WiC Watches: Preacher season 4

Dominic Cooper as Jesse Custer – Preacher _ Season 4, Episode 8 – Photo Credit: Lachlan Moore/AMC/Sony Pictures Television

Episode 408: “Fear of the Lord”

Eight episodes into the final season of Preacher, and I’m running out of ways to say each episode wasn’t totally terrible. Like the rest of season 4, there is just enough in “Fear of the Lord” to make the episode enjoyable, but just barely. And if poor narrative choices weren’t bad enough, “Fear of the Lord” is a downright brutal episode to watch. This episode would test even the strongest of stomachs.

First up, there’s poor Herr Starr. I’ve repeatedly said that his continued mutilation stopped being funny a while back, and this week it goes so far overboard you really have to wonder what the writers were thinking. Last week, we saw a dingo run off with Starr’s penis, which was horrifying enough. But this week, Starr not only gets his penis replaced with a faucet (not joking), but is then fed his own leg by his cannibal outback rescuers. And it doesn’t stop there. Featherstone arrives to save Starr from further mutilation, but upon arriving back at Masada, Starr promptly attempts to hang himself, only his beauty pageant sash gets caught on his nipple chains, which rips off both his nipples and sends him crashing to the floor in a pool of his own urine. Gross.

Pip Torrens as Herr Starr, Julie Ann Emery as Featherstone – Preacher _ Season 4, Episode 8 – Photo Credit: Lachlan Moore/AMC/Sony Pictures Television

Starr is eventually given his good looks back courtesy of God, looks we learned in the cold open Starr has long held in the highest importance, entering and winning talent shows as a child. It’s an extended scene that leads to Starr’s eye gouging at the hands of his fellow child contestants, but ultimately one that seemed empty. We’ve got two episodes left in the series, and we’re learning why this character is vain? Not sure why that’s important this late in the game, but whatever.

At any rate, God return Starr’s looks to him thanks to the Grail’s recovery of Humperdoo, but not before Jesus and Hitler put the former forward as a Humperdoo replacement. From Jesus’ annoyance that he’d been blacklisted thanks to one night with Mary Magdalene to his breakdown of Run DMC’s “It’s Tricky,” these were absurdly entertaining scenes in the classic Preacher mold.

Ruth Negga as Tulip O’Hare – Preacher _ Season 4, Episode 8 – Photo Credit: Lachlan Moore/AMC/Sony Pictures Television

Cassidy and Tulip’s scenes with Humperdoo also work quite well, and Cassidy’s clear attachment to the moronic Humperdoo is genuinely endearing. Of course, nothing sweet lasts on this show. Featherstone soon shows up to reclaim Humperdoo, and we’re treated to yet another disgusting segment as the Grail uses a sonic nauseator to induce projectile vomiting in our trio. Tulip, depsite the vomiting, attempts to kill Humperdoo to keep him from the Grail, but Cassidy is quick to stand in her way, which of course earns him an ax to the chest. Again, Cassidy blowing off the ax is the type of strange humor Preacher has always managed to land.

Speaking of our favorite preacher, Jesse spends the episode trapped in Hell, alternatively tortured and tricked into taking the Throne of Heaven. Jesse resolutely refuses, still somehow believing this all to be the test of a benevolent and caring God. When God brings Jesse back to life to essentially rub Jesse’s face in the fact that He doesn’t give a shit, it’s one of the season’s better moments. For all it’s off-the-wall comedy, Preacher has always explored issues of faith, so to finally see Jesse lose his (along with his eye), simply because he was tempted to take the throne…it’s a painful sequence.

Dominic Cooper as Jesse Custer – Preacher _ Season 4, Episode 8 – Photo Credit: Lachlan Moore/AMC/Sony Pictures Television

For once, we can finally see the end game. Jesse is once again reunited with Tulip and Cass after they, believing Jesse to be long dead, have slept together. This time, it feels like the reunion will stick. The show has never been better than when this trio occupies the same space, and after losing his faith in God, I’m guessing a final conflict is close at hand. Also because there are two episodes left.

Random Observations:

• Eugene shows up ever so briefly to witness a brutal murder. Eugene’s shooting of Jesse a few episodes back was a powerful moment that the show has squandered with zero follow up.
• Aside from being part of an illusion used on Jesse, the Saint is curiously absent from this episode, but at least in his case, it feels like a deliberate choice
• Please, please no more gruesome torture or vomiting scenes.