The South Will Rise Again – Following converting the ruthless Odin at his sermon, Jessie is now a hit with the community but the more he uses his powers, the more people suspect something is up. When Tulip can’t lure Jessie back to the dark side, she gets her kicks out of Cassidy.
Oddly, the episode starts out with its weakest section courtesy of the extended old west flashback. However, it’s still good and does get across the mindset of our strong silent type lead figure being overwhelmed by the sin surrounding him in the local saloon. The grim colours really bring this out and there’s a hell of a lot of good imagery here. In fact, the whole sequence in isolation is great it’s just the way it ends with no real context into the rest of the episode that frustrates. What starts as an interesting opening act becomes merely the bloody equivalent of a cartoon preceding the main feature. In the bigger picture of the series, we still know what’s going on here as this a back story build up to The Saint of Killers (previously seen from the rear in a white suit and cowboy hat). Even just one cut to the present day character somewhere would have sold this better but instead it’s a sequence that will leave some fans scratching their heads over its significance.
Once that’s out of the way, the rest of the episode is excellent with an effective underlying theme of consequences building up to the final reveal. The subtle teases are worked well into the script that Jessie is out of his depth with his newfound community celebrity status before we’re sold the idea that his powers also carry a darkness to them. This builds well from the opening episode “open your heart” pledge of Jessie’s commands being taken too literally. Now, we have a system in place of Jessie’s commands becoming corrupted as brilliantly demonstrated by Odin. Jackie Earle Haley is hilarious as in the contrasting performance he gives as his newborn again self to his former bitter, uncaring, briefcase watering tough guy. Yet the twist in his actions leaves us in a state of shock and awe over just what he has become. Combine that with Jessie’s many seeds of command planted throughout the community, and you have a recipe for chaos in the weeks to come.
Cassidy takes more of back seat this week but does get a great early exchange in with Tulip with some quick fire vampire lore debunking. The pair continues to be an interesting on-screen couple as their relationship evolves form friendship to Tulip using Cassidy as a vent over not being able to tempt Jessie, which is a ride the Irish vampire will happily take. This week’s scene stealers are definitely the two angels as they hide in the bathroom from their ringing phone to the heavens. Craig Rosenberg’s script is absolutely on point as the pair are repeatedly rehearsing their speech and Foire gets pushed into making it because he’s the lovable one.
The subplot of Eugene and his father is also handled well as the pieces of Eugene’s past start to come together. The fact that he only seems to get sweeter and more caring, the worse his situation gets, speaks perfectly of good and evil having little to do with appearance. This week, even his own father tells him to kill himself but he’s more concerned about his dad’s problems than has own. It’s impossible not to feel sympathetic for him. Connecting his suicide attempt to the comatose Tracey helps give us a better idea of his story. He was most likely accidentally responsible for Tracey’s fate (probably the driver in a car accident) and tried to commit suicide over the guilt, only to fail and forever scar himself as an outsider.
Finally, the continuing feature of Donny and Betsy is a lot more rewarding than expected. While seeing Donny dealing with the aftermath of being the tough guy getting his ass handed to him was good, his prior confrontation with Jessie felt like a solid conclusion to that. However, now we see his natural suspicions of Jessie being used well to show how the ordinary towns folk could perceive his actions as recent actions as all too convenient. Even more so, the episode seems to be re-positioning Betsy as the strong figure in their relationship (from submissive to dominant?). Could she be going after Jessie? Either way, she delivers the funniest moment if the episode as she threatens to screw the brains out of some guy in accounting if Donny doesn’t get back to work.
So as a midpoint, the episode does its job of teasing story directions for the rest of season while delivering some big moments in the present. The show is still keeping a lot of cards close to its chest but its characters are so good that we don’t need to fully understand where they are heading. Whether or not the South will rise again remains to seen but as Preacher continues produce strong episodes (and has just been confirmed for 13 episode 2nd season), it’s certainly going up in the world.