Welcome back brothers and sisters to our new weekly feature, the Preacher Book Club! Every week we’ll talk about the latest episode of AMC‘s Preacher, dissecting the episode at hand, annotating the changes made from the Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon comic book series and attempting to predict about what will be coming next. So let’s dive right into our thoughts and annotations in Preacher Book Club episode 3!
The Man in the White Hat
After we see Tulip deliver the Grail Industries map to Danny, who happens to be a woman (and also a new character), she takes the map and hands it off to a man whose face we don’t see. That man is wearing a specific outfit though which fans of the comics will recognize as none other than Herr Starr.
For the uninitiated, Her Starr is a high ranking member of The Grail (or Grail Industries as it’s seemingly being called in the TV series) who has a penchant for violence and a ruthless reputation, hinted here at his presence at a Snuff Film Festival, and he gets his name from the star shaped scar across his eye. As we previously mentioned, The Grail exists in the comics to preserve the lineage of Jesus whom they will use to take over the world. In the comics, Herr Starr has the grand plan of making Jesse the ace up their sleeve instead of “The Messiah” who currently resides at The Grail. Jesse however does not take kindly ot being used and routinely butts heads with Herr Starr as a result.
The power of the word
This episode sees Jesse finally realizing not only what he’s capable of but also the limitations of his powers. After he told Travy Loach to open her eyes in the last episode, it worked, she did indeed open her eyes; however, she didn’t actually wake up from her coma. He tries out his abilities on Cassidy too, making him jump around (in a scene that plays similar to how it happens in the comics) and later on Donnie Schenck.
Odin is one crazy mother
As we see throughout the episode, and was previously just teased, Odin Quincannon is nuts. From humiliating Donnie Schenck for his own amusement to just sitting in his office alone listening to slaughterhouse noises, we’re starting to see the cracks in his sanity on screen.
“I have to answer to it.”
While talking to Tulip Jesse reminds her (again) of his promise to his father, that he’ll be one of the good guys. Jesse says that if he doesn’t keep that promise he’ll have to answer for it and when asked “Says who?” he replies “says God.”
Here is where I make a prediction about the final episode of this show’s first season. I haven’t seen much further into the series than this episode, but it seems clear they’re setting up a nice reveal for the ending: God is gone. In the comic books, God has abandoned heaven and left with the overall arching storyline being Jesse finding God (literally) and making him answer for his actions.
Clearly this first season is starting at an earlier stage than the comic books and is working its way toward the stories we see there. Having said all of that, I think the season finale (or maybe penultimate episode) will bring the reveal that God has left his throne. Jesse realizes that he has no one to answer to and goes looking for him. They even tease this in the pilot when Eugene says he no longer hears God when he prays.
Another thing, we learn that Jesse and Tulip had another partner in crime, Carlos, who did them both wrong. None of this is in the comics.
Angels in the church field
Cassidy sees the angels geared up and going back to the church and runs them over with his van. Though not a moment right of the comics, it’s sort of a diverging bit as it is similar to when Cassidy tries to hit the Saint of Killers with a car (with much less success, naturally).
“How was your day?”
When Eugene and his father are talking at the dinner table we get a few more teases about the plot thread introduced last week. In episode 2, a group of men shout “murderer” at Sheriff Root and Eugene as they were leaving church, and now we’re seeing the bigger picture. Eugene brings up the fact that Tracy Loach opened her eyes after Jesse prayed over her. He wonders out loud if he should go over and visit the family, because they could use company. His father stops him and says “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
What this says to me is that maybe Eugene is the reason Tracy is in a coma, with a giant dent in her head. Did the two of them make a suicide pact and both failed, disfiguring them both? Did Eugene try and kill Tracy and then himself and failed? Who knows, because none of this was in the comics, but Eugene clearly had a hand in it.
You can watch previews for the next episode in the players below!
