In which Shawn and Kim find an empty beginning to what they expect to be a full season.
Shawn: I have been looking forward to the return of Preacher since the last of the credits rolled on The Walking Dead. The Third Season starts with what feels like a bridge between the end of the last season and what will be the main story of this season. I made a few notes while it unfolded.
Even though it helped set the table for what came later, the flashback to start the episode with Jesse’s mother and grandmother using the house as a backdrop to cure people with voodoo while interesting on the surface and a chance to introduce some funky characters, it detracted from the rush to save Tulip after she died at the end of the previous season.
There is no doubt that Gran’ma is a bad ass. She’s much darker than Saint of Killers and we didn’t need 60 minutes to see her backstory. In a few minutes, we saw her ask Jesse to cut his palm and give her his blood and flashback to her cutting open Jesse’s mother’s stomach. She’s clothed in black and lit in shadows and she doesn’t blather on like Negan. I like where they are going with her as the main villain of the season from how it looks after this episode.
The Jesse-and-Jody fight lost some luster since Jesse is missing some of his powers. Jody being the killer of his father should come with more symbolism considering the characters but it feels more like buddies getting in a fight. I’ve moved Jesse down to only the third or fourth most interesting character in the show.
Tulip stuck in the sitcom world of Purgatory was the biggest disappointment. I fear that we’ll see other characters in Purgatory before the season ends too. It didn’t add much to her character for me and seemed to be a big time-waster until Tulip was brought back to life.
The Jesse-and-Cassidy relationship is currently the low part of the triangle. As the series moves on, each side of the triangle will take a turn at being the weak link. Cassidy telling Jesse about having sex with Tulip broke the camel’s back and I feel like we are a long way from redeeming those two.
God’s message to Tulip before she comes back to life is a mystery to me. I’m excited with the possibilities of this season and this was certainly just an appetizer. We had to get to Tulip reborn and start some conflict but these weren’t the question marks I envisioned. I’m still high on this season and show and the shenanigans should go into high gear next week.
Kim: Anticipation is often better than actually getting what you’re waiting for. That said, I think it’s an apropos statement. I knew at the end of last season where they were going and what would happen. We learned that Jesse has family ties to the voodoo world, so it was no secret that he was going to show up by granny and ask her to do that voodoo that she do.
I have spent several days trying to figure out exactly how to arrange my thoughts on this episode, because while it set up a lot of potential storylines, it really fell very flat. Again, that anticipation factor mixes in there, so I may have set it up in my head to be much more than it ended up being. I think I’d like to talk about the weird, confusing shit.
1) So Psycho Granny cut open Jesse’s mom to get the picture that she swallowed. Then, she tells the boys to put her on the machine. What? What’s that?
2) Obviously, this leads to the creepy family finding Jesse and killing his dad so they can have him. Jody’s the guy that does it. Why does Jody want to kick Jesse’s ass so badly? And furthermore…
3) He’s a big dude, but from what we heard when he went to get whatever it was he got for the “bringing back to life” spell, he’s also got some kind of super-human strength?
4) Why is Graham McTavish still listed in the opening credits? Does this mean we’re getting more of the Saint of Killers somehow in this season?
5) Why does Nana want Jesse’s blood?
6) Did Cassidy have Granny do a spell so Tulip would be in love with him? The smile, the snuggling in the bed…
7) And why when Jesse saw them sleeping together would he not have something to do/say about that?
8) Speaking of Tulip – that Purgatory scene was kind of pointless. She had shitty parents. We knew this though. I don’t think their backgrounds, as little as we got of them, were all that important.
9) God chose Tulip? Really? This doesn’t track at all.
10) Where is Hitler? Or Eugene for that matter?
11) Did Grams really drink fingernails and hair?
12) What’s in her IV?
13 Do you ever wonder what the real story behind the Indian and the mascot from the first season was?
14) Do you kind of miss Odin proclaiming there’s only one God…The GOD OF MEAT?
15) Did the start of Season 2 start this slowly? I don’t really remember.
Bring me Episode 2. I’m ready.
