Preacher Episode 5 Annotations: The Saint Comes Marching In

Welcome back brothers and sisters to our new weekly feature, the Preacher Book Club! Every week we’ll talk about the latest episode of AMC‘s Preacher, dissecting the episode at hand, annotating the changes made from the Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon comic book series and attempting to predict about what will be coming next. So let’s dive right into our thoughts and annotations on Preacher episode 5!

The Saint comes marching in

As a book reader, this opening sequences is just the best. We see the Saint of Killers in his human form arriving in Ratwater to get the medicine for his daughter, only to have to wait a few hours to obtain it and finding the town populated by the worst of the worst. Everything we see is a pretty spot on adaptation of what happens in the Saint of Killers mini-series, though the addition of the family that fed him also being scalp traders is a new twist for the show. There is a man who recognizes the Saint from Gettysburg as well, though he doesn’t shoot his horse in the comics. Even the Saint returning home to find his family dead and being eaten by crows is direct from the source material.

Poor Eugene

As we’ve previously noted, most of the things going on with Eugene are brand new to the show. His ties to what happened to Tracy Loach are only slightly more clear by the fact that people are threatening him over trying to kill himself but also how Tracy’s mother reacts when she sees him. Eugene also thinks that how people are treating him is what makes his father lash out at him, but I’m not entirely convinced that’s the case.

“I’ve fallen for you”

When Cassidy wakes up in Walter’s house and talks to Tulip he says this to her, and he means it. It becomes clear early on in the comics that Cassidy fancies Tulip, but she doesn’t reciprocate those feelings, much like we see here. There is a slight change, however, as Tulip becomes increasingly irritated and impatient with Jesse and decides to have sex with Cassidy. The lone shot of her face that we see is certainly an indicator that she’s doing this for a different reason, but Cassidy probably sees it as progress.

Donnie Schenck

In case this is your first Book Club, Donnie Schenck is nowhere to be found in the original Preacher comics. I was curious what his purpose was in the show up until this point and then it became clear, he’s the bad guy for this first season. Donnie has experienced Jesse’s power first hand, and in the meanest way possible, and he realizes what Jesse can do once he sees Odin Quincannon as a man serving God, more on that later. Who knows how the rest of the season will play out for Donnie, but I can only assume he’ll try to fight or kill Jesse, and he’ll probably almost win but then in true Preacher fashion will be struck down by something he didn’t even see coming.

Phone home

Fiore and deBlanc rehearshing what to say when he answers the phone is one of the funniest bits in the series so far, and what makes it more special is it’s not in the comics at all. The two angels are certainly in the comic, but this whole business with the phone isn’t. When the phone stops ringing, however, that says to me one thing, The Heavenly hosts have given up trying to contact them and have gone to Plan B: Waking up The Saint of Killers. This would explain why the show has spent so long updating us on his origin, and presumably setting up a showdown for the finale between Jesse and The Saint. Speaking of Jesse, it’s kind of great seeing him using The Word of God in such mundane but helpful ways. This might seem unlike the Jesse from the comics, but I think the series is planting the seeds of that Jesse by telling a new story that leads into it.

Odin

Part of Odin’s newfound look on life leads to him meeting with the “Green Acre Group” (none of this, from Odin’s conversion to the GAG is in the source material), his rivals in agriculture preservation. It certainly surprised me when Odin met with the group and then executed them all with a semi-automatic shotgun, but that’s part of Odin’s character as a deranged mad man. Some people might see this as Jesse’s power not fully working, or not having a lasting effect, but I think what’s happening is Odin thinks that the death of the Green Acre Group is somehow in line with what God wants, in his own twisted way. We’ll see at least, I’m sure this will come back up soon.

You can watch previews for the next episode using the players below.

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