PREACHER, Ep. 4 - 'Monster Swamp' - A TV Review

Sunday night was batshit bonkers, y'all. You had the NBA Finals game 7, LeBron vs. Curry; you had the highly anticipated and penultimate episode of Game of Thrones' sixth season, Jon Snow vs. Ramsey Bolton (seriously? Ramsey has basically just gone full Joker here at the end); and so it was easy for 'Preacher' to get overshadowed by those things. But even stacked against its competition, Sunday's episode was pretty good. So let's talk about it, shall we?

SPOILERS - There are spoilers for this episode, for Game of Thrones, and some comic book spoilers, too. Y'alls is warned.

If "Battle of the Bastards" was about giving us exactly what we expect (and totally want, because eat a giant's fist, Ramsey!), then "Monster Swamp" is about subverting those expectations at every turn.

From the beginning, the episode starts with the vibe of a cliché horror movie. A young, scantily clad woman runs through a seemingly empty town, followed by a menacing man with a gun. The only other people she can find are other girls, hiding, frightened, and desperate. And when she's finally cornered by the gunman, and a gunshot rings out (in hindsight, this particular point makes no sense, since paintball guns are air guns, and not powder-based, but that's me being a nerd) it's a paintball gun, and the girl is in no danger from the friend who's "hunting" her. That is, until she plummets to er death through a surprise sinkhole on the QM&P grounds.

Opening Credits

Jesse isn't expecting to start his day by hearing that Cassidy's both a vampire and is working at the behest of angels trying to reclaim the entity squatting on the preacher's soul, so he brushes it off, focusing instead on how to get people into church* on Sunday. He barely notices the encore appearnce of Cassidy's hilarious rice-hat/poncho ensemble, before deciding the church needs a high profile raffle to boost attendance.

*Jesse and Reverend Anderson of 'Outcast' are both dealing with the same problem - getting butts into the pews. Jesse hasn't gotten there yet, but before long, he'll join Anderson in no longer needing to call it "faith" so much as "hard, concrete knowledge of the divine, etc." But still...I'd kill for these two characters to sit around, drink whisky and bitch about their parishioners.

Back at the sinkhole, we probably shouldn't expect Odin Quincannon to make any sort of sentimental speech, though circumstances dictate a normal man do that very thing. But Odin is anything but normal; he mostly just seems annoyed that he has to take time out of his day to basically deliver a "you kids settle down, now" speech to a group of mourners and gawkers.

Though "Monster Swamp" gives us our best look at Quincannon yet, he's still a mystery. In the flashbacks, we don't know why John Custer tried to 'save' him, or what exactly was going on. In the present, we don't know why Jesse spends time with him painting toy soldiers, or what in the fuck is going on in his combination abattoir/power plant. But we get a better glimpse into his person. He's definitely not a religious man, yet he keeps the company of two preachers, so clearly there's more to his odious personality than meets the eye. Yet despite the company Odin keeps, he's still terrible enough to piss in the mayor's briefcase because he had lunch with the competition. But Jesse's determination to turn Quincannon into a servant of God, come hell or high water, indicates there's a lot more to come from the QM&P storyline.

In another ongoing subplot, Emily may or may not expect Jesse to ever understand the way she looks at him, but she was sure expecting something when he leaned in close to kiss pull some trash from her hair. And Emily caught us all off guard a few times in just a few minutes later on in the episode. Prior to the scenes with her and Miles, I found myself wondering "have we seen Emily's husband? is she even married?" Then moments later, she comes home from work with Jesse's giant for-raffle TV, and is greeted by Miles in a series of tableaux intended to create multiple assumptions about their relationship:

Marriage (how much did that cost? are the kids asleep?)

A babysitter (you got here at 4:30, how much do I owe you?)

An unrequited lover (I'm never going to be with you. You know that, right?)

An actual lover (Out before morning, kids almost caught you last time.)

As much as Quincannon is a mystery to the audience, it soon becomes clear, we don't know anything about Emily, or almost anyone else in this show.

And though we assumed they'd been sent by heaven, we find out instead that the angels DeBlanc and Fiore have actually gone rogue in an effort to clean up their mess before anyone in the Host finds out. On Earth, the two grow impatient with Cassidy's machinations, and seem worried that Dad is going to find out what they're up to down here. They expect their informant to help them out, but instead, they end up sitting in a motel watching TV (Fiore heading to the front desk to request a "Big As Texas" burger was some pretty inspired comedy) Then, once it's revealed, we expect their little hotline to heaven to ring any moment, but we get faked out. When it rings again, we're expecting another red herring, but it's a legit call. Ruh roh, boys...

And instead of annoying me, Tulip spends this episode growing increasingly agitated by the nonchalance of Quincannon's goons. When she finally blows her stack, it's Cassidy who pays for it. And while Tulip is expecting Cassidy to die and is totally freaking out, the audience isn't worried and is able to chuckle when he cons a kiss out of her. What will come of her finding Cassidy sucking down bags of blood, though, is anyone's guess.

I'm not sure whether or not the young girl in the flashback of Jesse being pressured into trying a cigarette is Tulip, but that's certainly the implication that's made. It's terrible that Jesse gets punished in front of his friends, but if it is Tulip, then she certainly didn't seem to learn anything by seeing Jesse catch hell because of her actions. She was trying to get him to do bad things then, and she's still trying to get him to do bad things now. That Jesse can resist her temptations may be owed to the lessons his father may have taught him - not with a belt, but with the sight of him on his knees seconds before being murdered.

Jesse's flashbacks show the kind of man John Custer was - devoted preacher, stern and strict father, and...someone, somehow related to a younger Odin Quincannon. When Jesse spends his own time with Odin, we know he can use the Word to make Odin go to church. Odin points out that that wouldn't be very Christian of him and Jesse seems to relent. It's a fair point, as faith without choice is no faith at all; we think we know what line Jesse wouldn't cross, but when it's clear he's lost his bet with Quincannon, Jesse cheats. And suddenly, what we expected of him is quite different from what he does.

And the Raffle itself - for all the comic readers out there, I bet you thought exactly like me; that when Jesse finally got everyone in town into that church to try to win that TV, that would be when Genesis would fully reveal itself and blow everyone but Jesse straight to hell. But - that didn't happen either. Like I said, the entire episode was about subverting (or in some cases, perverting) both the expectations of the characters and the audience. And if that's the case, then it seems like a fairly clear message.

Don't bother trying to predict the future for this weird-ass show.

FINAL SCORE 8/10

Preacher airs on AMC, Sunday nights at 9/8c.