Preacher Feature is a weekly analysis of the AMC show Preacher based on the comic book of the same name by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon. In this column, we will give a breakdown of the events from the previous night’s show, including how they relate to the comics, and speculate as to what’s going on and what might be coming up. This is to say that there will be spoilers, both actual and potential. If you have not yet watched the episode in question or are watching the show without reading the comics and don’t want to have any foreknowledge of what might happen to Jesse and company, then you would do well to stop reading this now.
Looking to get caught up? Here’s a link to last week’s article.
Which Coming Is This?
Last week we found out that the Grail is keeping the descendant of Christ in a hidden location, this week “Dirty Little Secret” kicks off with a flashback to the conception of Christ’s first descendant. Not a lot of shows have the balls to show Jesus Christ laying pipe (as far as I know, just Preacher and I Love Lucy, but Lucy had to show them in separate beds) but Preacher finds a way to make it funny. Eventually, we find out that Jesus’ “25th great grandson” is alive, goes by the name Humperdoo, and is decidedly inbred.
Dirty Little Secrets of the Grail
The main plotline of the episode focuses on Herr Starr and Jesse Custer. Starr, as we’ve seen before, seeks a world of perfect order and joined the Grail to achieve this vision. After 13 years, he is disillusioned by the Grail’s plans to unleash Humperdoo as the messiah. Starr wants to take over the Grail and introduce Jesse as the messiah, in order to control the world’s population. In an effort to get Jesse on board, Starr tricks Jesse into using Genesis on him, then shows him two of the Grail’s biggest secrets: that even the Pope doesn’t know where God is and that the Grail’s messiah is an inbred half-wit. By the end of the episode this plan has failed, but Starr still has other tricks up his pristine white sleeve, like turning Jesse’s friends against him.
To that end, Starr has ordered Featherstone and Hoover to break up Jesse and Tulip. Featherstone does so by making Tulip question whether Jesse has told her the truth about the Saint of Killers and leading her to find the Saint of Killers’s weapons, which Jesse hid in the bathroom floor. Cassidy and Denis, meanwhile, spend some age-mismatched father/son time, playing Twister with prostitutes and getting tattoos (“Shemp, for Christ’s sake”).
Easter Eggs/Connections to the Comics
Denis is a big fan of the Three Stooges, watching them in an earlier episode and now getting a tattoo of Shemp, one of the original stooges. If you’re interested in comic books and the Three Stooges, be sure to check out Dave Sim’s classic Cerebus storyline Latter Days.
While Tulip and Featherstone are playing Rock Band (before Tulip goes Roger Daltrey all over Hoover’s head), they play the song “Dirty Little Secret” by All-American Rejects
Questions/Theories
What’s the connection with the dog/man? I was curious about this when they released the trailer. The crew encounters the dog/man in the third episode, but that alone wouldn’t have warranted showing it in the trailer and opening credits. So, we are led to believe that Humperdoo has spent some time with it in New Orleans, but still don’t know what that means for the future.
Jesse had a bullet belonging to the Saint of Killers in his jeans pocket when entering the headquarters of the Grail. No doubt this is foreshadowing something to come (in addition to letting us know Jesse doesn’t do laundry very often). Did he just let the Grail know about the existence of the Saint?
Best Line
“Judas is meeting us at midnight with the getaway donkeys” – an apostle
