Preacher recap "Mumbai Sky Tower" S2E2 6/26/17

So, the Genesis voice does not stop the Saint, who keeps coming, raising his gun and firing at Jesse.  An unlucky delivery van happens to be driving by.  One of the Saint's giant bullets goes through the van, turning the driver to slush.  The van swerves, runs into the Saint and crushes him against a streetlight.  Jesse's all, whew!  Behind him, a posse-worth of gun nuts (there is a "Gun Aficionado convention staying at the same motel) run out, clutching their various firearms.  As everyone watches, and Jesse's relief dissipates, the Saint emerges from the wreckage, Terminator-like, and keeps on coming towards his prey.  Jesse uses Genesis to command the gun aficionados to "stop him" and they simply POUR bullets into him.  He stops, shakes it off, and raises his own guns, methodically dispatching every single aficionado even as Jesse Voices at them to RUN.

Drawn by the ruckus, Cassidy drags Jesse back to the motel so they can collect Tulip and go.  Unfortunately, she has found a news report on t.v. about how Annville got all blowed up.  She is stunned, and Jesse gets drawn into watching as well until an errant bullet destroys the t.v. and they all run for it.  The Saint works his way up and down the motel, blowing everyone he sees away.  The body count is high, y'all.  He almost corners them but they escape through a window and drive off.  The Saint is a little perturbed by this, his quarry continually escaping.

The next morning, Cassidy says he thinks he knows who might be able to help them.  You see, last night, while Jesse and Tulip were getting it on, Cassidy was watching t.v. and saw an ad for a casino magician, the amazing Ganesh, and he recognized him as Fiore, one of the two angels who tried to reclaim Genesis back in S1.

A COUPLE OF DAYS AGO

In a very nice, wordless sequence, we see that Fiore is adrift following the Saint's killing of his partner, Deblanc.  He finds his way to a casino, the Mumbai Sky Tower, and tries killing himself over and over again - which never works because of the whole angel-regeneration thing (unless killed by the Saint of Killers).  Eventually, the lounge singer notices him and they work up an act that becomes very popular:  the lounge singer kills Fiore/Ganesh in any number of gruesome ways and Fiore/Ganesh regenerates right back.

Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy go to the Mumbai Sky Tower to find Ganesh.  Tulip isn't feeling it - still shocked about Annville - and leaves the boys to it.  They speak with Fiore, who is completely uninterested in helping them get the Saint off their trail - he hired the Saint, after all.  The angel blows them off but Cassidy has picked up on his ennui and tells Jesse to leave it to him.  Jesse goes to find Tulip, who is sad about losing her uncle Walter, who was a drunk but her only remaining family.  Jesse's all, he doesn't have to be your only family - let's get married!  Tulip:  "Excuse me?"

Meanwhile, Cassidy is waiting for Fiore in the angel's room.  When Fiore comes back after his show, Cassidy convinces him to get high - they both get SUPER high - and in another charming, mostly wordless sequence, run around the room together, giggling, building forts, tossing frisbees, drinking champagne, sobbing in each other's arms in the hot tub.  More than anything, Fiore has been lonely since Deblanc's death.  Cassidy has picked up on this and without overtly pressuring the angel to change his mind about helping with the Saint, tries to bond with him.

There's a long line ahead of Jesse and Tulip at the lobby wedding chapel and when they go to the bar to drink while they wait, Tulip sees a big dude staring at her.  She tells Jesse she's going to go change her shirt and when she comes out of their room, the big dude is waiting for her.  Tulip:  "Heyyyyy, Gary."  Gary: "Hey, Tulip.  Nice shirt."  It seems that Gary works for a Victor - who owns casinos all over Texas and Louisiana - and it seems that Tulip has some history with this Victor.

After a chat with the lounge singer (while waiting for Tulip), Jesse figures out that if God likes jazz, they will likely be able to find him in New Orleans.  Cassidy finds him, telling him that [he assumes] Fiore will take care of the Saint; Jesse's all, great! and we'll go to New Orleans after Tulip and I get married.  Cassidy:  Married?

Up in Jesse and Tulip's room, Gary says that Tulip needs to talk to Victor, like, now.  She doesn't want to.  He presses the issue.  She refuses again.  So then they fight.  Gary is huge, picking her up by the neck and tossing her around the room.  She manages to get some good licks in, however, finally beating him (either unconscious or dead, hard to say) with the heart-shaped buzzer the wedding chapel handed out for the wait.  It's now that Cassidy shows up - "Jaysus! What happened?" - and Tulip snarls at him, "Do not tell Jesse!"  Then the heart-shaped buzzer goes off.  Time to get married.

Jesse and Fiore are in the wedding chapel, waiting.  Jesse confirms that Fiore will call the Saint off and then he can use the Genesis voice again.  Fiore's all, no, you really shouldn't, it's bad - and what else is bad is that boy you sent to Hell.  Jesse: Eugene?  Fiore was supposed to get him out of Hell but is all, nope, it's terrible down there, I can't do it.  At least Eugene isn't completely forgotten.

Tulip finally shows up and says no, she doesn't want to get married - they don't need to.  They all go out to the car.  Fiore asks where they're going next and Jesse tells him that they're going to follow the music and go to New Orleans.  Tulip shivers: Victor must be in New Orleans.  Fiore has told Jesse that the way the Saint is tracking him is by homing in on the Genesis voice, so before they drive away, Jesse uses the voice to tell the angel to FIND PEACE.

This brings the Saint to Fiore.  Their deal still holds: if the Saint kills Genesis, he will see his family again.  Fiore tells him that Jesse is heading to New Orleans but he needs him to do one more thing.  So out in the evening Ganesh show, the Saint shoots Fiore, actually killing him so he can't regenerate.  The audience boos loudly - that's not what they came to see - but the dead angel has a beatific expression on his face.  It seems he has, in fact, found peace.

Previously on Preacher / next time on Preacher

Preacher recap "Call and Response" S1E10 7/31/16

In Annville, Jesse Custer is on the run, laying low until Sunday morning when he has promised to bring God to the townspeople.  Just in case it actually happens, all the women in town are getting their hair done, which is where Tulip finds the whorehouse's madam.  Tulip's all, WTF is going on and where's Jesse?  The madam tells her that rumor has it Donnie has him.  Later that morning, Tulip busts into Donnie's house, waving her gun, breaking Betsy's nose and shouting for Jesse.  Who comes out of the bathroom, just having showered.  Hey, Tulip, he says, clearly under no duress.

A now-healed Cassidy is under a little duress, being held in the jail.  Sheriff Root comes in with a gun, a box of ammo and a thermos of blood.  He's figured out that Cassidy is a vampire and he alternately shoots him and then feeds him blood (to facilitate healing), asking over and over again what has happened to Eugene.  Cassidy is all, you really don't want to know.  [I adore Joseph Gilgun in this role; he was a little much to take in Misfits but he's wonderful here.  Even if I can't understand much of what he says.]  After an unknown period of time, blood is splashed across the walls of the jail cell and the floor is littered with red-stained Dixie cups.

Donnie, Betsy and Jesse explain to Tulip that [Donnie has found God and since Jesse showed him mercy in the men's room that time, he's showing him mercy now].  Tulip can scarcely roll her eyes more and asks Jesse to come outside with her.  She's got Carlos tied up in the trunk of her car, you see.  And she wants Jesse to kill him.

Flashback to when Carlos screwed Jesse and Tulip over:  it was during a bank robbery in Dallas.  He was the lookout/driver and when he overheard them laughing together as they wait for the vault to blow, he got jealous, untied the guard and took off in the getaway car.  Jesse shoots the guard and Tulip screams after Carlos and the stress and anger causes her to miscarry Jesse's baby.

Back in now/Annville, we check in with the guy keeping an eye on the control panel; it's for a huge underground vat of fermenting cow shit, part of the Quincannon Meat & Power conglomerate, and when the alarms go off, it's because the methane is building up too much.

Cassidy tells the sheriff that the good news is that Eugene is alive.  Although, he muses, on second thought that might not actually be good news.  He presses, asking if Root is maybe a teeny tiny bit relieved that the boy is gone.  This pushes Root's buttons and he shoots Cassidy a bunch of times, then unlocks the jail cell and tells him he can go.  "Good," groans the wounded vampire, "I got someplace I gotta go."

Jesse and Tulip argue about Carlos for a while, plus she disparages his plan to use a dead angel hand to call God down to town.  He points out that killing Carlos won't bring back their baby but she rages that someone's got to pay.  So he gathers up a trash bag and an oven mitt, and goes out to the car.  He wraps the trash bag around Carlos's head, cocks his handgun and places it in the oven mitt.  At the last moment, she stops him, saying that it's enough that he would do it for her.  [Which seems a little out of character.] So instead they just beat the shit out of Carlos and then let him go.  That all seemed ... pointless.

In the morning, Betsy and Donnie sneak Jesse and Tulip into the church.  They clean up and Betsy, being a secretary, helps Jesse figure out the God-phone: it's got video-conferencing.  Tulip's all, what do you think is going to happen here? and Jesse confesses that he honestly has no idea.  Tulip: "Well, no matter what, we're gettin' french fries after."  The church fills up; Cassidy sneaks in and finds Tulip to stand with.  Everyone who we've ever seen in Annville is there and Odin Quincannon is right in the front pew.  Jesse comes out but before he can get started, Quincannon jumps up and is all skeptical about the preacher calling down any sort of God.  In fact, he goes on to say, there is no God but the God of Meat!  To which the congregation says: .....?

Jesse brings out the God-phone and the angel hand and fusses about for quite some time [there's an old school modem sound effect, which is excellent].  Finally, just when the congregation is restless and he's about to quit, the lights in the church go out and the God-phone emits a blinding light.  And there, projected on the church wall, is God: old, white, male, sitting on a throne and dressed in flowing robes.  Everyone is completely gobsmacked (except for Cassidy, who just sits there, giggling).  "I AM THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA ... I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD.  MY CHILDREN, WHY HAVE YOU CALLED ME?"

Jesse, not really believing what's going on, says that they've got questions.  And so God entertains some questions, telling the people that He loves them.  He even tells Quincannon that his little daughter is in Heaven, which seems to relieve him.  God asks Jesse if he has any questions.  The preacher does: he wants to know what God's plan is for him and why did He give him the Genesis-power if he cant use it to help people.  God says that Jesse hasn't failed and that because of Jesse, all of Annville is saved.  Everyone screams and cries happily.

Jesse, disturbed: "But I sent him to Hell!"  God: "And how did you do that, my son?"  Jesse:  "With Genesis."  God: "Oh, yes, of course.  Does anyone else have any questions?"  That finishes it and Jesse gets angry: "You're not God, you're an imposter!"  God tries to dissemble and so Jesse used the Genesis voice:  WHERE IS GOD?  As it turns out, God is missing and no one in Heaven knows where he is ... "God is gone!"  The congregation is stunned.  Jesse turns to Tulip and Cassidy:  "Let's go.  Tulip wants french fries."  And they walk out.

Behind them, the town falls apart.  People cry and wreck the church.  Quincannon makes a mannequin of ground beef and cuddles it in his office.  A bunch of schoolgirls stab pervy bus driver Linus to death on his schoolbus.  Donnie can't get it up with Betsy.  Tracy's mother smothers her comatose daughter while her son takes a selfie.  And the control room guy orders a hooker and then dies while having S&M-tinged sex with her.  And the methane builds up - and the hooker doesn't know how to release the vents - until a huge explosion obliterates the entire town.  Gone.  Wiped off the map.

Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy apparently decided to get french fries at an out-of-town diner, however, because they're fine.  Tulip's like, what now?  Jesse says that they might as well drive around the country and look for God: if He wants their help, they'll help Him, and if not, they'll kick His ass.  Cassidy finds the prospect of a road trip quite appealing.  They head out to the car and Tulip asks Jesse to show her how the Genesis voice works.  So he tells her "KISS ME" and she does - and when she breaks away, she punches him right in the nose and tells him not to ever do that again.  And then they drive off into next season.

But that's not quite the last scene.  Fiore comes back from Hell, without Deblanc.  And in the wreckage of Annville, the seraph wanders around, looking a little stunned.  Then she gets shot in the back, blowing a huge hole in her chest.  She collapses and behind her is the Cowboy.  He growls, "Preacher," and the hunt is on.

And to tide myself over until S2, I've got the first two Preacher TPBs on order at the library ...

Previously on Preacher / next time on Preacher

Preacher recap "He Gone" S1E7 7/10/16

We pick up immediately where we left off last time, with Eugene having literally gone to hell after Jesse told him to do so using the Voice.  Jesse looks around his now empty church, brow furrowed.  Then he swallows, gathers himself and lets the people in for services.  While up above, a slightly gobsmacked Cassidy in the balcony tries to get a grip on what he just witnessed.  It's a full house for church - the sheriff saved a seat for Eugene - and people are even sitting outside, listening over the loudspeaker.  During his sermon, Jesse says "I'm here to tell you that your whole life can change in a moment.  And this is that moment.  And this is the word ..." He pauses, weighing his options, and then, using his regular voice, "Serve God."  So at least he reigned himself in at the end.

On his way out after the service, the sheriff asks the townspeople if anyone has seen Eugene.

And over at Quincannon Meat & Power, Odin Quincannon has finished his Alamo model, and he sits, listening to the pathetic cries coming from the slaughterhouse, and smiles slightly.

Flashback:  Young Jesse and Tulip get in trouble at school for fighting back against bullies.  Tulip's mom is in jail and her uncle is drunk so she goes home with Jesse and his dad.  Seems like this is a regular occurrence.  That night, Jesse says his prayers, asking for help in trying not to be bad, in trying to be like his dad in always doing the right thing.  Now:  Tulip runs through town and ambushes a couple of teenage boys who have stolen her uncle's pants.  She takes the pants back to her uncle's house - where he is passed out on the front steps.  She tries to get him back inside but he is too heavy, so she sits on the stoop, stroking his hair, smoking a cigarette and trying to ignore the neighbors' judgmental looks.

Jesse and Emily go over his upcoming schedule: business is booming with marriage counseling and baptisms and all that church stuff.  Over at the Roots' house, Eugene's room sits empty.

A little later, Cassidy finds Jesse sneaking a drink in the kitchen.  He asks how the preacher is doing, finally saying that he saw what happened to Eugene.  Jesse:  "Oh."  Cassidy is all, I'm not judging you but I'm here to help.  Jesse escapes to run a Bible study.  Then Tulip comes in, toting hamburgers, hash browns and frozen veggies: she's making dinner.  Cassidy is still smitten and tells her that he didn't say anything to Jesse about the two of them hooking up.  Tulip's all, that's good since I'm his girlfriend and he'd probably kill you.   [I'm not really sure Jesse considers himself her girlfriend.]  She asks Cassidy if he told Jesse what he really is, since they're "best mates" and all.  Cassidy dithers, saying that he tried, but no, not really.  Tulip says "Wake up, Cassidy.  Jesse is a preacher's boy from West Texas.  See what he does [when you tell him the truth]."  Nobody is really telling anybody the truth here:  Tulip knows about Cassidy but not about Jesse's Voice; Cassidy knows about the Voice but not about Jesse's past; Jesse doesn't believe Cassidy nor does he pay attention to what Tulip is really about; poor Emily is completely in the dark about everything.

Flashback:  Jesse and Tulip wrestle and roughhouse until Jesse's dad sends them off to wash the dishes.  He checks on their homework status and it appears that she's been living with the Custers for a while now.  When Tulip goes to fetch more dish soap, she sees Jesse's dad on the phone with someone but I can't make out what he's saying and it is unclear whether she can.  That night, though, she sneaks into Jesse's room and climbs on the bed.  "'Til the end of the world, right?" she asks.  Jesse, half asleep, agrees, "'Til the end of the world."  Little Tulip lies down next to him, staring at the ceiling.  The next morning, two women from the Texas Department of Human Services show up and take Tulip away with them.  She doesn't make a fuss - which makes me think that she did hear what Jesse's dad was saying on the phone - but Jesse does, screaming and crying and chasing the car as it drives off down the road.  Jesse, to his father: "She was good ... [w]hy did you do that?"  His dad:  "Because she's an O'Hare.  They're always gonna be trouble."  That night, during his prayers, Jesse asks God to take care of Tulip and to please, please kill his father and send him straight to hell.

In the now, Emily and a group of parishioners perform a little Bible story play for Jesse.  It's terribly awkward.  And he's preoccupied and gives them harsh, unhelpful notes.  Odin Quincannon shows up, hoping for a word with Jesse.  They go into another room where Odin brings out a deed for Jesse to sign, transferring the church and land to him, "as agreed upon.'  Jesse's all, WTF, you said you'd serve God?  Odin shrugs, saying, yeah, but I still ain't no Christian.  Jesse flat-out refuses to sign the papers, saying there's no way in hell he's going to hand his father's church over (and also confused as to how Odin wriggled around the Voice).  Odin stares at him flatly and promises that he'll be back.

Even more awkward than that church skit?  Dinner with Jesse, Tulip, Cassidy and Emily.  Cassidy is snarfing down everything on his plate; Emily is struggling a little with the "flavor" on the hash browns - which is vanilla extract.  Tulip is a crap cook.  Jesse sits silently, drinking his beer and stewing, and Tulip can't keep herself from poking at him.  To make things more stressful, Sheriff Root shows up, still looking for Eugene.  He asks if the boy had stopped by the church to see Jesse that morning.  Everyone momentarily gets distracted by the oven catching on fire - everyone but Jesse, who just sits there, silently - but then he answers the sheriff, saying that he didn't see Eugene before church.  Emily pipes up, saying, "Actually you did see him," and Jesse just looks at her blankly; but then she covers for him, telling the sheriff that she saw Eugene leave later.

Jesse walks the sheriff out.  Cassidy follows and after the sheriff is gone, whacks Jesse in the face with a fire extinguisher.  This temporarily knocks some sense into Jesse, who admits that he didn't mean to do that to Eugene - the words just came out.  Cassidy's like, well, what are you going to do, you sent an innocent kid to hell.  Jesse retorts that Eugene isn't that innocent: he had a big crush on that Tracy girl and when she rejected him, he shot her in the head with a shotgun and then turned the gun on himself.  Cassidy: So he deserved what he got?  The vampire implores the preacher to give up the Voice - it's a little odd to see a 119-year old hard-drinkin', drug-loving vampire be the voice of reason - but Jesse's all, how do we know this isn't God's plan.  Cassidy runs out of arguments and, for some reason (to test Jesse, see if Tulip is really right about him?), strips off his clothes and walks into the sun, asking, "Padre, will you let me burn too?"  He bursts into flames and, shrieking, falls to his knees.  Jesse just stares at him.

After the commercial break, Jesse goes back into the kitchen, setting the fire extinguisher on the table with a thud.  He drains his beer.  The women ask where Cassidy is.  Jesse frowns at Tulip, "You know about him?  You know what he is?"  He sees the answer in his face.  Emily stutters:  "I don't know anything."  Tulip calls him a sonofabitch, throwing a friend out who doesn't meet his uptight, redneck, Christian standards.  He snarls at her, calling her an O'Hare, sneering at the dinner she tried to make.  She calls him a dick and stomps out.  Emily flutters, trying to smooth the waters, saying that from the day he got back to Annville, she believed in him.  Jesse stares at her dully, "Well, that was stupid.  Go home, Emily."  Wordlessly, shocked, she leaves.

Flashback:  Jesse's dad wakes him up in the middle of the night and tells him to hide under the bed and keep quiet.  From under the bed, Jesse can see his father getting beaten unconscious but a couple of men.  Those men find the frightened boy, of course.  And out in a field, Jesse's dad is on his knees with a gun to his head, making his son promise to be a good boy and not cry.  "I did this, daddy! It's all my fault!"  And then the men shoot his dad.

Now:  Jesse, on his knees in the church, tearing up the floorboards and grabbing fistfuls of the dirt underneath, shouting in the Voice, "Come back! Come back!"  And outside, Odin Quincannon has a bulldozer and a small army of Quincannon employees, armed to the teeth, advancing on Jesse's church.

Previously on Preacher / next time on Preacher

Preacher recap "Monster Swamp" S1E4 6/19/16

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

Allow me to pause for a moment here

Wow.  Once The Walking Dead ended, things really dropped off here, didn't they?  Part of the problem is that I was traveling for several days.  And although I have two books going right now - The Covenant by James Michener and The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie - I've read them both before.  I need to get to the library; I need to watch the DVD of The Neverending Story that Netflix sent me (can you believe I've never seen it?); I need to find something new to recap.  I need to finish off True Blood but that really seems like a summertime project - something about watching Alcide and Jason, with their shirts off, all sweaty ... I'm rather thinking I might try recapping Preacher when it comes up on AMC.  That's a few weeks away, however, so I'll try to consume some media worth sharing here before then.

Mini movie review: This Is the End

This Is the End, the apocalyptic comedy starring Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill and Danny McBride and with guest shots of Michael Cera, Rihanna, Paul Rudd, Aziz Ansari, Emma Watson, Channing Tatum and many, many more, was not all I'd hoped for.  It started strong - the over-the-top party at Franco's house (pre-apocalypse) was quite funny - I particularly loved evil Michael Cera, finally breaking free of his type.  But once the world ended, the movie devolved into a bunch of the guys stuck in the house and yelling at each other.  I guess it's hit or miss for me with this Apatow-esque group's comedies: I loved Superbad but didn't much care for Pineapple Express, liked 40 Year Old Virgin but not Knocked Up, and so on.  It certainly looked like the gang had a great time making the movie, at least, but I found it monotonous - and the special effects were sucky.  These guys have enough money that they could have made the demons more sophisticated than the ones from Ghostbusters, for crying out loud.

Mini movie review: Observe and Report

Just this moment got done watching Observe and Report and ... meh.  What an uneven movie - I felt as though it had no idea what it wanted to be.  Some parts were funny but most others were too mean-spirited to be funny, and yet it was, in parts, intentionally too goofy to be a serious twisted satire.  Mr. Mouse - who stayed awake for the whole thing, having seen it before - kept telling me how dark and twisted it was.  Well, Heathers is pretty friggin' dark and twisted, and yet knows exactly what it's doing the whole way through.  I liked seeing Seth Rogen stretch his acting chops a little out of the schlumpy Judd Apatow roles he's mostly had; I also liked seeing him slimmed down a bit - a precursor to his skinny new physique for Green Hornet or Green Lantern or whatever superhero origin flick he's doing.  And I do enjoy Anna Faris, although her character wasn't the slightest bit sympathetic.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to what comes next in my movie queue.  Don't have a clue what it is, but I'm looking forward to it.  Also, I may have to watch Heathers again soon.

Movie review: Funny People

In Funny People, Adam Sandler plays against type (ha ha, just kidding), as George Simmons, a 40-something former standup comedian who has hit it really big with a string of dumb comedies but has lost touch with family and friends while doing so. When he develops a life-threatening blood disease, he is desperate to recapture his life, going back to the small comedy clubs where he got his start. But his current standup is very dark and not that funny, so he hires struggling young comic Ira Wright (Seth Rogen, not stretching very much here either) to write some new material for him and also to be his personal assistant. George gets some funny new jokes; Ira gets some life experiences hitherto unavailable to him; and both men get to be friends, sort of. Until George decides to reconnect with Laura, the one girl who got away, the one he’s always been in love with. The problem is, Laura (Leslie Mann) is married with two children and Ira has issues with this, even if George and Laura don’t seem to mind.

Is Funny People meant to be an ironic title? Because most of the main characters in here aren’t that funny. Ira isn’t very funny until he learns from George; George isn’t funny because his movies are exponentially stupid and his post-illness standup is too morbid; Laura isn’t funny even though she thinks she is. The supporting cast is actually stronger than the leads: Jason Schwartzman is fantastic as a vain sitcom actor, banging chicks left and right because he’s a little bit famous and “looks like Jackson Brown.” Eric Bana, as Laura’s Australian husband, is hilarious: I loved getting to hear his actual accent, which I’d never heard before, as well as watching him play broad and over the top as opposed to his smoldering Hollywood drama roles. Aubrey Plaza, from Parks and Recreation, is funny too, understated as a plain-Jane, Janeane Garofalo-esque standup comic on whom Ira has a crush. Also funny: the video clips of a young Adam Sandler, taped from his days as Judd Apatow’s roommate in real life.

But in general, Funny People is uneven, fully predictable and way too long at 146 minutes. The funny bits would be funnier if they weren’t buried under the length of the movie. Mr. Mouse started out watching with me but got restless several time, getting up to make dinner and then coming back, getting up to check his emails and then coming back again; he thought Knocked Up was too long and Funny People is seven minutes longer still.

Also: Judd Apatow needs to stop putting his daughters in his movies. They’re cute, Judd, but we’re over it. Run them through in a try-to-find-them Hitchcock-esque cameo if you must, but enough’s enough.

Mini movie review: Pineapple Express

Another rainy day, another opportunity to watch a movie: this time, Pineapple Express. I'm not going to synopsize the plot; I'm so far behind in finally seeing this flick that you all already know what it's about: a process server (Seth Rogen) and his pot dealer (James Franco) get caught up in murder and drug-related mayhem. Hilarity and gun shots ensue.

I read a lot of reviews of PE when it came out, many of them decrying the violence as having no place in a stoner comedy. True, there is a fair bit of violence: feral fighting, gunshots to the head at close range. Bodies are in rough shape to be sure. But PE is a comedy like Shaun of the Dead is a comedy: there's more to it than that. SotD was terrifically gruesome in parts (David's de-guttification in the pub window, in particular) but still hilarious. Similarly PE is quite violent - Drugs Are Bad, People, is the message - while still being very funny.

James Franco is just awesome as the perpetually stoned pot dealer Saul. Seth Rogen doesn't really do much stretching acting-wise here; his character is largely the same character he's played in all his movies. I would have like to have seen more of Gary Cole - although he's the big bad, he has very little presence. The supporting players - Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Ed Begley Jr. - steal their scenes whenever they can. And I have to admit that seeing the shrill, screechy Rosie Perez get squished by a Daewoo was particularly satisfying.

Superbad - mini-review

Finally, finally, I went to see Superbad last night. I even got Mr. Mouse to go with me and, wonder of wonders, he didn't fall asleep in the theater: he's now 2 for 4, having stayed awake for Superbad and Knocked Up, but having fallen asleep (and snoring) in Little Miss Sunshine and the second Austin Powers movie. I guess he's an Apatow/Rogen fan. Well, me too!

Everyone who is interested in this movie already knows the plot: three high school seniors, two of them best friends since kindergarten and all three dateless dorks, go on a quest to obtain alcohol for a house party in order to score chicks. One of the guys, the dorkiest of all, manages to get a fake I.D. and becomes "McLovin," a 25-year old Hawaiian organ donor. (McLovin rules, by the way.) It's a cleverer, funnier Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, sans Neil Patrick Harris, but plus some actual sweetness not usually found in movies with this many dick jokes. And, boy oh boy, are there dick jokes! I can't imagine how much fun the filmmakers had when they sat down to imagine and then draw the dozens upon dozens of penis pictures for the two montages (all vital to the plot, of course). It's pretty friggin' funny.

Jonah Hill (also recently in Knocked Up and Accepted) plays Seth, an obnoxious kid who tries to make up for being a fat undate-able dork by pure brazenness, although there's honest fear underneath all his obscene bombast. Michael Cera plays Evan pretty much how he played George Michael Bluth on Arrested Development (sweet, loyal, often put-upon) but since exactly six people ever watched AD when it was on*, I suppose that's okay. The kid who plays McLovin is a total newcomer to the movies, apparently found at a casting call; he steals every single scene he's in. And while I've read reviews complaining that Seth Rogen's dumb cop was played too broadly to be believable, I still found him dang funny. He looks good too, like he's lost some weight.

What can I say about the language? A friend warned us that the language was really raunchy (something about setting a new record for the f-bomb, which I can't believe) but Mr. Mouse and I both agree that after watching a season of Deadwood, the Superbad language hardly registered. Not that we would recommend this movie to either of our mothers, mind.

At any rate, I really enjoyed Superbad and found it much funnier and better-paced than Knocked Up, which in turn I thought funnier than most of the dreck that passes for mainstream comedy these days. I hope this summer's successes help make Seth Rogen a real player in Hollywood. Oh - and the funk music is just outstanding! I'm going to have to raid the soundtrack for my iPod for sure.

* Go rent Arrested Development right now! Brilliant, irreverent and so very funny!

Knocked Up - mini-review

We finally got around to seeing Knocked Up last night and I'm going to score it the way I would score The 40-Year Old Virgin: screamingly funny in some parts but about twenty minutes too long. Bonus points for keeping my husband awake for the entire movie; Little Miss Sunshine was the last movie we saw together and he fell asleep three minutes after the start. There may have been beer involved. I'm just saying.

I have recently become a big Seth Rogen fan, since about a month ago when I re-watched the entire Freaks and Geeks series. It was very nice to see him exhibiting some acting range here, which he didn't really get to do in 40YOV or You, Me & Dupree (I suppose scene-stealing in those movies can't really count as range). Katherine Heigl did a great job - she's come a LONG way since Roswell. I didn't really care for Leslie Mann - too shrill and screechy - but that's the way the part was written, not the actress's fault. And I absolutely did not recognize Martin Starr: Bill Haverchuck from F&G and the hairy bearded guy in this movie ... he's aged well!

One final note: giant beer-snob kudos to Paul Rudd (I love Paul Rudd) for drinking Sierra Nevada throughout the movie.