Preacher – Viktor

By: Kelly Kearney

This week on “Preacher” Eugene (Ian Colletti) gets stuck in a Hell-Cell with Hitler (Noah Taylor) and Jesse (Dominic Cooper) along with his vampire side kick finally find God…sort of. Chocked full of bloody fight scenes and shocking reveals, “Viktor” solidifies “Preacher” as Monday night’s must-see TV.

Subplots, Kidnappings and Hell-Mates

When the gang arrived in New Orleans in search for God, Tulip (Ruth Negga) was keeping a secret that she knew might implode once she hit the city boarders. After killing Viktor’s (Paul Ben-Victor) henchman in Las Vegas, the search for Tulip ends in a 24-hour laundromat when a group of goons corners her at a cigarette vending machine. Being out numbered and out gunned, Tulip willingly goes with Viktor’s men knowing that Jesse and Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) won’t have a clue of where to find her.

Speaking of Cassidy, he’s still crashing on the angry Frenchman’s couch waiting for Tulip to come home from her late-night cigarette escapades when Jesse shows up, excited about his run in with Lara Featherstone (Julie Ann Emery). Cassidy, being the loyal friend that he is, promised not to tell Jesse about what happened with Tulip in Vegas but the longer she stays missing the more the Irish vampire worries. It’s a good thing he’s worried because Jesse seems to think Tulip is just angry about their fight and went off in a huff to punish him. Cassidy keeps trying to pique Jesse’s interest over where she could be, but the preacher is too preoccupied with his search for God, after all he still has 137 jazz clubs to search for his holy highness.

With no one looking for her, Tulip arrives at Viktor’s mansion and it seems her nemesis is richer than all the gods combined and probably involved in organized crime. This is the first time we see tough as nails Tulip teary and afraid. And rightly so, the mansion echoes the screams of tortured victims that wronged Viktor and Tulip knows she’s probably next. Viktor isn’t someone you cross. He would make a great addition to any remake of Scarface and Tulip is speechless when he asks her, “So, what are we going to do to you?”

Unfortunately, Tulip isn’t the only one in her own personal Hell. Eugene is in actual Hell and dealing with some of its less than friendly inmates. When you think Hell, nobody assumes it’s going to be all rainbows and kitty kisses, but after meeting Eugene’s “Hell-Mates” and learning that Adolph Hitler is the most reasonable of the bunch, Eugene seems ill prepared for his sentence. Much like our world, prison Hell is overcrowded, underfunded and having technical issues that are keeping its inmates from their repetitive worst days and leaving them free to walk the corridors and harass each other. One inmate, Tyler (Justin Prentice), is the bully of the Hell-Block and that’s saying something since Hitler is an inmate, too. Eugene, who is a good natured young man, stops Tyler from bullying an old gypsy woman (Christine McMurdo-Wallis) and Hitler takes notice and stands up for him when the bully turns his aggression on poor Eugene. Being disfigured makes Eugene an easy target and Hitler offers him some solace in his cell. You know Hell is bad when Hitler is the voice of reason and Eugene is shocked at this gentler side of a man who’s responsible for the death of millions. Asking if Hitler changed since being in Hell, Adolph responds by sharing his own worst day with his new friend, which doesn’t seem that bad at all.

It’s Munich 1919 and during a lunch date a Jewish man (Claudio Laniado) bumps into Hitler’s chair. Hitler pauses, but returns to the conversation while the sounds of explosions outside change the topic from his art work to the dearth of communists. Young Hitler seems awkward and not politically minded. Not like his date, Elsa (Kristina Adler), who’s filling his mind with hate towards the communists. The movie real style look into Hitler’s past confuses Eugene since Hell is supposed to be your worst day and that innocent lunch date can’t possibly be this historically evil man’s worst. Adolph assures him that he will find out soon enough and then welcomes Eugene to Hell, like he’s jails welcoming committee.

I’m not god but I do play him on TV

While Tulip is stuck at Viktor’s house thinking of ways to make amends for whatever it is she did to him, Jesse and Cassidy are discussing the hard facts of reptilian overlords and “Super-secret crypto-religious fascist organizations.” Basically, Cassidy watches way too much trash TV and thank goodness because he spots Annville’s God on a Frankie Muniz infomercial about Hurricane Katrina. Jesse knew that the god he summoned to his church was a fake, but an actor from New Orleans? He did not see that coming. Cassidy and Jesse figure that if they can find the actor who played God or the people casting these heavenly roles, they might be able to find the real deal. Unfortunately, that means Tulip is still on her own for a while and that’s not good news considering Viktor has his very own Pet (Sean Boyd) a/k/a torture doctor just itching to get his hands on the woman.

Speaking of torture, Hell isn’t as bad as Eugene thought it would be and maybe that’s because they’re having underworld Wi-Fi problems keeping the worst days on the fritz. Eugene meets Hell’s warden, Ms. Mannering (Amy Hill), and she explains that every now and then the worst day loops go down and while their IT techs try and get it up and running, the inmates are kept in jail. She goes on to say that when Hell was built they had no idea the numbers of inmates they would need to house and with overcrowding comes endless problems. Mannering promises Eugene that the machine will be up and running soon enough, but for the mean time he’s being housed in the general population. She also warns him that she’s watched his story and he seems like a sweet guy, but that won’t go over well in Hell so he better act accordingly. Eugene must take her words to heart because after Hitler stands up to Tyler for Eugene, the sweet boy turns on his protector, joining prison’s mob in stomping his new friend to the screams of seig heil!

Back in New Orleans, Jesse and Cassidy search for the God actor they learned is named Mark Harelik (Mark Harelik) which leads them to his agent’s office. The two convince the slick talking man that they are there to offer Mark a role on“Game of Thrones,” but Mark’s rep hasn’t seen him in weeks. Luckily, Cassidy smooth talks the agent into handing over Mark’s audition reel and the two head back to Dennis’ (Ronald Guttman) to figure out who this Mark is and how he landed the role of God.

big reveals

At Viktor’s, Tulip is still trying to think of a way to make amends, but whatever she did nobody seems willing to accept her smiling apologies, not even his young daughter (Stella Allen) who tells Tulip she hopes her daddy kills her. We don’t know what kind of relationship Tulip had with Viktor, but his entire organization and family seems to detest the woman, making escape all but impossible. Luckily for her, Cassidy hasn’t given up on trying to get Jesse to go search for her, even if the two of them are parked in front of the TV watching Mark’s audition tape – one that leaves the men with more questions than answers.

The tape shows Mark really nailed his God audition, which ends in the casting agent shooting him dead. Jesse realizes that the only way to get Mark into heaven and a stand in for the real deal was to kill him but that doesn’t really help them figure out where the actual God is. The two are back to square one and as Jesse is about to hit the jazz clubs for answers, Cassidy decides to tell him what he knows about Tulip. The woman has been gone for too long and Cassidy can’t take watching his best friend in the dark while Tulip might be hurt or worse, dead.

Worse isn’t even the half of it, after Tulip jumps one of the guards, beats him down and steals his gun. She heads to Viktor’s room to kill him or at least threaten to if he doesn’t let her go. Thankfully, Jesse shows up with the power of Genesis and demands to know where his girlfriend is. He searches the mansion room by room until he wanders into the torture doctor’s lab. There, in the middle of the room, is the screaming victim from earlier hanging from a meat hook and most definitely dead. Jesse tries using Genesis to stop the smock wearing torture expert, but he can’t hear Jesse barking out holy orders on the account of the fact he’s got Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” cranked up and blasting through his earbuds. The two men get into a fight to the death using every weapon the torture room has to offer and even the dismembered arms of the man’s last victim. Finally, Jesse shoves a sword through the man, rips his earbuds out and demands to know where Tulip is. The preacher finds her in Viktor’s bedroom where Tulip pleads with Jesse to not kill him because Viktor is her husband! Jesse is stunned by this news, but he’s about to be even more stunned when the Saint of Killers (Graham McTavish) enters the city limits of New Orleans thanks to Genesis acting like the preacher’s own personal and deadly GPS. Jesse has no idea Fiore didn’t cancel the hit and since he has been using Genesis freely, not worrying about its deadly consequences, the killer cowboy is hot on Jesse Cutler’s trail.

Can Jesse get Tulip out of Viktor’s house without alerting Saint of Killers to his exact location? What’s up with all these clues to the end of the world approaching and can Jesse and his friends find God before it’s too late? Find out the answer to these questions and more in the next episode of “Preacher.”