#i love gandalf but this guy is the weird old uncle in a good way

[sunbloomdew]

the hobbit is the perfect base for a found family story. A long journey with a bunch of strangers? As you travel you get to know each other, your weaknesses and strenghts and how to overcome them? Each one of the 14 members (f u gandalf) can be an interesting individual and have unique dynamics with other characters? brotherhood? families of choice?? friendships, family and love??? a dramatic ass wizard???? all that on a journey which goal is to reclaim the dwarves' home? bless

ao3 writers who write thorin's company as family and give them cool dynamics I LOVE YOU!!! KEEP DOING WHAT YOU DO!!!

[itsclydebitches]

Preacher Review: Mumbai Sky Tower

AKA “If you say Gandalf I’m gonna hit you.”  

Two hours of

Preacher

in as many days. Will we ever again be so blessed? 

We start right where we ended, with the Saint strolling menacingly through the street lights towards Jesse, his gun perfectly aimed. How in the world will our protagonist get out of this one? Why, with one of my favorite Preacher plot devices! Unlike a lot of other shows that rely on contrived resolutions (or worse: retcon their previous problem entirely), Preacher has set up this world’s abundance of coincidences right from the start of Season 1. Preacher highlights those strange, quirky, fateful moments where everything somehow just falls in your favor. This time it’s a poor guy driving an axle grease truck who gets in the line of the Saint’s bullet at the just the right second, thus saving Jesse. Adding fuel to this “OMG” fire, he swerves to hit the Saint dead-on. 

As a side note, what a wonderful way to re-work Cass originally plowing into the Saint at full speed with his truck. 

In case you missed it last night, the motel the trio is staying at is packed full of gun aficionados and they come out in force when they hear the crash—totting a full armory, of course. I love the one girly-girl in a pink robe with a freaking bazooka or some such to finish things off. I love the happy cry of “What can’t guns do!” And I love how the Saint literally just shrugs all those bullets off. Welp. Apparently guns can’t kill him. Noted. 

We get another small, but important character moment as Jesse tries desperately to order the whole group to run. Even when it’s clear that there’s no escape, Cass has to drag him away and forcibly talk him out of rushing into the line of fire—“Son of a bitch is killing them all!” As I mentioned in the last review, Jesse has one hell of a body count accumulating behind him, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still care about human life. If anything, at times he cares too much. 

Then, as I’d hoped, we get the trio hearing about Annville. The actual drop of the info was wonderfully done—the realization that only one thing could consume Tulip while there’s a literal massacre going on outside, Jesse numbly sitting down beside her until the TV blows up—but beyond that… I was pretty disappointed. Preacher isn’t the type of show to overly dwell on loss, but at the same time we’ve seen the writers handle trauma extraordinarily well with these three, particularly through Tulip’s characteristic violence in response to the loss of her child. Now though we get a cliche ‘touching’ moment where she tells Jesse that despite throwing up and falling everywhere, she fondly remembers her uncle coming to her school because he wore a suit and tie just for her. This admission might have come across as more authentic if we’d seen more of Walter than just him passed out on the couch a few times, but as it is, that moment feels awfully forced. I would have much rather have had Jesse reminiscing about Emily (a character we had FAR more interaction with) and seeing Tulip’s conflicting thoughts on her rival/kinda friend being dead. Or have them theorize about whether Jesse might have actually saved Eugene by sending him to hell while still alive. There are a lot of possibilities here and though Jesse’s bomb drop proposal (another plot thread that could have been better) reads as both of them putting their grief in the wrong place, I feel like this moment was a seriously missed opportunity. 

Nevertheless, there’s still a whole lot of good in this episode. We learn that the Saint is still (supposedly) immune to Genesis and that he’s actually using the entity to track down Jesse—two interesting plot points that could have big impacts later. We also learn that his reward for Genesis’ death is to see his family again. For those of you who haven’t read the comics: that shit is sad, just FYI. The Saint is one of my favorite characters and I can’t wait for you to get more of his backstory. 

My biggest takeaway with the Saint this episode though is… why don’t you just steal a car??

You’d catch up with Jesse faster… 

The ultimate best part of the hour though? FIORE, BABY. I have so much to say and no clear idea of how to actually say it. I just love him. He utterly ripped my heart out with that montage of suicide after suicide, made all the worse because we know that he knows that none of this is going to work. It was horrible to see Fiore, the one previously so enamored with human culture (I want a burger!) laying there passively while he has sex, or giving all his chips away to the woman afterwards. We get to see how his suicidal tendencies lead to his fame and fortune as the Great Ganesh and as the audience cheers at the abhorrent gore Fiore produces, I can’t help but see it as a reflection of us, watching and cheering on this damn show. 

I could write you a whole essay on how much I love Fiore in eyeliner—and how much I also love the traditionally masculine characters (Jesse and to a lesser extent Cass) not mocking him for it. I loved how snarky Fiore was and how he knew how to manipulate Jesse. I adore the multiple scenes of Cass and Fiore bonding. Preacher: Breaking Bad Edition. 

Honestly though, I was cackling through all of this because just imagine that I had written those scenes as a fic first. “Hey, friends! Here’s a canon-divergent AU where Fiore is super lonely before Cass comes to the rescue! They’ll take drugs, swap stories, play with giant beach balls, throw Frisbees, read Archie’s comics, play basketball, cuddle in blanket forts, and so much more! Warning though: teeth-rotting fluff ahead~” 

It’s ridiculous, right? But we love it. And it

works

. 

What I loved less was Fiore’s casual insistence that Genesis needed to die. Yes, DeBlanc was the more caring of the two, but it seems that Preacher has entirely dropped the idea of Genesis being a literal/figurative child to these two, which is a pity. And of course… Fiore’s death. 

It’s really not looking good, is it? We had all hoped that DeBlanc would come back, somehow defying the ‘Saint’s guns always kill’ rule, but that really doesn’t seem to be the case now. I can completely understand the writers reasoning here—Fiore and DeBlanc are ultimately plot devices, needed only to inform Jesse (and us) about Genesis, and certainly they had no real role in the comics—but it’s still hard to say goodbye to two more fantastic characters. Despite my happiness that Jesse helped Fiore to “find peace,” I can only hope that there’s a place for them in future episodes. 

Cass’ highlight was definitely alongside Fiore, but we get two nice, quiet moments with him as well. The first is when he’s questioning Fiore about his relationship with DeBlanc—

“You slept together?” “Of course, we’re best friends.” 

—and you can see how much the love triangle drama is hurting him. (To say nothing of how my slash-loving heart wants to read those lines.) The second is, of course, when Jesse announces that he and Tulip are getting married. Even though they didn’t go through with it, Cass is left with no question regarding his place with Jesse and Tulip. In short, it’s not what he wants it to be. 

And then there’s Tulip. With Annville and the Saint explained we need another ‘mystery’ in the background of the road trip. Here Tulip encounters Gary, is ordered to report to the mysterious Victor, and it’s crystal clear that some awful past is coming back to haunt her. I thought the fight was particularly well done. Given the amount of violence in Preacher, it’s rare for that violence to actually feel threatening, to have an impact beyond humor or just, “Oh yeah, another guy getting his guts blown up. Whatever.” Here though, by showing us a man twice Tulip’s size clutching her neck, dragging her around like a limp rag doll… that hit home. “Bitch, I’m gonna kill you.” That’s what the average woman is facing, and the scene was just long enough for that threat to hit home. It made Tulip’s eventual comeback all the more satisfying. 

If all that weren’t enough, I have little doubt that Jesse’s, “Upstairs. With Tulip. Feels like something happened” will prove significant. After all, what would he expect to happen when his girlfriend is late to his wedding, calls it off, and his best friend is acting suspicious? The fact that Tulip and Cass actually have slept together and that’s another secret they’re keeping just makes things that much worse. As said, we’re inching towards a rift in the trio. 

That’s not here yet though. For now it’s off to New Orleans, a place where Jesse hopes to find God, where Tulip obviously has history, and where Cass will no doubt find some good, old fashioned trouble. 

Until then, friends! 

Other Minor Things Worth Noting 

What was up with the soda guy with the missing arm? Oddly enough, he felt out of place. Despite all of Preacher’s supernatural weirdness, it does adhere to most rules of reality, such as the fact that a person with a missing limb should be in excruciating pain and not, you know, walking around moaning about a Ginger Ale instead of a Root Beer. It just felt off. 

Cass listing off possible explanations that include shit like the Terminator coming after them will never not be funny. 

Jesse has apparently heard of the Saint before. I love this, because of course if these supernatural forces really existed they’d make their way into mythology and ghost stories, and of course a cowboy preacher like Jesse would know the story of the Saint. 

There’s a literal blue spotlight as Fiore’s assistant tells Jesse of his woes. Ha. 

Fiore and Jesse speaking to each other through the mirror while Jesse insists that they were “on the same side now” was a great, ironic touch. 

Having Tulip and Jesse have so much sex is great (is it ever) but it also lets us see Jesse’s tattoo a great deal as well. His talk of family and last season’s “a mean old lady gave it to me” line are starting to come together.

I’m particularly fond of diegetic and non-diegetic sound used for gags and we get that twice in this episode: once when Fiore’s montage music segues into him attending a performance (where he then electrocutes himself), and once when Tulip yells at the wedding guys to cut it out with their music. Both moments were entertaining. Well done.