Welcome back, Eugene.
In the newest episode of Preacher — “Les Enfants du Sang” — we welcome back a character who, well, has been in a pretty low place the past couple of seasons: Eugene (Ian Colletti).
After escaping from Hell alongside Hitler, only to be then abandoned by him, Eugene returns to his hometown of Annville, Texas to find the whole place completely destroyed. Preacher fans will, of course, remember this from season one, but this is the first time the show has actually given us a look at all the carnage — and it ain’t pretty.
Instead of a city, sits a massive crater that’s claimed the lives of all Eugene’s friends and family. Poor guy.
He’s determined not to let it get him down, though, because that’s just the kind of guy Eugene is. He walks into the orphanage he’s sent to still glowing, ready to make some new friends and, hopefully, a new family.
The good news is that he doesn’t have to wait long to get adopted — just a couple minutes, really. The bad news is that his new guardian isn’t exactly the parenting type.
No, it’s the Saint of Killers, sent to bring him and Hitler back to Hell so that he can have his revenge on Jesse (which I totally called a couple weeks ago, by the way).
Meanwhile, Cassidy might not be literally on his way to hell, but he’s sure determined to make his life a living one.
With Jesse and Tulip gone, he’s got nothing better to smoke crack and drink bourbon all day long. Even the people who kidnapped him in the previous episode don’t turn out to be all that exciting — they’re just worshiping a vampire who plays into every single vampire cliché in the book, which Cassidy is way above.
Or is he? He thought he was until Eccarius (Adam Croasdell, who’s doing his best Hugh Jackman impersonation) takes him out on the town and shows him a few benefits of living this way — benefits that include mind control and actually being able to turn into a bat.
The one catch: to get these powers, you have to drink actual human blood. Eccarius has mastered a way to do this as classy as possible — he doesn’t kill his victims, but rather finds people who want to be turned into vampires and drinks from them — but Cassidy still isn’t so sure.
Yet, his life has been weighing on him lately. He’s hundreds of years old, had nothing but bad luck and everyone either leaves him or hates him. So why not give this new lifestyle a try?
It’s a problem that Jesse and Tulip are likely going to have to deal with later, because they have their hands full for now. With Gran’ma on the brink of death, they’ve learned that the only way to heal her will be to feed her souls.
Instead of finding some poor victim to sacrifice, Jesse comes up with a better idea — let’s just rob a bunch of them from cache?
TC, Jody and Tulip all agree to the plan, as they come up with a less than conventional heist that works out for them in the long run. Gran’ma gets her souls and Tulip’s not in danger anymore, so everything should be swell now, right?
Wrong.
Gran’ma is angry about something (not exactly as sure to what) and begins threatening Tulip once again. There’s a pretty good fake-out where we’re led to believe that Gran’ma begins sucking out Tulip’s soul, only to have it revealed it’s actually just Sabina.
Yeah, not exactly sure when she got captured in all this, but Jesse sees her sitting there and feels bad for her — so he promptly shoots her to put her out of her misery.
“Person ain’t nothing without their soul,” he says. “I will pay your debt and will get you what you want. But not like this.”
The solution: looks like he’s finally about to call the Grail.
It couldn’t come at a better time for Herr Starr, either. He’s on his last lifeline when it comes to the All-Father, as his plan to kidnap Cassidy has completely fallen flat. After a weird intimidation scene in which the All-Father forces him to partake in eating a cooked horse, the statement is finally posed to Starr: “Let’s talk about this Jesse Custer.”
They have plans for Jesse. Jesse has plans for the Grail. Looks like this meet up is finally going to happen, and I have a feeling it’s not going to end so well for a lot of people.
Where Cassidy and Eugene are headed, though, is anyone's guess as we still have seven episodes left in this season of Preacher.
Tune in to AMC tonight for the next episode of Preacher and check out our other Preacher recaps by clicking here!