​ "End of the World" – Preacher S04E10 Review

And so we come to the end of a (relatively) long road. The season ends, Preacher ends, and... not much happens.

Yes, things happen. But nothing really happens. But then again, maybe that's the point. The more things change, the more things stay the same. The surprises are Starr doesn't get his comeuppance. And Eugene (Ian Colletti) comes out on top. Maybe. Sorta. Kinda.

I'm not sure the latter is a surprise. Did anyone expect Eugene to die? Granted, that would make a change from what does happen and American TV in general. The nice good-guy character dies? Oh, the horror! But Eugene's fate is in the series is just so bland and pointless you wonder why they bothered. As I've noted before, the creative team didn't know what to do with Eugene. So he rambled from plotline to plotline, character to character, helping set up other plot points. Do you need to show Hell is a bad place to be? Get Eugene! Do you need Hitler to escape Hell? Get Eugene! Do you need the Saint to get his hands on Jesse? Get Eugene!

Or maybe there was some subtle point to Eugene's existence on Preacher I don't get. Who knows?

So what happens that doesn't involve Eugene? Quite a bit. God (Mark Harelik) hangs out with Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) and Humperdoo (Tyson Ritter), and finally says because of free will and "that's the fun", he has to let humanity destroy itself with the Apocalypse. Which... makes no sense. God didn't give the dinosaurs free will to set off their Apocalypse. And he's been poking and prodding the Grail to set off the Apocalypse. I suppose that raises questions of what "free will" is, and if people have it. But there's no time to look at that. God makes an off-the-cuff remark about free will and on the show runs.

Jesse (Dominic Cooper) teams up with the Archangel and the Demon Woman to fight the Saint (Graham McTavish). I still don’t know why he's helping God, particularly given the end of the episode. The Saint kills the two celestials, since whoever he kills stays dead. But then Jesse non-Voice convinces the Saint to let Jesse kill him. So... God wasn’t that persuasive? Not to mention, again, with the omnipotence thing. Even if God didn't omnipotently know the Saint would betray him, shouldn't He know the Saint is dead?

Lara (Julie Ann Emery) has a big long chat with Tulip (Ruth Negga) about how she had a lousy life and became a true believer. Then she tries to shoot Tulip but her gun jams. Because of course it does. Tulip takes the gun and leaves, and Lara grabs another gun and goes after Starr. She prepares to kill Starr, but he gets the drop on her and shoots her in the head

God is waiting in the auditorium for Humperdoo to dance, and an annoying Grail operative asks Him some questions and argues with his wife. The Supreme Diety blows him off and waits for Humperdoo. Again, why does Humperdoo have to dance for the Apocalypse to begin?

Tulip finds Cassidy guarding Humperdoo in the latter's dressing room. The couple exchange words, Tulip tells Cassidy to get out of her way and hits him, and he says he's tired of her hitting him. The two of them fight. A lot. While Humperdoo hides in a clothing rack. Eventually Cassidy wins but Tulip has convinced him to change sides so he kills Humperdoo.

Jesus and Hitler (Noah Taylor) fight, and Jesus eventually strangles Hitler. After sensing Humperdoo's death (now he can omnipotently sense changes to his plan?), God comes by to ask Jesus to dance and be the Messiah to set off the Apocalypse. Jesus refuses, saying he's just a guy preaching love and acceptance. A disgusted God walks off and leaves Masada on his motorcycle. Jesse arrives in the dressing room, collects Cassidy and Tulip, then goes into the auditorium, talks about how his quest for God has been a bust, and uses the Voice to command the Grail operatives to find God.

Cut to five years later. Jesse and Tulip are on the run from some crooks after stealing a car part. After they kill them, they go back to Tulip's auto repair shop where Kamal is working on a car and puts in the part. He's also watching over their daughter, who I guess is named Lucy because later she shows up as an adult. And her children are credited as "Lucy's Son/Daughter". More on that in a little bit. The couple talk a little bit about how Cassidy is doing drugs with Woody Harrelson at a peyote convention. Then Jesse gets word the operatives have finally found God.

God is at the Alamo waiting outside his RV. Jesse arrives and Voices the operatives back to their normal lives; the ones not dropping dead of exhaustion. Then Jesse asks God those questions he's been waiting so long for answers. Like "Why do kids get cancer?", "What about other religions?", and "Is there life on other planets?" Finally God answers the big one: "Is Jesse's father in Heaven?" He is, and Jesse uses the Voice to bounce God around a bit because He is a "needy little bitch" who wants Jesse to love him. When God gets mad Jesse is using the Voice on him, Jesse sends Genesis away and then punches God to show he doesn't need celestial power to take Him on.

And... God puts up with this. I don’t know why other than Jesse says he still won't love Him. Jesse tells God humanity is pretty miraculous and to leave them alone, or make good on his threats or create something better. And God goes back into his RV and apropos of nothing, all the creatures in His cages start calling to "Daddy". God strangles one of them but the rest continue calling God "Daddy", and he yells at them to shut up. This would make more sense if we had any inkling God was creating a humanity replacement. Or maybe I missed it. Yes, I remember seeing covered cages, but I don't recall seeing God tinkering with them or them displaying signs of sentience.

We also get brief vignettes of other characters. Jesus is working in a paint store calming customers and calling them dicks behind their backs. In a parody of the Twilight Zone episode "The Eye of the Beholder", Eugene wakes up in a hospital after facial construction surgery and the nurses scream. An unseen doctor offers to help him kill himself, and Eugene defiantly says he's fine with himself and tells the doctor to get the hell out. He then goes back to the street corner, discovers no one wants to hear him when he plays a ballad, but draws attention when he rocks out.

During the paint store scene, we see a customer's daughter is wearing a Eugene t-shirt. So we're left to assume Eugene became a rock star like he did in the comics.

Earlier at Masada, God told Starr (Pip Torrens) to run. And we catch up with Starr teaching golf on a course. Chief Wittman (Christopher Kirby) shows up, and tries to arrest Starr. Starr runs, trips, masturbates as a distraction, grabs Wittman's gun, shoots him dead, buries him in a sand trap, and continues with his golf lesson.

God eventually returns to Heaven and discovers the Saint killed the Heavenly Host and is waiting for Him. The Saint reveals he let Jesse kill him, but not before he made a deathbed confession so he'd end up in Heaven to wait for God. God tries to convince the Saint He can give him eternal love and reunite him with his dead wife and daughter. The Saint says he chooses hate, shoots God dead, and sits on the throne of Heaven.

Then we go to Forty Years Later. Lucy (played by Ruth Negga) is visiting her parents' grave. Cassidy drops in, and they talk about how Lucy is an asset manager and Cassidy never came back. They talk lovingly about Jesse and Tulip, then Cassidy puts aside his umbrella, walks out into the sunlight, bursts into flames, and walks off-camera to presumably die.

And that's all she wrote, folks. Preacher has always been a strange series. It spent the first year giving us a prequel to the comics. Then it either spent most of a season hanging out in one location (New Orleans with Denis, Angelville) when the comic book spent a relatively short time there. Or glossing over stuff from the comics like Jesus De Sade and Eugene's rock-star career.

Preacher apparently existed to give us weird quirky comedy, and good actor roles. Nobody was a bad actor on the show. Even if the creative team never knew what to do with Eugene, Colletti always gave it his all. McTavish was impressive as the Saint. Harelik was good as God, even if I don't know what the point of his performance was. He wants humanity to love him, and can't wipe them out, but he can help them wipe themselves out. But then they won't be around to love him. Does anyone else see the contradictions in this scheme?

Starr and the Grail were goofy and gross opponents. The original Allfather with his bulimia and his obesity, Hoover with his mild-mannered approach to evil and his eventual fate burning up in sunlight after being transformed into a vampire. Gran'ma, Jody, and T.C. as mildly more likeable incarnations of their comic book characters. The first season, where we had the angels Fiore and DeBlanc, and the hometown crew of Emily, Donny, and Sheriff Hugo. Even relatively "minor characters like Odin (Jackie Earle Haley), Eccarius Mon (Adam Croasdell), and Tyson Ritter as Jesus. The performances were all top-notch

The primary problem was the creative team seemingly had OCD about certain aspects of the show, and no idea of where they wanted to go. Hitler, for instance. Like Eugene, there never seemed to be any point to Hitler. There was a little bit about how he was apparently not as bad a guy as history says. But then he became Hell's ruler. Maybe there's some kind of statement there about how Hell (and religion) can turn a nobody into a major player. Ditto with Jesus, who says in the finale he's just a guy. And Eugene, who goes from a nobody, to someone caught up in all of the religious Heaven/Hell struggle, to an off-camera rock star.

But just when the series would start to look at them, the OCD would kick in and we'd jump to Denis. Or Eccarius. Or Allfather. Or Jesse's childhood love Sabina. Or Frankie Toscani and his foreskin face cream production. The show had lots of interesting and memorable characters, and scenes of sheer wackiness, grossness, and evil, but Preacher never stuck with it. The creative team was content to flit from character to character, set piece to set piece. Could they do cool fight scenes? Sure. Did they ever signify much? Not really. Jesse fighting his way through Jesus De Sade's House was cool, but at the end of the day the boy he came to rescue was killed. And... that's it. A few episodes later, God is biting Jesse's eye out. Then in the finale he says everything he's done for Jesse is out of love. So... making Jesse a one-eyed pirate was an act of love?

That's part of the OCD, too. The characters would say one thing, and then do the exact opposite. God wants humanity's love but is happy to help wipe them out. Starr eventually says he's in it for the power and to get his good looks back. But we didn't see Starr as particular power-obsessed and looks-oriented until he said he was. Sure, he's portrayed as an evil jerk through the series, albeit with a few sympathetic moments. And Torrens is great as Starr. But Starr goes back and forth so much throughout the series's it's difficult to care about him.

I've talked at length about Eugene. And that finally brings us to... God. Bringing in God and making him the evil Big Bad was a mistake. He was all over the map, wanting to do the humanity/free will thing. But guiding the Grail behind the scenes. God's plan would have worked if he had just stayed out of it and let the Grail set off the Apocalypse on their own. Instead, God drags in the stuff about Humperdoo dancing to set off the Apocalypse. if Starr had just said, "Start the Apocalypse at 5 pm" or whenever, instead of "Start it when Humperdoo dances on worldwide TV", Earth would be a nuclear cinder and God's plan would be complete. Assuming His plan was to wipe out humanity, when He wanted their love and hated their replacements He created.

But that's what you get when the Grail turns out to not be tough enough. Up the ante by bringing in an even more powerful bad guy, someone like God.

So I wouldn't say Preacher was a waste of a bad show. There were too many good performances, too much black humor, too many cool fight scenes, and too many scenes of awe and beauty, to write Preacher off. I just wish at the end of the day it meant something. Instead it serves primarily as a study of Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy. When it didn't switch to something else, like Eugene and Hitler in Hell. Or Angelville. Or Denis. Or Les Enfants Du Sang.

Preacher was a very visceral show. Watch it for the moment, but for long-term viewing, not so much. But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?