The episode is called Hitler, which is curious considering his amount of screentime. He’s the focus of the cold open, a solid five minutes or so before the show moves back to the unholy trinity action, but it is a pretty good five minutes.
As teased in the opening credits, Hitler (Noah Taylor) has found himself working in customer service. He’s a sandwich artist at a Subway knock-off, dealing with his slacker boss and already rising in the ranks to Employee of the Week. Is he still the kinder, gentler Hitler that Eugene got to know in Hell?
Definitely not. The second he’s given the opportunity, Hitler’s off on a rant about Jews, and how the world is ready for another Third Reich. Noah Taylor really sells the anger and gives a great performance, and as much as the scene works (of course Hitler’s up to his old tricks!) it still feels slightly reactionary. Viewers were rightfully turned off by Hitler’s niceties last season, so now we’re ramping up the, well, Hitler. His plans for taking over the world are cut short, however, when the Saint of Killers and a “I’m not mad, just disappointed” Eugene arrive to bring him back to hell.
Back in Angelville, Jesse seems to have had his first good idea in weeks: if both the Grail and Gran’ma want a piece of him, why not let them fight it out amongst themselves? Herr Starr and Gran’ma square off over who gets what and finally, a possible solution: if the Grail can acquire souls for Gran’ma, she’ll let Jesse leave Angelville temporarily to help them. Jesse will use his brief field trip away from home to get Genesis back and defeat Gran’ma for good.
The only problem (or, only problem Jesse knows of yet) is that the souls are located in Japan, bringing back last season’s Soul Happy Go Go company. Tulip, Jodie and Featherstone are recruited to fly to Japan, break into the facility and retrieve the souls for Gran’ma. It’s sort of an odd expedition, especially this late in the season, and feels a little bit like we’re just giving Tulip a useless sidequest to keep her busy. Fortunately, Tulip’s antagonistic relationship with Featherstone should at least keep it entertaining.
But it leaves Jesse alone to deal with his problems, which are still Gran’ma and the Grail. First, Herr Starr, in a surprisingly candid moment, asks Jesse to promise not to turn on him once he has Genesis. The reason for this moment of vulnerability becomes clear once they arrive at headquarters: Herr Starr needs Jesse to kill the Allfather, who is there waiting for them both.
And for Gran’ma? Well, things are about to get even more complicated for Jesse. T.C., who was left out of the Japan adventure, heard someone talking about ‘Genesis’ and asks Gran’ma for details. From the looks of it, she knows exactly what it is. Jesse’s in a lot more trouble than he realizes. To the surprise of absolutely no one, my favourite storyline on Preacher continues to be Cassidy. He’s a delightful character, Joseph Gilgun is a great actor and the material he’s getting right now is brilliant. I’m ready for an all-Cassidy hour, to be honest.
He’s still in New Orleans with the Enfants du Sang, and is growing more accustomed to Eccarius’ ways. One of the wannabe-vampires gushes to Cassidy about how Eccarius turns them and then sends them to leave the nest and set up a new camp somewhere around the world, to help further vampire rights. While Cassidy is enamored with the idea, viewers are most likely getting red flags. If Eccarius is 300 years old, and has been doing this for a while, wouldn’t world-traveler Cassidy have come across them before? But the story works, and Cassidy agrees to turn one of the humans for this vampire mission.
Instead of getting suspicious, Eccarius and Cassidy go flying around New Orleans (literally) in a cheesy and hilarious rom-com-esque scene, before testing out their powers at a bar and taking down an attack from the Grail, featuring a team of vampire-hunting priests and nuns. (Their mistake was trying to tranquilize Cassidy, who was definitely taking horse tranqs for fun about a week ago.) After they fight off their enemies, Cass and Eccarius end their date night with a kiss.
Now this a development I can get on board with. First of all, it seems like a nail in the coffin (no pun intended) with the Cassidy/Tulip/Jesse love triangle, at least for now. Cassidy hanging around and moping after Tulip got old pretty fast. And now his role in the Enfants du Sang has real stakes (again, I’m not trying for the vampire puns). Cassidy and Eccarius genuinely seem to like each either, so what’s going to happen once Cassidy finds out Eccarius is completely evil?
Because of course he’s completely evil. The newly turned vampires don’t fly away to set up new colonies, they’re killed by Eccarius and left in a makeshift graveyard outside of town. Eccarius does seem to like Cassidy though (he went out of his way to woo him!) so it doesn’t seem like he’s headed for the dust pile anytime soon, but the two new lovers will most definitely have to fight it out sometime soon. Side note: Once Tulip and Jesse reunite with Cassidy, I need them to dunk on him for dating a low-rent Lestat. I need it more than anything.
You can tell we’re hurtling towards the season finale, as the action is starting to ramp up and pieces are being put in place for a final battle. Jesse will have to defeat the Allfather, kill Gran’ma and figure out what to do with Herr Starr, Cassidy will have to free the Enfants du Sang from Eccarius and decide if he should rejoin the trio, and Tulip will hopefully get an actual storyline.
