When a show begins with a supernatural force falling from outer space into an African preacher, ultimately overwhelming its host and exploding him into a bloody mess, you know you’re in for a ride.
AMC have had a difficult time finding a new hit show for the network that is not a spin-off (Fear The Walking Dead & Better Call Saul have been relatively successful). Going back to the drawing board, AMC took the risk of adapting another beloved comic book series known for its dark sense of humour. Brutally dark and often hilarious, AMC Preacher is a series that has unfortunately gone relatively unnoticed during its ten week run despite being renewed for a second season. A shame since it provided some of the most outlandish and memorable moments in television this year.
Adapted from Garth Ennis and Steven Dillion’s violent graphic novel of the same name, Preacher is not an easy sell for your traditional TV goer. Set in a small town in Texas, it follows the adventures of three characters living in a world caught in-between the forces of Heaven and Hell. You have Jesse Custer (Dominic Cooper); a preacher struggling to put his violent past behind him and is questioning his current path serving God. Once a mysterious entity inhabits his body however, his world is turned upside down, gifting him with the ability to persuade anyone to follow his word.
Along the way, he comes across an alcoholic Irish vampire called Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun). When he’s not hiding from ultraviolet light, he’s dodging crossbows and ineffective holy water from vampire hunters. To add to the chaos created by the entity, Jesse’s tough-as-nails ex Tulip (Ruth Neega) arrives into town to bring him back into a life of crime.
A massive draw-in for the show is its colourful cast of characters. Jesse, Cassidy and Tulip are inherently bad people, but there is a certain charm to them as they try to provide some form of hope for the townspeople. A bizarre group of characters, the supporting cast includes a teenager left deformed after a failed suicide attempt, his grieving father that is also the town sheriff, a single mother who assists Jesse with church services, a money-grubbing owner of a cattle slaughterhouse business and two bickering guardian angels tasked to find the escaped entity.
The banter between all these quirky characters is always fun to watch, always balancing between laughs and shock value once things take a turn for the worst. There is just something hilarious, yet grotesque about watching a vampire stab a glass into a man and proceed to creatively drink his blood through the neck of the bottle as if sipping a fine wine.
Speaking of that character, undoubtedly, the most engaging and standout performance comes from Joseph Gilgun as Cassidy. Instantly likeable, Gilgun steals every scene with his sharp tongue, cheeky expressions and wicked sense of humour. One memorable quirk from Cassidy is the season’s continued joke about his dislike for The Big Lebowski while everyone around him sings praise for the Dude.
Not to detract from Dominic Cooper or Ruth Neega’s strong performances though. Probably the most recognisable face in a cast of relatively unknowns, Cooper proves quite capable of holding a TV show playing a bastard of a preacher. He can almost be forgiven for his appearance in the horrible Warcraft earlier in the year. Ruth Neega also shines as Tulip, who certainly will be remembered as one of the best examples of bad-ass female characters in television.
So good are the characters that it is quite easy to forget that Preacher can be painfully slow in pace. It’s not until Episode Six that I felt the show was truly going somewhere with the narrative. There are mysteries that are thrown in to keep audiences guessing and riding along (like the mysterious addition of a lone cowboy travelling to a town at the start of some episodes) and while most are solved by season’s end, none of the answers are incredibly satisfying. Even by the season finale, it felt like the narrative of the season had been abandoned for a new, more interesting one to be explored further next season.
What is satisfying though is Preacher‘s wicked sense of humour. Taking aim at religion, social media, politics, Texas and even Tom Cruise, the jokes are never predictable and things often take ridiculously quirky or violent routes. I will not soon forget the hilarious fight between the respawning angels at the hotel room. Or when a character takes Jesse’s advice of showing their heart to their mother quite literally.
While AMC have taken liberties with what they can and cannot adapt from the graphic novel, they have kept Garth Ennis’ black sense of humour and exaggerated violence intact. It certainly makes the prospects of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg adapting another Garth Ennis’ graphic novel series The Boys exciting (Source Credit: Empire).
Many people are likely to be put off by the show’s bleak sense of humour and that it has a story line that takes sweet time to get into ignition (this ain’t no Game of Thrones in terms of storytelling) will certainly not help . However, if you’re a fan of dark humour and unpredictability, then you will have a fun ride with these colourful cast of sinful characters.
Preacher Season One is available on iTunes
What do you think? Was the humour too bleak? Or are you looking forward to more?