Preacher’s The Lost Apostle is a 1970’s homage for the apocalypse
Preacher trips out in The Lost Apostle, which feels like a parody but explains that fateful scene. Here’s what happened in Preacher season 4, episode 6.
Preacher is a constantly contrasting show. The AMC series is always mixing styles, bouncing from one part of its timeline to another, and sneaking in tone changes when you least expect it. In “The Lost Apostle,” fans got all of those things—and who knows what we’re supposed to do now.
The opening of Sunday’s episode felt like a parody of every 1970’s cop show. Quinn Martin would have been proud of how Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) and Tulip O’Hare (Ruth Negga) bulldozed their way into an Australian police station, pretending to be American cops.
The rest of us were wondering how they managed to drive the Chevelle from the Middle East to the Land Down Under, considering that’s more than 7,000 miles. How much time has elapsed in between episodes?
Travel nitpicks aside, “The Lost Apostle” was the Preacher episode that finally pulled everything together—appropriately enough, since there are now just four episodes left.
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Tulip and Cassidy find out that Eugene (Ian Colletti) has been arrested for Jesse Custer’s (Dominic Cooper) murder, but are not convinced he’s dead, so the former stumbles into God’s trailer and gets a look at His giant diorama.
Jesse, after getting briefly roughed up by the Saint of Killers (Graham McTavish), is forced to accompany him on his mission to kill God—something Jesse thinks is futile, but learns to shut up about once The Saint kills innocent bystanders in a nearby house solely to teach Jesse a lesson. It’s a truly stomach-turning sequence, and a reminder that Preacher isn’t messing around.
Everyone comes together fairly quickly: Jesse escapes The Saint with help from Cassidy and Tulip, and they head to meet God (Mark Harelik), who’s camped out with Herr Starr (Pip Torrens). It’s a trap, though, and Tulip turns the plane around, only for God to unleash literal holy hell. Jesse falls out of the open door, and uses Genesis to force Cassidy to let him go—which results in the death scene fans saw in Preacher‘s season premiere.
And that’s where the episode ends, ensuring viewers have no more clarity about Jesse’s fate than they did the first time around.
On one hand, kudos to “The Lost Apostle” for getting the final season caught up with that flash-forward, so the plot can hopefully run straight on for the last four episodes and start answering some of the big questions that Preacher season 4 still has out there.
On the other hand, this is the rare Preacher episode that doesn’t really spark until the last act. Like many a TV show, it comes across as an episode designed to get the show from A to B—in quite a few ways literally. But there’s one aspect that strikes a big nerve, and it happens in that final huge moment.
It’s not until Jesse dies (presumably) that he has agency.
Throughout the first half of “The Lost Apostle,” Jesse is controlled by the Saint of Killers, first in a physical sense and then by being forced into following him. When he’s rescued, his course is still determined by meeting God. Jesse Custer’s path in this episode is largely not his own.
But in that fateful moment, when Preacher has Jesse compel Cassidy to let him go, that’s his choice. He decides to sacrifice his life for the greater good of saving the two people who are most important to him. He regains his free will, which of course is the quality that’s come up on this show numerous times as characters debate humanity versus God’s will.
So in essence, Jesse does the most human thing he could do—at the apparent end of his human life.
Then the question is does he stay dead, considering Preacher has four more episodes and there obviously has to be a place for Dominic Cooper in them somewhere. But if this is his end, Jesse has exemplified humanity. He’s exerted free will and he’s done it for a selfless cause. It’s all the more reason to embrace him as a hero, or whatever comes next for him.
Now if you want to be ticked off at God for leading him into a trap and taking down the plane in the first place, well, that’s another story. Or another episode, because Preacher has a lot more explaining left to do.
Preacher airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on AMC. For more on Preacher and other AMC shows, follow the AMC category at Hidden Remote.