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 Season 1 of this AMC adaptation of the seminal, "unfilmable" comic series by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon was at first bewildering, then amusing, then once we figured out it was all supposed to be basically a stage-setting prequel to the actual comic, a hell of a lot of fun. And now Season 2 picks up pretty much where the comics begin. Many of the comic's sacred cows are casualties of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's adaptation to the screen, but ultimately the differences from comic to show boil down to fairly trivial details of timeline and the way certain characters look. And frankly since before he died the late Steve Dillon put pen to the show's reimagining of the core characters with the following image, I'm thoroughly sold:  That's Jesse Custer in the foreground, small-town Texas preacher who has come into contact with an otherworldly power/being/something, the illegitimate offspring of angel and demon, called Genesis—which has fused itself with his mind and given him the power to command others to do whatever he wants—the Word of God. The storyline of Season 1 culminated in Jesse confronting the angels of Heaven about Genesis, in front of the entire town of Annville, only to learn from the reluctant angels that God has gone missing from Heaven, apparently on the run... from Genesis. So the whole town lost its faith all at once. And then the town blew up, thanks to Odin Quincannon's cow poo poo fume cavern. And now Jesse and his little band of friends—lifelong girlfriend Tulip O'Hare and Irish vampire Cassidy—are off on a cross-country mission of rollicking road-trip revenge... against God.  This show's pretty great is what I'm saying. It's not the same as the comic—I'd say it's not quite as close to the source material as the Peter Jackson LotR movies—but much as those movies knew what worked better in a different medium and made changes to their benefit, this show too knows what it's doing. If you're a fan of the comics you should definitely give it a shot. It is a good reinterpretation that brings it into a modern sensibility with most of the essential humor and texture and quirkiness intact. And now we enter Season 2 with teasers in play to indicate that we'll soon be meeting Herr Starr, Jesus de Sade, and the Saint of Killers, among who knows who else. Here's the Season 1 thread for all your rewatching needs: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3777173&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 S2E01 airs on AMC at 10:00PM, Sunday 6/25. 
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Jun 19, 2017 01:25
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 13:13 |
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I can't wait to see if they try to make Allfather d'Aronique happen this season. That'll be a challenge.
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Jun 26, 2017 03:00
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This is extremely my poo poo
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Jun 26, 2017 03:05
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Is my memory faulty or are they ramping up the gore a notch?
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Jun 26, 2017 03:22
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Oooo nice, the treasure chest
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Jun 26, 2017 03:35
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Between that whole run-from-the-cops scene and the sex scene at the end I think they really nailed the two-fisted devil-may-care Jesse/Tulip dynamic that was kinda MIA from the first season.
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Jun 26, 2017 10:45
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Like, Mike the religious scholar and the madam at the strip club are both new inventions for the show. They entirely work in the tone of the universe, though, so I'm not bothered a bit.
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Jun 26, 2017 15:05
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I enjoyed Cassidy having trouble pronouncing "L'Angelle".
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Jun 26, 2017 17:43
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Not enough gun
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Jun 27, 2017 02:03
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It comes together pretty good.
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Jun 27, 2017 02:17
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Lol it sounds like they're from "Anvil"
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Jun 27, 2017 02:26
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savinhill posted:The other major misstep imo is the complete, utter nihilism of the finale and in the wind down of every subplot leading up to it. Besides some of the elements in the finale feeling rushed af and out of nowhere, having the town blow up and everyone in it die makes what were already some pretty meaningless feeling storylines/character development so much more pointless in hindsight, especially when every character just decides to be the best, most ruthless psychopath they can be after the Angels' God secret is revealed to them. Not to mention the jarring effect of Jessie engaging in some Tarantino style banter with his two partners in crime right after this devastating apocalypse is visited upon the parish he was supposed to be the devoted and loving spiritual shepard of. Are we now supposed to think he never actually cared? It was just something to do after he gave up crime and was trying to figure his life out? As we (well, some of us, heh) found out last night, apparently they weren't aware of the extent of the destruction of Annville until just now. It's only now starting to sink in and have repercussions (Tulip's family, etc). Still, you're right, it all feels a bit post-facto, and the town's sudden descent into nihilism didn't exactly ring sincere to me either—felt like they weren't even sure they were going to get a second season so they decided to end S1 in as audaciously goofy a way as possible. Now they have to kind of justify their way back into it. I should point out wrt the banter—if you know the comics you know this already, but Tarantino style dialogue was one of the hallmarks of the comic. Every time you turned around you'd have Jesse and Cassidy getting into a bar fight after discussing Charlie Chaplin vs the Three Stooges or something. It was pretty much explicitly acknowledged—Pulp Fiction was hanging in the air at the time Preacher came out, after all; it was what every writer thought the future was going to be. And I'm sure the show is trying to make its own nods to that texture, even if it doesn't exactly seem avant-garde anymore in tyool 2017. BTW, I don't know how many of you guys stayed for Talking Preacher, but there were a few pretty interesting bits in there, like Catlin openly talking about Herr Starr/Featherstone/Hoover and how excited they are for their casting (I'm assuming at this point they will all be affecting accents other than their own). "Bumbling psychopaths" is how he described them. (Also I was kind of struck by how freely Catlin and Gilgun et al talked about stuff like NAIRing their balls and being proud of their porn history. I know part of the "thing" of the show is to be shocking and edgy, but it sure is a sign of the times that this is what respectable panel guests talk about in front of studio audiences. I'm trying to picture some guest on, like, Carson even letting slip a hint that he masturbated. It would have been the end of the goddamn world)
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Jun 27, 2017 10:56
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Looking forward to some more top-shelf facial CGI 
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Jun 27, 2017 16:54
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I think I kinda missed why Fiore was killing himself when he started on his casino hedonism binge. Was he hanging himself out of existential despair at first and only then realized he could Groundhog Day himself into stardom? Or was it his plan all along? It looked like he went and cashed out a bunch of winnings, then went smartly for the suicide option then headed right back out on the floor. But how does that help him gamble? Was he resetting his identity to back out of losses or something?
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Jun 28, 2017 14:12
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Zaphod42 posted:drat that was a good fight scene for TV! Hard hits, lots of improvised weapons and smashing, and nice long consistent camerawork so you can actually keep track of the action! You know what I want to see, is a "making of" shot of that fight scene like from a security cam or something where we get to see the cameraman zipping around the perimeter around them, dipping and bobbing and probably expending 10x more energy than either of the actors and covering 10x more ground. That was a loving trip.
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Jul 11, 2017 10:42
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No, in the comic.
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Jul 12, 2017 04:18
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Even with all this discussion of the techno-supernatural and the industrial wasteland vision of Hell, I've been meaning to mention how much I enjoy that at the same time the show is embracing this kind of super-literal, ten-year-old's-eye view of things like heaven and angels and death. You kill an angel and he regenerates ten feet away. Heaven is some guys in a pillared room in the clouds. There's nothing metaphysical or otherworldly about stepping beyond the veil, it's not like you put on the Ring and glimpse a whole other world much bigger than the one you thought you knew. These supernatural places are just, like, around the corner.
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Jul 12, 2017 13:02
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She liked rap
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Jul 12, 2017 19:26
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They already did that in huge detail though?
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Jul 13, 2017 11:32
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Medullah posted:They showed his back story while he was alive. In the comics (not spoiling because it doesn't look like there's any way they're going this direction), he becomes the "Saint of Killers" when the desire for revenge is so deep that it freezes the fires of hell. Fire and brimstone horned Satan and the Angel of Death are hanging out, the Angel of Death talks about how he wants to quit his job. Long story short, he offers his job to the Saint and allows him to return to Earth to get his Vengeance, then he takes the Angel of Death's place collecting souls. Haha, right. One of my favorite bits was Satan's expression on THE loving FIRES ARE OUT
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Jul 13, 2017 15:23
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It also always felt super weird when he started talking all erudite like when he went off on his vigilante superhero/villain spree ("thereby hangs a tale"). Like he became a whole different person post-shotgun. He was just some depressed teenager beforehand. Know what it reminded me of (or really what reminded me of it): Anakin -> Darth Vader
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Jul 14, 2017 12:20
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Rather liking this take on the early Tulip & Jesse time
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Jul 18, 2017 02:15
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Haha, they're gonna use Fabry covers as props in next week's episode
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Jul 18, 2017 03:00
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So did like nobody else watch last night's episode or what? This Jesse's got a loving dark streak a mile wide, jesus man.
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Jul 18, 2017 15:38
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Beer_Suitcase posted:I really enjoyed the montage of loving/beer/test/ repeat. Anyone know that song that was playing. That whole backstory has been rewritten it seems. Victor wasn't in the comics, Tulip wasn't married, etc. She was a lovely contract killer and screwed up a hit which is how she ended up running into Cassidy (this was during a long Jesse-less hiatus in her life).
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Jul 18, 2017 17:57
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Zoben posted:In the comics Jesse and Tulip were just car thieves. Seems that they were killers for hire on the show, which is a bit more dark. Also yeah, in the SoK comic back story, when he went back to Ratwater he killed everyone including the women and children. Which was the act in which "he damned himself".
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Jul 18, 2017 21:14
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counterfeitsaint posted:I guess I'm just tired of every episode ending with 'then they died'. Yes well you're the counterfeit saint, of course you would say that
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Jul 19, 2017 03:46
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rage and suffering
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Yeah, Jesse's one hell of an antihero in this show. In the comics he's pretty much a stand-up, knock-down, standin'-tall One Of The Good Guys (Cause There's Way Too Many of the Bad). He lines up his fists against the black-hats and he defends his woman and the innocent townfolk from all harm that might befall them. But in the show he reacts to anything going wrong by basically beating the poo poo out of whatever or whoever is nearby, whether that's an enemy or a dear friend. As someone said earlier, he's a hard guy to root for.
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Jul 19, 2017 19:55
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The thing is, imo the comic doesn't really establish itself as something you want to follow through to the end until the Grail and Starr/Hoover/Featherstone are well and truly a thing. The show is taking its sweet time getting to them, and tacked on a whole season of prequel material that, while funny and interesting, doesn't really buttress that story at all, so new viewers don't have any idea what they're potentially in for if they stick it out. For them right now it might just look like a lot of meandering with a depressingly unlikable male lead.
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Jul 20, 2017 10:41
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Haha lol the Square card processing fee on $2.7 million
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Jul 25, 2017 02:08
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Daaaaaamn, what a gimmick E: BAAAAHAHA DICK CHENEY
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Jul 25, 2017 02:26
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Oh HEEEELL NO they are not going to turn the Saint
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Jul 25, 2017 02:35
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Holy wow they are going in new directions starting now
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Jul 25, 2017 02:51
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Well I guess that's why
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Jul 25, 2017 02:58
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This Jesse's a stone cold fucker 
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Jul 25, 2017 03:01
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I'm not quite settled yet on how I feel about using the comics as diegetic elements in the actual episode, but I think I love it
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Jul 25, 2017 04:12
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My Lovely Horse posted:I can't help but feel that “Dick Cheney“ is a bit hopelessly out of date, considering. Yes but so would any number of other dated references that you would find in children's literature at the library. Like the Saint of Killers for example
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Jul 25, 2017 20:14
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He's a consummate schemer who is able to outwit an actual supernatural being bent on his murder—and at the same time he's so thoughtless that the best idea he has for getting away once he's collared the beast is to padlock the van and kick it into a swamp E: I honestly thought for a few minutes in there that he would actually manage to engineer a truce with the loving Saint, god drat imagine going off at that angle from the comics' story
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Jul 25, 2017 21:05
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It got really dang good. Like all of a sudden. I mean in retrospect a lot of this season looks a lot better than it did at the time, but really a whole heck of a lot came together all at once.
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Jul 26, 2017 01:50
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 13:13 |
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while they're booking it full tilt of course 
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Jul 27, 2017 23:41
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