S01.E10: Call and Response

[formerlyfreedom]

Season finale!

Jesse hopes to follow through on his promise to obtain answers from heaven; the entire town waits with bated breath.

[Lantern7]

I approve. I figured Annville worked better as a cinder, and the producers agreed. Pity it took ten episodes to do it, preceded by a sequence of events bleaker than the opening credits of Paranoia Agent, set to a cover of "No Rain." I like to think Garth and Steve would approve.

And man, Annville was a happy, functional town for all of five minutes. Then "God" started to slip. That was funny.

I know that this show won't ever be as hot as The Walking Dead, but I hope there's enough of an audience to ensure the whole story gets told. And hopefully, no spinoffs. We don't mean Better Call Arseface. Or do we?

[AimingforYoko]

Annville: Est. 1882  Died 2016  Cause: Bullshit.

That was....something. It's going to be good to see our trio on the road next season, but I'm going to miss that fucked up little town.

[Shriekingeel]

What do you get when you mix fratboy sensibility with a complete inability to edit and total disorganization?

A 10-hour pilot episode. 

[peridot]

What an odd show. 

I guess DeBlanc is permanently dead?

[SoSueMe]

Just now, peridot said:

What an odd show. 

I guess DeBlanc is permanently dead?

Gosh, I hope not.

[tennisgurl]

What a...strange show. So the whole town, and every character is dead except for the Angels, Cassidy, Tulip, and Jessie? So...what was the point of that whole season? I mean, it was interesting, and Anneville was a rather interestingly fucked up town, but will anything that happened there have any relevance to anything? Was this all a prelude to a roadtrip? And, most importantly, why did no one let that mascot guy out of his costume? No wonder he hung himself. 

Edited August 1, 2016 by tennisgurl

[pezgirl7]

Wow. So everyone in the town is really dead? I wasn't expecting that. Really sad how so much of the town just lost all hope when they were told God is missing. At least Jesse has some initiative and hasn't lost hope. I wonder if because two people went down to hell, only two could return, so DeBlanc is still in hell? Or because since he was originally in hell, he wasn't able to leave again?

I also wanted to say the scene with the girls cheerfully running off the bus after they castrated and killed the driver was really disturbing. Not just the thought of them doing that, but what must have happened to all of them to make them to do it. Sometimes this show is just a bit too dark for such a quirky show.

Edited August 1, 2016 by pezgirl7

[lmsweb]

I finally binge watched the whole season before tonight's finale. I started trying to watch it when it first came out but I couldn't handle GoT, Penny Dreadful and Preacher all at once and got overwhelmed. Then summer finally arrived here.

Am I the only here who thought for a moment that maybe Jesse had rigged the whole "God is coming" thing when the cheesy looking Almighty with the horribly fake hair and beard showed up?

I'm going to stick around for season 2. I've developed what I am sure is a completely unhealthy, unnatural attraction to Cassidy. I would so go on a road trip with him to find God.

[Sandman87]

Another killer soundtrack this episode, from the Willie Nelson at the beginning to the Stones at the end. Johnny Cash's version of "Personal Jesus" too! And Emily played "96 Tears" during the church riot!

I liked the signs and graffiti around the town at the beginning. "Run! Preacher, Run!"

I just noticed that the Annville city limits sign says "Est 1892", so the cowboy must have killed everyone in Ratwater back in 1881.

That must be one valuable adult novelty for someone to keep it in their safe deposit box.

I knew I smelled a rat when Jesse called god and the whole "I AM OZ" cliche started up. I guess the angels in Heaven have some way to detect who the caller is on that 1920's-looking Skype phone with the built-in modem, so they can have someone do a quick God impersonation. That scene ended up being a bit Pythonesque.

Ernie came back from Hell without his Bert! On the bright side, at least his carry-on luggage with his comic books was still waiting for him at the bus stop.

Now we know what the control room was for - a "methane reactor." I think they're talking about something using this process, rather than any kind of nuclear reaction. That would explain the pressure gauge, the big holding pond full of cow waste, and the explosion (from the excess hydrogen igniting.) I assume that all the vents opening up around town were releasing the hydrogen. I bet the (former) town of Annville (anvil!) smells lovely now, like a giant septic tank. Do you suppose that the control room technician's name was Homer? Doh!

So the survivors at the end are Jesse, Tulip, Cassidy, Carlos, Fiore, the cowboy, and maybe Eugene. I guess they had to go out of town to get decent french fries. Quincannon built himself a meat baby before the end. Bunnyman got himself murdered. Homer and his wife had themselves one last bondage-bang before the bigger bang. And the two team mascots hung themselves side by side, which is both touching and horrible. I wonder if that's the exact same tree that had the corpses hanging from it in 1881.

An odd bit at the end when Jesse and Tulip were getting in the car. They did a closeup of Cassidy puffing on a cigarette, then cut to a shot from the front and the cigarette was gone! Did he swallow it?

ETA: Tom Cruise's remains got shot into space. I guess you'd call it a Cruise missile! (rim-shot)

Edited August 1, 2016 by Sandman87

[thuganomics85]

Damn, Annville got messed up!  I guess everyone really is dead, huh?  Other then Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy.  Well, and The Cowboy and Fiore are still around (I guess DeBlanc is gone for good?)  And I guess Eugene is technically still alive, even though he is in Hell.  Then again, with this show involving Heaven and Hell so much, I guess it's always possible someone would come back to life.  But, still: that's almost half of the regulars gone.  I hope the actors at least knew it was coming when they signed on.  I'm glad we're leaving Annville, but I will miss some of them, especially Emily.  I kind of grew to love her, and I feel bad that Lucy Griffiths can't seem to stay on a show for very long.

While there was a lot I liked about this season, it does really feel like it was basically a ten hour pilot, stretched out for ten weeks.  Because it feels like the whole "Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy team up to find God" really is going to become the backbone of the series, and all of this was just a long-ass prologue.  I guess it's nice to know how they get to this point and what makes the characters' tic, but I do think that's why some of the episodes meandered at times.  Still not entirely sure if I'm completely sold on the show, but I will keep watching.

The final montage of all the Annville citizens dealing with the false God was dark, yet also darkly funny at times.

I don't think I will ever tire of Cassidy's hatred for The Big Lebowski.  Kind of hope that is a running gag throughout the entire series.  Same with the references to Tom Cruise.  His ashes being shot up into space was a nice touch.

So, it will be a road-trip next season!  I wonder if they even have an idea where to start.  Where would God go?!

[Bannon]

4 hours ago, Shriekingeel said:

What do you get when you mix fratboy sensibility with a complete inability to edit and total disorganization?

A 10-hour pilot episode. 

Yep, pretty much complete incoherence, which is usually pretty boring. I picked up this show halfway through the season, based on other people recommending it. I don't think I will listen to them again.

[placate]

I didn't know that Johnny Cash covered Personal Jesus but my life is now complete because I know this.  I loved the music for this episode and I look forward to a season 2, unlike Into the Badlands and Fear the Walking Dead.  My DVR is now dead for the rest of the summer except for something on the Food Network whose name I can't see because it's too far ahead. All of Annville might be gone but I hope they get Arseface back from Hell for the ultimate road trip.

Edited August 1, 2016 by placate
to/too confusion :(

[Sandman87]

1 hour ago, placate said:

I didn't know that Johnny Cash covered Personal Jesus but my life is now complete because I know this.

He did a bunch of other covers too, most notably NIN's "Hurt", along with songs originally by Tom Petty, Nick Cave, U2, and Sting.

[nachomama]

I soooo did not understand a single goddam thing in this episode. They're losing me. I wasn't happy last week with Emily feeding the mayor to Cassidy. No love lost for him, but if she's practically the only one who isn't crazy in town and that's all it takes for her to feed a person to a vampire, well then, might as well blow up the whole town. I love Cassidy, absolutely adore him, but I have zero reason for why he is attached to the preacher. If it were a road trip with the 2 angels, Eugene and Cassidy I'd be in.

[loki567]

Here's the crazy thing: 10 episodes in, we still don't know what a Preacher tv series will look like. Because, not to spoil anyone, the ending is essentially the first issue. Not a good idea to build such a significant chunk of your first season around Annville and then essentially write it off as pointless. 

I'll be there for season two although admittedly the show's getting by on the little stylistic touches (90s modem dial tone to Heaven) than character or story. Jesse's character is particularly shaky.  

[Captanne]

I'm not paying for the second series but when it comes out for free, I'll probably watch it.

A show this expensive has to have higher quality writing, pacing, and narrative control.  In my opinion.  (The performances are fine and the support staff are fantastic - props are cool, locations are "hot" but cool, wardrobe, hair, makeup, all that, are cool.)

[Dirtybubble]

I'm glad the entire town of Annville is dead.  What a screwed up place!  What the F is the point of getting a bikini wax & your hair done if you think God is coming?  Do you think he's gonna turn you away from heaven because your roots are showing and your pubes aren't trimmed?! 

[RustbeltWriter]

Seth Rogen needs to put his joint down and spend a little more time being creative while sober. Like someone else noted, this show is getting by on stylistic touches but they are no substitute for solid storytelling. The producers pent all season introducing Annville and its residents and now that they are dead, there are questions to be answered. Does our trio know the town was blown up or are they just too callous to care? Do our protagonists get a pass on killing? Cassidy killed the mayor and Jesse killed a bank guard. Are these two worthy of our attention or are they just scumbags? What was up with Emily locking the mayor in the room with Cassidy? What was up with the rape of that settler's wife in the Saint of Killer's origin? Did he see the family in a flashback on the way out of town or was that another family? Did the power plant guy spend that last night with his wife or with some BDSM hooker? She looked a little young to be married to him.

So much potential is hanging by a thread with this series.

[magdalene]

I don't know whether I will be watching the second season.  I do like Cassidy and Tulip, and sometimes Jesse.  But the finale put into focus for me that this show and its makers have a pretentious nihilistic sensibility (and are cackling gleefully about it) - which I shared for about 5 minutes when I was in college - but I have long since grown out of that.

[Conan Troutman]

11 hours ago, lmsweb said:

Am I the only here who thought for a moment that maybe Jesse had rigged the whole "God is coming" thing when the cheesy looking Almighty with the horribly fake hair and beard showed up?

That was my first thought too. My second thought was that "God" would say "Alas, I'm currently not at home, so please leave a message." As it turns out, that was actually pretty close...

 

That ending was crazy. I expected pretty much everyone to die (was hoping against hope for Emily to make it), but I thought we'd get a bloody massacre with the Cowboy, so I'm a bit disappointed in that regard. Instead we got the most deaths by manure explosion this side of the average Crusader Kings playthrough. Well, it was a shitty town, so it's kinda fitting and the puns write themselves. 

Overall, the finale was like the whole season - uneven and messy, but crazy and fun when it was on and almost joyfully dark at times. I'll come back for next season, hopefully they can clean up some issues with the writing. 

[Starving Writer]

14 hours ago, peridot said:

What an odd show. 

I guess DeBlanc is permanently dead?

Flores was the only one to return on the bus.  

 

If this show is following the mythos set up in the comic books ...

Spoiler

When the Saint of Killers (the Cowboy on the show) shoots, he never misses, and every shot is fatal.  If they're keeping to that aspect of his mythos, DeBlanc is permanently dead. 

[Babalooie]

The female Seraphim is still around, too.  If you watched "Talking Preacher" following the finale, I'm pretty sure that they intimated that this season was set up in order to familiarize the non-comic readers with the main characters. I enjoyed it, and I'm no Spring chicken.

[ItCouldBeWorse]

6 minutes ago, Babalooie said:

The female Seraphim is still around, too. 

Nope,  the Saint of Killers (the cowboy) shot her, too.  If DeBlanc is permanently gone, so is she.

I do wonder if she blew up with the town and then reconstituted-she certainly looked dazed-before the Saint of Killers shot her.

11 hours ago, Sandman87 said:

On the bright side, at least his carry-on luggage with his comic books was still waiting for him at the bus stop.

11 hours ago, Sandman87 said:

So the survivors at the end are Jesse, Tulip, Cassidy, Carlos, Fiore, the cowboy, and maybe Eugene.

Some consolation, I hope. 

I doubt that in his condition, Carlos was able to make it out of town in time, if he even survived his internal injuries.

 

11 hours ago, Sandman87 said:

That would explain the pressure gauge, the big holding pond full of cow waste, and the explosion (from the excess hydrogen igniting.) I assume that all the vents opening up around town were releasing the hydrogen.

I think it was methane.

 

11 hours ago, Sandman87 said:

Homer and his wife had themselves one last bondage-bang before the bigger bang. And the two team mascots hung themselves side by side, which is both touching and horrible. I wonder if that's the exact same tree that had the corpses hanging from it in 1881.

Definitely not his wife; but one of the prostitutes.  His wife shut down the idea of getting frisky or putting on a special nightgown in favor of watching a movie and eating vanilla ice cream.  This might have been an unusual indulgence for Homer as a result of the revelations in church earlier that day.

I believe it was the same tree;  the mayor was buried under it, too.

2 hours ago, RustbeltWriter said:

Does our trio know the town was blown up or are they just too callous to care?

I really don't think they saw the TV report.  Jesse was busy talking to "Eugene" and the others were on their way out.  Would they care if they had?  Hard to say.

[tvsoothesthespirit]

I enjoyed this season. It's dark and some of the things that happened were really dark. Especially the feeding of the vampire with the animals and the mayor.

I pretty much look at this world as an alternate universe where the 1970s/1980s merge with the 21st century. That distances me from the action and allows me to look at these people as if they are so different that their actions really have no parallel in our world.

I thought someone should have pointed out that if God is missing, then he definitely must exist. Wouldn't that give some of the faithful something to hold on to? Also, heaven is really a thing and it has angels in it!  I just didn't see the whole God is missing thing as a precursor to so much despair.

I didn't read the comics and I'm not paying attention to spoilers from the comics. From that point of view, I appreciated the back story on Annville. It was a 10-episode pilot, though -- great observation!

[ChipBach]

20 minutes ago, Babalooie said:

The female Seraphim is still around, too.  If you watched "Talking Preacher" following the finale, I'm pretty sure that they intimated that this season was set up in order to familiarize the non-comic readers with the main characters. I enjoyed it, and I'm no Spring chicken.

Yep - I was a bit lost, not having read the comics until I watched "Talking Preacher".  Apparently the comics summarize the whole town part of the story very very quickly and the show runners felt that using S1 for context leading into the road-trip would be better to ultimately understand the motivation of the trio.  I am glad I caught the TP because now I have to re-watch the entire season with this new found knowledge... 

[PatternRec]

I'm only halfway through the episode so I haven't read the thread yet. Just needed to comment how apropos Johnny Cash's cover of Personal Jesus was. I can't believe I didn't think of it before I saw it!

[PatternRec]

Just finished the episode. Loved it. It's been a slow burn but they finally got the the "gist" of the source material. I *love* the changes they've made - last thing I need is a rehash of something I've already read. 

I feel like they spent half of the season's music licensing budget on this episode alone. 

[Shriekingeel]

That was the first time I've heard "Go Down Gamblin' " by Blood Sweat & Tears in 30 years. It doesn't fit into any easy-listening pop or classic rock format so it never gets played. 

[Bruinsfan]

I'll be sad if we've seen the last of DeBlanc, he was my favorite. I'm not aware of any particular reason why the Saint of Killer's guns should be more lethal to the angels than anything else in this adaptation. Until proven otherwise, I'm going to assume DeBlanc stayed behind in Hell because they only had two return tickets.

[Sandman87]

I suspect that DeBlanc is really most sincerely dead, but I like the "only two return tickets" explanation.

[WatchrTina]

Well that was . . . weird.  I only started watching this because I'm a Graham McTavish fan and so I'm glad his character is out of hell and on the loose but WTF?  God is missing, the town of Annville loses its collective mind in a rash of murders & suicides, but none of that really matters because the giant effluence digester under the town explodes and wipes the town off the face of the earth.   Mmmmmmkay.

[clack]

It was a good idea to start the series in Annville, and to introduce the characters and concepts gradually. But 10 episodes -- the whole first season-- set in Annville were too much for what amounts to a narrative dead end.

Maybe it would have been better to have set the first 3 episodes, say, in Annville, and then have Preacher, Cassidy, and Tulip hit the road.

[SoSueMe]

Not a comics reader so that colors my opinion. I did like the 10 episode "pilot" since it allowed the characters to slowly show their histories and thought processes. I have fallen in love with Cassidy, my heart broke for him as he hid behind the closet door. Who would have thought after the bloodbath in airplane introduction. :) Likewise with the angels, I'm hoping that DeBlanc will somehow survive.   

[SnarkyTart]

Was this the finale I hoped for?  No.  Was it good enough to keep me tuned in for another season? Yes.

I'm not a comics reader, so I don't know if this was woven into the orignal, or is a product of the TV series writers.  In either case, tucked into the 10 episode pilot are at least two stories from the old testament book of Genesis:  the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the story of Job.  The following is tl;dr for most people, I suspect.  That's okay.

First, in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities had become so corrupt and irredeemable in God's eyes, that he decided to annihalate them.  Abraham pleads with God, getting God to agree that if only 10 righteous people can be found in S & G, then God will not destroy the cities and kill all of the inhabitants.  God sends two angels, disguised as men, to stay at Lot's house in Sodom to see if they can find 10 righteous people.  In the middle of the night, the men of Sodom come to Lot's house and demand that he throw the two strangers out to them so that they can rape them.  Lot refuses.  The two angels help Lot and his family escape the violent mob of men, as God rains brimstone and fire down upon the city, leaving all of its inhabitants utterly scorched and destroyed.  The angels warned Lot and his family, as they fled, not to look back at the city as it burned.  Lot's wife couldn't resist looking back, and she was turned into a pillar of salt. 

Parallels: the obvious one being that this is a story from the biblical book of Genesis, a name/entity with significant meaning in Preacher.  Next, as the 10 episodes progressed toward the finale, I arrived at the opinion that everyone in Annville was fucked up, including children (such as the the little girls who laughingly killed the bus driver) and those who had seemed innocent at first (such as Emily, who so easily fed the mayor to Cassidy).  If there were 10 righteous people in Annville, I don't think we saw them.  Next, we have the two angels.  Also, involving the angels, we have the ticket agent to hell offering to reduce the fare if Fiore has sex with her, and Deblanc refusing.  Next, we have the town of Annville turned into a toxic wasteland of smoking rubble and devastation, killing all of its inhabitants.  Finally, we have Tulip, Jesse, and Cassidy leaving the town without a backward glance as the entire place is annihalated. 

The next Genesis story that runs through the last few episodes of this season is the story of Job.  Job is a faithful and good man, who loves God and has been richly blessed in his life; with a loving wife, beautiful children, and great wealth.  The story of Job allows the reader a peek behind the curtain of heaven.  God and Satan are having a conversation about Job.  Satan tells God that the only reason Job is such a good man is because God has given him so many blessings.  Satan wagers that if Job loses everything, then Job will denounce God and turn against him.  God doesn't believe that will happen, and agrees to allow Satan to take everything Job holds dear just to win the wager.  Satan kills all of Job's children, takes all of his wealth, covers his body in festering sores, and leaves him as a miserable wretch with a wife who keeps screaming at him about God, demanding that her husband "Denounce him!  Curse him!"  Job refuses to do that, but does demand that God appear to him and answer for what has happened to Job, to answer all of his questions because Job is insistent that he did nothing to deserve this fate.   Job demands the answer to the ultimate question: why do good people suffer?   God does appear before Job, and basically we get nearly the same dialogue as the opening scenes of the faux God in Preacher: God basically roaring at Job, "How dare you question me, your God?!?"  Eventually God convinces Job that he has no right to question God, and no capacity to understand the mind of the creator of all things.  At the conclusion of this story, Job never was allowed to know of the wager between God and Satan that lead to Job's devastation, even though God did restore everything to Job in the end.  I've always found the story of Job to be one of the most baffling stories in Genesis; the story of a God so petty that he would destroy the life of his most devoted follower, solely for the purpose of winning a bet.  I might guess that the writer of Preacher found it pretty baffling as well, if not downright outrageous.   It looks to me as though the writers wove together elements of Jesse and Quincannon to parallel the story of Job.

On ‎8‎/‎1‎/‎2016 at 10:51 AM, tvsoothesthespirit said:

I thought someone should have pointed out that if God is missing, then he definitely must exist. Wouldn't that give some of the faithful something to hold on to? Also, heaven is really a thing and it has angels in it!  I just didn't see the whole God is missing thing as a precursor to so much despair.

 Yeah, I found that puzzling as well.  Especially Quincannon, who became a psychopath when he decided God must not exist, following the death of his family. Here the whole town saw a fucking video Skype direct from heaven, they saw heaven, they saw actual angels, they learned that God undeniably does exist.  But the only thing they wanted was God himself sitting on his throne and promising that each of them was saved and would go to heaven.    The only way I can understand it is that it was just another symptom of how crazy messed up to the bone the people of Annville were.

I was also confused by Jesse's reaction that they must find God, and rescue him if he asks it, or kill the fucker if he doesn't.  The only thing we got from the angels in heaven was that God was missing and nobody knew where he was.  He could be missing for any reason whatsoever, from something as easy as he wanted to come to earth disguised as a human and walk around among his creation for awhile, to something as bizarre as he's been kidnapped (god-napped?) and is being held hostage, all the way to the possibility that God is dead.   We don't know, and neither does Jesse. 

[Captanne]

That is such an outstanding synopsis of Job!!

NB:  God did restore "everything" to Job but not the same children (different children) and same with the animals presumably.  So, Job lost 10 children.  And gained 10 more.  That is tough going.  

Also, it's not the traditional "Satan" we think of that God had the bet with.  In fact, it's a creature called an "accuser" whose sole job it is to run around Earth and rat people out.  So, the accuser mentions to God that he, the accuser, has been out roaming the Earth as usual.  God then mentions that Job is perfect and it's God who initiates the bet.  

Check it out:

Quote

 

One day the angels[a] came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan (Note b)  also came with them. 7 The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”

Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”

8 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

Note b:  Job 1:6 Hebrew satan means adversary.

 

The story of Job is a classic tale for the study of the Problem of Evil (why does a benevolent, omniscient God permit Evil to exist?)  

The fundamental lesson from God in Job was "don't listen to your lousy friends about what a bad guy you are to bring all this Evil on yourself.  Talk to Me personally."  But He never mentions that Job was perfect and had not only done no wrong but had done everything good ever.  So, by the way, had Job's 10 children who were slaughtered in building collapses.  Nor does He mention He made all this horrorshow based on a bet He made with a stupid "accuser".

 

ETA:  Wow, I just spent more time formatting than I did writing the post in the first place.  LOL

Edited August 3, 2016 by Captanne

[TC3200]

I don't have a recording of this show, and I haven't ever streamed anything to re-watch and study.   But I have two questions after watching the Final:

1.   Did the Roadtrip 3 even pay the bill for their french fries, or did they, too, say the hell with being good, and just skip out & beat the check?

2.   I thought the woman wearing the bondage getup in the methane plant control room was Emily from the church.  Did anyone else think that?   (My TV screen is small, btw.)    Even if it isn't true, I like that idea better so I think I'll just continue believing that's what happened.    LOL

[nachomama]

Emily was definitly not bondage girl and I think road trip 3 paid Eugene. Dunno why or how Eugene was working in this diner. Dunno how much of what Jesse sees/hears is real. 

[SoSueMe]

30 minutes ago, nachomama said:

Emily was definitly not bondage girl and I think road trip 3 paid Eugene. Dunno why or how Eugene was working in this diner. Dunno how much of what Jesse sees/hears is real. 

Yeah, because he promised to get Eugene out of Hell so he probably wouldn't have been working in the diner :)

[ItCouldBeWorse]

54 minutes ago, nachomama said:

Dunno how much of what Jesse sees/hears is real. 

 

22 minutes ago, SoSueMe said:

Yeah, because he promised to get Eugene out of Hell so he probably wouldn't have been working in the diner :)

Jesse feels guilty for Eugenes's plight so his sub-conscience causes him to see him.  In the church, he thought at first that he had actually helped him back from hell.  Now he knows better, but by "seeing" and reassuring Eugene that he is going to find him and rescue him, he reassures himself.

Edited August 3, 2016 by ItCouldBeWorse

[ghoulina]

I just really love this show! I didn't know what to think going in, but after having finished the season, I am hooked and I'm really going to miss it until next year. It's so dark, but at the same time hilarious; just totally weird and unlike anything I've ever seen. I'm glad I gave it a chance. 

I know a lot of people say that all the characters suck and there's no one to root for, but I kind of feel the opposite. I love Cassidy and Jesse and Tulip and the Angels and Eugene. I even grew to like Emily. And at first I was like, maybe this is a Breaking Bad kind of show, in that the main character is not someone you like, and most of the characters are hard to like,  but it's fascinating to watch anyhow. But I see it differently now. Sure, some of them have done some pretty terrible things, but I'm not really viewing their actions in the same way I would with a normal show. This is a world with vampires, and and angels, and hybrid angel-demon babies than can possess people, and seraphs that can't be killed, and bus tickets to hell. It's so OTT and crazy that I think I can overlook a girl feeding the dude she's sleeping with to a vampire because she couldn't stand him anymore. I don't know if I'm making much sense, but this show is so much fun that I'm not taking it as seriously as I would other shows. 

It took me awhile, but I LOVE Jesse and Tulip's relationship. I was pleased that we finally got the full story with Carlos and their baby. After seeing that, and what they went through in their childhood, it's clear how much they mean to each other.  "Tulip wants fries" - awwww, that was the sweetest. And their kiss....with that song....and then then punch. Just everything. 

It is interesting that Cassidy is now kind of the new Carlos - the third wheel of their little group. And he clearly had a thing for Tulip. So we'll see if any jealousy rears its ugly head, or will this dynamic be totally different. I hope it's the latter, because I love the three of them together. 

At first I was hating the God reveal. I was like, "Really? This is so hokey!" But it being an impostor God was freaking brilliant and hilarious. I loved all the people shouting in the congregation - "What did you do to the dinosaurs???" Bahahahaha

So yea, now God has gone AWOL. You've got meat babies, and tiny murderers, and dual mascot hangings - and then BOOM. The whole place was gone. Freaking crazy, and I love it! Now I'm kind of glad Eugene got sent to hell, so he could be spared. I hope we'll get that resolved fairly quickly next season. 

But I'm in. I'm allll in. 

[ghoulina]

On 7/31/2016 at 10:10 PM, tennisgurl said:

What a...strange show. So the whole town, and every character is dead except for the Angels, Cassidy, Tulip, and Jessie? So...what was the point of that whole season? I mean, it was interesting, and Anneville was a rather interestingly fucked up town, but will anything that happened there have any relevance to anything? Was this all a prelude to a roadtrip?

Yea, I think the main focus of the story is supposed to be the hunt for God, but they chose to really build up to that in the first season. I haven't read the source material, so I might have a different perspective if I did, but I don't really care that they took a whole season on the town. I thought it was more about Jesse, than just the town. Yea, there was quite a bit about Anneville itself, but I think we also got a really good sense of who Jesse is, who Tulip is....and Eugene as well - who is still "alive" in Hell. So I'm good with it. 

 

On 7/31/2016 at 11:43 PM, lmsweb said:

Am I the only here who thought for a moment that maybe Jesse had rigged the whole "God is coming" thing when the cheesy looking Almighty with the horribly fake hair and beard showed up?

I didn't think it was Jesse, but I kept expecting it to be revealed that someone was playing a trick on him - making him look like an ass in front of everyone. Maybe Quincannon. The imposter stuff wasn't what I was expecting at all. 

 

On 8/1/2016 at 0:50 AM, Sandman87 said:

Another killer soundtrack this episode, from the Willie Nelson at the beginning to the Stones at the end. Johnny Cash's version of "Personal Jesus" too! And Emily played "96 Tears" during the church riot!

The soundtrack for this show is simply amazing. That's what really lured me in in the beginning when I still wasn't sure what this show was about. 

 

On 8/1/2016 at 1:22 AM, thuganomics85 said:

I don't think I will ever tire of Cassidy's hatred for The Big Lebowski.  Kind of hope that is a running gag throughout the entire series

As someone who finds the Big Lebowski highly overrated, I absolutely live for these moments and I hope the argument keeps popping up here and there. Team Cassidy!!!

 

On 8/1/2016 at 9:18 AM, Dirtybubble said:

I'm glad the entire town of Annville is dead.  What a screwed up place!  What the F is the point of getting a bikini wax & your hair done if you think God is coming?  Do you think he's gonna turn you away from heaven because your roots are showing and your pubes aren't trimmed?! 

I loved it because I feel like that IS what a lot of people would do if we heard God was coming - completely shallow and irrelevant things. 

 

On 8/1/2016 at 0:51 PM, ItCouldBeWorse said:

Nope,  the Saint of Killers (the cowboy) shot her, too.  If DeBlanc is permanently gone, so is she.

But she comes back to life every time she gets killed, so.....

 

On 8/1/2016 at 0:51 PM, ItCouldBeWorse said:

Definitely not his wife; but one of the prostitutes.  His wife shut down the idea of getting frisky or putting on a special nightgown in favor of watching a movie and eating vanilla ice cream.  This might have been an unusual indulgence for Homer as a result of the revelations in church earlier that day.

Yup. He was all, "God ain't watching? I'm going to finally get me some!!!"

[Captanne]

So, I was over this show until the finale.  Which I loved.  Loved it.

For me, the best part was when they kissed (because they have oodles of chemistry) and then, when Tulip slapped the shit out of him and told him never to do that again.  

Watching the kiss was a guilty pleasure, I admit.  But Tulip is quite right -- it was coerced.  So, she told him off.  

[Bruinsfan]

18 hours ago, SnarkyTart said:

Yeah, I found that puzzling as well.  Especially Quincannon, who became a psychopath when he decided God must not exist, following the death of his family. Here the whole town saw a fucking video Skype direct from heaven, they saw heaven, they saw actual angels, they learned that God undeniably does exist.  But the only thing they wanted was God himself sitting on his throne and promising that each of them was saved and would go to heaven.    The only way I can understand it is that it was just another symptom of how crazy messed up to the bone the people of Annville were.

I don't know, the fake God's final words made it pretty clear that Heaven is now being run by "people" who don't know what's happened to God and are frightened by that fact, with the quick dragging out of camera frame indicating that the people calling the shots may not be the most benevolent or capable. That has some very worrying implications, and I can see it shattering a lots of people's faith even as it verifies that at one point things were set up as they'd been told in Sunday School.

[ItCouldBeWorse]

5 hours ago, ghoulina said:

 

On 8/1/2016 at 1:51 PM, ItCouldBeWorse said:

Nope,  the Saint of Killers (the cowboy) shot her, too.  If DeBlanc is permanently gone, so is she.

But she comes back to life every time she gets killed, so.....

But so does DeBlanc, so....

[TC3200]

16 hours ago, nachomama said:

Emily was definitly not bondage girl and I think road trip 3 paid Eugene. Dunno why or how Eugene was working in this diner. Dunno how much of what Jesse sees/hears is real. 

Yeah, you're right.  Jesse did pay "Eugene" at the cash register, not at the table.  Jesse keeps seeing Eugene everywhere, so who knows. 

I was thinking that methane and other flammable gasses explode *up*, so if that was Emily in the control room, which appeared to be below ground, it might have been a messy but ultimately survivable explosion.  

[SoSueMe]

2 hours ago, ItCouldBeWorse said:

But so does DeBlanc, so....

Someone upthread said that according to the comics when the Saint of Killers kills you, you stay killed :(  I hope the show will go in a different direction on this. 

[Bruinsfan]

I don't know, I have a feeling that being a glass observation window away from a football field-sized reservoir of poop and pressurized methane gas that gets lit on fire is not a very survivable experience.

[Sandman87]

It's too bad they didn't get some of their electric power from windmills too. They could have done a lovely visual joke involving brown goop hitting them because of the explosion.

[Snookums]

Quote

I thought someone should have pointed out that if God is missing, then he definitely must exist. Wouldn't that give some of the faithful something to hold on to? Also, heaven is really a thing and it has angels in it!  I just didn't see the whole God is missing thing as a precursor to so much despair.

You may think you want the answers, but...

Man, this finale did a good job, I must admit. Not only was the soundtrack flawless (I will own it. This I vow.) but the whole literal "ask God what's going on" and the consequences of it were played quite well. This show has had a very unfortunate tendency to hide behind glibness or "creative" shooting when the whole Big Questions Demand Big Answers problem reared its head, as it's going to when you are making a show about actual God, Good, and Evil. But the setup finally paid off.The last time I saw a piece of entertainment follow the literal path laid out by this kind of material was The Rapture with Mimi Rogers (highly recommended if you haven't seen it.)

The biggest thing humankind can't face isn't evil or the inscrutable nature of the Divine. It's that even when the actual, factual, nothing-but truth is laid out for us, we can't understand and accept it. Even when every single promise is kept, prophecy is fulfilled, and scripture realized, the actual meaning behind it all stays as mysterious as the sky. Always up there, always. Always changing, always the same. It never leaves us, it never tells us what's going on.