Preacher premiered on AMC last night at 10 pm and ran for an hour and a half and boy was that hour and a half crammed full of some intense events and character introductions. This might have been one of the bloodiest pilots I’ve ever seen, which has me very excited to check out the rest of the season. Here’s my recap of the first episode of this brand new comic book inspired series.

We begin in outer space following the path of something headed toward Earth. Before we see exactly where or what was flying by we are in a small chapel in Africa. Not sure exactly where, but the pastor is preaching about Revelations and after he mentions a white horse bearing a rider in a white cloak coated in blood suddenly the doors burst open. What looks like a wave of energy slams into him. He falls to the ground, but as the congregation begins yelling a miracle has happened he orders them to be silent. He says that he has been chosen, that he is a prophet and then suddenly explodes. As the congregation runs screaming from the scene we are taken to Annville, Texas. Jesse Custer, our title preacher, is getting ready for church, though he seems to have lost a bit of his sermon. After mass the congregation is having a picnic where Jesse finds himself stuck giving life advice to a very mother obsessed parishioner, but when a young boy shows up to offer our preacher a beer we learn about a different family’s problems. The boy tells Jesse that his jerk of a dad beats up his mom, but while he wants the preacher to handle it in a more physical way Jesse says violence isn’t the answer. Later while a fight is breaking out over the change of the local school mascot Jesses vaguely discusses how to go about reporting events of domestic assault. The sheriff says that he would have to get a statement from the person being harmed, which technically means Jesse can’t do anything.

In an airplane headed to Tijuana we meet Cassidy, an Irish man who is definitely not who he appears to be. He looks like just a drunken party guy, until he finds a bible hidden in a cabinet by the toilet. What makes it a special bible is that it is filled with notes from someone. Apparently Cassidy has people after him because he some sort of unholy being. In the comics he’s a vampire and he kills all the men on the party plane. He even gnaws one of them like a piece of beef jerky. Then to escape the crashing plane he jumps out of the emergency exit with just an umbrella. Much like in Africa other people in other churches are being hit by waves of energy. A man explodes in a Satanic church in Russia and later in the episode the news announces that Tom Cruise has exploded at a Church of Scientology.

Jesse is dealing with his own stresses back in Annville. He is talking over church issues with Emily, she plays the organ and handles their finances. She thinks they should try and compete with a nearby mega church by offering fancy coffees before services. While they are at the restaurant she works at she insists that a guy named Walter hasn’t been showing up to work and that’s meant she’s been super busy. When Jesse goes to check on him he hears a woman in the shower and immediately leaves. He happens to know the woman in the shower which leads to a flashback set in Kansas. We see a woman taking out two men in a car that’s careening through a cornfield. After she kills the men, she winds up in a yard where two kids are playing. As the ten year old sister, who insists she’s in charge, tells her that she can’t just drive around killing people, the mystery woman offers to do arts and crafts with them. After they help her make a homemade bazooka she tells them that her friends call her Tulip. Then she has them hide in the cellar while she takes out the people who are coming after her in a barrage of fire and moonshine.

In the present Tulip and Jesse meet up and she tells him that she has a mission for them, he though refuses to take part in it. He also notices an ear in her car, which she adamantly denies is an actual ear. He leaves, even though Tulip insists he can’t just walk away from this. Jesse then goes to meet with the son of the sheriff, Eugene. When he gets into the house the sheriff blends up a concoction that doesn’t exactly look appetizing, but it has hot sauce in it so it can’t be too awful. The blended meal is Eugene’s dinner because he has a bit of a facial deformity. Okay, his name is Arseface in the comics. He thinks that God is mad at him because of what he did, Jesse insists that God doesn’t hold grudges and that if Eugene wants to go to church that he should go. In a random field in the morning we find Cassidy a bit worse for wear and holding his broken umbrella in a crater. He lures a nearby cow toward him and eats the entire thing in a matter of seconds.

While Cassidy was recuperating, Jesse was in the nearby slaughterhouse talking to the boy from the picnic’s mother. She says that her husband does hurt her, but that she likes it. Jesse is really surprised and winds up heading to a bar afterward. This is where he and Cassidy meet. Cassidy is chugging whiskey, but leaves to make a phone call to someone he hopes can help him out. It doesn’t turn out the way he hoped and when he gets back into the bar he finds Jesse brawling with the kid’s dad. When the fight is over before they get carted off by the sheriff Jesse snaps the guy’s arm. The two chat in the jail cell about faith and promises until Jesse gets bailed out by Emily. He wants to quit his job as a preacher, which she begrudgingly says is fine, even though she then breaks an iPad. Jesse notices the lights flickering in the church and goes to check it out. While he’s there he curses God, which is followed by the doors opening and pews moving until a wave, like the one we saw at the start of the episode, slams into him. He wakes up three days later and learns Cassidy has moved into the church’s attic and has fixed the air conditioning. Emily also tells him that it’s Sunday and that they hadn’t cancelled services in the hopes that he would wake up. Before he makes it to mass the mother obsessed parishioner comes up to him and he tells him to be brave, tell her the truth, and open his heart. Suddenly the man is on a plane to see his mother and after telling her the truth he cuts his chest to open his heart. Jesse might need to work on his phrasing with his new found powers.

The pilot episode will be broadcasting again next week at 9 pm with a Talking Preacher series starting at 10:30 with Chris Hardwick. A new episode will air on June 5th, but I’ll be tuning back in next week to relive this episode and to watch the new live show after. Share your Preacher thoughts with us in the comments or on Twitter, @thenerdygirlexp. You can find me on Twitter, @kleffnotes, on my blog, kleffnote.wordpress.com, on my kleffnotes YouTube channel, I run The Nerdy Girl Express Snapchat, thenerdygirlexp, and I post recipes on the iZombie Support Group site.