Thursday, August 4, 2016

Preacher - Call and Response


Opening 17 hours before Jesse's (Dominic Cooper) sermon and ending at roughly the exact spot which the original comic begins, Preacher closes out it's First Season with an eventful final episode. Before attempting to show God to his entire congregation, there's a full day of events for Jesse and his friends. While avoiding the law, Tulip (Ruth Negga) brings the Preacher face-to-face with the man who ruined their lives. Meanwhile, Hugo (W. Earl Brown) takes his anger and frustration out on Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) hoping to find satisfaction and answers about Euguene's (Ian Colletti) disappearance. However, the sheriff finds near answers or solace in repeatedly shooting a caged vampire.

Spending several episodes developing the supporting characters of this backwater town, I'm sad to see Donnie (Derek Wilson) and company shuffle off just as things were getting interesting. While the lead up to the sermon is handled well, the appearance of God, or a pretty damn unconvincing God-impersonator (to be more accurate) feels like Seth Rogen had a bit too big a part in the creation of this episode. In the end the episode still delivers the necessary motivation for Jesse and his best buds to travel the world searching for the missing God, but the sequences feels goofy in all the wrong ways.

It's also worth noting that the series still has trouble with pacing, leaving the Cowboy's (Graham McTavish) arrival on Earth until the final scene of the season teasing what is yet to come. By this rate the Cowboy and Jesse might finally meet by Season Five. Now that the preamble is finished, where the show's creators were able to carve out their version of events leading up to the road map provided by the comic, it will be interesting to see how closely the show begins to mirror the events of the comic or whether or not Preacher continues along its own path.

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