Preacher – Sundowner

By: Kelly Kearney

On this week’s “Preacher” we finally find out what powers are inside Jesse (Dominic Cooper) and just how dangerous they are. The angels Fiore (Tom Brooke) and DeBlanc (Anatol Yusef) explain the origin of the spirit inside the preacher and it’s not as holy as he thought it was. Jesse assumed he was imbued with the power to make people turn to God, but all they’ve done is turn Annville into a menacing place.

Lure The Beast with Lullaby’s

At the local diner, the angels finally catch up with Jesse and tell him why they need the spirit back. It seems this spirit is heaven and hell’s best kept secret. During the “Endless War” between heaven and hell, two soldiers (an angel and a demon) one from each side fell in love. Their love made them traitors to their allegiance, but they continued the affair and created a child named Genesis. Genesis is Jesse’s power and it controls the balance of the universe. This love child was kept a secret because of its power. If in the wrong hands, it could be the ultimate weapon. The last time the two angels tried removing Jesse’s spirit they came after him with wielding chainsaws, this time they claim they can lure out Genesis with a lullaby. You would think they would’ve tried that first! Jesse hears what Fiore and DeBlanc are saying, but he’s decided to keep his power. He thinks God wants him to have it and if God doesn’t, then he can come take it from the preacher himself. Jesse seems to be on a serious ego trip while also slowly, mentally unraveling. Maybe Genesis is already creating unbalance and using Jesse to do it?

Heavenly Death Matches at the Sundowner Motel

While Jesse is mulling over this new information about Genesis, Fiore and DeBlanc step outside to swiftly beat the living crap out of a nicely dressed blonde woman. Jesse runs to her rescue when Fiore fires a bullet into her head and stuffs her in a trunk. Jesse is shocked and the two angels seem to be in a hurry and with good reason, the formerly dead but now very much alive woman runs at them like some kind of heavenly terminator. The woman is a seraph, an angel sent to keep things in order, something Fiore and DeBlanc dropped the ball with. Like all angels, the seraphim can’t be killed so the only way to stop her is to contain her. Containing a seraph isn’t as easy as it sounds since once you kill them they can reappear anywhere. The three men wind up killing her in various ways like bullets to the face, bludgeoning’s, chainsaw attacks and even Cassidy (Joeseph Gilgun) gets a few kills in but none of them can contain her. After what seems like hours of bloody warfare, at the Sundowner Motel the seraphim (reanimated somewhere else) are giving the men a break from the murder/containment spree.

The Enemy of My Enemy Can Do My Errands

Tulip (Ruth Negga) isn’t exactly known for her subtly and when it comes to Jesse, she can be downright aggressive. Tulip wants Jesse back and thinks Emily’s (Lucy Griffiths) is in the way. So, she shows up at the woman’s house, smashes her ceramic art work and demands Emily steer clear of her boyfriend. Tulip must’ve missed that breakup memo because she storms out and like some kind of stalker, watches Emily’s house from across the street. Emily, who’s not as innocent as she appears to be, confronts Tulip and tells her she just smashed her sick daughter’s art project. Tulip offers to glue it back together and the two women embark on an awkward, albeit civil, conversation. Emily mentions that her daughter is sick and because of it she’s now behind on her church errands. It seems that ever since the most famous man in town, Odin Quincannon (Jackie Earle Haley), attended Jesse’s church and was saved the church congregation has grown. Tulip offers to help, first with Emily’s daughter and then with the errands. Tulip tries to ease the young mother’s mind when she reveals she too was a mother, but Emily is skeptical and allows Tulip to run her church errands. Said errands though land Tulip smack dab in the middle of her own bizarre love triangle.

Bro-mances and Love Triangles

A death match with a seraph can be a mess and will bloody well ruin your clothes, so Jesse and Cassidy strip down, drink beers and compare bad tattoos while waiting for the spin cycle. After one too many morning brews, the two start arguing over Jesse’s powers. Cassidy thinks Jesse shouldn’t mess with the heavens or God and should return Genesis to the holy coffee can. Jesse disagrees and boy does he seem tense. His anger towards his friend is bubbling beneath the surface so Cassidy avoids telling him about how he fell in love with Tulip while away on a drug bender. Speaking of the she devil, Tulip shows up to deliver something for Emily and runs into Cassidy. She’s shocked that the vampire she almost killed and slept with is also friends with her ex-boyfriend and current Annville preacher. The two decide to keep their relationship from Jesse and that’s probably smart considering he has an angel/demon spawn living inside of him.

Lives Lost and Tides Turned

Out of all the townspeople, Eugene “Arseface” Root (Ian Colletti) had the most faith in the preacher but that all changed when Eugene got up close and personal with Genesis. Last week we saw Mrs. Loach, mother of comatose Tracey Loach, forgive Eugene for his and Tracey’s suicide pact. This is a pact that left Eugene permanently disfigured and Tracey brain dead. Eugene expressed his desire to be forgiven to Jesse and the preacher forced Mrs. Loach (Bonita Friedericy) to do just that. Now, Eugene feels that forgiveness has been cheapened. He tells Jesse that forcing Mrs. Loach isn’t God’s will and he wants Jesse to take it back. Jesse, who’s already hanging on by a thin thread, becomes irate. He calls Eugene ungrateful and tells the boy he’s throwing away a gift from God. Jesse has full on lost it and says he’s got 200 new parishioners outside right now who want to find God’s light and he’s going to make them see it. Eugene tells him he’s wrong and in one terrible split decision, Jesse tells Eugene to go to hell, causing the disfigured teen to burst into flames, leaving a charred corpse on the floor of All Saints Church. It seems the Angels were right, Jesse can’t control Genesis and the more he uses it the more people get hurt. How will the town’s Sheriff handle the death of his son Eugene? Will heaven and the seraphim catch up with Fiore and DeBlanc? Will Tulip give up on Jesse and find a new partner in love and crime with Cassidy? All these questions and more will be answered next week on “Preacher.”