Preacher Feature: Season Two, Episode Five – ‘Dallas’
Our weekly Preacher roundup returns with Season Two, Episode Five, “Dallas”
Welcome back, my Preacher Feature followers!
Season two, episode five, titled “Dallas” is mainly a flashback episode, which is something we haven’t really seen from Preacher previously. It gives us some serious insight into the rocky relationship of Jesse and Tulip, fleshing our their backstory in a way that has been previously hinted at, but not explored in such detail.
With a series chock-full of bloody violence and high-octane action, this episode feels… slower… than the rest of the show’s offerings. And it is.
via AMC
That being said, the slower pace matches the exhausted tone of the episode itself. Jesse – furious about the discovery of Tulip’s lawfully wedded husband – goes into a blind rage, using Genesis on Tulip to force her exit so he can get to know Viktor a bit more… personally. While this is happening, we see a peek into their life together in Dallas, post-Carlos and pre-Annville.
Tulip is working as an assistant to a real estate agent, doing the whole “9 to 5” thing. Jesse and Tulip are devastated by the loss of their unborn child – thanks, Carlos – and are routinely trying to conceive. When I say routinely, I mean it. There are repeated scenes of fruitlessly checking an at-home pregnancy test and trying again to work some baby-making magic.
There’s a whole montage of Jesse soullessly sauntering to the convenience store to purchase beer, cigarettes, and a pregnancy test, followed by some unusually unpassionate sex. One of Preacher‘s many strong points is their music, and this episode is no exclusion. A one-two punch of “I’ll Pretend” by Glen Morris immediately followed by “My Eyes” by Teenage Jesus & The Jerks communicates Jesse’s quickly dissolving optimism and steadily increasing ennui.
via Comic Book Movie
It’s almost hard to watch. Our normally dynamic duo are a shell of their normal selves.
Things go from bad to worse when Jesse discovers that Tulip has been hiding money from “jobs” she has been doing without Jesse’s knowledge, and she has secretly been taking birth control to prevent another pregnancy.
It’s no wonder they broke up so tremendously.
Jesse decides to go back to Annville to take over his father’s church, leaving Tulip and Dallas behind. Tulip winds up with Viktor, but disappears without a trace when she receives a call telling her the whereabouts of Carlos the betrayer.
via YouTube
Jumping ahead to present day, Tulip confronts Cassidy and asks him to intervene in Jesse’s rampage. If Jesse kills Viktor, she says, she’s done with him. Cassidy goes to play the good guy, but instead of trying to talk him down, he admits to Jesse that if anyone laid a finger on his girl, he wouldn’t “be very restrained at all” . He’d “want to hurt them really, really bad”.
Cassidy, friend, what are you playing at?
Now, Cassidy himself is the first to admit – in a very casual and unassuming kind of way – that he’s greedy, selfish, destructive and jealous, and we all know how he feels about Tulip. Could his greedy, destructive jealousy get the better of him? I guess we’ll have to stay tuned to find out.
Jesse decides to let Viktor go and Tulip is – to say the least – relieved.
But wait! Viktor gets a late-night visit from the Saint of Killers. He is tracking the use of Genesis, after all. The Saint mows a path through his henchmen and disposes of Viktor when he doesn’t get the answer he’s looking for. But someone else in the house is willing to help…
Next: Preacher Feature: On the Road Again – Season Two, Episodes 1-4
All in all, this episode was a slow departure from our regularly scheduled program. But with the Saint of Killers hot on the trio’s trail, I reckon we won’t have to wait long for the action to pick back up again.
Check out more killer content from Kelly over at iHorror.com