**Spoilers ahead** Last night, AMC‘s “Preacher” wrapped up by literally blowing up almost everything and everyone in its first season (here’s our recap). The entire town of Annville, Texas, where much of “Preacher” unfolded across its first ten episodes, went up in a methane gas leak explosion, with the only survivors being Jesse (Dominic Cooper), Tulip (Ruth Negga) and Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun). Meanwhile, The Butcher of Gettysburg has returned to Earth from Hell to kill Jesse, who made a phone call to heaven only to discover that an imposter is sitting in God’s chair, and that the Almighty has gone missing.
There’s an argument to be made that by wiping the slate, the writers of “Preacher” have pretty much rendered nearly all the subplot storylines, and the investment in various characters throughout season one, entirely moot. But for the show’s executive producer and co-creator Sam Catlin, it was a necessary follow through on the narrative.
“A sinful, Sodom and Gomorrah-type town, blowing up on its sh*t, it’s all a direct result of the absence of God,” he told Deadline, adding: “In the first season we really wanted to establish Jesse’s relationship to God and lack thereof.”
Well, that’s certainly been established and then some, with Jesse perhaps being the only preacher in history to use the dismembered hand of an angel to call Heaven. But was it really necessary to lay waste to Annville?
“In the end, we had to clear the deck, there’s so many great characters from the comic to come,” Catlin teased about the second season.
And that will include the mysterious Herr Starr, briefly glimpsed in episode three, who plays a much bigger role in what is a massive religious conspiracy, that will presumably start unfolding in the next season. We’ll also apparently find out more about who killed Jesse’s father.
However, the big question is whether or not viewers will want to continue on with a show that betrayed a certain amount of trust with the season one finale. While the ending works perhaps on a thematic level, there is something a bit distasteful about the inelegant way the rug was pulled out from viewers, and eliminated hours spent with a fair number of characters. Thoughts? Let us know what you think of that finale and what’s to come below.