ACT ONE: FAIT ACCOMPLI
“Closure.” To some, it’s defined as finding peace, solace or resolve. To musicians, it’s moving from an unstable chord to a more stable one. This can be found in hymnals throughout time. Dissonance to consonance. I believe it’s to aurally reflect redemption. It is in the series finale of Preacher (AMC), “End of the World,” we find questions answered, lives changed and sighs relieved.
Right out of the gate, we open in on a Major J. Devins (Katherin Tonkin) entering a facility. After some slight killing, this woman mans the controls of the bomb with another Grail agent and watches the Revue, already in progress.
Back in the dressing room, Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) consoles a very nervous Humperdoo, who looks like a million bucks. God (Mark Harelik) joins the crowd waiting for the big number.
Meanwhile, Jessie’s (Dominic Cooper) plight against the Saint of Killers (Graham McTavish) isn’t looking so hot, but Genesis’ Angel and Demon (David Field) & (Sue-Ellen Shook) ‘rents are there to make the odds fair.
Elsewhere, Featherstone (Julie Ann Emery) faces her internal struggle under the watchful eyes of Tulip (Ruth Negga). She tacitly relays her story of how she had lost her way until she’d met Klaus (Pip Torrens) and how her adorable Blutwurst (look it up) fucked up her life even more. Featherstone represents the militant of religious beliefs, the person that believes serving is the way to salvation and that self-serving was the way to damnation. She feels it’s an abomination and thusly tries to blow her brains out with a Desert Eagle. She fails due to the firing pin overheating. Tulip offers a rare few words of kindness to someone like her in spirit, but not in thought- that sometimes being selfish isn’t but rather righteous. After speaking her peace, Tulip takes the piece on course to what she should have done in the first place, leaving Featherstone to her thoughts.
She probably passes the Jesus Suite, where the Son of the Father (played by Tyson Ritter) and Germany’s biggest shit-stain (played by Noah Taylor) throw down in immaculate fashion and another room where Herr K. Starr is still on the line with tech support.
As God arrives among the ‘common’ Grail, he takes a seat awaiting his Sun’s arrival. Oh, Hump’s the only thing that’s made God’s clouds go away. That’s unfortunate, however, as Humperdoo is either having a bout of stage fright or prognostication because he doesn’t want to go out. Cassidy makes a concerted effort to shove him out but Tulip breaks in. “Anybody have eyes on Humperdoo?” Not in the ways these two do.
As the Angel and Demon try to double team the Saint of Killers, Jesus and Hitler keep at it. For a man professing peace, he’s declaring some serious war. This is intercut panel wise with Starr going ape, the crowd awaiting their Messiah and Featherstone getting up and getting her own, gun in hand. The clock has finally hit 00:00…
ACT TWO: STANCHING THE FLOW
As the battle for Genesis continues, the Angel is impaled by the Saint of Killers. Jesse’s faith is diminished when he knows that the Saint of Killers slays his wife, the Demon as well. Dead to rites, Jesse has one last prayer card up his sleeve watching the Saint overkill the Demon lover. Ever with a collected look in his eye, he knows what the slayer wants. William, poor William had been offered a better life in His graces if he takes Genesis. Ever the grifter and reader of people, Custer knows what the Saint of Killers truly wants, which gives Jesse’s dispatcher pause.
Back at the Fucking-NOT-O.K.-Corral, Tulip tries to reason with a protective Cass. She antagonizes him through violence first and then through emotions… but Tulip isn’t a woman of words and sensitive Pronsias has been to the brink with her. I mean, he’s still a vampire. So violence is the answer in this equation!
As God grows fidgety, Lara stands up to Starr, pointing a squirt-pistol at his face. Herr’s reasoning for this is more infallible than probably the Almighty himself could construct. To him, this was never about Heaven nor was it about Hell. It’s about how you live your life. Arbiters are damned, as they are the ones who go to Hell the easiest. I mean come on, “Judge not lest ye be judged.”
Anyway, the charming Starr disarms Featherstone with his smooth talk before insulting her and yep, letting her die in Christ fashion with a bullet making its hotel in her grey matter.
As we see what the Saint of Killers truly wants, release from this mortal coil with Jesse dispatching him complements of a Demonic Sword, we also check in on Tulip and Cass settling down to a nicely paced game of “Let Me See If This Breaks On Your Body.” I mean, totally consensual and made by Parker Brothers. Humperdoo isn’t a fan.
As the crowd awaits in a pathetic stasis to meet their maker, who is sitting among them, God is tired and sends a few of them out to check on the situation. We all know Tulip and Cassidy are still playing a zero-sum game, right? Nope, not with him choking her out until she releases two heavy rounds into his guts to release her asphyxiation. This causes Cass to get the upper hand and grand the hand cannon. They both know what needs to be done and with a bloody tear in his eye, he puts one through Humperdoo’s heart just as Jesse breaks in. I don’t think a Resurrection spell not even the apex of one-handed by God himself at the free-throw line would resurrect this Bambi. Jesse, Tulip and the performers look on at Cass gives a stirring eulogy. Yup, much like Christmas to the Grail, the Apocalypse is dead.
This has his Almighty on the lam with Starr. The omniscient may know what’s coming but do we make mistakes as humans? Sure we do! Jesse commands a live and angry studio audience to turn off their television because the show is over.
Back in the hospital, Eugene (Ian Colletti) actually survives but gives a shock to those employed to do that. Later on, he gives backbone in the last rope to hang himself and says fuck you to an angel of mercy.
In the studio, Jesse gets vulnerable to an audience of the people wanting to kill him and makes them listen through Genesis. He’s had a long life trying to find God and in doing so, finds there is no reward at the end. He employs through Genesis find Him so he can live his fucking life with him and two best friends. So, with a chorus of jackboots, they all search out for something they’ve never truly found but always wanted.
ACT THREE: CYNOSURE
Out of his defiance, Eugene tries his hand back on the six-string with one of the most repugnantly trite songs of all time- “Closing Time” by Semi-Sonic. His open guitar case isn’t getting many coins after his retuning the thing, so he drives into a rage-filled Violent Femmes-esque (see: Add It Up) piece that gets the crowd listening. God is absent and his own free will was his emotion. He’d found his calling.
Back in the empty studio, they reflect on how they saved the world. Cassidy’s rattling off who had done that before is interrupted by Tulip’s screaming of daring the world to end. Now is the question of where they go from here.
We cut to Texas, two years later, wherein Tulip and Jesse running from a group of Mexicans because they stole a Distributor for a ’36 Crod 810. This isn’t for money. It’s for love. Love of the lifestyle, which we find out as they are crept on by eight guys with cruel intentions. In this halcyon moment of Classic Coke edition (not that new shit, but with a heightened flavor), they find themselves in a corner with naught but a bullet, rolling papers, a lighter and a power line ahead of them.
They make it out in time to meet up with Kamal (Miritana Hughes), who used to bartend the Holy Grail and Bar, tending to their car. He watches over their baby. What? God was kind enough to let them have a baby? That tenderness, while they speak over Cass, whose time is spending in a Peyote Conference in Chacachua, Mexico is trying to find himself. Hey, hey puked with Woody Harrelson, so have so goddamned respect! The silence and peace are palpable until the phone rings. Jesse’s army has now found God. Jesse has- nay wants to go.
At the Alamo (how fitting), Jesse’s army is standing until he lets them go. Some are still fit to walk. A few drop dead. Such is life and a great parable for finding a god that is never there.
Jesse tries his Genesis on God. It works, turning the day from night and back… But Jesse asks a few questions on are our minds ask like how he does as justly god would answer tragedy to those not deserving of it? Well, it’s the same thing Mother Theresa said when visiting impoverished nations. Suffering gives people to all involved a teacher. I mean if you ask me, it’s a bullshit answer, but I get it. Also, what about other religions? According to the almighty, some good ideas, but they aren’t all right. Classic! We also learn that extraterrestrial life never existed because we devise some interesting life-forms more than us.
Ultimately, Jesse wants to know if his father went to heaven. God assures him he is, despite Jesse’s praying to the God in front of him responsible that his father would go straight to Hell. Everything that God’s grand design was for people to love him. To go to pain and back. To appreciate the things he created and notice how I capitalized my “I” instead of he?
That’s because we are our own gods. Fuck him. Jesse recognized that and the only thing in this episode, in spite of Jesse’s ever-loving love for the almighty, god only want it to be reciprocated after all the guy’s done for deity’s love. Even the first Act: the Old Testament.
Nope, fuck that. Jesse calls God a selfish bitch and uses Genesis in one of the most cathartic of ways- to violently toss him around a bit. In more defiance, Jesse, commands for Genesis to be free since its parents are dead. Roam the true god, the stars. Oh, also he cold-cocks god and with a blubbering mass of Divinity, god claims he did this all for love… Jesse relays to him that humanity was his best design and if he wanted to do better, will it! All we have is free will, right?
Remember how the Death Star was blown up due to its flaw? This is god, but better.
This prompts god (because he was never special, hence the not capitalizing) to go into his trailer and kill all of the creepy homunculi that were bred to say they loved him. God cries into aborting his babies and I couldn’t be happier. This made me well with tears of happiness. God is a witless, needy baby. Wisdom my ass.
Speaking of divine design, Jesus Christ is now working at a hardware store two years later. He kindly convinces a father with his daughter in tow (AWESOMELY wearing a Eugene World Tour shirt) that the paint he is trying to return is the paint he should try out before saying no. Sound familiar? It’s that glossy one!
So the guy through Jesus’ kind words convinces the guy and has him apologize. The customer’s back turned, Jesus calls him a dick. Ohh, Christ, you’ve never lost your step on water.
Back on the golfing green, a well-coiffed Klaus Starr looking like the lost member of ABBA is putting before Chief Wittman (Christopher Kirby) and Barb (Sally McLean) of the Pensacola PD interrupt him. They chase him down before tackling him, which engages him… sexually? Seemingly jacking off, Starr makes him a star by disturbing them, putting two bullets in the cops’ brains and making it a hole in two!
As god returns to his throne room, he finds that the Saint of Killers has lain waste to his Heavenly Host. I mean, he’s in his right to be in Heaven because of his absolution before Jesse (a true Preacher) to repent for his sins… Only to commit the most amazing one. Kill god.
I now revert to god as a simple thing because he is. He really never was. In a standoff, even the guy in his domain can’t command someone more powerful. So a shootout exists because though William may want his paradise back, Hatred is more his jam, thus making god wholly holey once again. William takes the throne.
Back on Earth, Jesse, Tulip, and their daughter take in a drive-in a John Wayne movie, possibly True Grit (in which the Hero Wears The Eye Patch.) All seems right with the world as God is fucking dead and people get to live their goddamned lives.
EPILOGUE: CLOSURE
Forty years later, both a somber Cassidy and daughter of Tulip reminisce over the lives of Tulip and Jesse (died in 2064 and 2065, respectively.) Jesse’s inscription reads “One of the good guys.” Their daughter is a dead ringer for her mother. She reveals to him how Jesse spoke highly of him and how Tulip loved him so much and wouldn’t stop talking about him.
With peace in his bleating and ever pumping veins, Cassidy finally shares a peace with the universe, after 150 years. He hangs up his umbrella and goes into that good day.
What we see is a beautiful burst of flames of someone that has yet to find peace. The band had split apart, but now, the outsiders may possibly be reunited as Van Morrison’s “Sweet Thing” plays him out.
AFTER THE CREDITS:
I think that overall the series is a total win for me. I said earlier it was a Jules et Jim and I completely stick with it. I’ve gone on a complete journey, have known some characters better than others but always went back to the main trio. I would say, given all of the pomp and circum-gore this thing has given me, it’s only fitting the person to be the showrunner be the last runner on it, Sam Caitlin (the manager). They made some great music together.
I find it odd that the actor who plays Chief Wittman’s offsider in the final two episodes gets completely ignored in all reviews and yet has all the laugh lines of the duo and is credited in the front cast credits and I think is a pretty great actor, doing a lot with very little. She also hot in real life, so really good make up has been done on her. Her name is Sally McLean and her character is credited unhelpfully as “Barb” (I found out when I stumbled over a photo she shared on Instagram of her and Chief Wittman in character. which I clicked on and there were all the details). Other than that, I think this season has been spotty, but I agree that it’s been a hell of a ride overall and I’m sad to see it end. Would have liked Herr Starr to get his comeuppance, but hey, you can’t have everything and that scene was pretty funny – laughed out loud at Barb’s “He’s jerking off” comment – lmao at her delivery – and Pip Torrens is comedy gold at any time. Great show, sad to see it go.
Thanks for the comment! I put in Sally McLean and credited her because I want everyone to get their due recognition!
Super agree with you on Pip.
-Rob
Good on you Rob. I’m with you on the recognition – definitely when they’re doing such great work. I also found out that Sally and the actor who played Chief Wittman, Christopher Kirby, are also starring in a series together called “Shakespeare Republic” doing Shakespear. I watched a couple of episodes (they’re short) and it’s pretty darn good, Sally’s episode even made me laugh – and I don’t like Shakespeare at all! Explains why they’re both so good in Preacher. Really enjoyed all your recaps, by the way man – great work!