Chris Bryant | On 28, Jul 2016

Warning: This review contains spoilers.

“I never seen a man more in love with killing than you.”

While AMC’s supernatural series deals with the struggle between good and evil, Episode 9, in particular, focuses on the latter. Finish The Song showcases each of Preacher’s flawed, scorched characters in their darkest hour yet.

A huge win for this penultimate chapter is the writing team’s decision to flesh out DeBlanc and Fiore, balancing their indifference to abandoning Eugene in damnation with the fact that the two Adephi angels are actually pretty cute together. Brooke and Yusef have proven their comic and dramatic skills with the duo, but as the two are forced into a situation they’re less comfortable with – i.e. visiting Hell – they let a little more personality ease into the proceedings, revealing that their world of mystery is as simple as a travel agent talking to an architect. It’s a welcome peek behind their Holy curtain and only serves to make them more fun to follow.

So a guy walks into a bar in Hell… is the premise for the closing act of the episode. It’s big, it’s nasty, and it spells serious trouble for Jesse Custer. The Saint of Killers is shown to be reliving his horrific life over and over for eternity. The montage warps from questionable recap to sickening fever dream beautifully, and the poetic intertwining of The Saint’s story serves as a gut-wrenching warning.

While the majority of the episode doesn’t involve supernatural mass-murderers and torturously repetitive nightmares, it does involve a hungry vampire and a surprisingly forward-thinking move from Emily, the church’s bookkeeper. As the characters get darker and deepen, it becomes clearer and clearer how they all fit together. Gilgun’s performance once again shines, as yet another tortured soul is exposed. Emily’s quick-thinking sacrifice of Ricky Mabe’s hapless Mayor to save Jesse’s best friend is about as endearing as Preacher gets.

Bloody, dark, and revealing, Finish The Song is Preacher at its richest. Thick with questions we probably don’t want to know the answers to, the cast outdo themselves in a week where everything heats up in a serious way. With a killer too dangerous for the world and the Almighty himself on the way, Preacher still manages to find time to lighten the episode with a host of cute and fuzzy guinea pigs. For a while.

Watch the first five minutes of Preacher’s Season 1 finale here.

Preacher is available to watch online in the UK exclusively on Amazon Prime Video, as part of a £5.99 monthly subscription. Episodes arrive every Monday, within 24 hours of their US premiere.

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