3.10 The Light Above Think of the first season of Preacher. Jackie Earle Haley, a great antagonist to Jesse, goes out with a literal bang thanks to an explosion at the power plant. An explosion that essentially kills everyone the show populated the first season with, save our three main characters and Eugene. In the second season, the end of the season is a little less radical, but no less impressive. Cassidy’s son and Tulip are both killed. In Tulip’s case, death didn’t stick, but after that, Preacher left New Orleans behind and decamped to Angelville. The third season of Preacher, unsurprisingly, ends with what is almost a total reset. Catlin does a wonderful job with the directing of this episode. He’s got a good sense for visual bits, and he has some very creative ideas about how to stage scenes around limitations, either financial or simply logical. Jesse’s revenge trip back to Angelville is satisfying, both because of what transpires but also how it transpires. Every scene in which Jesse and his younger self (Will Kindrachuk) is great, because of the stylistic and performance choices. Young Jesse is introduced in black and white, clashing with his grandmother. As Young Jesse leaves Angelville, he passes Current Jesse, in colour, on the driveway. Their brief exchange (“You should have killed her.” “Yeah, well, now’s your chance.”) is very simple, but it packs a punch that sets up the rest of Jesse’s arc in The Light Above. When Young Jesse returns at the end of the episode, he encourages Jesse to finish what he started and put Angelville behind him officially. Jesse does so, in brutal fashion, with a violent fistfight with Jody and an absolutely merciless scene with Jesse and Madame Marie. It’s another feather in the cap for Catlin as a director. It’s a great-looking scene. Joseph Gilgun huddles under a slightly opaque umbrella, the camera close to him, and while he hides, behind him is chaos and death. You can see the pain play across his face; he’s not on fire, but these misfits have become friends of his, and they’re people he led into the vampire lifestyle. They’re dying and burning, because he’s friends with Jesse and that means The Grail has gotten involved in his life (thanks a lot, Hoover; your painful demise is well-deserved, despite being such a likable character). Jesse has beaten back the demons of his past. He’s regained his powers thanks to getting his soul restored, and while he might end up in Hell, he’s freed himself and Tulip from Angelville’s clutches. For the moment, he thinks that his life is about to get better. But with Cas in the clutches of the enemy, an angry Saint of Killers loosed from Hell, and The Grail readying a legitimate army to do battle with Jesse, it won’t be peaches and cream for long. The Light Above was a perfect capper for season three, and a perfect set-up for season four of AMC’s brilliant comic book adaptation. This isn’t the end of Preacher; this is a beginning. Starr (making judicious use of obscenities in a way that The Walking Dead has never been brave enough to do) is ready to stop trying to out-think Jesse Custer and is ready to just beat him senseless with unlimited resources. An army on one side, an unstoppable killing machine (and Eugene) on the other, and Jesse and Tulip in the middle. Oh yeah, Hitler is also in charge of Hell now, which isn’t good for anyone. It’s going to be a big, beautiful, bloody mess, and I can’t wait to see how this all unfolds. Read Ron’s review of the previous episode, Schwanzkopf, here.
