Much like the Garth Ennis comic book that inspired it, AMC’s “Preacher,”
premiering this Sunday night, May 22nd, has its own rhythm and
yet also feels indebted to great works of fiction that came before. It has
echoes of AMC hit “The Walking Dead” and also regularly reminded me of Joss
Whedon’s shows “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel”—programs in which the supernatural world, and its connection to our own, didn’t make just for action gimmicks, but essential characters.
“Preacher” is a dark,
funny and strange show, in the best way possible. It regularly
turns when you expect it to go straight and stops dead for character when you
expect an action sequence. It takes a few episodes to get into its rhythm—and it’s
one of the few shows that might have been better served by a Netflix-like binge format—but it eventually becomes thematically dense without losing its
ability to entertain. As we should expect from co-creator Sam Catlin, one of the people behind “Breaking
Bad,” “Preacher” is the kind of show in which actions have consequences that could mean the end of the world. In many ways, it’s “Angel” meets “Breaking
Bad,” and who wouldn’t want to watch that?
Clearly, I’m something of a fish in this television barrel.
I love stories about men who go looking for God and end up finding the Devil,
and place that kind of Heaven-and-Hell narrative in the brutal Texas sun. The pilot, directed by co-creators Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg,
features music by Lucinda Williams, Willie Nelson, and Johnny Cash; a vampire
who jumps from a burning plane; a fist-throwing preacher and much more that I
wouldn’t dare reveal here. And yet “Preacher” transcends the undeniable charms
of its set-up through clever writing and plotting, carried by fantastic
performances across the board. Not every one of its attempts at “something
different” works, but I’ve seen four episodes and I am
completely, unapologetically hooked.
“Preacher” sets its WTF tone immediately. We watch some undefined
force speed its way through outer space and blast into an African preacher. The
preacher says “I am the chosen one” and immediately explodes, showering his parishioners
in blood. As they run screaming from the church, the cross outside falls as the
title comes up. One part Whedon, one part Raimi, one part something totally
new, “Preacher” isn’t for everyone, certainly not for the overly devout. But its
playfulness in the way it combines religious mythology with southern-fried
drama is captivating.
Dominic Cooper (“An Education”) plays the title character,
Jesse Custer, a former criminal trying to take the righteous path as a
small-town preacher. The great W. Earl Brown (“Deadwood”) plays the Sheriff and
Lucy Griffiths is Emily, the sweet girl who works for and looks up to Custer. Even if “Preacher”
was just a show about a man trying to keep his dark side at bay by preaching
the word of the Lord, there would be enough there to make it interesting.
It’s telling that the creators are careful not to
lose the very human foundation of their narrative, even when they introduce “Preacher'”s scene-stealers: a former lover and criminal partner of Jesse’s who calls
herself Tulip (Ruth Negga) and an Irish vampire named Cassidy (Joseph Giligun),
who might remind everyone of a certain age of “Buffy”’s Spike with his
hard-living and high difficulty to kill. In his introduction, he takes out a
plane full of vampire hunters, jumping to the ground without a parachute. He
finds that he landed in the small town of Annville, where Jesse is the
preacher, and becomes his moral support and handyman. “Preacher” is full of memorable supporting characters, including the two nearly silent enforcers
coming after either Cassidy or Jesse (it’s not clear at first), a teenager named Arseface (Ian
Colletti) who tried to blow his face off with a shotgun and now has a hole
where his face should be and a nefarious businessman played by the
simply-perfect Jackie Earle Haley.
Despite deviating from it tonally and narratively, what “Preacher”
shares with its source material is that willingness to be different. It doesn’t
feel quite like anything else on television right now, never taking itself as
straight-faced seriously as “The Walking Dead,” displaying Rogen &
Goldberg’s willingness to take weird chances. As the show establishes its identity, the first episode has to introduce a lot of characters and one can sometimes feel the strain from the co-directors. However, the
second episode (directed by Michael Slovis) is instantly more confident and refined. The actors look more
comfortable in their roles, particularly Negga and Giligun, and the writing is
tighter. The dialogue is smart, the plotting is creative and the characters are
fascinating. And then Johnny Cash’s cover of Soundgarden’s “Rusty Cage” kicks
in, and I realize I may have never been the target audience for a show more
directly than I am for “Preacher.” I believe.
