Preacher :: Apocalypse No

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In the penultimate episode of the third season of AMC’s Preacher, our ‘heroes’ — Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy — all face a critical moment in their lives. The question is will these issues be resolved in the season finale, or will be all be left hanging, not quite sure at this point if AMC is going to give the series a fourth season?

Tulip has a few crises to deal with this week. First, she needs to get the souls back from Lara before the Angel of Death (aka Azrael) drags her to Hell (or puts her on the bus to Hell), thinking she is Tulip. Luckily for Tulip, with a whip wrapped tightly around her neck, Lara can’t reveal the truth while Tulip tries to strike some fear into Azrael’s black heart with the mention of her boss’ deal with a crazy old lady. It was all going so well until Eugene spotted Tulip and started calling out her name.

Long story short, Azrael caught on before Tulip could get too far and swapped her for Lara, with Jody taking possession of the briefcase of souls (although before he and Lara could get back to Angelville, he hit something with his truck that stopped them dead in their tracks, giving Lara a chance to make her exit and get back to Starr). But now Tulip is stuck on the bus with Eugene, Hitler, Azrael and the Saint, and none of her attempts at escape are working. Hitler keeps trying to tell them that he has people coming to save them, but they seem to be running late. Tulip’s last gasp is to ‘make a bomb’ which means taunting the Saint enough that he slams her into a window, hopefully cracking it enough that the three prisoners can knock it out and escape. But the incessant chatter between Tulip and Eugene and the disregard for Hitler finally pushes him to kick out the window himself. But just before he can jump, an explosion rocks the bus, sending it on its side. When Tulip opens her eyes, she sees three men peering at them through the open window and a tank flying a Nazi flag down the road a bit. Hitler’s men did come after all, but will they be any kind of match for the Saint and the Angel?

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Poor Cassidy has had his world rocked by his discovery of how Eccarius achieves all of his glorious vampire powers, and he’s intent on alerting the remaining Les Enfants du Sang that no one is flying anywhere. But as Eccarius suggests, who will they believe? The drug addicted, alcoholic vampire who came in and started bad-mouthing all of the acolytes, or the one who has given them what they want? Cass tries valiantly to prove his point to them, but Eccarius is a master at sweet talking people, and Cass ends up nailed to the pool table with tent spikes, a beam of sunlight slowly coming his way. Even the grandma is anti-Cassidy at this point but he does have a sly plan — he asks her to contact Lisa to tell her that Cass is sorry for everything. Of course, Lisa is dead so it may be grandma who saves the day when she comes to realize Cass has been telling the truth all along.

And Jesse. Jesse is still Allfather’s captive and it’s only moments before he zaps Genesis into the real Messiah, the non-clone Humperdoo. Jesse even goes so far as to reveal that he has a gun in his pocker to kill Allfather, which ALlfather takes, and Jesse asks to at least die on his knees in prayer, like a real Christian. Keeping him handcuffed, Allfather allows him his ‘final wish,’ but of course Jesse still manages to take things into his own hands when he is able to move the Genesis shocking device from his neck to Allfather’s, gets the gun, shoots the guards, injects Allfather with one of the bad DNA combinations, zaps him with Genesis which causes Allfather to explode, leaving a bloody mess in the room. But Jesse still doesn’t have his soul back. Herr Starr told him it was up Allfather’s ass, and when Starr returns with beignets, he’s pleased by what he sees. And then the vial with the soul drops out of some entrails.

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The two fight, but Jesse gets the soul and swallows it, regaining full control of Genesis. But what of Humperdoo and Allfather’s plans for the Apocalypse? Starr reveals that there are nuclear bombs ready to be launched while the Messiah was going to be presented to the world, giving people a chance to join him or suffer the consequences (in a clever little newsreel presentation). With Allfather out of the picture and Jesse stepping into the role of Messiah, Starr is prepared to produce a smaller scale apocalypse, but Jesse’s not having it. He sends Starr to his knees and almost murders Humperdoo, but aside from killing Allfather, Jesse’s not a murderer. So Jesse just unleashes him and all the clones stumbling into the world. And remarking on how Starr’s head looks like a penis, he gave the word that Starr was not to wear any more hats (which forced him to go through an hilarious assortment of wigs with Lara and Hoover … who also made a little announcement about his recent ‘lifestyle change’ assuring Starr it would not affect his job).

Back at Angelville, TC is concerned that Jody hasn’t yet returned with the souls, and Jesse’s not come back yet either. He isn’t so sure Jesse’s coming back but Marie assures him that Jesse will be back. To kill her. And Jesse does arrive at the entrance to Angelville, courtesy of a Genesis commandeered fire truck, ready to put all of this to an end and get the hell back on the road.

Preacher airs Sundays at 10:00 PM on AMC.

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