Preacher Season 1 Episode Guide:
1.01 "Pilot" - Review!
1.02 "See" - Review!
1.03 "The Possibilities" - Review!
1.04 "Monster Swamp" - Review!
1.05 "South Will Rise Again" - Review!
1.06 "Sundowner" - Review!
1.07 "He Gone" - Review!
1.08 "El Valero" - Review!
1.09 "Finish the Song" - (Airs July 24)
1.10 "Call and Response" - (Airs July 31)
Preacher 1.08 - El Valero - Review:
Directed by Kate Dennis & Written by Olivia Dufault
It's no surprise that with Jesse being our main character we should expect to get several Preacher-heavy episodes and El Valero was no exception as it spent time trying to get Genesis out of his body, and we also learnt that yes, Eugene was in hell thanks to a mistake from Jesse, and by the looks of things, the poor soul isn't going to be freed anytime soon as the Angels are rather reluctant to extract him.
We also got to learn a bit about Quincannon's backstory in this chapter as we learnt that his family were victims of a ski accident. He's grieving because he's unable to tell the difference between two sets of intestines, his daughter's and a cow, and in this flashback with John Custer, Jesse's father, we see John objecting to denounce God due to his faith. He isn't willing to give up as easy as Quincannon, who tells John that there's no difference between the intestines, and that they both don't have a soul. This then cuts to Quincannon's men storming the Church in order to claim what should be rightfully theirs. However, Jesse isn't willing to back down that easy, and a fight begins that forces the men to retreat.
Donnie of course who has had experience with Jesse's word, asks them what they've been told to do by Jesse but they claim he hasn't told them anything. However they have come back weaponless, and now Jesse's own arsenal has considerably improved by the addition of a machine gun. Several moments here spring to mind, not just of Die-Hard, but also of the scene in Peaky Blinders' first season finale, where bigger guns are brought to the conflict to even up the fight.
It turns out that Eugene is back from Hell having crawled out apparently with his hands, explaining that his voice told him to leave and he did, telling Jesse that he wanted something to drink. Jesse takes this chance to apologize for his actions and he decides that as he cannot be trusted with Genesis, he decides to hand it back. However the reasoning slowly slips in that Jesse has not in fact told Eugene about the angels at the Hotel and that this current Euguene is only an hallucination, meaning that he is in fact, still in hell, and nothing has changed.
And that's when Donnie leads the next assault on the Church following a rallying cry from Quincannon with promises of food, and we get to see the town show up to watch the spectacle unfolding around them. Emily is one of these arrivals who wants to help Jesse but the Mayor seems to insist that Quincannon will make the Church strong, and that good Preachers are just a fantasy, telling her that he's a criminal. Emily, who doesn't know of Jesse's past, isn't convinced, and decides to help her out.
Eventually Jesse gets Fiore and DeBlanc, who can't see Eugene, and Jesse manages to get them to agree to a swap, that they get Genesis in exchange for pulling Eugene out of hell. It's unclear as to why Genesis still chose Jesse and it looks as though for whatever reason it's determined to stay in him, refusing to object to the Angels' first attempt at getting him to leave. The Angels then decide that it will be a good idea to bring forward the other option as they can't get it to leave Jesse manually, and apparently are keen on leaving Eugene in hell. His hallucination promptly vanishes as they leave as well.
Donnie reveals that he has come up with a plan to avoid the Preacher's use of his word by deafening himself so that he can't be manipulated and Jesse reluctantly accepts defeat. However, Donnie doesn't blow his brains out, instead knocking him unconscious so that when the Preacher awakes, he's found himself surrounded by Quincannon and his men. Quincannon believes that he is still serving God devoutly in his own ways, and believes that worshiping a God that does nothing isn't the best way to go about things.
However Jesse manages to broker one last deal with Quincannon. He admits that he's failed and asks for one final Sunday to try and convince everyone in the town that he can get them to believe in God. Quincannon seems to accept once Jesse declares that he will denounce God if he can't get the people to convert, and is eventually taken away by the Sherriff, in a pretty intense end to the episode.
We also got to spend a brief moment with Tulip though, who adopts a dog only to apparently feed him to Cassidy, who is heeling. So if you're a dog fan, I'm going to say chances are that you probably weren't too keen on this seen.
On the whole, though, this was another excellent episode of Preacher that handled the siege aspect very well indeed. There still remains more questions than answers at this point and I'm starting to wonder whether we'll see them wrapped up or not before the end of the season. There's only two more episodes left at this rate, so it'll be interesting to see how the writers can deliver.
If it's been anything as good as what we've already seen though then we should almost certainly expect some awesome moments to come. I guess we'll have to wait until next Sunday to find out what happens, and I'll probably have to wait even longer as I'm going abroad for two weeks from tomorrow so as a result the last two episodes of the season will be a double review when I get back.
So stay tuned for that, and remember to let me know what you thought of the episode in the comments section below!
Overall Episode Verdict: A
Positives:
+The Siege of the Church
+Quincannon flashback.
+Angels trying to get Genesis out of Jesse.
+The ending.
