‘Preacher’ episode 2 review: Did Dominic Cooper series keep its momentum?

Through the pilot episode, “Preacher” established itself to us as a fast-paced, high-energy series that was above all else awesome and then some. It was pretty darn difficult to come up with another way to describe it! The introduction to Tulip, even in retrospect, may be one of our favorite things that we’ve see on TV in quite some time.

So going into episode 2, it feels fair to say that we had some mighty-high expectations, and understandably so. This is a series that we want to completely wow us, especially since we know it is more than capable of doing just that.

For our title character of Jesse Custer, he found himself through episode 2 continually at a crossroads of learning more about his destiny, but at the same trying to keep the faith and his duties intact. There is a responsibility as a man of the cloth to bring inspiration and hope to others, and finding a way for him to do just that proved to be a struggle. We certainly got a sense of that in the final fifteen minutes in the midst of a monologue all about the meaning of his “words.”

What makes the Jesse character so interesting is that even in the midst of trying to help others, he still has to figure out a way to help himself, and avoid a certain part of his nature that he wants to forget. This was a focal point of his conversation with Tulip near the end of the hour, where she pressed him on doing the “job” to her specifications time and time again until he eventually relented.

Well, let’s just say it didn’t take long for Tulip’s words to ring true in his head. Jesse ended the episode leading a break-in. Let’s just say that the ended ended with a very different perspective on ending sin than getting a baptism and listening to confessionals. This has to be one of the more painful baptisms we’ve seen, and based on what happened at the end of it, it seems like his orders to “forget her” legitimately worked. Boom. He’s now a man of action and a man of faith.

Now that we’ve finished two episodes, we do feel pretty darn confident that “Preacher” is a winner. It’s crazy, it’s funny, and Cassidy may be one of the best killing machines we’ve seen in a comic-book series in some time. We’re not sure this had the wow factor of the pilot, but it’s still firmly in the running as one of the best new series of the year. Grade: B+.

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