Here's a very horror movie-esque start to this episode: an underwear-clad girl runs down a deserted street, and then into the woods, looking terrified back over her shoulder. She runs and runs, passing another underwearing girl in a field. Men with guns chase them. They fire and the second girl falls. The first girl manages to get past, finally pausing for breath in a clearing. One of the men finds her. They know each other: she's one of the whores from the local brothel and he's one of the Quincannon Meat and Power douchebags. He raises his gun and shoots her - it's a paintball game, as it turns out. She squeals at the sting and takes a few steps back ... and then falls shrieking into a sinkhole. Oops.
Flashback: A young Jesse sets up the church for his preacher father. Church was considerably better attended in those days.
Here and now: Cassidy tries to tell Jesse about the two weird dudes/angels who are in town to try to pull the Voice out of the preacher. In typical Cassidy fashion, his story is nigh unintelligible, not only because of that accent that I struggle with so much. Jesse doesn't believe him or pay much attention, especially once Cassidy starts going on about androids and government clones. Jesse has things to do and he tells Cassidy to fix the damn A/C and drives off. Also, it was on the second watching that I realized that in the flood of words coming out of Cassidy's mouth, he admitted to smoking attic insulation. Which is just amazing.
Out in that clearing, the sheriff's men pull the dead girl out of the sinkhole. All the whores are there, crying, and all of the QM&P men are there too. Odin Quincannon makes a speech, basically telling the boys to watch the roughhousing and the girls to watch where they're walking at night. And that's it. Tulip is there too, however, and she's bullshit at the lack of pity or responsibility for the girl's death.
Jesse swings by Emily's house and convinces her that they should do a church raffle with a big flatscreen t.v. to increase attendance. She thinks that's a bad idea, too expensive, but he insists and talks her into picking up the t.v., playing - possibly unknowingly - on her feelings for him. He promises her that after this Sunday, people will be coming to church in droves.
Flashback: Jesse's dad catches him smoking cigarettes with a preteen Tulip. He beats his son with a belt while the other kids watch.
Cassidy goes to the angels' motel room and skilfully manipulates them into giving him more information about this whole Voice situation, and what they plan to do about it, like cutting it out with the chainsaw or drawing it out with "Wynken Blynken and Nod" lullaby. I love Cassidy: "Ah, the song. I think he'd prefer that to the saw, actually." He promises to bring Jesse to them soon and finagles a wad of cash out of them as payment. Which he promptly blows on drink, drugs and a girl at the whorehouse. Back at the motel room, one of the angels brings out a steampunk looking Heaven telephone, saying that it's time to let "them" know what's going on. But the other angel points out that they are down here on earth without permission and without "them" knowing, so it'd be best not to call in and 'fess up.
At QM&P, Odin Quincannon is interrupted whilst playing Q*bert [Q*BERT!!!!] by Annville's mayor Miles stopping by. The mayor is not a strong person and is no match for Quincannon. His recent meeting with the Green Acres group has not gone unnoticed by the Quincannon camp and, once Odin brings it up, Miles starts gushing about Green Acre's green/sustainable/etc. business projects, saying that it could be a very profitable relationship for the town should QM&P agree to work with Green Acres. Odin not only tells the mayor to piss off, he pulls out his dick and pisses into Miles's briefcase. Meeting over.
That night, the mayor - who has a huge crush on Emily - babysits her kids while she picks up that t.v. When she gets home, he convinces her to have a glass of wine with him. She tells him, you know I'm never gonna be with you, right, Miles? Then she takes off her pants and tells him that he's to be out before morning: "The kids almost caught you last time."
The whorehouse has a pathetic memorial service for the dead whore and Tulip can barely restrain her anger and frustration. Before things get too heated, the madam says that in honor of Lacey and "her peaceful ways, next hour's on the house." Tulip sulks around downstairs (and we learn that she's friends with the madam because Tulip's momma was one of the whores back in the day) and when the fuck music starts cranking upstairs, she can't stand it anymore. She rages into a room with a golf club, thinking that it's Clive (the QM&P employee who shot Lacey with the paintball gun) flailing away on top of the girl. She beats him and beats him until he falls out the window onto the porch roof, jag of glass plunged into his throat. Except it isn't Clive: she went into Cassidy's room. She and the whore bundle Cassidy into a car and drive him to a hospital, Tulip in the backseat with Cassidy on her lap, bleeding profusely from his neck. She is freaking out. He tells her to kiss him and she does and he smiles at her. At the hospital, she tries to rush him into the ER but when she turns back from badgering the admittance clerk, Cassidy is gone from the waiting room. She follows the trail of blood and finds him slouched against a refrigerator, sucking on a blood bag. As she stares at him, Cassidy grins at her, gesturing to the blood bag: "I think you're right, love, I'm gonna make it."
Flashback: Jesse and his dad drive to QM&P in the middle of the night. As Jesse sits out in the hallway, his dad goes into Odin's office. You can't make out what they're saying but it sounds like a disagreement. Jesse's dad storms out and Odin calls after him, "Renounce him, John Custer, renounce him!" Later, on the drive home, Jesse's dad muses, some people just can't be saved.
In the present day, Jesse stops by QM&P and helps Odin with his Alamo model. He asks Odin to please come to church on Sunday. Quincannon isn't inclined to do that so Jesse sweetens the pot: the Custer land is the last large chunk in town that Quincannon doesn't own. If Odin comes to church and doesn't leave feeling godly after listening to the sermon, Jesse will let him have the land.
On Sunday, the church is in fact pretty full, thanks to the t.v. raffle. Jesse launches into his sermon, in which he basically tells them they're all sinners and it's their own damn fault ... but he can help with that, one person at a time, he'll bring them back to God. He walks into the congregation and picks out Odin Quincannon, asking him if he will now serve God. Odin's like, um, no, not interested, he wins. So Jesse leans in, asks him again, and then tells him in the Voice to "serve God." And then when he asks Odin again if he will serve God, Quincannon, looking rather surprised at himself, says, well, yes, of course, I will serve God. The congregation is pretty impressed at that.
The angels wait in their motel room for Cassidy to deliver the preacher, eating vending machine snacks and reading the Bible. A phone rings and one of them picks up the motel phone. It's not that phone that's ringing. They stare in fear at the Heaven phone as it rings and rings and rings. Oops.
Previously on Preacher / next time on Preacher
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