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Here we are at the end of Season 3 of Preacher, which wrapped up a major season long storyline and introduced a new one in a massive cliffhanger, but the big question is will the show return for a fourth season? AMC announced at the end of July that Better Call Saul, Fear the Walking Dead and McMafia had all been renewed, but Preacher is conspicuously absent from that announcement (we already know The Walking Dead is coming back, and The Terror had been renewed months ago). So now it’s a waiting game to see if AMC will bring the show back, which may be complicated since Dominic Cooper and Ruth Negga ended their relationship midway through the filming of Season 3. And Joseph Gilgun is set to headline a new comedy series for UK’s Sky TV. If Preacher moves forward, it will presumably not interfere with Gilgun’s new show. So while we fret a bit about the fate of Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy, let’s take a look at where the season finale left them … and us.
The season’s major storyline was all about Jesse’s return to Angelville, a fateful trip as it was Jesse’s only option to bring Tulip back from the dead without any vampiric assistance from Cassidy. But once he returned to his Gran’ma, Jesse was stuck there, unable to break the spell Marie had cast in order to get Jesse to repay the debt he owed. And of course Tulip was tied to Marie after returning from the dead. If Marie died, Tulip died so she had Jesse in the palm of her hand. And Jesse didn’t know Marie also struck a new deal with the Devil, one that would presumably keep her alive for at least another hundred years with all the souls Tulip and The Grail delivered for her consumption. Satan wanted Jesse’s soul, and Marie knew he was going to come back to Angelville to kill her, so the new deal was written that if Jesse did kill his Gran’ma, Satan got his soul … and Genesis. Which seemed an even better option than dragging Tulip to Hell in order to get Jesse to come after her. So where did ‘The Light Above’ leave our three main characters?
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Jesse had the most closure here. After successfully thwarting Allfather and getting both his soul and Genesis back, he was on a mission to kill Marie. But upon his return to Angelville, he had a couple of other things on his list to deal with first — TC and Jody. TC is obviously devoted to Marie and while he appears the more sympathetic of the two, he’s just as bad as Jody as far as the acts he’s committed for Marie. But Jesse still doesn’t hate him as much as he hates the other two, so he uses Genesis to make TC shoot himself in the foot. Jody, however, is another issue altogether. Jody killed Jesse’s father, so this is a grudge match a long time coming. Taking Jody to The Tombs for one final mano y mano, the two engaged in a knock-down, drag out brawl with Jesse actually refraining from using Genesis. But he had enough anger — rage, really — pent up to finally show Josy what he was made of, and Jody payed for his misdeeds with his life. To finish off the job, Jesse ordered TC to douse the body with gasoline and before he could set the fire, TC asked Jesse, ‘What about me?’ TC knew Jesse would kill Marie, and with her and Jody gone, TC would have nothing and nowhere to go, so he asked Jesse to let him burn with Jody. Jesse didn’t argue.
Then it was on to Marie. We got to see a flashback to a teenaged Jesse who nearly took her out with a baseball bat to the head, but she cajoled him out of it and that failure has eaten at him for years. There was a clever moment where the past and present Jesses crossed paths on the road to Angelville, the present chiding the past for not doing the job when he had the chance. But Jesse confronted Marie, giving her the briefcase of souls, reminding her that she’ll get another hundred years that neither his father or mother would get. Jesse used Genesis to get Marie to release the spell she had on him and to release Tulip’s soul. Prapring to finish her off for good is when Marie drops the bombshell on him about her new deal with Satan. So Jesse can’t kill Marie by his own hand or he goes to Hell, but he can do something else — he uses Genesis to force Marie to throw all the vials of souls into the fire, robbing her of the thing that actually gives her life so she’ll just die of (very) old age. So the both win, in a way. But Jesse just isn’t satisfied, so he goes back, straps Marie to her soul extraction machine, and leaves her a withered corpse and Angelville in flames.
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Tulip is still trapped in the bus to Hell after Hitler’s neo-Nazi gang showed up but they were no match for The Saint and the Angel of Death. But the battle was enough of a distraction for Tulip and Eugene to make their way out of the bus (after fighting Hitler and a couple of his men). But amid the carnage, Death just could not resist taunting the Saint with the image of crows pecking out his daughter’s eyes — was she dead or alive when that happened? The Saint ended up pinned under the Nazi tank, but he was able to get himself out and fire a shell toward the bus with Death, Tulip and Eugene in harm’s way. But … time stopped and Tulip found herself face-to-face once again with God, who tried to convince her that she is his chosen one and that this is all part of his plan for her. Tulip asks Him about Eugene, who we all know is much more devoted to his faith than she will ever be, and God doesn’t even know who Eugene is. He has a different path so He’s not concerned. Tulip could give a rat’s ass about God’s plan, she’s perfectly happy with her own free will, thank you very much.
God really just wants one thing from Tulip: make Jesse stop looking for him and keep him from using Genesis to mess up his grand scheme. Tulip ain’t buying it, and God seems to accept her decision but … we warns her that Cassidy is in grave danger. She’s not sure if this is just another of God’s ploys to get her to bend to His will but she doesn’t want to take any chances so she really leaves things unresolved. She may think she has free will, but it seems God still has the upper hand. With Tulip gone, time returns to normal, the Saint plucks out Death’s eyes and takes Eugene and Hitler to Hell. Pleased with his work, and unsure of why Death’s eyes are missing, Satan is happy to let The Saint go kill the preacher he’d mentioned earlier in the season. Satan is even more thrilled when he learns the preacher in question is Jesse Custer. Eugene is also intrigued, apparently carrying a huge grudge about being left in Hell by Jesse when he promised he would get Eugene out (and that was back in Season 1!). The Saint, however, has one more thing to do before he departs and that’s … shooting Satan square in the forehead. Yep, the Devil is dead. And who better to take his place? Hitler, of course, now being served pastries by the blind Angel of Death while The Saint and Eugene embark on their mission to deal with Jesse.
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Cassidy is still crucified on the pool table as the sun’s beam approaches, so he really is in grave danger. But when he last saw him, he was trying to convince the grandmother that Eccarius was not sending the newly turned vampires off into the world as missionaries. The question is did she take his advice to call the alleged offices to see if this was true or not? Eccarius tried one more time to convince Cassidy that things didn’t have to end this way, and Cass actually acquiesced. Les Enfants du Sang rejoiced and to celebrate, Eccarius offered Cass some squirrel blood (it’s much better than dog or cat). Cass wanted the real thing, so Eccarius asked who wanted to be the next one to fly? Surprisingly, grandma raised her hand and when Eccarius was about to take a bite he noticed puncture marks already in her neck. Confused that Cass had already turned her somehow, Cass asked her how many missionary offices she called. 86. And how many answers did she get? None. Eccarius’s game was up, and it was revealed that Grandma had actually turned all the rest of Les Enfants. And now they are turning on the leader who betrayed them for his own benefit. But now with Eccarius dead, the new vampires find themselves rudderless.
And that’s when Hoover triumphantly returns. And he brings Cassidy a gift — a large umbrella which he advises Cass to open quickly. Cass thinks it’s bad luck to do that inside, but it’s going to be worse if he doesn’t as the house is lifted from its foundation, letting in the sunlight and incinerating Les Enfants. Suddenly Cass finds himself with a tranquilizer dart in his neck, and knowing Cass ‘eats horse tranquilizers for breakfast,’ Hoover made sure that Starr knew they needed something heavy duty. Tulip arrives to see the destruction but no sign of Cassidy. And then the two coffins open. It’s Grandma and her grandson, and they tell Tulip some people in white suits took Cassidy.
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She takes off to get Jesse and in the distance we see the helicopter drop the house into the Gulf while a few Humperdoos roam the streets of New Orleans. Cassidy finds himself at the bottom of a shaft at Masada, The Grail’s headquarters, with some odd creature at the top. Starr and Hoover are standing on a balcony and Starr thinks Hoover is taunting him with his umbrella hat (Jesse used Genesis to prevent Starr from ever wearing hats again). Hoover reminded him again that he’s a vampire but that will not impact his work. Starr thought he was joking and flipped the umbrella from Hoover’s head, incinerating him in the sunlight and instructing Lara to find ‘a new Hoover’. The camera pulls back to reveal a massive fortress in the middle of the desert carved out of a mountain side, an army at the ready for Jesse Custer’s arrival. But will he come?
The season finale could almost function as a series finale as it closes the book on Angelville and reunited Jesse and Tulip, a major part of their storylines concluded with the death of Marie. Jesse is no longer beholden to her or to The Grail but with Genesis in his possession and no Messiah or Allfather to facilitate the Apocalypse, and Cassidy now a prisoner of The Grail, there certainly is more story to tell. Will AMC allow them to tell it though?
What did you think of the season and the finale? Start a conversation in the comments section below!
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