'Preacher' season three finale recap: 'The Light Above'

Best season of Preacher yet, hands down.

And with that, season three of Preacher has come to a close. Season two left me feeling pretty underwhelmed and feeling like it was time for this show to be over, but that’s old news now. Season three was a complete game-changer that brought new life into this property. Bring on season four, five, six and seven.

A lot happens in the season three finale — entitled “The Light Above" — of Preacher. And I mean a lot.

Let’s start with Tulip and Eugene, because the two were in a pretty grim situation when we last left them.

The Nazi tank that tipped over the bus headed to hell was indeed Hitler’s friends, as they’ve now come to rescue him. The Saint of Killers and Angel of Death, obviously, aren’t about to let that happen.

A pretty badass battle then ensues, ultimately resulting in an all-out bloodbath on the Nazi’s side.

Caught in the crossfires of everything, Tulip and Eugene try to use the opportunity to escape. Eugene and Hitler get caught in a fist-fight, while Tulip is busy gunning down a few stray Nazis who have found their way to the bus.

Let’s just pause and reflect on that for a second: isn’t it nice that we can use a show as ridiculous and absurd to re-enforce the fact that Nazis are terrible human beings instead of ‘very fine people’ (one of the Nazis is even subtly wearing a MAGA hat)? In the end, this show really has its heart in the right place.

Anyways, the Saint of Killers gets run over by the tank. It doesn’t kill him though — in fact, he’s able to cut into the tank from the ground up and eventually make it explode.

Not before it fires off one shot, however. One shot that’s headed right for Tulip.

That’s right when God decides to make his grand return, swooping in to save her, free her from Hell and lift the O’Hare curse; all just because he’s such a generous God.

And, you know, because he wants Tulip to go find Jesse and tell him to stop searching for him (guess he’s not so generous after all). Now that the preacher has his Genesis power back, God suddenly seems somewhat afraid of Jesse for the very first time.

Tulip, to no one’s surprise but everyone’s triumph, rejects the offer. God has really done nothing for her, as she’s made it this far on her own.

He does offer her one warning as he leaves — Cassidy is in trouble. Had Tulip accepted his offer, he might have helped out and saved the day. Now, it’s up to her.

We’ll get back to Cassidy later, but the Saint of Killers, Eugene, Angel of Death and Hitler still have some drama we need to get through first.

The Saint of Killers recovers from his injuries and, after a brief altercation with the Angel of Death that results in her eyes being plucked out, they all return down to Hell.

The Devil is waiting for them, slightly bummed that Tulip couldn’t make the trip but still pleased enough to honor the deal he made with the Saint of Killers. He’s even happier upon learning that Jesse is the one the Saint of Killers plans to hunt down, as the two have quite a history.

But the Saint of Killers has no intention of honoring that deal. The Angel of Death’s taunts about his daughter really got through to him, so he’s now holding the Devil personally responsible.

So he shoots the devil right in the head, killing him where he stands.

Everyone is obviously shocked, as Satan himself is now, just, dead. Like, who even knew that was possible? The Saint of Killers wastes no time, though, as he still wants to kill Jesse next. Figuring he has nothing better to do, Eugene follows along — Jesse is the one who sent him to Hell in the first place, so he’s up for some good old-fashioned revenge too.

That leaves Hitler and the Angel of Death standing there alone, neither completely sure what to do. Only for a moment, that is. A wicked smile crosses Hitler’s face, as he slowly walks over to the Devil’s chair and sits down.

That’s right. Hitler is now the one running Hell.

The meat of the Preacher finale really revolves around Jesse, as everything has been gearing up to his return to Angelville. We get a few flashbacks of how he failed to kill Gran’ma when he was just a kid — a mistake he’s certainly not going to make again.

First, he has to go through Jody and TC. Given that he has the Genesis, TC doesn’t present much of a problem as Jesse tells him to take the shotgun he’s holding and shoot himself in the foot.

But with Jody, it’s personal. He killed his father. He can’t just let that go, and using the Genesis would be too easy. All three of them head down to the tombs, where Jody and Jesse fight it out to the death.

After a long battle, Jesse eventually gets the better of him, brutally bashing Jody’s head against a wall until he’s clearly dead. He then tells JC to get some gasoline, so they can burn the whole place to the ground.

JC does, slightly put back why he’s still alive. Jesse explains that he doesn’t hate him the way that he hated Jody and that he’ll let him live. Then comes the saddest moment of the episode.

“I’m good,” JC says. “Angelville, I know it’s wicked and evil and all that. But I got nowhere else to go.”

Tears. Real tears.

With the two of them dead, Jesse then heads for who he really came for — Gran’ma.

Of course, it’s not going to be as easy as he thought it was. Gran’ma knew about the Genesis and made a deal with the devil prior to the preacher’s arrival. If he kills her, he’ll be sent to hell when he dies.

Jesse’s taken aback by this at first, to the point where he gets in his truck and starts to drive away. That’s when he stops to think about it, looking at a younger version of himself. “I got what I came for,” he says to himself, given that he’s now free and everything. "I won."

But it’s just not good enough. He returns, forcing Gran’ma into the contraption that killed so many people and turns it on. Yeah, maybe he’ll go to Hell for it, but at this moment it’s totally worth it.

And finally, we have Cassidy.

Eccarius gives him one last chance to repent and join him before the sunlight reaches the pool table he’s nailed to. Cassidy, out of options, agrees, causing Eccarius to happily go tell the rest of the crew that his friend has come around. To celebrate, they’re going to turn another member, right here and now. And who better than Mrs. Rosen?

Yet, as we all guessed, Mrs. Rosen now knows the truth about Eccarius and the whole thing is a setup. Cassidy wound up turning Rosen into a vampire after their brief chat in the previous episode, and Rosen then turned the rest of the crew. All the vampires then gang up on Eccarius, nail him down to the same pool table and dig in.

Cassidy takes the throne, thinking that victory is his. That’s when Hoover shows up.

At first, he disguises himself as a friend, saying that he quit the grail and has dedicated his life to being a vampire. It’s all a bunch of BS, as he throws Cassidy an umbrella and tells him to open it, right before the roof caves in and all the surrounding vampires explode into a billion pieces.

It’s Starr and Featherstone, of course, picking up the entire house with a helicopter and bringing it to a secret location. Tulip arrives after all this, finding only Rosen and another leftover vampire who took cover in a nearby coffin.

We end in Masada. Cassidy thrown in some pit and some winged creature is coming to visit — er, torture — him, while Starr, Featherstone and Hoover watch from above. Starr, in a worse mood than ever, throws Hoover’s umbrella off, which seemingly kills him right then and there.

He then announces to Featherstone that he’s done trying to convince Jesse to be the Messiah. That plan has gone south too many times. Now, he just wants the preacher dead.

The camera pulls back to reveal an entire army hiding out in this fortress, ready to make their mark. It looks like Starr is going to be the number one villain of the next season, which is a brilliant move on the show-runners part as he’s always been one of the more interested characters in Preacher lore and they’ve spent the past couple seasons really building this up.

And that’s it for Preacher, we’ve made it through all ten episodes and it wound up being pretty great. I can’t wait to see where AMC brings Preacher next, as this show really has my attention now. Too bad we’ll likely have to wait until next summer.

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