Welcome back brothers and sisters to our weekly feature, the Preacher Book Club, where we talk about the latest episode of AMC‘s Preacher, dissecting the episode at hand, annotating the changes made from the Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon comic book series and attempting to predict about what will be coming next. So let’s dive right into our thoughts and annotations on Preacher Episode 2.06!
Soul Happy Go Go
Admittedly I was confused about what it was even doing in the episode or what it was at first, but it made a for a fun twist. This whole business of soul harvesting and selling wasn’t in the original Preacher comics, but the fact that its a big business enterprise that has pushed away local competition seems to be in line with the tone of the comic. It will be interesting to see how this plays into the future of the series too and if they’re now setting up for Eugene to get out of Hell because of it (and maybe Hitler too).
Breakfast is served
The pancakes with mountains of whipped cream, marshmallows, syrup, chocolate, and M&Ms appears to be an invention of the series – it’s also the grossest thing in an episode that features decapitation and a man getting his hand crushed into his gun.
The Saint’s origin
We did previously see most of The Saint’s origin in the first season of Preacher, but we get a little more context here about his unique situation. There are some changes, however, like the nickname “Butcher of Gettysburg” isn’t from the comic book, but we do know that the character fought at Gettysburg during the Civil War and killed a number of Union soldiers all on his own. The whole bit about not having a soul (which was why he wasn’t allowed into Heaven) is an invention for the show though. In the comic, The Saint just gets sent right to Hell after he dies.
It’s also worth pointing out that the artwork shown in the sequence comes exclusively from the Preacher Special: Saint of Killers mini-series which had art by Steve Pugh and Carlos Ezquerra and the series’ stellar cover art by Glenn Fabry.
The Saint meets The Preacher
The Saint of Killers and Jesse come face to face a number of times throughout the comic series, through a number of circumstances and in different places. The meeting in Dennis’ apartment is one that does not occur within the comics but is consistent with the mutual levels of hate the two have for each other.
Dennis identity revealed
Finally we know who Dennis is – Cassidy’s son! It’s hinted in the original comics that throughout Cassidy’s life as a druggy burnout that he fathered some children with different women, but he never actually met any of them previously. This is a nice change, because it seems like on the surface that Cassidy actually cares about someone, but it’s really just adding more fuel to his backstory as someone that only uses people when he needs them.
Cassidy’s fingers
Cassidy’s fingers get lopped right off in the episode and slowly begin to grow back. In the comics, Cassidy gets his limbs, and other body parts, completely blown off, and though we don’t ever see them growing back we can assume that’s the case as he does have them later.
Down in the swamps
After Jesse gives a piece of his soul to the Saint, he has second thoughts about sending him back to Hell (because if a piece of him is in Hell that would mean he might go there himself? Just spit balling). Instead, when Jesse sends him into the depths of the swamp in the back of an air-tight truck we’re getting pretty close to the path they’re on in the comic. In the source material, when the Saint finds out God has left Heaven, he still pursues Jesse simply out of revenge and not out of an obligation to what he was tasked with. I’m pretty eager to see him get his guns back, especially if he ends up in Hell again (as the Comic-Con trailer hinted).
You can watch previews for the next episode of Preacher below!
