Preacher – Season 4 – review

Directors: Various

First aired: 2019

Contains spoilers

So we come to the end of the Preacher series, a series finishing with a definite story ending. It has been a fun, irreverent, gore soaked comic book ride and you can read my reviews of earlier seasons at: Season 1, Season 2 & Season 3 .

As the series starts we know that Hitler (Noah Taylor) has taken over Hell and sent the Saint of Killers (Graham McTavish) after Jesse (Dominic Cooper, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter & Dracula Untold). Our vampire, Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun), has been taken by the Grail and Jesse and Tulip (Ruth Negga) are looking to break into the Grail headquarters at Masada to free him.

Cassidy in bits

Now, don’t get me wrong, but the start of this season seemed a bit repetitious – kill, free, fail, repeat. The logic for Cassidy frustrating his own rescue from repeated torture didn’t seem likely, when we got to it, but we did at least get a chance to see his backstory as a volunteer in the Irish War of Independence and him being turned into a vampire during that. The Grail, meanwhile, are looking to start the apocalypse – at the behest of God (Mark Harelik, Angel). God, himself, is strangely drawn – sometimes seemingly omnipotent/omniscient and yet, at other times, unable to act in such a way (for instance he seems unable to find Humperdoo (Tyson Ritter), the new messiah).

Tulip in action

Some of the characters seemed rather side-lined and used as plot devices. Hitler ends up at Masada, representing Hell in the pre-Apocalypse negotiations but is barely in the series and serves mostly as a foil for the decision of Jesus (also Tyson Ritter). Eugene (Ian Colletti) is so side-lined that his entire purpose seems designed to facilitate one single scene and everything else regarding him is occasional filler. Beyond the Ireland backstory there is little in the way of development for Cassidy and Tulip, though they are majority characters and great fun as they are. On the other hand, the deconstruction (and reconstruction) of Herr Starr (Pip Torrens) was magnificent.

Dominic Cooper as Jesse

Having said all that there was much of the standard Preacher fun to be had, just along a circular story arc for the earlier episodes. The programme became more focused as the countdown to the apocalypse began (occasionally jumping to Eugene out of a sense of duty to the character but for no good reason) and ran its course. How you take the ending depends on your view, it could feel a tad damp squib but, when dealing with mythological deities perhaps it is a little bit difficult to wrap them up. Possibly a weaker season, it is still worthwhile and brings the story to conclusion. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK