Hell is overcrowded, New Orleans was home to fake God, and Tulip’s biggest secret is exposed on Preacher! Here’s our recap of “Viktor”!
“Viktor” picks up right where “Damsels” left off. We’ll get to that in a minute, though. First up, let’s talk about Eugene and his new friends in Hell…
When we left Eugene last week, he was being greeted by Hitler. This week, all the cell doors open and all the inhabitants of Eugene’s cellblock come out for a visit.
One guy, Tyler, makes a point to pick on an old woman. He pushes her and calls her names. That’s when Hitler steps in and tells him that he needs to stop.
“All right Tyler. That is enough.”
“What? We’re just having some fun.”
Yeah? Well, now the fun is over.”
The alarm starts ringing again which means that the Hells are starting back up and everyone gets back to their cell. Eugene’s door is already closed and he can see his simulation playing.
Hitler invites him into his cell, saying that if they catch him out of his cell, he’ll be in a lot of trouble.
Eugene enters Hitler’s cell and stands across from him.
“That was brave. Sticking up for the gypsy.”
“You’re Hitler.”
“Yes.”
“You started World War Two.”
“I did. Yes.”
“You killed like millions of people.”
“I did terrible things.”
Then the projector starts working.
MUNICH 1919
This is Hitler’s worst memory.
He’s in a lovely restaurant, waiting on his lunch date. When she arrives, she points out the art dealer in the back of the restaurant.
He tells her that his art isn’t ready yet, and she tells him that he always says that. That’s when a Jewish man bumps into his chair and there’s an awkward stare off before he says it’s not a problem. We also hear gunshots in the street, and his lunch companion complains about the Communist taking over and that they’re scum.
Hitler is hesitant to agree but eventually does.
The memory starts skipping and eventually breaks again. They’re back in the cell with bare walls.
Eugene asks of Hitler:
“That was your worst memory?”
The alarm starts blaring again, and Hitler tells him he can go back to his own cell now. Eugene leaves so he won’t get in trouble. Ms. Mannering and a tech guy show up, and the tech guy tells her that it’s going to be a while before he can fix Eugene’s simulation, so she tells Eugene to come with her.
In her office, she takes a phone call:
“What do you mean, ‘he’s gone’? Who let him out?”
Someone just found out the Saint of Killers went missing…OOPS.
When she gets off the phone, she give Eugene a little background about Hell, including its overcrowding issues and how they never anticipated this many people would end up there. Prisoners that don’t behave get sent to The Hole.
“You think your worst memory is bad?”
She goes on to view Eugene’s simulation and tells him that he seems like a good, decent boy. He tells her thank you, and she goes on to say:
“That kind of behavior won’t be tolerated here. Act accordingly. We will be watching.”
Afterward, he’s taken to the holding cell with the other inmates from his cellblock. He goes and sits by Hitler, who’s lamenting that the crossword puzzle is already filled in.
“You don’t seem that bad…anymore. At least to me. Are you?”
“Am I what, Eugene?”
“Bad.”
Tyler comes over to their table and starts picking at Eugene again. Hitler stands up to him and tell shim to stop, and that’s when Tyler pushes him and questions him:
“What happened to you, Hitler? You used to be Hitler! What happened to the Blitzkrieg and the Sieg Heil? Sieg Heil!”
Hitler yanks his arm down from the salute and Tyler punches him hard and Hitler’s on the ground. Once he’s down, the rest of the people in the holding cell start kicking and stomping him. Eugene yells for them to stop, but he looks up at the camera, and remembering what Ms. Mannering told him about his behavior, he yells “Sieg Heil” and begins beating up Hitler, too.
Sooooo, Eugene’s has a lot of stuff going on in his life right now. Also, is the cellblock malfunctioning because Eugene is there when he’s not supposed to be???
As for the rest of the episode, we focus on the brewing drama of finding God and finding Tulip…
****
Like I mentioned before, at the beginning of the episode, Tulip has been cornered by Viktor’s men in the laundromat. They tell her to hand over her gun then lead her out to a series of SUVs. She’s pushed inside and two large bodyguards sit on either side of her before driving off.
Outside of Dennis’ house, Jesse walks up and gets buzzed inside. As he walks through the gate, the vehicles carrying Tulip go past behind him.
They take Tulip to a lovely home and she’s thrown into a chair. We hear screams through the wall and it’s obvious someone is being tortured.
Her phone buzzes and she looks at it and sees a text from Cassidy:
R U okay?
As she’s typing back, Viktor appears from a door in the wall where all the noise was coming from. He tells the man to continue working…I assume on whoever he’s trying to make talk.
He sits on the edge of his desk and asks Tulip:
“So, what are we going to do with you?”
Tulip cries and Viktor hands her a tissue. He tells her to stop crying—crying won’t fix this.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”
“You better think of something because sorry isn’t going to fix this either.”
Viktor is really nice and tells her to take a walk and think about what she’s going to say to him when she sees him again, and he goes back to torturing the man in the other room.
She walks around the house, trying to visit with all the old body guards, but no one talks to her or acknowledges she’s there. Eventually, Tulip finds a cute little girl named Allie, who is making bracelets.
When Tulip tries to engage her in conversation, she spits in her face and says:
“I hope my father kills you.”
WELP.
After that encounter, Tulip goes to the gun safe and tries to unlock it. That’s when the man who caught her in the laundromat shows up. He tells her they changed the lock. So, Tulip beats him up and steals his gun.
She takes it to Viktor’s bedroom and puts it to his head.
“Let me go.”
“No.”
Tulip tells him that she’ll blow his brains out, and he tells her to go ahead. She hesitates and his guards come in and knock her down. The gun skids across the floor and and her phone is beside her.
Cassidy has texted two more times:
R U okay?
R U okay???
****
During all of this, Jesse and Cassidy have been dealing with their own issues.
Cassidy greets Jesse when he comes inside and introduces him to Dennis who doesn’t seem that interested. Jesse tells Cassidy about his night.
“I met this woman…”
He explains to Cassidy it wasn’t like that
“She was in trouble, and I helped her.
“That’s great. Helping’s nice.”
Jesse asks where Tulip is and Cassidy tells him that she went out last night and she isn’t back yet.
Cassidy suggests that Jesse calls her, but he tells him that this is pretty typical of Tulip, and he’s going to sleep.
Cassidy send Tulip a text as Jesse walks down the hall, asking if she’s okay.
After Jesse wakes up from his nap, he finds Cassidy watching T.V. with Dennis. It’s an infomercial for victims from Hurricane Katrina.
He asks if Tulip has come back, and Cassidy tells him she hasn’t and asked if she’s called him yet. He tells him that he wouldn’t have asked if he talked to her.
Dennis talks loudly and Jesse asks Cassidy:
“Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s just French.”
Cassidy brings up Tulip being gone again after Jesse says they need to get busy looking for God. Jesse tells him that he’s not worried. They’re in a fight so she’s gone off to be mad at him. Cassidy doesn’t look sold on this at all.
Jesse asks him if he’s heard of a conspiracy theory involving men in white suits and white vans. Cassidy isn’t familiar with it.
Outside, a white van pulls up and drops off someone who is now there to spy on Jesse.
Inside the house, the infomercial is still going on, and this time a familiar face pops up. “God” from the season finale of season one is there.
Fake God is a local actor which means they can find out who hired him and maybe getting closer to finding God.
At the agent’s office, Cassidy brings up Tulip again while they’re waiting since neither of them have heard from her.
“You’re not worried then?”
“Why would I be worried?”
“If I had a girl like Tulip, I’d be worried day and night, man.”
“If you had a girl like Tulip, you’d be wasting your time. If there’s one thing Tulip O’Hare can do, it’s look after herself.”
The agent joins them then and they run into a bit of a problem getting Mark Harelik’s information. He won’t give them his address because it’s confidential information, so Cassidy lies and tells the agent that this guy has gotten a role on Game of Thrones.
“What is this project?”
“It’s Game of Thrones.”
“And are we talking guest starring or something larger?”
“It’s recurring, but there’s a chance he’ll get up to series regular if he’s good like, know what I mean?”
Since the project is so enticing, they ask again where Mark’s at, and the agent tells them that he doesn’t know. He hasn’t seen him since his last job. He was auditioning for a powerful part…God!
They ask if he knows the people who hired him, but he says he doesn’t. He only dealt with them over the phone, but he does have an audition tape. They ask if he watched it, and he tells them no, no one watches the audition tapes.
Jesse takes a copy and goes back to Dennis’ to watch it.
Mark goes through several different types of speeches while pretending to be God. Cassidy thinks he’s pretty good and Jesse just looks confused.
At the end of the video, the casting person asks:
“You understand it’s an open-ended arrangement. There’s no end date.”
“Yes. Yes.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“Well, gosh, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. Obviously it’s a big commitment, but it’s, uh, the role of a lifetime.”
“In that case, congratulations. You got the part.”
“Yes!”
Then the person behind them pulls a gun and shoots Mark in the chest.
It’s after this that Jesse and Cassidy come to the realization that in order for him to become God, he had to go to Heaven, so they killed him to get him there. Then Jesse gets lost in his thoughts even more:
“We’re here. Fake God was from here. And other people are looking for God here. That’s weird.”
“Right, I vote we call it a day. Let’s ring, Tulip and see what she’s up to.”
Jesse gets really into looking at the video of Fake God, and even goes so far as to say that if he could magnify the hand holding the gun, he could have a lead.
That’s when Cassidy tells him that he thinks Tulip’s in trouble…
“I’ve been hinting it all day long, but you haven’t been listening. You haven’t been picking up on it.”
“Okay. Well, I’m picking up on it now. What are you talking about?”
“She told me she could handle it and under no circumstances am I to tell you, so…”
“Where is she?”
“Padre, I want to tell you, but she made me promise.”
“Where is she?!”
Jesse makes his way to Viktor’s home. The following scenes are the funnest and best because he’s not playing and using Genesis to make his way all the way through the house. He makes the guards move, stand still, and then he finds himself in the torture room.
He isn’t able to use Genesis on the guy before he’s knocked out. When he wakes up, the man puts in headphones and turns up the music.
“You’re awake. Good. I don’t know what you did to the guys out there but I’m curious.”
He and Jesse fight all over the room and around the body of the man that was tortured to death. Jesse tries to use Genesis, but since the man can’t hear him, it doesn’t work. It’s a really upbeat fight scene thanks to the music, though.
Finally, Jesse stabs him with a rod from the foosball table through the hanging dead man’s body. When he pulls out his earbuds, Jesse uses Genesis to find out where Tulip is.
He runs to the bedroom and kicks open the door to find Tulip sitting on the side of the bed by Viktor.
Jesse runs over and starts punching Viktor and Tulip yells for him to stop.
“Jesse, you can’t kill him. He’s my husband.”
You can see how the whole insane sequence here:
*****
AND THE BOTTOMS FALLS OUT! WHAAAAAT? The look on Jesse’s face was the look on mine when that bombshell dropped.
What will happen with this news? Is the idea of Cassidy and Tulip’s singular encounter anything compared to this secret Tulip’s been hiding? HOW? WHEN? WHY?
Here are clips and stills for next week’s episode, “Dallas”. Jesse’s going to be hard to contain.
Preacher airs Mondays at 9/8c on AMC! Be sure to live tweet with us @WeSoNerdy!
