Preacher – Schwanzkopf

By: Kelly Kearney

Season Three’s penultimate episode finds Jesse Custer in the maniacal hands of that horse eating, holy slob, Allfather who has plans to kill the preacher and start an Armageddon. As if that’s not bad enough, Tulip’s takes on the Angel of Death and winds up on a bus ride to hell after trying to save Featherstone from a fate that was meant for her.  With the world quickly dissolving into chaos, the season finale is going to be one epic rollercoaster ride of gory glory!

The Messiah

Last week left Jesse (Dominic Cooper) in the hands of the murderous Allfather (Jonny Coyne) without his soul and the power of Genesis. With his life hanging in the balance, the preacher manages to convince Allfather to release him from the Grail’s torture chair so that he can die on his knees like a true Christian. Appealing to the man’s religious ethos works in Jesse’s favor and Allfather sets him free long enough for one of the biggest throwdowns in this show’s history. The two men roll around the Grail offices, throwing punches and knees to the groin until Jesse spills the tea about Herr Starr’s (Pip Torrens) plot to kill his boss. Allfather is livid and threatens, “He shall know my buttocks as few men ever have,” which is a brilliant line for this despicable man’s last words. In the scuffle for Genesis, Jesse manages to get his hands on the Tom Brady serum and injects it into the bloated holy man, which has an explosive effect. Chunks of Allfather splash the walls of the Grail offices as the man explodes into a tornado of lard and human flesh.

Not long after the big BOOM, Herr Starr shows up and fulfills his fate of getting up close and personal with his boss’s anus. Shocked but more than pleased with the bloody outcome, Starr and Jesse are faced with the unfortunate task of fighting over Allfather’s grizzly colon as it blasts Genesis out like a fecal breeze. The two men claw their way through Allfather’s bloody guts in a competition for who can get their hands on Genesis. Jesse manages to get to the vial first, slurps down its contents and reclaims his powers. With the voice of God, Jesse orders Herr Starr to his knees, insults his penchant for fashionable hats (they cover his penis shaped head) and looks to Humperdoo (Tyson Ritter), contemplating the simpleton’s demise. Starr begs Jesse to let the Grail have their messiah, especially since Jesse has made it clear he will not be taking the throne, not for the Grail or for God himself. Starr tries his best to convince Jesse of the importance of a messiah and its role in the apocalypse, but Jesse is not impressed and wants to kill Humperdoo and get back to Angelville. Too bad Jesse is no killer, at least not the kind that can gun down an innocent man and Herr Starr knows this. It’s why Custer was always his choice for messiah. Ignoring Starr’s pleas, Custer raises his gun to Humperdoo’s head, but instead of pulling the trigger and ending the leg humping idiot’s life Jesse decides to let him and all the Humperdoo clones out into the world. One by one, dressed in their white track suits, the Humperdoos wander outside the Grail offices and directly into traffic, with many windings up as road kill. Whether the sheltered ancestors of Jesus survive the modern-day world is of no consequence to Jesse who is convinced he just saved the world from The Grail’s insane and kind of cheesy version of a religious Armageddon.

The Wheels on the Bus Go ‘Round and ‘Round

While Jesse was getting his holy groove back, Tulip (Ruth Negga) and Jody (Jeremy Childs) catch up with the Angel of Death (Erin Ruth) but, more importantly, Gran’ma’s (Betty Buckley) briefcase of souls she stole. While pretending to be someone else, Tulip convinces Death to hand over the case or else risk the Devil’s temper when he discovers she meddled in his affairs with Marie L’Angelle. Fearing what Satan might do, Death hands Tulip the case but it doesn’t end there. Tulip struggles with letting Featherstone (Julie Ann Emery) go to Hell in her place and tries convincing Death to release her. That is until Eugene (Ian Colletti) opens his Arseface and outs her as the real O’Hare! Realizing she has the wrong woman, Death manages to drag Tulip onto the bus along with Hitler (Noah Taylor), Eugene and the Saint of Killers (Graham McTavish) for a long and bumpy ride to Hell.

Featherstone, who owes her life to Tulip, is showing no signs of guilt for allowing death to take O’Hare. After all, these two ladies weren’t exactly BFFs – even if they would make a great team. Featherstone sees Tulip as beneath her. With no car and a job to do, Lara joins Jody for a ride back to Angelville with the soul-case intact. Along the way, their truck hits an angel or maybe an ostrich. It’s unclear, but it’s big and feathery and totally wrecks Jody’s truck, which pauses their trip long enough for Featherstone to abandon Jody for her one true obsession, Herr Starr.

On the bus things are tense with Tulip trying to stay off of the Saint’s radar as she plots a way out of this highway to Hell. Everyone is on edge. Hitler and Eugene’s bromance is certainly on the rocks and Tulip’s efforts to escape this bus of the damned continue to fall short. First, she tries to pull the emergency lever to release the bus door, but the lever breaks off and the door is stuck. Then, she uses all of her MacGyver moves she learned in foster care to attempt to break the bus wheel’s axel with chains, but her physics are off and the chains do nothing but fall to the ground as the bus keeps rolling closer to Hell. Finally, after listening to Eugene’s plan about making a bomb to blow their way out of the bus, Tulip tempts fate and harasses the Angel and the Saint who, coincidently, seem to have some kind of flirtation going that Tulip has no problems interrupting. Using the best insults she can muster, Tulip refers to the Saint as “Hell’s errand boy” and that gets the killer’s attention. He stalks O’Hare to the back of the bus and punches her, knocking the small woman clear off her feet and into the bus window, cracking it from the force. Before Tulip can use the weakened window as her escape, Hitler sees his chance to break free and kicks the window out just as his Nazi sandwich shop friends show up in a tank to blast the bus off its course! The bus flips, sending all of its inhabitants careening across the yellow death machine and leaving Tulip and Eugene alive but probably not for long now that they’re face to face with a tank full of Nazis.

Bite Me

When we last saw Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) he was shocked to discover his new love Eccarius (Adam Croasdell) was a lying vampire killing farce! The Irishman is determined to stop his new bdoinoo from killing anymore innocent wannabes from the vamp clan, but the powerful blood sucker is too strong for Cass. His attempts to alert the group fall short even after Eccarius offers to let him rule by his side. With having no interest in being Eccarius’ partner in crime, Cassidy accepts his fate and tells the vampire to kill him before he tells the group what Eccarius has been doing. Unfortunately, the Ann Rice looking leader manages to flip the script and convince the clan members that Cassidy is the rogue vamp that killed Hoover and the angry wannabes crucify Cass to a pool table. Hanging from stakes off of the corner pocket, Eccarius gives Cassidy a couple of chances to choose him over the group of mortals. Cassidy chooses his own demise instead. With no way to escape his fate and the sun from the basement window quickly approaching his very flammable body, Mrs. Rosen (Theresa O’Shea) wanders down to straighten up after her grandson’s vampy playdate and finds Cassidy in quite the pickle. Thinking he’s the traitor Eccarius claims him to be, the old woman refuses to save Cass yet she might be more useful to the crucified vampire than she knows. Depressed and ready to die, he asks Mrs. Rosen to call Lisa, the girl Eccarius killed, hoping that Kevin’s (Nathaniel Woolsey) granny will get to the bottom of this long after Cassidy’s left this mortal coil. Granny agrees to dig up her phone tree and let Lisa know that Cassidy was repentant in his final moments, which is sure to lead the woman to the truth about Eccarius’ recent activities. When the woman realizes Lisa isn’t in Poland or Spain, maybe the vampire killing blood sucker will move on and leave his pack of mortals in peace? Cassidy can only hope the woman can get to the truth before he’s turned into basement dust.

Gran’ma, I’m Home!

With Allfather dead, the apocalypse on hold and the Grail without a messiah to take the throne, Jesse heads back to Angelville to fulfill his promise of killing the L’Angelles. Sitting in her parlor, Miss Marie waits for her grandson, knowing he’s on his way and she doesn’t seem to be too afraid. In fact, she is giddy with anticipation. Knowing that this soul eating woman is in bed, literally, with Satan himself and promised the hideous beast Jesse’s powers of Genesis, the preacher might be walking into a familial trap. Be that as it may, Jesse uses his powers to hitch a ride with the local fire department back to the plantation so he can finally kill the family that made his life a living hell. Little does he now that Hell is exactly where he’s going to end up if Marie has any say in the matter, which would make for a nice reunion if Tulip and Eugene wind up there and not kidnapped by Hitler’s henchmen. With one episode left this season, it’s anyone’s guess how this Angelville arc will end. However, you can be sure that Jesse Custer is not going to Hell without a fight and Miss Marie is not backing down from the debts her grandson owes.