'Preacher' Season 2 episode 2 review: Mumbai Sky Tower!

Perhaps this is going to be a trend this season. The first episode of the second season of 'Preacher' opens up with a massive police chase and a "bloody" explosive gun battle. The second episode instantly features a big car crash and yet another massive gun battle, this time between the unstoppable Saint of Killers and a collection of gun enthusiasts who just so happen to be in the same hotel as Jesse Custer (coincidence). Chekov's gun was brought up in the first episode, thanks to the hotel's signage welcoming a gathering of gun enthusiasts, and in the second episode, it's put to great use, with the assembled gun fans firing pistols, rifles, and automatic weapons at the Saint of Killers, only to finally put him down with a blast from an M203 grenade launcher, if I'm correct.

The celebration is short-lived, as the Saint shakes off the hail of lead literally, he shakes off a hundred dented and mangled rounds and begins hunting down his prey, shooting down everyone who gets in his way. Cassidy makes a great point when he compares the Saint to the Terminator, except Terminators don't tend to scream and growl in complete frustration when their prey eludes them. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are clearly action movie lovers, and this opening action sequence is a thriller. To watch the Saint march up and down the hallway of the hotel, kicking in doors and killing indiscriminately, is an immediate reminder of the police station shoot-out in Terminator.

This isn't a man, this is a killing machine doing the thing he's best at. He's almost blasé about the whole incident, just kind of casually gunning people down and kicking in doors with no effort whatsoever. It's offset perfectly by the pure panic on the face of Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy, and the fact that most of the scene is shot from Jesse's POV as he watches the Saint wander the halls via the reflective glass of a vending machine is a great choice. There's also a stellar shot of the Saint from the side, pulling his guns in an angle, where the camera follows the motion of his arm that must have been cribbed from Sam Raimi, because it's disorienting and yet still makes perfect sense at the same time.

Clearly, Rogen, Goldberg, and Sam Catlin have consumed a wide variety of television, movies, and music to construct the show they have.

Fiore has a job as a magician at a second-rate casino, where he essentially abuses his inability to die for personal gain after multiple suicide attempts failed. It's a great idea, especially given the violence that the Preacher universe seems to feed on. As Fiore's fame grows (the Great Ganesh is a very popular act for a little out-of-the-way casino) so too do his crowds. The fans in the front rows wearing ponchos, as if expecting Gallagher to show up and smash watermelons, is a really funny touch.

However, Fiore is more than just killing himself for entertainment purposes. He's severely depressed; he can't go back to heaven, God's missing, his best friend is dead, and he's stuck at a casino trying to turn his inability to die into a profession. Thus, when Cassidy rocks up in his room with a whole bunch of drugs and showing him some love, he instantly opens up at the thought of having a friend again even if its just for one night. He has fun, he gets to talk about his lost friend, and he works out a lot of his feelings with Cas. Sam Catlin's script makes a point of showing that Cas, for all his faults, knows how to reach out to people and how to ingratiate himself with them (well I guess he has had years to learn). After all, he wins over Jesse and Tulip fairly easily, and in three hours, he's able to mend fences with Fiore and give the angel a little bit of fun before they move on with their journey.

Of course, it's a temporary respite, and Fiore gets a maudlin finish for an otherwise great comic character. It's kind of a down note, but that's part of what's surprising about Preacher. It's a fun show most of the time, but when it goes for touching, it lands with surprisingly solid moments like Fiore's last moments on the series. Tom Brooke does a wonderful job being both depressing and light in his scenes; he's able to rend a lot of sympathy out of Fiore's depression, selling it just based off of his dead facial expression and cold, distant gaze alone (the garish stage makeup only highlights the sadness in his eyes even more). At least he finally finds his peace at the end of the episode, even if his method is going to completely and utterly doom Jesse Custer.

The last moments of the episode, involving Fiore and the Saint making another deal, is shot in gorgeous split screen, with Fiore's face dominating the foreground right and the Saint looming over his shoulder background left, it reminds me of the old school western films. The Saint is deliberately in the background, and he'll be following Jesse Custer every step of the way to New Orleans. Every time we see the Saint, he shows up in the background, like a twisted combination of WWE star The Undertaker and Michael Myers. He's the kind of antagonist that the show can't use too much; given that The Voice doesn't work on him, he's unstoppable really so they have to be very careful because that kind of antagonist can make for interesting television, in small doses; there can't be a threat so big that the heroes can't overcome it, or things just get ridiculous in a bad way.

I have no doubt that Preacher will do a good job of handling the character as an antagonist, because they've done such a good job at balancing the conflicting tones of the source materials and combining comic book material with TV-only content. If they can take away Jesse's most potent weapon while giving him a compelling reason not to use it constantly, perhaps they can blunt the steel of the Saint of Killers without removing his teeth completely.