Preacher – On The Road

By: Kelly Kearney

“Preacher” is back and it is one heck of a gory and wild ride! The premiere episode starts where the season one finale left off. Annville was wiped off the map by a flaming ball of divine justice and Tulip (Ruth Negga), Jesse (Dominic Cooper) and Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) head out on a road trip to find God and drag him back to work, whether he likes it or not. With the Saint of Killers (Graham McTavish) on their trail and the Genesis power at Jesse fingertips, this road trip gets off to an explosive start.

COME ON EILEEN…

Before Jesse can find God and ask him why he bailed on his job, the Preacher needs to make a pit stop at his old friend and religious scholar Mike’s (Glenn Morshower) house. The long drive to Mike’s puts Cassidy in a contemplative mood. He’s singing along to Dexy’s Midnight Runners and trying to convince his two friends that face cream is made from human foreskins, a conspiracy theory that must be true although Tulip’s not buying it. While arguing over the validity of Peen Cream, Tulip kicks the car into overdrive and the local highway patrol picks the threesome up on their radar going 97mph. A car chase breaks out between the cops and our fearless threesome, which is very reminiscent of something out of a 1970’s Grindhouse film. Somehow Tulip loses the patrol cars, just in time for them to run out of gas. Talk about bad timing!

Surrounded by Texas’ finest, the cops drag the pot smoking and sarcastic Cassidy out of the car and into the sunshine, sans his umbrella and sunscreen. The vampire’s skin starts smoking and Jesse has had enough. He uses the power of Genesis to not only get the police off the burning Irishmen, but also for some roadside entertainment. His divine and booming voice orders one cop (Robert Catrini) to mace his family jewels, two to hold hands and another baby-faced cop (Donald Watkins) to sing his best rendition of “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” Tulip’s not impressed with Jesse just whipping out Genesis whenever he has an itch to scratch and calls him lazy for using it to troll the officers.

Forcing someone to mace their crotch is bad, but things get much worse when an unseen force, namely the Saint of Killers, starts picking them all off one by one. The sniper takes down the police with massive gunfire as limbs go flying and heads explode like watermelons used for target practice. Things go from light hearted to hectic in a split second and all that’s left of the cops is a single intestine that Tulip uses to siphon gas so they can get out of the line of fire.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION…

Thanks to Tulip’s ingenuity, the three make it out of the war zone alive and head to a local gas station for fuel and supplies. There they are greeted by the owner (Rutherford Cravens) who is stunned when he sees the shape the three are in. Jesse tells the man to forget they were ever there and not to bother calling 911 because all the cops are dead. The Preacher is convinced they were attacked because of Genesis, but a bloody-faced Tulip isn’t so sure. She thinks it has more to do with the fact they’re in Texas and says, “They pretty much grow dumb ass crazy here.”  With the car gassed up, Cassidy full on a stray cat and Tulip with a mouthful of hot sauce as a mouth wash, the three head back on the road for their holy scavenger hunt.

As the road trippers pull away, the Saint of Killers shows up and rips the tongue out of the station owner’s mouth when he lies about seeing Jesse and the crew. This cowboy means business and anyone who stands in his path to Jesse will die in the most painful way possible.

LOVE TRIANGLES AND CAGED YOUNG WOMEN

Finally, our three anti-heroes make it to Mike’s house where Jesse tells his two friends to stay behind. In the car, Tulip warns Cassidy to get over his crush on her and that telling Jesse they slept together would be a bad idea. As bromances go, sleeping with your BFF’s woman can make even the most devout man of God lose his cool.

Speaking of Jesse, he and Mike find Tulip and Cassidy in the garage where they uncovered Mike’s little secret, a caged woman named Ashleigh (Abbie Gayle). Acting like it’s totally normal to have a terrified woman in a dog cage, Mike orders them inside where they can talk without being interrupted by her screams for help. Tulip states the obvious and asks what’s up with the caged woman and Mike tells her that it’s a sort of therapy to cleanse the soul of addiction from things like sex and Twitter. Mike is beyond salty and tells her in no uncertain terms to stop telling him how to do his job and then in the next breath offers the threesome whiskey. All conversations about missing Gods go down better with whiskey and, for some reason, Mike isn’t too surprised that God took a vacation. He’s felt his absence for a while.

 JESSE’S CALLING IS GENESIS

Just like Jesse, Mike’s also a preacher and he even married Jesse’s parents. He also has some unmentioned ties to his Jesse’s mother, making the man the only trusted person left in the Custer family. That’s why Jesse hoped Mike could steer them in the director of God, but all Mike does is steer the three into a double bed of awkwardness where the Preacher gets sandwiched between his old flame and his new best friend. Three peas in a pod become too much for Jesse and he heads outside for a smoke where he and Mike talk about their lives and their holy calling. Jesse always thought his path led him to Annville and the church, but now he thinks it’s much greater than that. His calling isn’t just service to God’s people it’s to drag God back to work and end the senseless insanity that was created in his absence. To prove this, Jesse shows Mike the power of Genesis and he is sold. He might not know where God is, but he tells Jesse a woman named Tammy at a strip club might have clue.

In the morning, the three head out to talk to Tammy (Jeanette O’Connor) and Mike gets an unfriendly visitor when the Saint of Killers bursts through his door demanding to know where Jesse is. After a few surly responses meant to tick the killer off, Mike drives a knife into his own chest just to avoid the cowboy torturing the truth out of him.

THE SHE SHE’S WITH A SIDE OF JAZZ

At the She She’s strip club where lap dances come with a side of jazz music, Jesse and Tulip find the owner Tammy in the back office. Tammy isn’t forthcoming with the whereabouts of God and wants to know what they want with the missing deity. Jesse is vague and says they have a few questions for him and Tammy gets real with them. She says not only will God never answer their questions but they would “feel so naked and terrified, you’ll shit yourself.” Apparently, God is not what we all picture him to be and if Tammy says he’s a frequent customer at the She She’s then she must be right. As for where God is, Tammy won’t budge and refuses to talk making Jesse wonder if it’s time to use Genesis on her. Tulip’s not for it, regardless of Tammy’s bad hair and attitude. She thinks it’s an invasion of her mind and he should just beat the information out of her. The two argue over how best to “convince” Tammy of giving up God and wonders why he would ever come to a strip club. Finally, Tulip gives in and tells Jesse to Genesis her because she is beyond annoying. With his heavenly voice, he orders Tammy to tell him where God is, but outside the office Cassidy is causing a major ruckus when a fight breaks out between the vampire and the club’s security. Shots are fired and a stray bullet comes crashing through the wall and hits Tammy in the chest, ending any hope, she would drop the dime on God. Before the bouffant-haired woman dies she admits that God never came to the She She’s for the women, he came for the jazz music!

Without being any closer to finding God, the three head to a motel where Tulip and Cassidy make loving use out their private room while Cassidy is forced to listen to their throws of passion through the adjoining wall. Tired and satiated, Jesse steps outside for a smoke when off in the distance he sees a cowboy who’s quickly approaching with a gun raised. Jesse tries using Genesis and orders the man to stop, but his powers don’t work on the Saint of Killers who is hell bent on killing the preacher and anyone who gets in his way.

Will Jesse get away from The Saint of Killers in time to find God? Is Annville, really wiped from the map with no survivors? What is it about Jazz music that God loves so much? Find out the answers to this and more on the next episode of “Preacher.”