Preacher: Tortured former thug and bi vampire compete for the Girl, search for God, show their butts and His dick

  

Another of the new paranormal shows on Netflix, with the standard Netflix one-word title: Preacher.  I've heard of this one: a bleak, gritty series about outcasts in an endless desert, some of whom are gods and demons?

Prologue: A baby in a spaceship zaps through an animated solar system, and lands in Chad, while The Preacher (Irugu Mutu), who wears a clerical collar although he seems to be evangelical,  says "Something's coming."  He  yells about the coming Battle Between Good and Evil.  But they're not afraid, because a Prophet has been foretold.  Then the baby-spaceship zaps into the church and explodes him.  I guess he wasn't the titular Preacher.

Scene 1: A guy covered in scars lies shirtless on the bed, while a little boy promises his daddy, The Preacher (Nathan Darrow, top photo), something that we don't hear, and the background song tells us that "It was the time of the preacher, when the story began. Of the choice of a lady and the love of a man."  That's horribly heterosexist.  Is the paranormal stuff just going to be an excuse for a hetero-romance?

The tattooed guy  stumbles past the bottles of booze indicating that he's a drunand puts on his clerical collar.  This is the third preacher in three minutes: Jesse, played by Dominic Cooper.  Could he be the titular Preacher?

He walks through the wilderness outside of  All Saints Congregational Church.  The sign reads "Open your ass and holes to Jesus."  He changes it to "hearts and souls," so apparently it wasn't intentional.  Darn, I thought he was being rackish. 

By the way, this is TEXAS.  

Scene 2: The horrible, dusty, redneck-ridden town of Annville.  Preacher Jesse  is preaching a sermon on Tom Landry -- a sports person of some sort?  Except he's distracted, he can't read his notes, and the congregation is bored.  1000 to 1 he's mourning a dead wife.

Sermon ends, time for a barbecue in the endless desert.  With beer?  What kind of Christians are these?  A little boy, who may be the kid from The Mick, grabs one and heads past the shootin' range to bring it to Jesse.  He complains that his dad, Donnie (Derek Wilson), is abusive, and asks Jesse to "hurt him."  So this Preacher has magical powers?

No, he just has a violent past, but he doesn't crack heads anymore.  How about counseling?

Scene 3:  An Indian is fighting a guy in a prairie dog suit about who should be the new mascot.

Mayor Miles (Ricky Mabe) gets punched by a girl, so everyone makes fun of him for being a sissy. 

The Redneck Sheriff complains to the drunken Preacher Jesse that the Japanese let a guy marry his own pillow, so civilization has ended.  Hey, that's a homophobic allusion to gay marriage!   Jesse complains about the abusive Donnie, but the Sheriff refuses to investigate.

God's penis and a guy who can do oral and anal at the same time after the break

Scene 4: Meanwhile, 30,000 feet up -- psych!  In an airplane, not in Heaven -- people are smoking, drinking, snorting cocaine.  Flight attendant Cassidy (Joe Gilgun) brags that he's going to take the guys to untold heights of debauchery, a night that lands you in the hospital trying to figure out the Spanish word for "ass hamster."  

He goes to the absurdly huge airplane bathroom, finds a Bible for reading material, and opens it to a page where someone has written "Please him!  Please him!  Reward! Wrath is Love!" 

This gives him an evil idea.  He goes out and tells the guys, "I thought T.J. was south of Vegas, so why are we heading toward the sun?" Not literally -- he means east.   They attack.  He spears, flames, vampire-bites, and garrots them all, including the pilot, whom he asks "How did you wankers find me?"  "Go to hell, abomination!"  So, Cassidy is the antagonist.  No wonder he mentioned anal sex.  Gay =evil.

Scene 5:  Preacher Jesse is eating in a diner with a young woman, and two or three kids and listening to trivial complaints from his parishioners. She shows him a brochure for a megachurch with a Starbucks in the lobby, and complains that their numbers are in decline.  

Left: Joe Gilgud's butt.

Mayor Miles, the one who got hit by a girl, stops by to flirt with her, but she rejects him.  Jesse criticizes her: it's been three years since her husband died, time to get a new man.

She gazes at him with Man-of-My-Dreams longing and says "I'm available."  He doesn't get the absurdly obvious hint, or else he's not interested because he's still mourning his Dead Wife.

Scene 6: Preacher Jesse visits Walter, an elderly man asleep on his couch.  He's shirtless, which Jesse takes as a sign of cognitive decline.  What's wrong with having your shirt off in your own house, when you're not expecting visitors?   

Uh-oh, there's a gun on the counter, which makes Jesse suspicious, even though people have carried and shot guns in every scene so far.  There's also a woman singing in the shower, which makes him even mor suspicious.  He rushes away, and the woman comes out naked to watch him leave.  I have no idea what just happened.

Scene 7: Kansas, not that long ago.  A man in the back seat of the car tries to strangle a woman or femme guy, who crashes into a cornfield.  

Turns out she's an androgynous woman.  She jumps into the back seat and tries to stab him, then bites his ear off, kicks him in the balls, and shoves an ear of corn in his mouth.  Oh, there's a semi-conscious guy in the car, too.

She then changes clothes, giving viewers an eyefull of her boobs, and gets the kids in a random house to help her make a  bazooka, while oddly talking about romantic love: "fight like a lion to keep it alive." And if your love runs away, track him down and eat him alive.  So you advise killing anyone who breaks up with you?  Scary. 

She goes back to the car and explodes the semi-conscious man.

Scene 8: Cassidy the vampire/antagonist is splattered all over the ground, but he lures a cow to eat and regain his corporeal form.  Meanwhile, Preacher Jesse interviews the wife of Abusive Donnie.  She is surprisingly forthcoming: "He hurts me all the time.  He beats me, punches me, scalds me with a tea kettle."  But she won't go to the police, because she enjoys it.

Scene 9: A demonic church in Russia.  A woman explains that the Magister was leading them in Night Mass, when he was attacked and splattered all over.

Meanwhile, a woman named Tulip wants Preacher Jesse to do a job.  He insists that he's a preacher now, reformed, and doesn't do crime anymore, but she insists: we are who we are.  People don't change.

Scene 10: Next stop: Preacher Jesse visits the redneck sheriff, his catatonic wife, and Eugene, Ian Colletti, who mostly stays in his attic room because his mouth has been turned into an ass. So he can have oral and anal sex at the same time with just one partner.  

He explains that he would like to go to church, but God is mad at him because of what he did.  He knows because when he prays, God doesn't answer anymore.

According to the fan wiki, Eugene's face is not a paranormal event, but the result of a suicide attempt.

Scene 11:  Preacher Jesse drinking in a bar. On the news, a story about Tom Cruise exploding!  Vampire Cassidy enters and strikes up a conversation.  Then Abusive Donnie and his friends, who want to beat up Preacher Jesse for talking to his wife.  He preaches pacifism for awhile, but eventually he defends himself and pummels them.  

Scene 12: Jesse and for some reason Vampire Cassidy are in jail. They buddy-bond.  And I'm out of space.

Beefcake: None.  Some cute redneck guys.  Mark Harelik plays God in 15 episodes, and Jackie Earle Haley, left, plays someone named Odin Quinncannon.

Heterosexism:  Other than the theme song and every woman in the cast lusting after Preacher Jesse, no.

Gay Characters: According to the fan wiki, the Indian , Chief Red Savage, and the Prairie Dog, Pedro, are secret lovers.  They end up hanging themselves together when they discover that God has left Heaven and gone into hiding.

Cassidy is bisexual, but this is not mentioned until Season 3, and his main relationship is with Jesse's ex-girlfriend.  The three of them team up to look for God.

Will I Continue Watching:  Maybe.  It's a little bleak, and there's too much unexplained backstory that has you scurrying to the fan wiki, but the vampire and the former thug are bound to have a gay subtext while they're both falling in love with the same woman.

See also: Mark Harelik: You've seen his face a hundred times.  Now's your chance to see his penis.

Lucifer, Episode 5.15: Hetero-horny Miles Burris, gay and bi erasure, and random butts