Jump to content

Type keyword(s) to search

S02.E03: Damsels


  • Reply
  • Start Topic

Recommended Posts

Poor Eugene! Such a sad backstory for him. Although, I fail to understand how his (relatively) minor transgressions could possibly cause him to wind up in hell next to Hitler. There is no comparison!

Jesse! That is some kind of major conspiracy going there. But then, wandering around from bar to bar looking for God is bound to attract some attention.

I'm intrigued by Tulip's history. This should be interesting. I hope she will kick some butt and escape, but then we'd never find out about Victor. Hmm. Thinking he might be a husband she ran out on? And probably stole stuff from?

Rewatching this one!

  • Love 2
Link to comment

It seems he's a lot more innocent than Jesse's speech to Cassidy implied. I guess he took the blame for what happened in order to protect Tracy's reputation? I don't know. If people thought it was a murder-suicide I don't know how he's not in jail, even as a minor who's dad is the sheriff.

  • Love 4
Link to comment

Turns out Eugene didn't try to kill Jessica. I think he wasn't the friendly goober in the comic before he became Arseface. He probably wasn't hellbound before last season. Now he's basically in No Exit, and Hitler just so happens to be nearby. And he's big enough a deal to have a highlights soundtrack backing him up. Natch.

"God" was spoiled in the credits. Was there anything like him in the comic? Still jarring as hell, and it shows how futile the quest really is. On the bright side, we're closer to Herr Starr. And perhaps something canon will lead from the "Angelville" poster. Jesse looked scared.

Link to comment

Damn!  Jesse didn't just damn Eugene to Hell, but he put him in a room next to freaking Adolf Hitler!  And, of course, that is who Noah Taylor ends up playing.  Granted, Noah's not exactly known for playing nice characters, but that's the Holy Grail of Evil right there.  Other then the devil himself, perhaps.

Speaking of which, turns out there was more to what really went down with Eugene and Tracy.  He didn't try to kill her, but after trying to make a move on her when she was crying over her cheating boyfriend, she decided to go through with the suicide.  Granted, it was still an immature dick move on his part to try and hit on her then, but definitely not worthy of eternal damnation.  I wonder if or how he'll get out of this.

I honestly couldn't place Julie Ann Emery as the singer, until she took off the wig.  She looks completely different as a blonde.  Glad she is a regular and looking forward to more of her.  And, hey, Malcolm Barrett!  Can't wait for Timeless to come back, but until then, I'm all for him being her and being completely unlike Rufus!

Really want to know what went down between Cassidy and this French guy.  I've seen Ronald Guttman in quite a few things, but the first one that comes to mind was Megan's dad on Mad Men.

Looks like Tulip deliberately exposed herself to get taken to Victor.  Hopefully she has something cooked up, because judging from who seems to be playing him in next weeks' previews, he isn't someone to mess with!

  • Love 1
Link to comment
14 minutes ago, thuganomics85 said:

Damn!  Jesse didn't just damn Eugene to Hell, but he put him in a room next to freaking Adolf Hitler!  And, of course, that is who Noah Taylor ends up playing.  Granted, Noah's not exactly known for playing nice characters, but that's the Holy Grail of Evil right there.  Other then the devil himself, perhaps.

I don't think placement is Jesse's fault. "Holy motherfuc . . . this guy's alive!! We're gonna get flayed for this!" "We'll figure it out. You know, he has a butthole for a mouth. And ol' 'Dolph hasn't seen anything new in years." "Fuck it, why not? Give the guy something to talk about when he goes back to Earth." "With subtitles." "Duh. Obviously."

  • Love 1
Link to comment

That was the girl that Eugene shot himself over? Adds an entire dimension of pathos to his story.

Ask for God and you get the Dog. The chew toys and doggie treats on the silver platter were a nice touch.

Good to see Cassidy stick up for himself a little with his "idiot Irish sidekick" speech.

Subtle hint? Angelville...An(gel)ville...Anville.

Herr K. Starr has a file on Jesse (I think, slightly blurry, hard to read) and someone named Pig.

Things are getting complicated. Jesse has SoK after him already, and now he's picked up a new group of annoyances with some sort of vested interest in God. Tulip has Victor & Friends chasing her. Cassidy presumably still has the vampire hunters after him.

Speaking of SoK; Jesse used Genesis more than once, but the cowboy didn't show up! I guess the fact that Jesse keeps moving around in the city has something to do with that.

Link to comment
(edited)
Quote

Poor Eugene! Such a sad backstory for him. Although, I fail to understand how his (relatively) minor transgressions could possibly cause him to wind up in hell next to Hitler. There is no comparison!

Well, it wasn't his transgressions that sent him to hell; it was Jesse. So frankly this is a SNAFU of epic proportions, seeing that for all that's been shown, Eugene is genuinely repentant of anything he actually did and has asked God's forgiveness, which should mean he wouldn't go to hell in "normal" circumstances*. And as for ol' Adolph, I would guess the ultimate democracy, in the worst possible way, is in hell. It doesn't matter what your ranking was on Earth; once damned everybody means the same thing--nothing. 

And while I get why the show set up what really happened with Eugene and Tracy, I didn't really like it. One, because it feels like...cheating? A little bit? Because now it's not bad to like Eugene again since he didn't really shoot Tracy? Which seems like a cop-out; like saying you're going to play three dimensional chess and then switching out to Candyland halfway through. I actually admired the show for taking such a brutally tough stance on Eugene--that what he did was wretched, horrible, and he ruined two lives over his jealousy and entitled feelings and has to live with the endless aftermath, and how confused an audience could feel empathizing with such a person. And then they just bailed.

 And two, because it's really gross and demeaning to Tracy's character. It's not enough that switching up what happened redeems Eugene,  it simultaneously makes her this dumb slutty bitch who brought this on herself; the show seems to be saying she deserves a permanent vegetative state because she's stupid and impulsive and made some bad choices. Well, if that's true, pretty much the entire human race deserves punishment. Once again, it's not enough that the guy's actually innocent, the girl has to be this seductive temptress tease who thinks anal "doesn't count." Why does either of them have to be the "bad guy" here? And if Eugene is let off the hook why do they have to put Tracy on it with no chance of redemption for her character--either in show terms or religious ones? 

Whew. Anyway! The New Orleans stuff was quite enjoyable and some genuine tension is finally being built up, with darkness and mystery abounding! But honestly, these three have GOT to get on the same page, here: they are making so many amateur hour mistakes!

One: if you ask for "God" and the bartender leads you through a maze, he thinks you're there to buy meth, see a snuff show, or is about to murder you. Think things through a bit, Jesse. (Also love how this is supposed to be this deep dark thing and everybody in town knows about it--everybody was basically saying "you mean the dog guy?" ) (And how Cassidy takes one look at the setup, shrugs, and gets out his wallet. Hey, when in Rome.)

Two: When your girlfriend is acting like a squirrel on bad acid you need to actually take the time to find out what's wrong. It's probably important.

Three: DO NOT SPLIT UP. Man, the second Cassidy said he'd text Jesse the address I knew things were going to go down the shitter.

Four: Never trust a conniving blonde, and always keep your faith in Tallahassee.

 

* There is one sin Eugene hasn't been shown to repent of, though: the sin of lying. He's never told anybody what really happened, apparently. Now, to be fair, he probably assumes nobody would believe him, and/or maybe he's tried, like with his dad, and gotten nowhere. But we weren't shown that. And he lied to Jesse about it; Jesse thinks the "shot her and then himself" scenario is true, which is why he got mad enough to impulsively damn Eugene to begin with. 

Edited by Snookums
  • Love 5
Link to comment

I understand that Jesse damned Eugene to hell, I was just wondering why he wound up next to one of the worst human beings the earth has known. Retconning Eugene as a beta male who made a mistake leading to omega status kind of throws things. Slut-shaming Tracey is not cool, especially if they are saying she deserved her "punishment." That whole scene was kind of sad, including her reaction to Eugene as more than a friend. Teenagers are not really known for tact!

Adding the "patriotic" guy in the bar with the flag tie. When he stood up, it was clear the tie was extra-long. Snerk.

  • Love 6
Link to comment
(edited)
7 hours ago, Snookums said:

 And two, because it's really gross and demeaning to Tracy's character. It's not enough that switching up what happened redeems Eugene,  it simultaneously makes her this dumb slutty bitch who brought this on herself; the show seems to be saying she deserves a permanent vegetative state because she's stupid and impulsive and made some bad choices. Well, if that's true, pretty much the entire human race deserves punishment.

I think one of the points of Preacher is that the entire human race does deserve punishment.  I look at it that in Season One, Tracy hung over the show as this beautiful, virtuous, pure victim of a terrible evil, even if we kind of felt a little bad for the doer of that evil.  Now we learn that Tracy was just as stupid, petty and horrible as everyone else in Annville.  Which is the key.  It's not like she was worse than the rest.  Aside from maybe Eugene, everyone in Annville was kind of a horrible person.  The "nicest" person in the town, Emily, fed her boyfriend to a vampire.  So it makes sense that Tracy is also kind of awful in her own way. 

Edited by johntfs
  • Love 10
Link to comment

Which is fair enough; it's not like all teenage girls are terrific people.  And Lord knows (hee) Annville didn't teem with positive role models.

But what bugs me is that she couldn't just be terrible and Eugene was also terrible and things ended in terribleness. It's that they had to underline how gross every aspect of her character was--"she's a five at best!", because a girl can't be upset that her boyfriend's cheating, it has to be because the girl he cheats with is less attractive than her!--while at the same time sanctifying Eugene and saying how unfair it was for him to suffer because of her. 

Tracy being awful could have been fine if it wasn't being used to highlight how unspotted and pure Eugene was. 

  • Love 4
Link to comment
14 hours ago, Ms Lark said:

Although, I fail to understand how his (relatively) minor transgressions could possibly cause him to wind up in hell next to Hitler. There is no comparison!

Suicide is considered a really bad sin? I thought they were just in alphabetical order. 

I'm not really invested in Tulip's side plot. It's a classic case of drama happening because characters don't talk to one another, cf., the near-entirely of Lost. So instead they argue on the phone. 

Other than that, I like how this episode deepened the mystery about god wandering around. 

  • Love 1
Link to comment
4 hours ago, Snookums said:

Tracy being awful could have been fine if it wasn't being used to highlight how unspotted and pure Eugene was.

But by highlighting how "spotless and pure" Eugene was, they double down on just how badly Jesse fucked up with Genesis.  He used it to send an innocent person to Hell.  That's a thing he's going to have to make right somehow.

  • Love 7
Link to comment
19 hours ago, Sandman87 said:

Things are getting complicated. Jesse has SoK after him already, and now he's picked up a new group of annoyances with some sort of vested interest in God. Tulip has Victor & Friends chasing her. Cassidy presumably still has the vampire hunters after him.

We haven't actually seen the vampire hunters show up since Cassidy's introductory scene in the pilot have we? I'd imagine that skydiving out of the plane shook them off his tail but good.

Link to comment
(edited)
8 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

We haven't actually seen the vampire hunters show up since Cassidy's introductory scene in the pilot have we? I'd imagine that skydiving out of the plane shook them off his tail but good.

Cassidy has kept a fairly low profile, weird as it seems.  Figure the plane ultimately crashed and exploded and Cassidy ended up in Annville - which also exploded.  Of course now that Cassidy is in a major city and making contact with people who kinda hate him, we might see a reappearance of the vampire hunters - assuming we haven't already.  Perhaps they're part of the White Suit people.

It's interesting that Eugene's Hell took a slightly different form than the SoK's.  The SoK's Hell was one that the angels could enter, whereas Eugene's seemed to be a kind of virtual reality memory machine.

Edited by johntfs
  • Love 2
Link to comment

Wow, Jessie didn't just end Eugene to Hell, he sent him to Hitler Hell! That's the worst one!

You know, I really like this season, but its so weird to me that we are just now getting to the road trip portion of the series. Last season just seemed like the longest prologue in the history of television, that set up the mood and the three main characters, and than literally was wiped off the map so we could get to the real story. Not that I didn't like last season (flaws and all) and Assholevile was certainly interesting and had some good characters, but by just blowing it up in a freak accident, the whole season seems pointless. You could easily have set up Jessie/Cassidy/Tulip in an episode or two, and explain the world by flashing back to Assholeville while the main three are on a road trip. Yeah that means we wouldn't get as much with the citizens, but they all got blown to smithereens anyway, so what did any of that matter? Our crew doesn't even know what happened! The most I could guess it that the first season existed to set up the tone of the show and the universe, and the ending was the culmination of the shows gleeful nialism, but it was still not really satisfactory from a story perspective. It makes it seem like the show was treading water until we could get to the real story in season 2.  

  • Love 2
Link to comment
54 minutes ago, Bruinsfan said:

Did the extreme close-up on the empty eye of the dalmatian mask make anyone wonder if it might actually be God wearing it?

I don't know about that, but there was a real sense of "we're gonna see that guy again and it won't be pretty when we do."

Link to comment
1 hour ago, Bruinsfan said:

Did the extreme close-up on the empty eye of the dalmatian mask make anyone wonder if it might actually be God wearing it?

I absolutely think it's god. I don't think god is a person though. I think he just inhabits people. So whomever was god at the strip club isn't god who is currently in New Orleans. So the next time they meet the dog, he might not actually be god per se. 

 

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

It makes it seem like the show was treading water until we could get to the real story in season 2.  

This seems to be somewhat of a tv trend nowadays. I don't know if it's because there aren't enough episodes in the 1st season order to do what you said: road trip; flashbacks, or it's harder to pull that off in a 40 minute show v a 60 minute, but I agree the first season was largely filler. 

  • Love 1
Link to comment
1 hour ago, ganesh said:

This seems to be somewhat of a tv trend nowadays. I don't know if it's because there aren't enough episodes in the 1st season order to do what you said: road trip; flashbacks, or it's harder to pull that off in a 40 minute show v a 60 minute, but I agree the first season was largely filler. 

I will say that I appreciate the artistry of giving us the town, letting us invest in it and the people (horrible as they were) and then just blowing them all off the face of the earth, causing us to experience the same shock that Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy experience once they learn about it.

  • Love 6
Link to comment

Yes, but the point was that the entire 1st season didn't need to be devoted to what could have happened in 4 episodes. Or, as the initial comment pointed out, the same thing likely could have been achieved with extended flashbacks like they did with hell. 

  • Love 1
Link to comment
(edited)
1 hour ago, ganesh said:

Yes, but the point was that the entire 1st season didn't need to be devoted to what could have happened in 4 episodes. Or, as the initial comment pointed out, the same thing likely could have been achieved with extended flashbacks like they did with hell. 

Okay, what would you cut out of the current episodes of Season 2 to make room for various Annville flashbacks?

One of the criticisms I have for shows, especially sci-fi/fantasy shows (which this is) is how often they tell instead of show.  I don't want Preacher starting off with four episodes of exposition dumping and explanations of Genesis and God missing and the Saint of Killers and the rest.  I like that we got a full season to slowly let all that stuff unpack at a natural pace.  I like that we really spend time getting to know Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy and watching them forge their mutual relationships.  I like that we really understand why Jesse wants to find God so badly.  I like that we spent time understandig a bit of how Hell works and why the Saint of Killers wants what he wants.  And I love that we have all the various ducks set up in a row so that when the second season did start, it could start off stomping the gas in a crazy-ass car-chase massacre set to "Come on, Eileen."

Edited by johntfs
  • Love 11
Link to comment

I'm not going to parse television footage because I'm not a tv producer and don't have that kind of investment in the show. All I said was S1 probably could have been fit into 4 episodes to get them on the road in response to the initial point that S1 was largely filler. No one was suggesting cutting S2. Maybe the OP can clarify. 

Link to comment
21 minutes ago, ganesh said:

I'm not going to parse television footage because I'm not a tv producer and don't have that kind of investment in the show. All I said was S1 probably could have been fit into 4 episodes to get them on the road in response to the initial point that S1 was largely filler. No one was suggesting cutting S2. Maybe the OP can clarify. 

My take is that yeah, they could have condensed the first season to get them on the road by episode five, but I'm glad they didn't.  I'd rather have some extra filler than a story crammed into too small a space.  I like that Preacher is going to tell its story in its own time and at its own pace.

  • Love 5
Link to comment

The fight scene at the white truck, where the Preacher rescued the "singer", had a very Matrix sequels feel to it. Some what cartoonish; even the white suits recalled the twin dreadlocks "ghosts" from the 2nd Matrix.  Keeping in mind that this is  a cartoon helps understand why the lead characters always seem to win no matter who or how many the are fighting.

  • Love 1
Link to comment

I don't mind those kinds of stylized sequences because, yes, it's a comic book. I don't know why he didn't just use the voice though. He already used it to stop the vehicle, so it's not like the SoK wasn't already alerted.

Link to comment
3 hours ago, ganesh said:

I don't mind those kinds of stylized sequences because, yes, it's a comic book. I don't know why he didn't just use the voice though. He already used it to stop the vehicle, so it's not like the SoK wasn't already alerted.

Jesse didn't use it because he kind of enjoys kicking the shit out of bad guys on a physical level.  Also, he'd promised Tulip (and himself) that he'd only use the voice when he really needed to.  Aside from which, the Saint of Killers has been called off (or so Jesse believes) so using the voice is fine, when he needs to do it.

  • Love 3
Link to comment

I knew the montage of NOLA was coming as soon as  Jesse went off looking for God. The floating cocktail glass, the neon lites, etc, has been used by many Las Vegas, Broadway, and NOLA movies since the fifties. Even Bugs Bunny used that montage, LOL.

  • Love 1
Link to comment
56 minutes ago, johntfs said:

Jesse didn't use it because he kind of enjoys kicking the shit out of bad guys on a physical level.  Also, he'd promised Tulip (and himself) that he'd only use the voice when he really needed to. 

He literally used it one second before to stop the van though. He could have just said "everybody stop". If he wanted to just beat some people up, fine. Saying he only uses when he has to, when he just had to use it, and then suddenly didn't, is just silly. 

Link to comment
(edited)
40 minutes ago, ganesh said:

He literally used it one second before to stop the van though. He could have just said "everybody stop". If he wanted to just beat some people up, fine. Saying he only uses when he has to, when he just had to use it, and then suddenly didn't, is just silly. 

Sure it's silly, but you're looking at this through the viewpoint of coldly reasonable tactics.  If Jesse uses Genesis to make everybody stop, he loses his excuse to beat the holy living fuck out of them for abducting Lara.  And he wants to beat the holy living fuck out of them.  Jesse loves to beat the holy living fuck out of "the bad guys."  That was established in the Pilot episode during the bar fight during that lovely little moment the action goes to slow motion to let us see the smile appear on Jesse's face as he gets to scratch his itch to use violence against people he feels really deserve it.

Now, all that said, Jesse doesn't really like to admit to himself that he genuinely enjoys beating the hell out of people.  So, he makes up the "rules" for using Genesis.  Since he had no other way to stop the van, he used it.  Once it turned into a fight - and a fight he figure he could handle, then he no longer "had" to use it.  Like most people, Jesse's rules exist to enable him to do the stuff he wants to do in the way he wants to do it.

Edited by johntfs
  • Love 6
Link to comment

Yes, that's a fine reason. It's a dumb reason too, but it's reason enough. They've discussed strategic use of the voice before, so it's a fair point to talk about. Which was the first part. Tell them all to stop, and then help out the singer.

I was pointing out the logical fallacy of saying "he promised Tulip he wouldn't use the voice unless he really needed to" when he actually did just that. 

Link to comment
16 minutes ago, ganesh said:

I was pointing out the logical fallacy of saying "he promised Tulip he wouldn't use the voice unless he really needed to" when he actually did just that.

I look at it as there's all kinds of "needs."  There's the absolute "you or someone you love will die" need and there's personality/emotional needs.  It is alien to the character of Jesse Custer to allow a "damsel" to be in distress if he can possibly do something about it.  Lara was apparently being kidnapped.  She was in "distress" so Jesse used the voice to stop the van.  At that point it's just a fight with some dudes, and Jesse can win a fight with some dudes.

Probably the more interesting use of Genesis was earlier when he stopped Lara from kissing him.  He didn't really "need" Genesis to do that, but his own willpower/resistance was faltering so he instinctively fell back on Genesis to keep himself from "cheating" on Tulip.

  • Love 3
Link to comment
5 hours ago, johntfs said:

Probably the more interesting use of Genesis was earlier when he stopped Lara from kissing him.  He didn't really "need" Genesis to do that, but his own willpower/resistance was faltering so he instinctively fell back on Genesis to keep himself from "cheating" on Tulip.

It also felt like a power move. Jesse was laying down his ace when she thought she was calling his bluff (at least that's how it played out to me until we learn she was really just getting proof that Jesse had a gift). 

  • Love 2
Link to comment
11 hours ago, NurseGiGi said:

I'll forever love Season 1 because it gave me the Angel Fight (in the hotel room).  I could just sit and watch those scenes over and over again.

Cassidy's fight with them on the plane and Tulip's back seat car fight were awesome too.

  • Love 5
Link to comment
(edited)
On 7/3/2017 at 9:12 PM, Lantern7 said:

"God" was spoiled in the credits. Was there anything like him in the comic? Still jarring as hell, and it shows how futile the quest really is. 

I'm not sure I know what you mean here but I'm intrigued. 

Edited by PatternRec
Link to comment

@Lantern7 oh that. I thought maybe it was gonna be a Jesus DeSade thing when they showed it in the credits. For some reason your statement got me thinking that the dude in the bar listening to the band when Jesse walked in was god. Old guy with a white beard. 

Link to comment

That came to my mind too, but I thought it was too on the nose. I also was still stuck on the dog-guy being god. I do like the concept that Jesse's already met god and doesn't know it. 

Though one would think Jesse sitting next to an old guy with a white beard who is *really* into jazz that he would have been suspicious a little. I mean, it's not like he knows who he's actually looking for. 

  • Love 1
Link to comment
On 7/4/2017 at 0:12 AM, Lantern7 said:

And perhaps something canon will lead from the "Angelville" poster. Jesse looked scared.

Worth noting that the poster had a skull-and-star logo on it, which is the same as Jesse's tattoo.

  • Love 2
Link to comment
(edited)

Mark Harelik (the actor playing the actor playing God) had to die so that he could go to heaven.  Did that mean he was vetted first for the likelihood that he would go there instead of to hell?  Or perhaps other actors had died and failed to make it?

After DeBlanc was murdered by the Saint-if he went to heaven, couldn't he just return to earth as he did before with Fiore, when looking for Genesis?  And since Fiore solicited his own murder, might he not be in hell, or at least, not in the same place as DeBlanc, which was probably the main reason he wanted to die?

Finally, once the Saint killed Fiore at his own request, how is Fiore supposed to give the Saint his reward for killing Jesse?

Edited by ItCouldBeWorse
Link to comment
On 7/24/2017 at 6:24 PM, ItCouldBeWorse said:

After DeBlanc was murdered by the Saint-if he went to heaven, couldn't he just return to earth as he did before with Fiore, when looking for Genesis?  And since Fiore solicited his own murder, might he not be in hell, or at least, not in the same place as DeBlanc, which was probably the main reason he wanted to die?

I thought the bus returning from Hell and only dropping Fiore off was meant to mean that DeBlanc was still in Hell. He did say he was a serial killer, so maybe that's where he is suppose to be? I also thought the saint's bullets were special, and made a permanent death, so DeBlanc wouldn't be able to come back to earth.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...