Major spoilers below for the Preacher Season 2 finale, so be sure to watch before reading on.
Preacher Season 2 was a whirlwind of new locations and new characters, and TV audiences were introduced to The Grail and its zealotry-guided members. This was seemingly working for Jesse, who was all set to take his messianic talents to Jimmy Kimmel Live! in the finale, but Tulip didn't have it so well, as she was shot and left to die by Julie Ann Emery's identity-flipping Featherstone. When the actress spoke with CinemaBlend recently, she told me that shocking death was really just a case of Tulip's heinous timing.
Tulip showed up in that room, and once she understood what was going on, you know, Featherstone thinks in a straight line, so [Tulip] had to be gotten rid of. I don't think there was any malice in the shooting. Maybe Featherstone is irritated with her assignment of being girlfriends with Tulip, because Featherstone wants to have her hands in more action things. But I think Featherstone thinks in a straight line, and Tulip was in the way. . . . I don't think it was in the cards for them to engage Cassidy or Tulip. I think if Tulip hadn't stumbled into the apartment, they would've picked up their boxes and left without so much as an incident. I think that was the plan.
Of course, this is obviously a scripted show, so the cards were intentionally laid out as such, with Tulip indeed succumbing to a bullet-ridden death, though not from the hulking Saint of Killers as she'd been so fearful of. No, she was killed by "Jenny," the woman Tulip thought was her friend, and someone who'd actually helped her get through some tough mental situations. But their relationship was just a means to an end for Featherstone, and when Tulip stepped over the line, there wasn't much hesitation to be found on the Grail enforcer's face as she made the decision to pull the trigger.
So if Tulip had just left a "Goodbye" note on the apartment door, or even just gave Jenny a call somehow, she wouldn't have gotten shot. And Cassidy wouldn't have come so close to turning her into a vamp, and Jesse wouldn't have had to make a trip back to his former stomping grounds to presumably put a resurrection into motion. Keep that in mind, readers, the next time you are moving away and you want to bid a friend farewell, because that friend could very well be part of an organization that has a literal God complex.
It was quite interesting to learn from Julie Ann Emery that there weren't any further ulterior motives regarding anyone in the apartment beyond Jesse. That's kind of a refreshing way for villains to work in comic book TV shows, where it's usually an all-or-nothing kind of thing. Granted, Tulip still ended up getting killed, which makes any opposite intentions rather moot. But it's another sign that The Grail strives to secure its goals in ways that don't necessarily have to leave a bloody wake.
Not that Featherstone was honest to Tulips about very much. I asked Julie Ann Emery about working on her scenes with Ruth Negga, which were arguably the most grounded and realistic moments within Preacher Season 2, and she said nothing but kind things about her co-star. Mentioning that she quite loved having the machismo-driven Preacher take time for meaningful scenes between two women, Emery went a little deeper into why their story connection worked so well.
With powerful personalities, and both Featherstone and Tulip have a lot going on coming into the scenes. Tulip was dealing with all of this PTSD and mistrust in her relationships, so she had a lot of layers going on. And then Jenny is one thing, and Featherstone is another. The persona of Jenny was built to appeal to Tulip, but there were always all of these Featherstone intentions happening. it's like Featherstone was driving the car that is Jenny. So the scenes were pretty layered and in-depth, and there's not a better scene partner to jump into that stuff with than Ruth. She brings a lot to the table.
Now that Season 2 is over, Preacher sadly doesn't have a guaranteed return date, as AMC has not yet renewed it for Season 3. It's not a guarantee that it'll happen, either, but we're more than hopeful, as that ending NEEDS to be cleared up before it's all said and done. The world needs more Ruth Negga on TV, and I don't think anyone would complain about getting to see a revenge scene between Tulip and Featherstone.
While waiting for some good news on that front, head to our fall premiere schedule to see what else is hitting the small screen in the coming months.
