Preacher wrapped up its third season last night with an extended finale that wrapped up nearly every storyline and still found time to set up Season 4. After more than a few episodes that left audiences thirsty for more, “The Light Above” allowed them to luxuriate in several different arcs to the point of satiation. It also addressed some of the broader religious themes at work in Preacher and neatly packaged them in some much-needed character development. The structure suffered from a degree of imbalance that robbed certain scenes of their payoff, but this was still an excellent end to an even better season.

Everyone – and we do mean everyone – is on parallel journeys this episode, never intersecting, but all ending up at the same place: self-possession. Cassidy galvanizes Eccarius’ troops into defeating their deceitful douche of a master and becomes a stronger version of his good-natured self. The Saint of Killers puts a bullet between his boss’ eyes and gets back what really matters - killin’ preachers. Tulip has one last confrontation with God, realizes she’s all the deity she needs and heads off to find her boyfriends. And Jesse finally breaks free of Angelville’s clutches, one demon at a time.

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Preacher addresses each of these denouements with its customary flair, with two notable standouts being the Nazi shootout and Eccarius’ death at the hands of his erstwhile followers. The former employs the circus-like spectacle Preacher has become known for, while the latter imbues side characters like Mrs. Rosen and the rest of the vampire cult with a surprisingly weighty sense of vengeance. Heretofore, Cassidy and Eccarius’ story had been largely tender and funny, but it ends as macabre and dramatic as the Anne Rice novels it started out parodying.

Joe Gilgun threatens to steal this show every season as he showcases Cassidy’s struggle to reconcile his gentle nature with his monstrous identity. This week saw the vampire fully integrate both sides of his personality and become a far more self-assured and, for the first time in a long time, frightening creature. It makes his return to Jesse and Tulip something to really anticipate given the respect his newfound confidence will command from both of them.

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The shootout is more playful, and probably inspired by the desire to see a gang of misfits kick some Nazi ass. Anyone who was complaining that Season 2 made Hitler too redeemable should be pleased at the image of a WOC handily slitting a Nazi’s throat and taking out two others with a single bullet. That, plus Hitler pathetically pointing out his new soul patch (the mark of the beast if there ever was one), and the delightful absurdity of the Angel of Death and an Evil Cowboy picking off a group of SS like they’re no more than a swarm of gnats should make all the SJWs in the audience smirk knowingly. That said, the placement and heft of this sequence felt a little out of place.

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While Jesse’s final confrontation with his grandmother satisfied emotionally, it left us wanting spectacle. This is a show that prides itself on creating absurd tableaux to shore up its major conflicts, and the fact that Jesse and Marie’s last duel amounted to little more than a heated conversation between a boy and frail old woman was slightly disappointing.

Betty Buckley deserves all the credit for turning Marie into something truly demonic and not needing any extra help from production design to convey her supernatural depravity, but her ultimate defeat still felt a little anticlimactic – especially when you consider that far less prominent characters got a full-on symphony of violence at the top of the show. The episode never reaches the same intensity as it did in the first half, and considering what a pitch-perfect emotional arc Angelville’s had this season, we can’t help but feel like Jody, T.C. and Marie deserved better than the fairly pedestrian deaths they got.

Or maybe we’re just bitter that three of this show’s best villains are all dead, never to return. Colin Cunningham deserves some kind of recognition for his addled, disgusting, yet ultimately sympathetic T.C., and Jeremy Childs’ final moments as Jody revealed his genuine, if demented affection for Jesse. There’s a reason Jesse had a hard time leaving Angelville behind, and it’s because as abusive and terrible as his family was, they did love him in their way. He was right to burn that love to the ground and never look back, but refusing to acknowledge its existence would have been refusing to acknowledge its influence on him. As we saw when Young Jesse crosses paths with his older counterpart, we have Angelville to thank for the rebellious, violent nature that makes the older Jesse such a complex hero. Also, hats off to Will Kindrachuk, and here’s hoping we get more parallel flashbacks in seasons to come.

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It’s worth noting that we’re also bitter Malcom Barrett’s Hoover finally screwed up one time too many and got himself sunned to death by his boss. While Julie Ann Emery’s Featherstone doesn’t need a partner in life or in story, Barrett’s inept solo mission to capture Cassidy was low-key one of the funniest bits of this season and we were looking forward to him as a bumbling night wraith in Season 4. If there is a Season 4, that is. Season 3 is arguably the best season of Preacher yet, but its ratings have still fallen from Seasons 1 and 2. Now’s the time to write your congressmen if you want to see how things play out between Jesse and the Grail next year. Until then, shoot the devil in the face, call God a d*ck and peel rubber out of your sh*tty childhood, because life's too short to follow other people's rules.