In the US: Sundays, 9pm (8c), AMC
In the UK: Episodes available on Amazon Prime the day after US airing
Maybe I just found Garth Ennis at the wrong time. Hellblazer had been one of my favourite comics at university, thanks to Jamie Delano’s unique blend of horror, politics and a UK setting. When he left the title, I expected more of the same. Instead, I got Garth Ennis.
For many, Ennis was the best writer of John Constantine, combining horror with a knowing playfulness that undercut the action. For me, I was losing amoral tussles with hunger demons as a metaphor for Western consumption and Ethiopia in favour of tricks on the Devil involving transmuted holy water. Horses for courses, but Ennis was definitely not my 3.15 from Aintree.
That’s probably why I never read Preacher, Ennis’ magnum opus. Even to tell you what it was about, I’d have to look at Wikipedia. To a lot of comics fans, that’s tantamount to not being able to explain the plot of Hamlet, but I don’t care – Garth Ennis stole my student Constantine, wah, wah, it’s not fair.
So is AMC’s Preacher, written and exec-produced by (of all people) Seth Rogen and his childhood pal Evan Goldberg, a faithful adaptation of this esteemed comic? Don’t know and don’t care, either. Ennis – pphhtt. Wah.
What I can tell you is that it stars Dominic Cooper (Captain America, Fleming) as the improbably named Texan, Jessie Custer, a bad-as-they-come criminal who returns to become the preacher in his home town when his father dies. Trouble is he’s a very bad preacher who’s not really convinced there is a God. Then one day, just as he’s planning to give it all up and return to his bad, bad ways, he asks one last time for a sign from God of His existence… and, surprisingly, he receives it. And now, whenever he tells someone to do something, they do it – often more literally than Jessie intended. It’s almost like the Preacher now speaks the very word of God.
And that’s basically episode one, which you might have already seen. I’ve left out Tulip (Ruth Negga from Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD), Jessie’s former partner-in-crime, who’s got ‘one last job for him’ and isn’t going to take no for an answer. I’ve also left out Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun from This is England and Misfits), the century-old Irish vampire who’s being chased by a group of religious fanatics.
We can talk about them and the next two episodes after the jump.
Continue reading “Preview: Preacher 1×1-1×3 (US: AMC; UK: Amazon Prime)”
