Preacher – Hitler

By: Kelly Kearney

This week Herr Starr makes Miss Marie an offer she can’t refuse while Tulip and Featherstone take a trip to Japan where they’re forced to play nice for the greater good. With the All Father breathing down the Grail’s neck about his apocalyptic fantasies, Jesse and his unlikely cohorts are on soul search for Gran’ma, but can they get the goods before the Saint of Killer blasts them all straight to Hell?

Employee of the Month

The last time we saw Hitler (Noah Taylor) he escaped Hell with the trusting and naïve Eugene (Ian Colletti). Now that he’s free to live his best life, what’s a tyrannical murdering psychopath to do? Get a job at a fast food sub shop, of course. Having mastered the 12-inch sub assembly, Hitler has managed to blend in to modern society completely undetected. He’s not only employee of the week (under the name David Hitler) but he’s also made friends with the adult failures and outcasts with whom he works. The sandwich slingers have no idea who their new coworker is, even as he rants his Nazi rhetoric in the sub shop’s alleyway. All things considered, Hitler’s a perfect fit for a society filled with humans that are so exhaustingly apathetic that even God bailed on them.

Flying under the radar of fast food customers was easy, but it’s not long before the Saint of Killers (Graham McTavish) shows up to take Adolph back to Hell. Now that the SOK has Eugene and his Third Reich side kick, he’s hoping Satan will finally grant him his one wish: vengeance on Jesse Custer (Dominic Cooper). Hitler has no intention of going back to Hell, but the SOK makes it clear that this isn’t a democracy and the tyrant doesn’t get a vote. He’s going back and he’s taking Eugene, clad only in his pink underwear, with him. Jesse Custer must pay, but the SOK might want to take a number because everyone has a bone to pick with Custer and currently Gran’ma (Betty Buckley) is at the front of that line.

Speaking of Miss Marie, last week Jesse sacrificed Madame Boyd (Prema Cruz) to save his Granny and Tulip’s (Ruth Negga) life and now the L’Angelle’s have to get rid of a dead body. Jesse and Tulip give the woman a proper send off with a Viking style funeral in the swamps behind the plantation. After the flames roar and drift through the muddy waters, Jesse heads inside where he meets Herr Starr (Pip Torrens) and Lara Featherstone (Julie Ann Emery) who are introducing themselves to Marie. The meet and greet is an awkward one considering Herr Starr likes to use his own special brand of elitist intimidation to get what he wants and what he wants is Jesse Custer’s to become the messiah. Only Gran’ma isn’t impressed with Starr’s offers, which include modern day slaves for her plantation and other various horrors that he assumed would pique the old hag’s interest. Instead, Marie shows her thanks by urinating on Starr, reminding him exactly who the boss is in these negotiations. Marie doesn’t want slaves or a TV show that will make Angelville famous. She wants souls and a lot of them.

Vampire Public Realtions and the Pelt of Miley Cyrus

Elsewhere, Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) is still hanging with the vampire wannabes and seems to be their new favorite teacher. Over a game of pool Cass lectures the group on his life as a blood sucker and his “never look back,’ approach to immortality. Eccarius (Adam Croasdell) is so taken with Cassidy that he asks him to do the honors of turning one of the women in the group, but he refuses to make any baby vamps and turns his new friend down. Making vamps might not be Cass’s thing, but Eccarius is in the business of spreading Vampirism across the world and sends his newest night walker to the airport on a mission to start a new group overseas.

As Lara and Herr Starr remain occupied in Angelville, Hoover (Malcolm Barrett) is tasked with bringing Cassidy back into the fold. But first he stops off for confession where he admits he’s far weirder than Featherstone and Starr could ever be. Confessing he dreams of skinning Miley Cyrus and wearing her like a pelt, Hoover manages to trigger an elevator to an underground fight club where he announces he’s looking for a vampire. Who knew Hoover’s weird fetish would pay off so well? Apparently, NOLA’s countercultures keep tabs on each other and now Hoover is one step closer to Cassidy and saving them all from the All Father’s (Jonny Coyne) wrath.

Soul Food and Tranquilizer Guns

Back in Angelville, Gran’ma isn’t impressed with anything the Grail has to offer until Herr Starr fills her in on his soul supply in Osaka. He promises to have his highly skilled team in Japan, within minutes, and for Jesse’s debt she can have all the souls she could ever want. Marie reluctantly agrees and then she finds out his highly skilled team is actually Lara, who is currently in a throwdown fight with Tulip in the kitchen. The chemistry and bickering between these two could be a show all their own so it’s no surprise when Starr orders Tulip to go with her. The two highly competitive women will have to play nice if they want to collect the souls, stop All Father and save Jesse from his debt. The trip is set and Starr hands them both their cover stories as well as orders Tulip to don the infamous white suit. She and Featherstone look like twins, minus Lara’s broken and bruised nose. And while Tulip agrees to play along, she’s already planning on how to best stab Featherstone in the back.

Meanwhile, Cassidy decides to partake in the turning ceremony and creates his first baby vamp (Lucy Faust) to Eccarius’ delight. To celebrate, the two men go for a fly and land at a bar where Eccarius uses his vampire whammy to lure two women into their beds. After the sexcapades, the two men are flirting back and forth with each other while Hoover hides in the shadows, plotting to kidnap the Irishman. He orders his new fight club friends to grab Cassidy but take him alive. When they attack, Eccarius transforms into a mouse and scurries off to safety as Cass, the drug aficionado, gets hit with a tranquilizer gun that actually has no effect on him whatsoever. Knowing these white suits won’t stop until they get what they want, Cass worries the Grail is going after his new friends. He is able to fight off Hoover’s boys just in time for Eccarius to reemerge with a romantic gesture. The vampire kisses Cassidy and whispers that the Grail isn’t coming after the group but after the both of them. It’s no big shock these two handsome vamps have the hots for each other. Cassidy’s sexuality isn’t new and he’s often talked about his past romantic interludes with men and women. The sexual tension between the two vampires was inevitable unless, of course, you’re on team Cassidy/Tulip, in which case you might wonder if Eccarius wants something more from Cassidy than a vampire with benefits relationship.

The first clue that Eccarius might not be on the up and up is when the vampire is supposed to take Cassidy’s sire to the airport but instead tells her that their kind are lowlifes and he has no intention of making the world a friendlier place for them. Instead of taking the woman to the airport so she can open a new chapter of his group, he eats her and tosses her into the sunlight amongst the ashes of his other victims. If vampires are lowlifes than Eccarius is the worst of the worst and his new love interest is completely in the dark.

The Plan is in Motion

With Tulip and Lara are off to Osaka that leaves Jesse free to go with Starr to the Grail headquarters and retrieve his soul. Starr is already peeved at Hoover’s failed attempt at vampire-napping and is in no mood to deal with an over protective, souls sucking Gran’ma. Marie agrees to release Jesse from Angelville under one condition – that Starr returns her grandson after his soul retrieval. Starr agrees and when the two men reach the Grail offices Herr Starr has a cryptic warning for Jesse. He whips out a gun, holding it to the preacher’s head, and says the All Father is waiting… Oh, and Jesse’s going to have to kill him. Jesse must’ve missed the fine print on this deal, but the fate of humankind depends on him. It’s one psychopath after another and Jesse doesn’t even know that the SOK is coming for him as well. There seems to be no rest for the Preacher, who is about to get his powers of genies back only to go on a killing spree, ending his family, the grail and anyone else who gets in his way. God, the dog, has been put on notice because once Custer’s powers are restored there is no telling who will pay the price.