'Preacher' recap: 'Schwanzkopf'

One more to go.

In some sad, unexpected news, it turns out that this season of Preacher isn’t really 13 episodes long — it’s only 10. Not sure when, exactly, that changed because IMDB had 13 episodes listed for the first half of the season, but we now have to deal with the fact that this episode — entitled “Schwanzkopf” was the penultimate one and next weeks will be the season finale.

And after watching “Schwanzkopf,” it’s not hard to see why as Preacher is really setting things up for a climatic ending here.

Starting with the Preacher himself, we open this episode with a winner-take-all battle between Jesse and the All-Father.

It’s revealed that the person the All-Father had in mind to be the Messiah was really just another Humperdoo (there are still hundreds of them left, apparently, even though we saw a whole bunch of them explode during the previous episode) who will be receiving the Tom/Brady concoction.

Jesse convinces the All-Father to untie him from his chains, so he can watch Humperdoo receive the Genesis on his knees. That’s when he makes his attack.

Preacher gets the upper-hand as he sticks the receiving device of the Genesis onto the All-Father, causing him to explode into a million, billion pieces as the previous Humperdoos had done.

Herr Starr walks in right then, surprised but ultimately pleased.

That is, until he sees the Genesis sitting in a pile of the All-Father’s guts, as that’s where it had been hidden. Jesse and Starr go for it at the same time, “treating” audiences to a gross-out fight as they worm their way through blood and intestines.

Jesse, again, comes out on top as he swallows his soul and regains his power.

Now that Starr has no more control over him, Jesse makes it clear that he has no interest in being the Messiah. Starr tries to reason with him — telling him what apocalypse awaits if Humperdoo takes his place — so Jesse comes up with a different decision: he’s just going to free all the Humperdoos instead.

As they all go running out into the world (not totally sure why Starr can’t just go pick up one of the many Humperdoos standing outside the building), Jesse leaves with one last further insult to injury.

“No more hats,” he commands with the Genesis, forcing Starr to turn to wigs to hide the misfortunate shaped scar on his head.

He has some help from both Hoover and Featherstone, though, as they’ve both found there way back to the Grail.

That’s right, Featherstone managed to escape Satan’s clutches, only because Eugene accidentally let it slip that she wasn’t the one they were sent to retrieve once Tulip and Jody come looking for the suitcase. Now Tulip is the one stuck on the bus with Eugene, Hitler, the Saint of Killers and the Angel of Death.

Make no mistake though, Tulip has no plans on staying there. She immediately starts looking for a way to escape, eventually making the Saint of Killers mad enough so he bashes her against a window which then makes a crack large enough to break through and jump out of.

The thing is, it never actually comes to that. Right as they’re executing their plan, the bus is promptly thrown into the air and flipped by a tank blocking the road.

A tank with a swastika painted on it. Pretty sure this has to do with the phone call that Hitler placed to Rick, meaning Eugene and Tulip aren’t out of danger just yet.

Cassidy just might be though, as he starts off this episode in a rough spot but goes out on a hopeful note.

After trying to reason with him, Eccarius is forced to admit that there’s no hope in changing Cassidy’s mind. He’s going to think that killing people is evil no matter what, as Cassidy intends on coming forward to the rest of the group with what he learned about their master.

So, Eccarius spins it on Cass instead. He creates a narrative saying Cass is making up lies and trying to get them to turn on each other, in which there is only one suitable punishment — death.

They nail him to a billiards table and place him in front of a window, forcing him to stay there until the sunlight eventually hits him and causes him to explode.

Luckily, he manages to get a word in with Mrs. Rosen, the caretaker of the house. While he can’t get Rosen to commit to freeing him, he is able to convince her to give Lisa — the girl who Eccarius killed a few episodes back — a call to see how she’s doing.

Given that Lisa is dead, it seems probable that Rosen will figure out the truth and free Cassidy so that we can have a proper vampire duel.

We end this episode of Preacher with Jesse returning to Angelville, ready to get his revenge on Gran’ma. That’s not going to be as easy as he might think, as there’s a quick shot before the credits in which Gran’ma reveals to JC that she knows about Jesse’s plan and the Genesis.

Now, all bets are off.

Tune in to AMC tonight to catch the last episode of Preacher and check out some of our other Preacher recaps by clicking here!