The second season of Preacher continues as Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy continue to search for God, who’s skipped out of Heaven. This week’s destination? Jazz clubs in New Orleans.
Previously, on Preacher…
After discovering last week that God was a big fan of jazz music, Jesse decides that the best place to continue his search for the missing Almighty is in the Big Easy, renowned for its Jazz scene. Cassidy is all for a trip to New Orleans, because women freely take off their tops, but Tulip is hesitant, though she won’t say why. Once they arrive, they walk into a club announcing that they’re looking for God – all three of them – and get introduced to a guy in a Dalmatian suit in the basement. We’re introducing the weird right off the bat, clearly.
While the gang declines the offer to pay to have sex with the Dalmatian – clearly worried that it might awaken something in them – a close-up on the guy’s eye to end the scene makes me think it’s not the last time we’ll be seeing him…
The trio splits up after that, with Jesse continuing on his search for God while Tulip and Cassidy head out to crash at Cass’ friend’s place. Cass’ friend, by the way, only speaks French and doesn’t seem to have any real desire to have Cassidy around.
Tulip is on the run from the same people who sent the guy after her last week, and she tries to hide in plain sight, but fails miserably. Cassidy tries to protect her, because he knows what’s going on, but we end with Tulip sneaking away to get cigarettes and, as she puts quarters in an old vending machine at a laundromat, the room fills with Viktor’s men.
Jesse fares marginally better in his quest, as he gets pointed in the direction of a singer who may have seen God. But it’s not just God that she’s seen – she also tells a story about being followed by a religious group who wants to know what she knows. Jesse ends up saving the singer from kidnappers dressed in white suits and red ties – anyone who’s read the comic knows where these men are from – and tries to get her out of town to safety.
But the singer doesn’t need to get to safety. Nope, it turns out she’s actually a PART of the group that tried to abduct her, getting intel on Jesse for The Grail. And as the show closes, we get a shot of one of the comic’s key antagonists, Herr Starr.
While the meat of the episode focuses on New Orleans, the story is bookended a little further south, as we check up on Eugene in Hell. We start with the future Arseface reliving the moment that ruined his life, when his best friend Tracey took a shotgun to her brain after her boyfriend got a blowjob from “a 5” behind the bleachers. Eugene tries to talk her down, but ends up kissing her, which she hated enough to pull the trigger.
It turns out, Eugene is in a cell down in Hell – because of course Hell is a prison. The door opens and Eugene walks out, only to be confronted by one of Hell’s most famous guests…
That should be fun…
Other than Jesse’s fight with the members of The Grail, this was a pretty low-key episode, but it set up a lot of things that are undeniably recognizable to fans of the comic book series
Quick Shots
• We learn that God’s favorite jazz piece is called A Walk to the Peak. According to the guy Jesse is talking to at the end of the episode, the song is about the end of the world. It’s an actually song, by the way. Check it out:
• The singer is revealed to be Featherstone, one of Herr Starr’s top lieutenants for The Grail in the comics. That should mean that the guy in the car she gets into at the end of the episode is her partner, Hoover.
• We get more teases about Jesse’s family, especially his Gran’ma. First, Jesse tells Tulip and Cassidy that he’s not a big fan of swamps, that it was a family thing. Readers of the comic know what that’s about, but I won’t spoil it here, just in case it comes up in the show. The second was a sign outside a club that said, “COME SEE ANGELVILLE,” which is where Jesse’s family lived. I’m hoping we get to see Ms. Marie L’Angelle before the season closes.
• Another tie to the comics: Herr Starr already has a file on Jesse Custer.
• In the comic, which didn’t get to New Orleans until the 27th issue of the series, when Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy got to New Orleans, they had to deal with some voodoo and a gang of vampire wannabes who were after Cassidy.
Next Week on PREACHER:
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