, put his head in the trunk of a car and presumably shoots himself in the head…or did he?

The ins and Outs of Genesis

With Odin’s men nursing their wounds and regrouping, DeBlanc and Fiore answer Jesse’s call to come to All Saints. The preacher is ready to hand over Genesis if the two Adelphi can help him get the real Eugene out of Hell. The deal is struck even though the two bumbling angels have no clue how to rescue Eugene. They desperately need to please the heavens and get Genesis back in that can. With a couple winks, nods and absolutely no chainsaws promised, DeBlanc and Fiore remove Genesis from Jesse’s body only for it to fly around the room and go crashing back inside the preacher. At that point, the Adelphi give up and DeBlanc says they’re done trying to remove spirit from the man’s body. That’s when the illusion of Eugene, chirping in the holy man’s ear, vanishes. Maybe Jesse is right and Genesis belongs inside him. All the other people it’s inhabited died from spontaneously combusting, but Jesse is still soldiering on. Maybe he’s meant to pull Eugene out of hell? Maybe illusion Eugene was God telling him what to do? Maybe he’s meant to take on Odin Quincannon and force him and Annville to see the light? Maybe he should go find his favorite vampire and ask him for some words of wisdom… that is if he didn’t let Cassidy char to a crisp in the hot sun.

The Deafening Roar of Victory

After hours of fighting off delusions, spirit extractions and an entire army of meat worshipping Quincannon lackeys, Jesse gets drunk. I’m not talking Cassidy black out drunk, but drunk enough for a very much alive Donnie to sneak up on him. Yup, that’s right, Donnie is alive – just slightly deafer than before. It seems Jesse’s powers only work if you can hear him tell you what to do. Donnie knows this and used the sound of the gun in the trunk to blow his eardrums making him impervious to Jesse’s suggestions. He holds the holy man at gun point and takes him to Odin to negotiate the land transfer. Jesse refuses to hand over the land to the “God of Meat” and pleads for one more Sunday to prove once and for all he can bring God to Annville. The way preacher Jesse says “bring God” makes it sound more like a threat than a holy enlightening. Is Annville ready to turn to God or will Jesse make them meet their maker?

How Much Is That Delicious Puppy in the Window?

While all holy hell was breaking loose at All Saints, Tulip (Ruth Negga) clues us in to what happened with Cassidy. Since the fast talking Irishman heals from drinking blood, Tulip helps her new friend out by shopping at a dog shelter. At first we assume she adopts the adorable bloodhound named Brewski (oh the irony) because she’s lonely and needs the company. We soon learn that’s not the case when she hugs the pooch goodbye, shoves it into a room followed by the gross and bloody sounds of feast and slaughter. It looks like Cassidy survived his sunny coming out party, which means Jesse must’ve saved his friend from a fiery end, but probably not soon enough. If the vampire is eating dogs named Brewski, he’s in rough shape but he’s not dead so that’s something. It seems that every horrible decision Jesse makes he loses a piece of his humanity, but saving Cassidy and fighting for Eugene proves he’s not too far gone.

The episode ends in that mysterious control room we occasionally see but still have no idea of its ties to Jesse and the town. An alarm goes off, a DANGER light begins to flash and from the looks of it a new bomb is about to drop into the laps Jesse and the gang. Is this control room some nuclear plant ready to meltdown? Will Cassidy forgive Jesse, quit his puppy power shakes and wander back to All Saints? Will Jesse get the town to turn to God before Odin can turn All Saints into a meat market? All this and more will be answered on next week’s Preacher.