‘Preacher’ Recap: S1E4 ‘Monster Swamp’

Preacher has officially settled. That’s not a bad thing, mind you. But for those of us who liked the frantic looniness of the pilot, we can’t help but be a little bummed. Nevertheless, Sam Catlin and his team, including fellow developers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, know what they’re doing. They’re smart guys and, more importantly, they’re smart storytellers. There’s always one foot hanging out the door, waiting for the other shoe to drop at any moment’s notice. It doesn’t always make for the most fascinating television, particularly during this not-bad-but-not-quite-great fourth episode, but it continues to fuel the fire. Hopefully, though, things really start cooking again pretty soon. It’s starting to get a little cold.

As per usual, “Monster Swamp,” like every episode, starts out in a bizarre fashion. We follow a young, blonde, scantily-clad woman named Lacey, who is getting chased down by a bunch of gun-wielding tough guys all while she’s wearing nothing more than a sleeve-less shirt and a pair of yellow underwear. She’s not running for her life, though, as we learn that she’s actually participating in an extreme game of nighttime one-sided paintball with few workers from the local Quincannon Meat Packing Plant, and it looks like this is some sort of twisted tradition-of-sorts for both the factory boys and the whorehouse girls. While this young woman isn’t exactly running for her life, she soon finds death is awaiting her that dark night as she careless falls into a shockingly deep hole, which kills her upon impact. The men are confused; the women are heartbroken, including Tulip (Ruth Negga). But while this might seem like a general freak accident at first, it turns out that something fishy might be up with Odin Quincannon (Jackie Earle Haley), especially as he tells his employees that they need to cut out their rough-housing and the nearby girls that they need to watch where they step at night during a removal and memorial of the recently deceased. Is that what we’re supposed to learn from this tragedy? Of course not, and Tulips smells bullshit immediately. Nobody else seems to notice or care, though, because “it’s Chinatown.” And so it goes.

Of course, she’s told to keep quiet, but that’s not Tulip’s style. The “being told” part, not the quiet thing, I mean.  She wants some answers, but she’s not quick to find them. Speaking of answers, we then learn a little more about our mysterious men-in-suits-and-cowboy hats, DeBlanc (Anatol Yusef) and Fiore (Tom Brooke), two men from Heaven who are in a Hell of their own. They’ve come from the man upstairs to retrieve the elusive spirit trapped with our titular preacher, Jesse (Dominic Cooper), as we learned before, but apparently they never quite got the okay from the boss. They’re on a bit of a rogue mission, for reasons not quite addressed yet, and it appears that they have a direct telephone line to their main man, which they’re quite nervous about ringing. They know what they need to do, sorta: they need to grab Jesse, set him down and extract the spirit, either with a chainsaw (like these) or by playing his favorite song. You know, basically the same thing. And then they need to put it in a discarded coffee can, for whatever reason. Just a normal, everyday mission.

Without permission from God, they only have one hope for this to happen: Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun), their mutual correspondent. He’s promised to talk with Jesse about their predicament in broad strokes, and he’s holding up that end of the bargain, but he’s not really successful in pleading his/their case. If anything, Jesse thinks Cassidy is on another one of his crazed rants, speaking his general drunken gibberish that comes with a complimentary Irish accent. So it appears that DeBlanc, Fiore and Cassidy are all in a bit of a funk. But they’re not the only one with problems. While Jesse has this incredible power that’s well beyond his general comprehension, understanding or full control, he know he can use it to save people, even if he can’t quite wield it or use it to his full advantage. He’s knows it can do a lot of good, especially for his small, humble Texas town, and he knows it can finally bring the masses back into their pews, the way his father (Nathan Darrow), the preacher before him, could so easily every Sunday morning. And as we see from a couple brief flashbacks, it looks like things weren’t always clean and moral with Jesse’s dad, which may have lead to his untimely reunion with his maker.

But Jesse is determined to make it work in his place of worship, and he knows how to bring them back: with a local raffle of a flatscreen TV, with a ticket available for everyone who agrees to attend mass. Including Odin, after Jesse convinced the heartless sinner that he can make him believe, once-and-for-all, that there’s a good, or else the land developer can have his trusted estate. And it does draw a crowd, and as we see, Jesse might be on to something. He does successful bring Odin onto the side of God after using his otherworldly powers, and we’ll have to see next time where that leads things. For a man who made a habit to regular watch smut films in his workplace and literally piss on the mayor’s conservative energy plan, this is clearly going to be an adjustment. He might need a Hail Mary to make it work. He’s certainly going to need a little more than faith to follow through on his new course-of-action.

Similar to last week’s installment, “Monster Swamp” is a set-up episode, a build-up to all the good stuff we know it set to come in the next six-or-so episodes in the season. It’s not exactly bad, like I said before; it just doesn’t have the pulp and spice found more regularly in the first two episodes. But intentionally so. It’s saving the good stuff for later, but in doing so, it makes things a little too dry for its own. It promised the goods, and now it’s keeping them a little guarded, a little more reserved. They’re shelving what they need to, and that’s not a problem but it keeps us reaching for something that’s not set to come for at least a week or so, and that’s kinda frustrating. But we know there’s some good stuff to come, and now we just have to hope the build up is worth the wait. I’m convinced that’s the case, at least, and I’m going to keep on believing. If that doesn’t happen, though, so help me God…

In the meantime, let’s look at this week’s top five moments.

The (Dead) Cold Opening

What do Preacher and The Simpsons have in common? Besides the fact that they both air on Sundays, they both know how to open an episode in a wonderfully off-beat way. And this week is no exception. Preacher is a horror-comedy that’s always look to put a little more emphasis on the scary part, and this opening scene is like something from a slasher film. Scantily clad women running for their lives? Check. Mysterious men with riffles slowly chasing them down? You got it. Moody music? Of course. Dead streets? Uh-huh. Lots of tension? All there. And while things are not always what they seem, they certainly know how to come in for the kill when the time is right. And they slay it, raw. Keep it up, guys and gals.

Cassidy and Tulip Bloody Meet-Up

If Cassidy and Tulip were going to meet, it certainly wasn’t going to be under normal circumstances. And, indeed, there’s nothing normal about how they got acquainted. Tulip first meets our charismatic 900-something vampire mid-coital, roughing him up and throwing him through the window after she mistakes this night-dwelling stranger for a local regular/prick of the whorehouse. As a result, she finds herself rushing our bleeding bloodsucker to the nearest hospital and giving him an steamy kiss in the process, perhaps fearing it might be his dying wish. And, of course, Cassidy, known to appreciate a good-looking woman or four, plays along like an innocent little puppy dog, getting himself a free ride to the hospital where he can indulge in a few blood bags in the other room. Tulip follows the blood-trail left by the glass protruding from his neck and discovers the truth and, for once, is left a little speechless. Yep, sounds about right. We can only hope this isn’t the last time we see these two together, and it’s hard to imagine that’s the case. They’ve got a few more adventures shared between them, and hopefully things get even more juicy along the way. They’re almost certainly going to make each other’s blood boil, even if it might not always be Cassidy’s own blood that sizzles.

Odin Quincannon

Odin was already promised to be an interesting character, and fans of the comic probably knew that to be true. He’s certainly strange, which is saying something in this universe, but he’s a hard guy to read. He’s got a lot of secrets, and he’s got a shady past, but we’re only getting the details in patches. But those patches we get this time are telling, promising a villain worth of all the craziness that’s already in place. Haley is certainly doing a great job in the part, playing the layers of twisted f’d-upness that he’s known to do so well in films like Little Children and Watchmen, to name a mere few. And I’m certainly excited to see where he goes next, especially after the events that have just taken place. He’s only going to get better as he gets worse, I’m sure. I’m excited to watch him descend into the darkness (or, I suppose, lightness).

Cassidy 

To put it bluntly, Cassidy is an absolute joy. He’s goofy in all the right ways, consistently weird without feeling showy and prone to off-color jokes and general silliness. Additionally, Gilgun makes the role all his own, in the part he was practically born to play. He’s a radiant ball of insanity, rolling into the madness with full speed and gleefully willing to upset whatever little order is found with ease. He’s simply a lot of fun to watch, and that’s especially the case in this kinda-boring episode. Through thick-and-thin, Cassidy is there, and I hope that he’s always there to make Preacher better, especially if it continues going downhill. He’s a bloody delight to watch.

Long Takes

Preacher has already proven itself adapt at playing around with genres, tones and styles, providing one of the most distinctly stylish shows on television. And that’s pretty darn noteworthy. While that’s been less-and-less the case since Rogen and Goldberg opened the directors’ chairs after their first two episodes, the use of long takes in “Monster Swamp” confirmed there’s still a little bit of creative juice flowing in its veins. From a technical standpoint, that is. That was the case with the first long take, which opened up this week’s episode, and that’s especially the case with its second one, which happened during Cassidy and Jesse’s prolonged conversation. The four minute single shot, which followed them all around the church, is fluid, graceful and posed without feeling flashy or pretentious, and it makes you feel like you’re there, with this vampire and preacher, as they walk and talk around the Lord’s house. It’s among the most exciting parts of this week’s episode, and it’s just two guys talking to each other throughout a church. I hope there’s more creativeness like this found in the next couple episodes. They know their stuff, and it’s okay to show that off a little bit, you know? They know, I know. I know they know.

Will Ashton

Will Ashton

Will is a writer for Heroic Hollywood, and a lot of other places too. One day he'll become Jack Burton. Just you wait and see.