Episode 4 of this wonderful season of Preacher begins right at the same moment as episode 3 ended: Tulip is in the laundromat surrounded by Viktor’s thugs. She is disarmed and led away to the black SUV.
Meanwhile, Jesse shows up at Denis’s place and asks Cassidy about Tulip. Cass says she left last night and he hasn’t heard from her since.
Back at Viktor’s house, Tulip is plopped into a chair in Viktor’s office. From the room next door is heard screams and cries of agony, along with a whirring grinding sound. Somebody’s not giving up the info requested of them. Viktor comes in from that room, sits down and asks her, “What are we going to do with you?”
In hell, Eugene meets Hitler when everybody’s cell door accidentally opens due to a glitch. Tyler, another hellhound soul, starts making fun of Eugene’s face and Hitler stands up against Tyler. When Eugene gets locked out of his cell, Hitler invites him into his own cell. There, Eugene gets a glimpse of Hitler’s own personal hell as the protector in the ceiling flickers to life.
Hitler is at dinner with Elsa, a lovely young woman who encourages Adolf to try and sell his drawings, and also hates Communists. Hitler meekly agrees with her, obviously just to please her.
Sympathy for Hitler? Wow.
When the doors malfunction again, Eugene slips back in his room.
Up top we see Viktor chastising Tulip in a threatening way about her ditching the family and making her take a walk around the mansion before she figures out what to say back to him to make it all better. As she’s walking around she receives the 2nd text from Cassidy about her well-being. She also gets spit upon by Viktor’s daughter with a wish for Tulip’s death (it’s kind of funny getting a death wish from a 12-year-old), and her old buddies playing poker pointedly ignore her.
She is in deep doo-doo.
Denis watches a public service announcement on television about hurricane Katrina and its aftermath as Jesse reassures Cassidy that Tulip would often go away for a while to cool off whenever they had a fight. Nothing to worry about. Jesse also clues Cassidy in about the white van people and the mysterious Lara.
Hey, guess what? A white van just pulled up in front of Denis’s place and out pops a guy spinning one of those oversized advertising signs. As he tosses it in the air he speaks into his headset that he is in position.
Jesse and Cassidy catch a glimpse of the Katrina show on tv and notice a very familiar face: it’s the God imposter from the “phone call” Jesse made in church back in season 1! He realizes that the actor must be a local to be in this show. They both head out to see Teddy Gunth, the agent of the actor in question, Mark Harelik. Teddy plays hard to get regarding his client, until Cassidy hilariously blurts out that they want him for Game of Thrones. He and Teddy go back and forth with negotiations, until they finally shake hands. The “deal” is done. Only one problem: Teddy doesn’t know where Mark is, but he does have his audition tape from that last godly role. Jesse and Cassidy take it.
The guard tells Eugene that they’re moving him to a “holding cell” while they fix the projectors, but warns him that his sweet attitude will not be tolerated down there, and threatens him with “The Hole” should he get outta line. They lift up a big metal lid in the floor, showing off some steam and red lights and horrible wailing from the hole. Eugene looks horrified.
On Mark’s audition tape (can I just digress a bit about this actor’s horribly fake beard and hair and eyebrows? It seriously looks like someone just glued cotton balls to his face. Okay, thanks) he says a few lines, gets offered the job of God, then is immediately shot to death. Jesse says, of course they had to do that–how else could the actor get up to heaven?
Tulip tries to open Viktor’s gun safe but gets caught. They changed the combination! She beats the snot outta him and grabs his gun. Back in Viktor’s bedroom, Tulip warns him to let her go. The gun helps. Suddenly, Viktor’s goons bust in and are all over her. Viktor tells them to leave her alone with him.
In the holding room, Tyler teases Eugene about his face. Again. Hitler tries to stop Tyler, but is actually very wimpy about it, so Tyler turns on him. Hitler gets attacked, beaten up, and kicked to the ground. Hitler’s bloody face comes into view, imploring Eugene to help. After a thoughtful pause to consider the consequences, he joins in and starts kicking the crap out of Hitler.
Cassidy feels a little worried about Tulip, and decides to tell Jesse about Viktor. Jesse shows up at the mansion, commanding everybody he meets to stop and get away from him. Pat the torturer sneaks up on him and knocks him out. When Jesse wakes up, Pat’s putting his earphones in so that whatever Jesse was able to do with the other thugs won’t happen to him. Fight scene in the torture room! Ultimately Jesse gets the best of Pat and commands him to give up Tulip’s location.
Jesse bursts into the bedroom and starts choking Viktor until Tulip gets him to stop with an amazing (but maybe not entirely surprising?) admission: Viktor is her husband.
And the Saint of Killers, attracted by all of Jesse’s use of Genesis, arrives in the Big Easy.
Well. Not a whole lot of action in this episode, but a whole lot of sleuthing around New Orleans. I kind of suspected Viktor and Tulip were betrothed in an earlier life, which also explains why he made sure she was (relatively) unharmed. At first I was a little surprised that Jesse’s been so cavalier with Genesis, since each use brings the Saint ever closer–but then I remembered that he still believes Fiore has canceled his contract with the Saint. Jesse doesn’t know that the Saint is still after them. Hoo boy.
Let’s see how the reunion goes next week, eh?
