Back when I had the freedom to binge-watch TV series and films, I kept up with news so I knew which titles to look out for. And I've been hearing news of adapting Preacher for years. Considering the number of film and TV outfits that had their hand in it, and chose not to continue with the adaptation, I thought it would never get made. I'm not much of a comic book reader, but I looked forward to Preacher because it featured an interesting premise. When AMC announced the premiere of their adaptation last summer, it was hard not to get excited, especially with the cast that they assembled for it.
Jesse Custer (Dominic Cooper) is a preacher in a small Texas town, although even he can't say that he's doing a good job of it. Trouble finds him when his tough talking and acting ex Tulip O'Hare (Ruth Negga) arrives, trying to convince him to take on a job that is definitely not what preachers do, but something he was very good at before he returned to his hometown. He also meets Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) who ends up living in the church after helping him out in a barfight, not knowing that he's a vampire. As Jesse struggles with keeping the faith and trying to be a good preacher, elsewhere in the world, religious leaders are suddenly being possessed by an entity and exploding afterwards.
Oh, and Jesse eventually gets possessed, but doesn't explode, so he now harbors the entity Genesis, giving him some pretty awesome abilities of making people do as he says, but sometimes has questionable results when it comes to how people would interpret his words... so, not as entirely awesome as one would initially think. Harboring Genesis in his body means that he gets unwanted attention from various parties, including two Adelphi Angels Fiore (Tom Brooke) and DeBlanc (Anatol Yusef) who are desperate to get Genesis back in his tin can. He has to juggle his conflict with the angels with the constant threat of his church getting taken over by Odin Quincannon (Jackie Earle Haley) who wants to tear it down because he's angry at God for taking away his family. And there's a character nicknamed Arseface (Ian Colletti), whose face really does have features that earned him his moniker.
Because I did some light research on the original material, I knew to some degree what to expect if they came out with a decent and decently faithful adaptation. But if you know nothing about Preacher and just read the previous paragraph, I would understand if you thought that it's a lot to take in. The first season of Preacher lays the groundwork for the characters and the world that AMC is hoping you would want to explore. It's a world rife with religious weariness, morally questionable characters and over the top violence. Though it acts more like a prequel and won't be getting into the actual adventures of Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy on the road until the next season, it does an excellent job at setting the tone and fleshing out the titular preacher's motivations for his actions.
Preacher's debut season is rife with potential, with its excellent cast and tone setting, and a hint at what's to come when it comes to world building. It did, however, suffer from a rather slow buildup, with some episodes seeming to drag on because you feel like, while a lot of people are talking and moving, not a lot is happening. This observation is jarring, because there's so many good things about the series. It's why it took so long for me to finish the season... after watching the first half as soon as they aired, I debated whether to continue watching as is or to just wait out all the episodes and binge-watch, and then I promptly forgot about it until 2017 rolled in and I realized that I had to catch-up (as always). When I returned to the season's latter half, however, I found that the pacing was much better and the seemingly random events in the earlier episodes started making sense. Relationships started coming together, a major threat is unveiled, and Jesse finds a purpose that would take his role as a preacher outside of the town he thought he was meant to save.
Preacher still has some kinks to work out, but in the end, it offered some pretty fun payoff for those who stayed watching throughout its first season. With a second season pickup, the series should be getting more into Jesse's new goal, the new group dynamic that he is bound to establish with Cassidy and Tulip, hopefully getting Arseface / Eugene out of hell (because, really, he didn't deserve that), and figuring out what else he can do with Genesis... with the Saint of Killers at his heels.
This should be fun.
Happy viewing!!Labels: Action, Adaptation, AMC, Comedy, Drama, Horror, Must-Watch, Preacher, Supernatural, TV, TV Series
