Preacher Series Finale Ending Explained (& What It All Means)

The Preacher ending sees Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy taking on God and his apocalypse and coming out on top after four seasons of searching. Based on the comic series of the same name, Preacher started in the small town of Annville with a priest who drinks, smokes, and gets into bar fights. The show has wandered through vampire hunters, massive religious organizations, cloned messiahs, Heaven, Hell, and so much more — and the finale, “End of the World,” brings it all together with epic fight scenes and a bit of a happily ever after.

The Preacher series finale begins with the apocalypse only minutes away. Tulip is trying to get to Humperdoo to kill him, Cass is trying to protect him, and Jesse is about to go head to head with the Saint of Killers, all while God watches. While a lot is happening, stopping the apocalypse doesn’t take much time in the Preacher ending. It’s dealt with in the first half, leaving time to explore where the trio goes next and even allows Jesse to get his final sit-down with God.

How Preacher Got To Its Series Finale

The Grail Planned The Apolcaypse While God Watched

The most controversial aspect of Preacher is that the AMC series ignored much of what happened in the comics. In the books, there is a huge battle against The Grail. Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy go in and fight them, kill Herr Starr, and stop the entire plan to create the apocalypse. In the end, Jesse faces off with God, and Cassidy sacrifices himself to save his friend after doing so much to betray Jesse and Tulip along the way. It was all a tense and scary battle, and some people didn’t make it out alive.

A lot of things were added that were original to the show.

That isn’t what happened at the end of the Preacher TV series. Instead, a lot of things were added that were original to the show. Heading into the series finale, Satan died, and Hitler took control of Hell. Jesus played a big role in the TV series and didn’t in the comics. He rejected God, which caused lots of problems. Also, God plays a much bigger role in Preacher, where he went into hiding in the comics. Jesse wanted to know why God abandoned his creations in the comics. In the TV show, God has more to answer for.

The finale had the apocalypse about to happen. The Grail has Humperdoo preparing to come out and do a tap dance on a TV broadcast. When that happens, their people inside will hit the button and launch a nuclear attack. The reactions and fallout will create an apocalypse, and The Grail wins. However, Jesse sets out to stop them, Cassidy and Tulip disagree on how to deal with Humperdoo, and Jesus prepares to go one-on-one with Hitler. All the while, God watches, amused.

How The Preacher Trio Stops The Apocalypse

Jesse Uses Genesis To Stop The Grail’s Evil Plan

The opening scenes in Masada are some of the best in the Preacher finale — and they show off something that Preacher has always done brilliantly: high-speed fight scenes with a perfect soundtrack. In “End of the World,” multiple battles occur at once: Jesse is fighting the Saint, who is also taking on Genesis’ angel and demon parents. Tulip, having left a miserable Featherstone behind, is fighting Cass over the fate of Humperdoo. And while all that is happening, Hitler and Jesus are also fighting each other.

It’s a visually stunning sequence and a brilliant way to wrap up multiple storylines with an easy and fun fight scene so that Preacher can get on with doing a little bit more. The first pair to finish is Herr Starr and Featherstone, with Starr shooting Featherstone in the head and then running off to a submarine to survive the nukes. Then Jesse manages to kill the Saint because he convinces the Saint to let him.

Furious at the loss of his messiah, God goes to Jesus to convince him to step up.

Tulip and Cassidy manage to hit a stalemate of sorts, and with the Grail at the door shouting for Humperdoo so that they can start the apocalypse, it becomes clear that Cass can’t protect him anymore, and Humperdoo is shot in the head to save the world. Furious at the loss of his messiah, God goes to Jesus to convince him to step up (which he wanted all along). However, having just killed Hitler, Jesus turns the offer down, leaving God to angrily zoom off on his motorbike.

The Grail remains alone, waiting in the auditorium, with people watching on TV — and it’s Jesse’s time to bust out Genesis and truly shine. He steps on stage and uses his power to silence the Grail and get viewers to turn off their TVs, which includes those viewing the screen with their fingers on the button, about to fire the nukes when Humperdoo steps out. Jesse commands the Grail to find God and walks off with Tulip and Cassidy. Their enemies are gone or dead, the apocalypse is over, the Saint is dead, and the Apocalypse has been averted.

Arseface Is Alive & His Second Chance At Life

Eugene Finally Finds His Happiness In Life

For Euegene Root, what’s next is a bait and switch. “Overture” saw Eugene hit by a bus, with fans not sure whether he was dead or alive. “End of the World” shows that he is alive, in a hospital, and with his face bandaged. It seems for a moment as though Eugene is going to have his “arseface” fixed, as the doctor talks about him being the surgeon’s special project, that they have tried their best with his facial disfigurement. But when the bandages come off, what’s revealed is Eugene’s regular face.

It makes the point that he doesn’t need to look like everyone else to have his second chance

In some ways, this is a disappointment, and after all he has been through, there could be a feeling that the kind-hearted Eugene deserves a second chance at life. However, Preacher does something better — it makes the point that he doesn’t need to look like everyone else to have his second chance, and pity is the last thing a good person deserves. Eugene’s final scenes include one with the unseen doctor, who comes and essentially offers to help him kill himself, turning off the morphine warning and heart monitors and telling Eugene what to do to “end his suffering.”

However, Eugene rips into him, giving a speech about how his life has been hard, but that pitying people like the doctor is the worst part of it, and that he refuses to accept that he should die because his face is different. His final moments see him back on the street, playing guitar and playing a song that starts to get attention. It’s a perfect end for Eugene, one that embraces who he is unapologetically and shows him refusing to give up and chasing his dream.

Preacher’s Finale Flash-Forward (& God’s Plan Revealed)

Jesse Uses Genesis To Beat God

The Preacher finale moves from the apocalypse to two years in the future, and Tulip and Jesse are back to their old criminal life. They are dealing with a gang of horse thieves, and it’s clear that Jesse still has Genesis but isn’t using it for everything. However, some things have changed — they have a child. Everything has worked out for these two, and they have the relationship and family they always wanted, while Cass is off doing his own thing, checking in with them from time to time.

Jesse finally gets what he had wanted from the start: a true sit-down with God Almighty.

This all changes when Jesse gets a call from the Grail. They’ve found God, and he’s at the Alamo. Jesse finally gets what he had wanted from the start: a true sit-down with God Almighty. God is, once more, in his shining white robe with a floozy by his side, and this time, he’s willing to talk.

But first, Jesse needs to prove that he is willing to use Genesis on God — and he does. It was unclear if he could or if God would be immune (like the Saint). Genesis does work, and Jesse was emotionally incapable of using it on him until now. The two then sit down and have a heart-to-heart, covering some of the biggest questions (cancer, other faiths, aliens, etc). In the end, God reveals that his plan is just to be loved and that he can confirm that Jesse’s father is in Heaven.

God wants Jesse to tell him he loves him, but Jesse stands up and refuses. Jesus was the last person seen to be refusing God’s loving plan. He defeats God using Genesis and strolls away as God cries after him, telling him that he has an even better creation in the works. These appear to be strange, caged creatures that start to attack him for not loving them enough. Jesse is done with God, his mission, and the Grail, and it’s time to head home to Tulip and their child.

The Real Meaning Of Preacher’s Finale

Everyone Finds Their Fates

​​​​​​The Preacher ending wraps up a few loose ends. First is Herr Starr, who is golfing and wanted by the authorities. He may have grown back his hair, but he hasn’t lost his touch and kills the people coming to get him. Clearly, he’s going to be fine. God, however, is not. After his humiliation with Jesse, he goes back to Heaven — and finds someone waiting for him.

When God arrives, the Saint promptly kills him.

The Saint of Killers did not go to Hell because Jesse convinced him to accept death by offering him a deathbed confession. He went to Heaven to wait for God. When God arrives, the Saint promptly kills him and sits on the Throne of Heaven.

Finally, a last flash-forward takes the show 40 years into the future, where Tulip and Jesse’s daughter stands at their grave sites. She’s got a successful (civilian) career and seems happy — and knows Cass. However, there’s one last person to say goodbye to, as Cass, after revealing he never came back to see Jesse and Tulip in life, steps out into the sunlight without his umbrella and burns to death.

God’s death at the hands of the Saint happened in the comics and is deeply satisfying.

Preacher chose not to follow the comic ending. God’s death at the hands of the Saint happened in the comics and is deeply satisfying, given his capricious nature and how he is increasingly humiliated throughout the show. Jesse’s conversation with God is another incredibly satisfying moment, as his ability to remain calm, to get the answers he wants, and yet to refuse to give anything back shows just how far he’s come from the alcoholic preacher that he started as. He, through Tulip, through Cass, through Hell, through all of it, has found himself and his own power.

It’s what Jesse and Tulip deserve. Almost everyone gets what they deserve. Herr Starr may get a little more than he deserves, but that proves Preacher isn’t simply moralizing, allowing the good guys to win and the bad guys to lose. Cass may get less, but he finds a self-awareness that lets him choose his death rather than have it chase him as it did in the start. The Preacher series finale, then, is a surprisingly powerful ending that plays to the show’s strengths to close it out in the way that it deserves.

How The Preacher Finale Was Received

Review Scores Dropped Thanks To The Ending

Critics mostly praised Preacher, giving it an overall 87% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, the audience score is lower, at 74%, and many of the fans disliked the changes made from the source material to the TV series. However, reviews dropped hard in the final season, with the critics score falling to 77% and the audience score at only 60%. The biggest fan complaint was the seemingly rushed finale, with one reviewer writing, “It ultimately ends on a similar note as the comic, but it just feels rushed and the thematic ethos just does not resonate as it should.”

As for the critics, it seems the changes made to the story to finish the series in only 10 final episodes hurt it in the long run. JoBlo critic Alex Maidy wrote that “Preacher had a lot of storylines that were pushed aside in favor of changes to the narrative, many for the worse.” He then adds that the finale never redeemed the omissions made to condense the ending into the short span, writing that “it feels incredibly anticlimactic.”

However, there are people who love the Preacher ending, especially those who don’t care what happened in the comics and just want a satisfying ending for the series as a whole. Josh Zyber of High Def Digest wrote, “The series finale makes a very satisfying conclusion. It provides closure for all the characters, wraps up all the storylines in an acceptable manner, and even offers a few answers for some of the greatest mysteries in the universe – all while doling out plenty of the show’s patented lunacy.”