Preacher - Sex, Violence, Religion

Well, that was not at all surprising. The very entertaining supernatural drama series Preacher has annoyed the sort of people the writers were almost certainly trying to annoy. The annoyed are Trump supporting evangelical types, plus the Catholic Church. So we're probably looking at weapons-grade hypocrisy, right? Right.

Anyway, here's the cause of the furore.

(...) the show included a graphic sex scene depicting Jesus Christ having sex with a woman on the night of The Last Supper; though they're shown in various positions only in silhouette, there's a lot of pretty descriptive talk about what they're doing.

Hang on! Isn't this the 'Jesus had sex with Mary Magdalene' bit that made Dan Brown rich enough buy Tahiti if he feels like it? Yep, it's that Holy Blood and Holy Grail twaddle, again. The journalist who wrote the above probably hasn't seen the show, as it's clear that that 'woman' is Mary Magdalene.

The episode also saw Custer meet Jesus' 25th great-grandson, Humperdido, who promptly responded by peeing all over his face, with the Grail's attempts to keep Jesus' bloodline pure having unfortunately resulted in severe inbreeding.

It's actually 'Humperdo', if it matters. And I'm not sure why the Jesus bloodline would be inbred - is he a Hapsburg? It's a bit overdone,that twist, very cartoonish. But Preacher is based on comic books, and part of its appeal (to me, among many others) is its graphic excess. If you don't like it, don't watch it.

And there's another thing. In the same episode both the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury appear. They are revealed to be idiots. The whole show is about a search for God, you see, because He has gone missing. He was last spotted in New Orleans. Instead of having vaguely rational ideas about what had happened, both primates indulge in absurd conspiracy theories. The subtext is that religions ARE absurd conspiracy theories. Which seems fair enough.

If you don't know Preacher, it airs on Amazon Prime in the UK. While it's an American series it's fronted by a power trio of British and Irish stars - Dominic Cooper, Ruth Negga, and Joseph Gilgun. There's also an amazing supporting cast ranging from Pip Torrens as a hilariously deadpan Grail conspirator to Noah Taylor as Hitler. Why Hitler? Well, there's a subplot set in Hell involving a character with a face like an arse. Enough said.