Things happen! Sort of. In a season like previous seasons, Season 4 started out strong and then settled into a bog of inaction and navel-gazing. Right now it feels mostly like "Jesse's Quest to Australia (because we got the go-ahead to film in Australia)." Jesse is looking for something in Australia, so he goes to Australia.
"Bleak City" feels like it's the obligatory "Season 5: time for some violence and to wake the audience up" episode, There are some good moments, revolving around the action. And maybe that's the point of Preacher: violence is cool. But after four seasons it's a boring point.
What action do we get? The episode boils down to three action pieces, and yes, more navel-gazing. The primary action sequence is Jesse versus the Saint, with a bit of Eugene thrown in. And Ian Colletti is one of the best parts of the show. He's also been the most abandoned by the creative team, sent to Hell by Jesse, and then spending his time getting out and providing a Greek chorus for the Saint and Hitler. He's had little moments, like his Hell vision. But has he grown or learned from that until now? No. So it's good to see him getting some of his own back
While I like Graham McTavish as the Saint of Killers, as I've noted before, I've pretty much forgotten why he's after Jesse. I could look it up and probably will, but meanwhile I don't remember why he has such a hate-on for the Preacher. Maybe he's a black hole of non-personality in the comics, too. But I don't read the comics: I watch the show and want personalities to emerge on the show. The Saint is an implacable killing machine: a supernatural Terminator, if you will. Even the Terminator got a personality of sorts in Terminator 2, and he had to. Watching him as a merciless killing machine in a second movie would have been boring.
That's not a lesson the creative team has learned. The Saint is basically the same killing machine he's been for some time. Ever since Season 1 when we found out why he became the Saint, via flashback. I don't expect him to become either a wisecracking hitman or to fall down sobbing at the hell of his life. But gives us something, creative team!
As such, there's not much to Jesse's fight with the Saint. He does hit him with a wrecking ball, which is cool. But other than that, not much happens. Jesse runs a lot, says that he won't use the Voice (since when?), and rescues Eugene. The Preacher apologizes to Eugene for sending him to Hell. And like I said, Colletti is the MVP. Despite the facial prosthetic of his "arseface" and the subtitling of his dialogue, Colletti conveys Eugene's anger and frustration at being banished to Hell by a careless "friend". And then shoots Jesse in the shoulder, setting him up for the Saint to find him.
The second action sequence is the Archangel first having sex with a Demon (Sue-Ellen Shook), who shows up out of nowhere, a then kills her because she's a demon. But celestials leave their dead bodies behind and reincarnate into new ones, so the fight goes on and on and on as the Archangel and the Demon kill each other, come back, and kill each other some more.
And none of it makes much sense. We don't know anything about the Archangel, we don't know why he ended up imprisoned by the Grail, we don't know how the Demon found him. Maybe they're the parents of Genesis, the angel-demon hybrid that inhabits Jesse and gives him the Voice. But there's no indication of that here, and even if my speculation is correct, so what? Neither of them are interested in Genesis, or the Voice, or Jesse. Don't you think they might want to know what happened to their child?
The last action sequence is actually the most entertaining: Lara (Julie Ann Emery) offers herself up to Starr for her failures. He's busy taking phone calls, so Hoover Two (Aleks Mikic) tries to kill her. Lara actually shows some personality, as she insists she deserves the honor of Starr killing her himself. When that doesn't happen, she jumps out a window and does her Rocky the Flying Squirrel impression.
At least this action sequence has some personality and humor to it. Lara is humbly handing herself over to be killed, but is still proud enough to want to be killed "honorably". Hoover Two is disgusted with her, and Starr could care less.
So much for the action sequences. The rest of it is Tulip with Jesus. Jesus wants to go to Vegas and Tulip wants to take him after some bank robberies. The Savior realizes he will probably end up shooting someone and decides to go back to Masada to participate in the Apocalypse 2020 conference. I like Tyson Ritter as Jesus: more than I like him as Humperdoo, who we don't see even though he apparently has some kind of role to play in God's/the Grail's plans. But Season 4 of 4 seems a little late to be bringing in a new character with his own baggage.
Tulip is busy trying to convince herself to abandon Jesse while Cassidy sits in the bar and tries to convince himself that he should go help Jesse because it's the heroic thing to do. Tulip ends up back at the bar sans Jesus, and she and Cassidy head off to Australia. By car? Yes, by car. How they're going to get from the Middle East to Australia by car, I have no idea.
At the end, Jesus returns for the Apocalypse conference, refuses to shake Hitler's hand (although he does hug Hitler since he's the Redeemer), and they start going through their notes. Jesus acts kind of sinister, with his "Hope you didn't start without me" line. So whether he was stringing Tulip along, or he's decided to be all mean and nasty after realizing he couldn't go to Vegas, or what, I don't know. That's the problem with introducing a new major player in Season 4. I have no idea what Jesus' motivations are, and as a result of them why he'd sign on to the Apocalypse. I think he's trying to impress his Father, God, but he doesn't come across as a reluctant participant trying to earn his father's praise. Maybe that's because God (Mark Harelik) isn't in this episode and we've never seen God and Jesus together.
In some shows, like Good Omens, there's the attitude that Heaven and Hell just want to get the whole thing over with and could care less about what the Apocalypse does to humanity. But Jesus has been a bit player, and Hitler only recently became King of Hell and was portrayed as a relatively decent guy (or at least hapless schmuck) until recently. Why do either of them want to bring about the Apocalypse, and/or cooperate with the Grail? Why does God want the Apocalypse? The fact that God's plan was ineffable was a running joke in Good Omens, but on Preacher it's used to cover up the fact that there doesn't seem to be any narrative plan. God, and Hitler, and Jesus, want to bring about the Apocalypse because they're dicks.
They're not very interesting dicks, although Hitler does get a cute scene where he's playing inside tennis with a Grail operative. Starr comes in and beats Hitler, then asks for his opinion on his plan. Pip Torrens as Starr is always good, even with a vagina carved into his skull and a piece of foreskin attached where his right ear was. But the scene doesn't establish anything: why is Starr beating Hitler? Does he have that kind of control over the King of Hell? Does Starr like God more than Nu Satan? What can Hitler do as the King of Hell and why does he let Starr beat him with a tennis racket? If Hitler has power, why does Starr presumably have a greater power that keeps Hitler from incinerating him? Can Hitler incinerate him?
This all keeps Starr and the Grail going as bad guys. I get that the Grail wants to recreate the world in a better image, but there's a lot of pieces here that don't seem to fit together. And the people carrying the pieces are uninteresting. Jesse is a dick, God is a dick, Jesus ends up as a dick, Starr has always been a dick. Hitler, who knows?
When Preacher does its character moments—Eugene turning against Jesse, Starr's quieter moments, Tulip and Cassidy, Tulip and Jesus--it shines. But it's the final season: the creative team needs to pull things together rather than giving us more weird events and grotesqueries. I care more about Tulip and Cassidy, than I do about all the Heaven/Hell Apocalypse garbage. But the creative team wants to focus primarily on the latter.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
Written by Gislef on Aug 26, 2019
this actor looks like Elon Musk