'Preacher' recap: 'The Tombs'

So the tombs are kind of messed up.

Preacher has never been a show to hold back and the latest episode of season three — entitled “The Tombs” — re-enforces that idea.

We start and end this episode in Hell, which is the first time we’ve returned to that dreadful location. If you recall from Season Two, the Saint of Killers (Graham McTavish) just recently found his way back into the underworld while Eugene (Ian Colletti) and Hitler (Noah Taylor — and yes, for those of you who are reading this and haven’t seen any of Preacher, it’s actually the character of Adolf Hitler) have escaped.

Given the Saint of Killer’s unfinished business with Jesse, he’s requested a meeting with the Devil (Jason Douglas) — who we actually see for the very first time in this episode and is just as crazy and weird as you might imagine.

We’ll get back to that later.

First we get a flashback to a younger Jesse, playing up his role as a host for the tombs — which, as we learned in the previous episode, are a place where Gran’ma’s prisoners are forced to fight for their souls.

While Jesse may seem enthusiastic during his performance, we see the brief glimpse of regret he has when he steps down. As he goes to get more prisoners for Jody to fight, he’s reminded by TC that he has to keep it up in order to protect whom he loves.

Again, more on that later.

Back to the present, Cassidy is fighting for his life in the tombs. Since he’s a vampire and can heal quickly, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that Cassidy wins the fight pretty easily. What’s worse, though, is that it means he has to fight Jody next — a fight that no one has ever won.

The crowd in the tombs is told to take a break for an hour so that Jesse and Jody have time to grab some more beer. That’s when Jesse launches his plan.

To Jesse’s credit, I think it’s actually pretty smart. He cuts Cassidy up into a bunch of pieces (again, he’s a vampire who can heal himself, so he survives this) and places him inside a large cardboard box. While Jody is in the liquor store, Jesse then brings that box to the post office next door and slaps a label on it that will send Cassidy back to New Orleans.

Cassidy isn’t such a big fan of the idea (partially because he dropped his love potion back at the tombs, and partially just because he’s stubborn as hell). He instead decides to break out of the box and return to the tombs, finishing what he started.

Only this time, he’s fighting Jesse. Jesse grabs a wooden stake while Cassidy is wielding a giant knife, and the fight is on.

That’s where Tulip comes into all of this. She’s been running around with Sabina, trying to get her to lift Gran’ma’s curse on Jesse. Yet, the two get to talking, and it turns out Sabina has a few horror stories of her own when it comes to Tulip’s flame.

You see, the person who Jesse loved back in the flashback wasn’t Tulip, as we all thought it would be — it was Sabina. The two dated a while, up until the point when Jesse dumps her in the coldest way possible in order to “keep her safe.”

Sabina can let go of that but what she can’t forgive is how her brother went to the tombs shortly after that to confront Jesse, and then never returned. According to Sabina, Jesse choked him out in cold blood, making a grand show out of the whole thing.

Tulip is skeptical but, when she walks into the Tombs and finds Jesse stabbing Cassidy with the wooden stake. Maybe there’s some truth to Sabina’s stories after all.

Luckily, Cassidy is once again able to survive this and he manages to escape (a pretty anti-climatic escape at that, as they've been setting up how trapped in this situation he was, but an escape nonetheless).

Tulip drives him out of Angelville, as Cassidy — thinking he’s won and Jesse is on his own forever now — starts to reflect on how the two will spend the rest of their lives together.

Only Tulip isn’t running. She’s going back.

Cassidy pleads and begs her to come, but she won’t — she loves Jesse and she can’t let him be trapped in Angelville forever. Cassidy, holding the love potion in his hand, is then forced to make a decision: use the liquid so they can run away together or leave by himself.

He makes the right decision. Cassidy gets out of the car, love potion still in hand (I seriously doubt that’s the last time we see it come up in this season) and gets on the bus. And, as it drives past, we catch a glimpse of Lara Featherstone sitting a few rows back.

Looks like Cassidy isn’t done in this story yet.

Tulip returns to Jesse and the two hash it out over everything that just happened. Eventually they kiss and makeup, and all seems to be forgiven.

That’s one of the biggest problems I’ve always had with Preacher — they can’t seem to figure out how to paint the character of Jesse. Sometimes he’s an anti-hero who they want us to sympathize with, other times he’s just a straight-up villain who does terrible things, and they haven’t been able to crack that code quite yet.

Either way, Tulip wakes up the next morning and remembers Sabina is still locked in her truck. She frees her, which is when she gets the advice she’s looking for — the only way to kill Gran’ma is if Tulip herself does it.

Game on.

We end back in Hell. The Saint of Killers has unfinished business with Jesse and wants to be sent back up to Earth to finish the job. The Devil agrees, under one condition: he has to take care of a problem, or should he say two problems, first.

I think all us Preacher fans know exactly what those problems are: Eugene and Hitler. Those two are screwed.

Tune in to AMC tonight to watch the newest episode of Preacher and click right here to read more of our Preacher recaps.