'Preacher' Recap: 'Sokosha'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

If there's one thing I am truly enjoying when it comes to the second season of AMC's Preacher, it's the fact that the show simply finds a way to completely and utterly surprise the audience week in and week out. You might be treated to a powerful character study, which the show delivered last week, or you might tune in and enjoy one wild and wacky episode, something we've seen plenty of this year, or...you could find yourself watching an incredibly tense story, one where the stakes are high, as was the case with last night's episode. 

Because 'Sokosha' certainly didn't mess around in the slightest. It was either get the job done, or people were going to die, and while that implies that the action and adventure took precedence over anything else in this particular tale, that simply was not the case. As is seemingly tradition with this show this season, developing the characters and learning more about them was quite a priority as well. After all, we learned more about Cassidy last night, in that Denis is actually his son and that dear old dad would do anything for his boy and we also received a little insight into the dark past surrounding Jesse's family, in that they seem to know plenty about Voodoo and all of this came about from one simple storyline...the time had come for Jesse Custer and the Saint of Killers to square off at last.  

If anything, this long-awaited showdown managed to help reinforce Jesse’s heroic tendencies this season because everything he did when it came to dealing with the Saint was bold and heroic. In fact I was particularly impressed with how quickly Jesse shot down the notion of running any further, immediately opting instead to figure out how to solve this mess on his own and seeing him recruit his pals to research the legend of the Saint and find his weakness was downright brilliant and it gave a slight sense of safety to the moment when Jesse and his nemesis stood toe to toe in Denis’ apartment since Jesse was actually in control and able to tame the Saint…that is until this dark and demented Cowboy gave our intrepid Preacher only an hour to complete his task to find the Saint a soul so he could finally ascend into Heaven.
 
That quest is where the tension came into play, because the clock was ticking and if Jesse didn’t find a soul, his friends were going to die horribly and wouldn’t you know it? Finding a soul in Voodoo filled New Orleans actually turned out to be quite the difficult task since a company from the Far East figured out how to modernize the process of harnessing the essence of who we are for quite the profit. That revelation led to a touch of comic relief as Jesse did his best to break into the armored truck this company uses to transport those all important souls, but it wasn’t long before the tension returned with time running out…forcing Jesse to make one incredible sacrifice and give the Saint a bit of his soul, allowing for Jesse to finally use the Word against this unstoppable killer, and send him back to Hell for all the lives he’s taken in his quest to crush Genesis.
 
But one must wonder now as to what the price will be for Jesse when it comes to this victory. After all, sacrificing a chunk of one’s soul and sending that little bit of one’s self to Hell cannot be a good thing and already in the closing seconds of the episode, it seems as though the 1% he gave to the Saint is already changing him in ways we don’t quite understand. Regardless, I really enjoyed this episode. There was not a minute wasted in this one, and I love the fact they introduced another wrinkle into the fold with this soul stealing company and who knows what kind of fallout will be coming Jesse’s way for destroying their inventory. But in the here and the now, the Saint has been dealt with, Jesse Custer continues to be an awesome hero and once more I’m left wanting more from this show and I’m counting down the minutes until the next episode. Until then.

---