Sam Catlin

And lo, the first season of AMC’s Preacher has come to an end with Sunday’s “Call and Response” finale, moving beyond the small Texas town of Annville to the comics’ road trip to find God. Said exit came with an explosive ending for many of the characters Season 1 had introduced us to, now confirmed by showrunner Sam Catlin, while Season 2's biggest bad may in fact be someone we’ve already glimpsed.

We’ve seen AMC series drop a number of easter eggs between shows like Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead, and Preacher seems to be getting in on the fun as well. Penultimate Season 1 episode “Finish the Song” made a notable connection with a famous Breaking Bad scene, but what does it mean for fan theories that the shows share a universe?

Sunday’s newest episode of Preacher introduced us to one of the AMC comic drama’s leading antagonists in the form of Jackie Earle Haley’s Odin Quincannon, but at least a few fans were left scratching their head at the absence of other Quincannons from early casting. Now, boss Sam Catlin confirms that Elizabeth Perkins and Lucas Neff’s roles were cut from the series, despite a brief pilot appearance.

In the wrong hands, AMC’s ‘Preacher’ could have been a bloated mess.

The gag itself made headlines months ago at SXSW, but that didn’t stop Preacher fans from a shocked chortle at Tom Cruise’s explosive cameo in the AMC comic drama’s premiere. We’ve heard a bit of Cruise’s reaction, but now Preacher bosses explain the bizarre bit, while AMC releases new sneak peeks of the show’s June 5 return “See.”

Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s Preacher is one of those tricky properties to properly adapt. Remain too faithful and you run the risk of creating a laughably absurd, tonally catastrophic mess. Venture too far away from the source material and you may alienate the very fan base you wish to please. Thankfully, producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and showrunner Sam Catlin have hit that rare sweet spot, and though the pilot episode of AMC’s Preacher does recalibrate some of Ennis and Dillon’s basic plotting and setups, the essential spirit and characters of the graphic novel remain delightfully the same.