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Jesse Custer

Jesse Custer

"The bottom line is, I've been a bad preacher."

Played By: Dominic Cooper

"I'm going to do what all good preachers have done since the Serpent and Man's Fall: pray for the sinner. Offer peace to the restless. Avenge the innocent."

A small-town preacher with a criminal past and a newly discovered superpower to command others to do as he says. When Jesse learns God is missing, he makes it his personal mission to find Him. He hits the road with his badass girlfriend Tulip and best friend Cassidy on a crazy search to either help God if He’s in trouble, or to kick His ass.

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• Adaptational Badass: While Jesse's no slouch in the comic, here he's a reformed career criminal, with a variety of skills he didn't have in the original. More subtly, the Word is no longer limited to commands, and now implied demands work, too, as when he asks the false God where God is, no order invoked, and can compel a dog to stop barking. He's also able to instantaneously send Eugene to Hell just by telling him to go there in a fit of anger.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • In the comics, Jesse's already all but lost his faith by this point in the story, and openly breaks the confessional seal in front of the entire town, revealing everyone's darkest secrets for all to hear. This version of Jesse would be horrified at that breach of trust.
  • In the comics Jesse had no interest in becoming a preacher and only became one because his maternal grandmother (who is a vile bitch) forced him into it. Here, Jesse is following in his father's footsteps and voluntarily becomes a preacher when he is at a point in his life where he is desperate to find some purpose.
• Adaptational Villainy: On the other hand, Jesse is far more unhinged and violent than in the comics, attacking people unprovoked, killing far more people and being willing to lie, cheat and go back on his deals.
• Amicable Exes: While he refuses to do a job for Tulip, Jesse states he bears no ill will and speaks to her in a friendly tone.
• Anti-Hero:
  • Jesse tries to do right but he's got a fair share of vices, including his enjoyment for more than just the occasional cigarette and drink, even indulging while alone in the church. He's also not above violence and while he does try to avoid fighting at first, often seems to stop criminals by beating them down.
  • "Sundowner" muddies the water even further when Jesse says that by "saving" Annville, he will be "free". Implying that his devotion and good deeds are all to fulfill his promise to his father, and once that's done...
• Anti-Nihilist: Jesse was urged to by his late father right before his death to be "one of the good guys, 'cause there's way too many of the bad." By the end of the pilot, Jesse reconsiders quitting his position and resolves to be better at his job by taking action with the people of Annville, who were all already trying his patience.
• The Atoner: We don't know exactly what he did before he was a preacher, but they were definitely bad enough for Jesse to dodge any invitation for violence and help the people of Annville any way he can. But it is strongly implied later in the first season that the main reason Jesse wants to be a preacher is that as a child he prayed for God to kill his preacher father for sending Tulip away. Jesse's taking up his father's mantle and mission could be his way of making up for that sin.
• Badass Boast:
  • After being captured by Quincannon he states that he will bring God himself to Annville in his next sermon and force him to answer for humanity's suffering.
  • In the season finale, he tells Cassidy and Tulip that the three of them will find God, help him if he needs it and otherwise kick his ass.
• Badass Normal: Able to take out multiple opponents with his fists, while a vampire with Super-Strength watches from a payphone. All this was before he even became a host to Genesis.
• Badass Preacher: A man of the cloth and against violence unless innocents are being threatened, Jesse shows he can also kick ass in a bar fight against multiple opponents.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: As a child in a fit of anger he once prayed for his father's death, which occurred shortly thereafter. It's still haunting him.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Well-meaning and usually mild-mannered, Jesse also won't tolerate abusive people, particularly those towards children. In the first episode, he makes Donnie squeal (like a rabbit in a trap) as he breaks his arm after he threatened to beat his son for going to him, and in the second, he "baptizes" a school bus driver in scalding hot water for lusting after a prepubescent girl he drives.
• Blood Knight: During his fight with Donnie and his mooks, Jesse smirks when he punched one of them in the face and appears downright euphoric as he listened to Donnie's high-pitched screams of pain when he breaks his wrist.
• Broken Pedestal: Ends up alienating Tulip and Cassidy more and more, with the two finally having enough after he agrees with Herr Starr to become the next Messiah.
  • Meeting the direct descendant of Jesus Christ was... not as awe-inspiring as he thought. Sure, he was pure of heart and light on his feet, but short in everything else.
  • And of course, discovering that God condemned him for resisting temptation. Not for giving in to temptation but for having it, an essential human quality, in the first place. And then judging all of mankind for trying to have faith instead of lacking doubt. And then personally biting Jesse in the eye.
• Bully Hunter: Despises people who pick on those weaker than them and a father threatening to hurt his own son is what set Jesse off to break his arm.
• Childhood Friend Romance: With Tulip.
• Combat Pragmatist: Jesse isn't above using dirty tricks in a fight, taking advantage of the Word of God to keep people off his back and deterring a man from attacking him by sniping his dick off.
• Comes Great Responsibility: After learning how to use the Word of God, Jesse stops Donnie from shooting him and uses his power to make Donnie put his pistol in his own mouth. Before making him pull the trigger, Jesse decides his power is a gift to help people and just tells Donnie to leave.
• Compelling Voice: With the Word of God, Jesse can make anyone do anything he says, right to the letter.
• Crisis of Faith: Jesse clearly has issues with his faith due to all the shit he sees every day, even giving God "one last chance" to answer him one night when he prayed.
  Jesse: If anyone were listenin' I would. Believe me, I'd pray.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Soaked in mystery and only hinted at, for the most part, we are still shown that Jesse watched his father get shot and killed as a child. Season 3 reveals that his grandmother, Marie L'Angelle, arranged that death... as well as murdering and soul-draining her own daughter, Jesse's mother, for trying to escape Angelville. Jesse himself also killed his ex-girlfriend's older brother in self-defense when confronted in the fight club in the Tombs about breaking the girl's heart.
• Disabled in the Adaptation: Zig-zagged. While he also lost an eye in the original comic, the TV series never has him regain the eye.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Decided to give up the power to surpass God, right in God's face, just to show he doesn't need to be obsessed with holiness to live well. He lives to a ripe old age with his loving family.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Already a solid enough fighter to take on multiple opponents at once, Jesse has now become aware of his Compelling Voice.
• Eye Scream: After bringing him back from Hell, God bites Jesse's eye out for questioning His methods. He covers it with an Eyepatch of Power not long after.
• Functional Addict: Jesse smokes and drinks, but he's still doing his best to be a good preacher.
• Good Is Not Soft: He's a nice guy who's willing to do the right thing, but if you cross him, it will not end well.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: No guns, no knives, barely an Improvised Weapon to be found.
• Good Shepherd: Jesse, despite his flaws, does his best to care for the community. He listens to their problems and prays for them and knows when to question the church's rules, not tolerating the "confidential" aspect of listening to sins stop him from beating a pedophile who is closing in on a little girl while sitting idly by.
• Groin Attack: During Quincannon's first assault on his church, Jesse stops Clyde by shooting his dick off (for some irony, Clyde was previously shown to be a womanizer).
• Heroes Fight Barehanded: While Cassidy uses a chair to trip up an opponent in a fight, Jesse uses confrontational and very straight-forwarded battle tactics, rarely using weapons and preferring to bash people with his fists.
• Hiding Behind Religion: There's no doubt that Jesse has good intentions and definitely want to improve the lives of those living in Annville. But as the series progresses, it becomes more apparent that he is abusing the Word of God and claiming that it is God's will that he does this. When he gets called out by actual angels from Heaven, Jesse backtracks a bit and declares that if God truly did not want this, then He can come and reclaim Genesis Himself.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Is unaware of his Compelling Voice after receiving the power, even after inadvertently commanding Ted to kill himself and a dog to stop barking. It isn't until he beats a pedophile and commands him to "forget" the girl he lusted after that he realizes his supernatural ability.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: During the siege on the church, Jesse provides examples of his aiming skills by disarming many of Quincannon's men, even shooting one of the weapons in a way so that it becomes lodged in its wielder's shoulder.
• Informed Flaw: Jesse spends most of season three soulless, which prevents him from using Genesis but otherwise doesn't affect him. This despite every other soulless character being borderline catatonic.
  • Jesse in fact was not totally "soulless"; he siphoned off only 1% of his soul, and that is what he gave to The Saint. That minute amount was enough to disable use of The Word, but apparently not sufficient to seriously impair him in any other way. Also, the man who donated 15% of his soul for money wasn't fully catatonic, just really out of it - he was expected to recover in a few days.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: He really does have good intentions, but by "Sundowner" it's clear that the power of Genesis is going to his head. He's convinced that anything he does with it now is justified as "God's will"... even (though he probably doesn't realize it yet) if it literally sends Eugene to Hell.
• Knight Templar: Slowly heads down the road and as of "Sundowner", he is firmly there, refusing to believe he could possibly be wrong about anything because of the Word of God he possesses. He does eventually realize the error of his ways, but it takes him sending Eugene to hell to do so. However, as of Season 2, he still doesn't seem to have learned his lesson, as he continues to insist that Genesis was meant for him, and he'll continue to use it despite the danger it causes.
• Literal Genie: His Compelling Voice acts based on the words he chooses, not necessarily his intent. This comes to horrifying realization when Jesse telling Ted to tell his mother how he feels and open his heart to her leads to him having a heartfelt conversation with her... before cutting open his chest to fulfill the second part of Jesse's command. This extends to metaphysical commands, such as when he sends Eugene to hell by telling him to "Go to Hell".
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Breaking Donnie's wrist and kicking his friends' asses really upset Jesse to the point of regretting returning to Annville and considering quitting his position.
  • Jesse is deeply remorseful about sending Eugene to Hell. It has become so bad that Jesse is starting to hallucinate Eugene as a voice of reason and even begs DeBlanc and Fiore to go to hell and save him.
• Never My Fault: His main attitude in "He Gone." While he admits it was a complete accident that he sent Eugene to Hell, he nonetheless refuses to take responsibility for it, to the point of claiming that the simple fact that he was even able to send Eugene means that God wished for the poor kid to be punished anyways. Luckily, the guilt catches up with him and he spends the end of the episode using the Word to beg Eugene to come back.
• Only Friend: For Cassidy. He's basically the only character Cassidy regularly interacts with other than Tulip, and they've been fond of each other since they met. Emily doesn't like him at all.
• Only Sane Man: His reaction to everything happening around him basically makes him this against the people of Annville.
• Preacher Man: Gives sermons to a small southern community and tries to help them get by in repentance for his own Dark and Troubled Past.
• "Reason You Suck" Speech: After giving the Saint a piece of his soul, thereby making him susceptible to the Word and at his mercy, Jesse hits him with a hellacious one:
  Jesse: A cop-killing, child-murdering, son of a bitch trying to make his way through the Pearly Gates. You really think there's a place for you in Heaven? Up there, with your wife and child? Living in peace for all eternity? No, I'll tell you where you belong. Right back in Hell, and that's where I'm gonna send you. I told you I did it before.
• Reformed Criminal: Details are scarce, but Jesse did "jobs" with Tulip, and, in the first episode, Donnie's son asks him to violently stop his father's abuse of his mother, saying that people talk of how Jesse used to be on the darker side of the law. Hoping to make up for his wrongdoings, Jesse now preaches the word of God.
• Sexy Priest: Given that he's played by Dominic Cooper, he is very easy on the eyes.
• Smoking Is Cool: Jesse is both a badass fighter and seems to smoke in places that are just odd, such as church when he's praying to God. ^note  Admittedly, he's doing this right after his prayer is seemingly ignored, so it's out of spite at this moment.
• Smug Super: Jesse is adamant that God meant for him to receive and use Genesis, and he won't even listen to actual angels telling him this isn't so. When Eugene says it was unfair that he forced Tracy's mother to forgive him, Jesse gets angry enough with the accusations to use the Word to tell Eugene to go to Hell. Genesis seems to agree more with Jesse, though - whenever it's drawn out of him, it goes back inside him as soon as it can.
• Technical Pacifist: Jesse believes that violence just breeds more violence but will fight if it means defending innocent people.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Somewhat. After his It's All About Me attitude throughout Season 2 gets Tulip briefly killed, he seems to have started to realize how much he's screwed up his friends' lives. He tells Cass just how much his friendship means to him, and consoles Tulip when her actions land them in more hot water. He's still not perfect, but it's a far sight better than his Season 2 attitude.
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: Jesse tells Eugene to go to Hell in a fit of anger... and when he turns around, the boy is gone. He remains in denial about it until the end of the next episode, where we see him pulling up the boards of the church floor, digging into the soil below, and vainly using the Word to pull Eugene back out.
• Tranquil Fury: Jesse is silently but phenomenally pissed off as he listens to a pedophile confess his urges and act clearly unrepentant about them.
  • Likewise, when he hangs Viktor up in the torture room and ponders how he'll kill him.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: After revealing God's gone missing to everyone in Annville, Jesse decides it's time for a road trip. He doesn't even check in with Emily as he goes, so he's completely oblivious to Annville's destruction after the town's Sanity Slippage leads to the power plant exploding.
• Voice of the Legion: The Word of God distorts Jesse's voice into something resembling this.
• Wife-Basher Basher: Although he's unwilling to attack Betsy's husband Donnie at first, wanting Betsy to go to the police and still reluctant to hit Donnie back when Betsy makes it clear she doesn't want Jesse involved, Jesse eventually breaks Donnie's arm when he implies that he's going to harm his son for asking for help from the preacher; threatening to hurt kids is something Jesse cannot let slide.
• Yandere: The first thing he decides to do upon finding out Viktor is Tulip's husband is to chain up the former is his torture harness and use Genesis on the latter.

Tulip O'Hare

Priscilla-Jean Henrietta "Tulip" O'Hare

"We are who we are, Jesse Custer."

Portrayed By: Ruth Negga

"What happened, Preacher? Jesus take your wheel?"

A volatile, hell-raising force of nature, Tulip O’Hare is Jesse Custer’s ex-girlfriend and one true love. She’s also a gifted criminal who’s not afraid to steal, cheat or kill to get what she wants.

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• Action Girl: She's introduced fighting a man while also driving a car and, after killing him, takes out a helicopter with a homemade bazooka.
• Adaptation Name Change: Tulip is her first name in the comic. The series changes it to a nickname.
• Adaptational Villainy: This version of Tulip is a career criminal and also a whole lot meaner in general than her comic counterpart.
• Amicable Exes: Although she says she hates Jesse, she speaks playfully and without animosity to him, only showing mild irritation when he refuses to do a job for her.
• Arch-Enemy: She and Featherstone become really personal enemies, especially after Featherstone kills her; a resurrected Tulip later suckerpunches her in return and almost lets the Angel of Death be tricked into dragging Featherstone to Hell in her place.
• Badass Driver: She fights a thug trying to strangle her by rigging the drive, beating the shit out of him and then driving her car to a stop before finishing him off.
• Berserk Button: Seeing other women with Jesse. She angrily bursts into Emily's home and wrecks her child's art project and screams for Emily to "stay away from [her] boyfriend" before storming out.
• Blatant Lies: No, that's definitely not an ear, Jesse.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Tulip is clearly having a blast as she fights off her assailants.
• Character Death: She's shot by Featherstone in the Season 2 finale. Jesse then drives her to his grandmother to be revived, but this comes at the cost of her life being bound to Marie's, and unfortunately, Marie wants to consume her soul.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: See Berserk Button above.
• Cool Car: Drives a 1972 Chevrolet Chevelle. Purple and has a shitload of pickup.
• The Corrupter: She's hell-bent on returning Jesse to his violent, criminal ways.
• Dark and Troubled Past: It's not been elaborated on yet, but anyone who says they "used to have a kid" certainly has one. It's revealed in Season 2 that she had a miscarriage due to the stress of a bank job gone south..
• Deadpan Snarker: Tulip despises Jesse's new profession and dismisses everything he says about the good it has brought him in a level, sarcastic tone.
• Double Entendre: Trolls Jesse by showing up at his church and forcing him to baptize her lest he draw attention to the fact they know each other; she thanks him for "getting [her] wet" afterwards.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Has a giant habit of this when it comes to celestial entities, like God, even going so far to call as the Angel of Death Satan's bitch; God knows what she would do to Tulip if she kept up being snarky, no pun intended. She even dares to taunt the Saint of Killers himself, but this is to help enact her escape from the Hellbound bus.
• Establishing Character Moment: We first see her driving a car through a cornfield while fighting two men and killing them both. She then befriends two small children, who help her build a bazooka out of household items. She lets the kids hide in a storm cellar while she takes out a helicopter and an unknown number of assassins before driving off with a bright smile on her face, leaving the kids absolutely starstruck. Everything about it establishes Tulip as resourceful, intelligent, shady, affable and volatile.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Tulip might be a remorseless killer and thief, but she refuses to let any harm come to the two unsupervised kids living in the house she's currently trying to lie low in.
  • She's also not above beating up someone who angered her and tossing him out the window, but when she finds out that she's got the wrong guy, she immediately takes him to the hospital, cradling him in her lap and apologizing frantically the whole way. (Since Tulip doesn't know that she happened to beat up Cassidy - one of the few people around with a Healing Factor - and thinks that he's dying, she even agrees to give him a kiss.)
• Friend to All Children: The only people Tulip is shown to be kind to are children. When she accidentally destroys the art project of Emily's daughter while threatening her to keep away from Jesse, Tulip apologetically worked to repair the project.
  • She later develops an almost motherly affection for the childlike, mentally stunted Humperdoo.
• Hot for Preacher: Her and Jesse may be exes, but Tulip's monologue to the two children she met in her opening scene about always pursuing the one you love, her seductive tone with Jesse and the way she sat on his lap and whispered into his ear in the second episode leave little doubt she's attracted to him.
• I Know What You Fear: Tulip is the only one who knows details of Jesse's past and that he's trying his hardest to move away from them. She taunts him about them whenever she can.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Tulip dismisses Jesse's attempts to be a good guy by telling him that "there aren't any good guys. There are just guys." This is definitely not what Jesse wants or needs to hear but given what we've seen of the series' world so far, it's hard to deny that she's got a point. Even the people who try the hardest to be good, like Jesse and Emily, have definite dark sides.
• MacGyvering: Makes uses of numerous miscellaneous farm equipment, including tape, to make a bazooka which she uses to shoot down a helicopter.
• Ms. Fanservice: Tulip tends to wear outfits that show off her shapely midriff, and her dialogue with Jesse oozes with sexual tone and multiple entendres.
  • Not to mention her coming right out of the shower in her first appearance with her back to the camera, wearing nothing but a towel... on her head.
• Only Sane Man: Relatively speaking, that is. But when a woman from the house she's staying at dies after falling into a sinkhole on Odin Quincannon's land and everyone just moves on like it's nothing, she's indignant and calls everyone and everything out.
• Overly Long Name: Introduces herself to two children with the full Priscilla-Jean Henrietta O'Hare before saying her friends call her "Tulip".
• Potty Failure: Young Tulip was a bed-wetter and commonly peed on Jesse's couch as a little girl.
• Race Lift: Tulip is a white blonde in the comic, but biracial^note  Flashbacks in Season 3 show that her mother was white, and her father was African American. in the TV show.
• Sex for Solace: She hooks up with Cassidy in her car to help herself feel better about Jesse, although she's blank-faced and joyless the entire time.
• Troll: She likes fucking with people, especially Jesse.

Proinsias Cassidy

Proinsias Cassidy

"Take me for example, right? I have zero hopes in this world, mate. And I'm bloody fantastic! Really, I am."

Portrayed By: Joe Gilgun

Cassidy is an Irish vampire and vagabond, a glutton for every possible vice, and when he stumbles across the weird town of Annville, he quickly becomes Jesse’s most wild-ass, best friend. Up for any kind of adventure, his hedonistic lifestyle and humanist views are constantly at odds with Jesse’s faith.

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• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Cassidy hates being a vampire, calling it a terrible curse and hesitating to inflict it upon others. In the comics, Cassidy loves everything about being a vampire, he just doesn't know how to turn anyone else.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Comic Cassidy constantly wears sunglasses to hide his deeply bloodshot and all-around disturbing eyes - whether from vampirism, drug abuse, or other mishaps, who can say. Obviously, for acting purposes, the actor's eyes should be visible, so this was changed. He's still no George Clooney.
• Adaptational Badass: Cassidy, from his introduction, seems to be a far more capable and strategic fighter than he is in the comics. The source material depicts him as being Unskilled, but Strong, relying wholly upon his great strength and regenerative powers to outlast and ultimately beat opponents. But here, in his fight against the vampire hunters on the plane in the pilot episode, he shows considerable combat skills and ingenuity, with a healthy portion of Combat Pragmatism his comic counterpart would not be capable of. This is apparently to make up for his Super-Strength being considerably lesser in the TV series than in the original comic.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • In the comics, Cassidy's always looking out for himself, but most people enjoy his company enough that they overlook this. Here, Cassidy's willing to commit suicide to try to force Jesse to quit rationalizing and save "Arseface" (Eugene), a character he clearly otherwise cares little about.
  • In the comics, Cassidy's attraction to Tulip leads him to initially act like the creepy, unsympathetic version of the Dogged Nice Guy, and later behave outright abusively towards her. In the TV show, he is honest about his feelings for her right from the start.
• Adaptational Wimp: He's nowhere near as strong as he is in the comic, but is a much more skilled, capable fighter.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Despite being non-human himself, he doesn't take DeBlanc and Fiore seriously when they claim to be agents of Heaven.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Apparently, striking up a friendly conversation in a jail cell is the only reason Cassidy needs to be your pal. Once Jesse says that he enjoys having him around, Cassidy becomes fiercely loyal and slaughters Fiore and DeBlanc for attempting to kill his only friend.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Cassidy is generally a semi-benevolent slacker, too busy getting drunk, stoned or laid to be a credible threat to anyone... right up until he needs to feed, or someone pisses him off. Exemplified in one of his earliest scenes, in which he spends the first half in an airplane cabin, snorting coke and telling anecdotes about ass-hamsters - and the second half gleefully wiping the floor with the vampire hunters he was joking with a few seconds ago.
• Blessed with Suck: While Cassidy admits that being a vampire is fun, he adds that the fun only comes "sometimes."
• Boisterous Bruiser: He has a very happy-go-lucky approach to fighting.
• Break the Comedian: Normally the funniest man on the scene, prone to heavy drug use, witty one-liners and rambling monologues about The Big Lebowski. However, his humour starts to fray when his now-elderly mortal son Denis admits that he's suffering from a terminal heart condition and wants to be made into a vampire: Cassidy is dead against this, not wanting to make anyone else immortal for fear of cursing them with the same sense of purposelessness he's been struggling with. After a long spell of depression, he agrees to make Denis into a vampire in the hopes of reconnecting with him... only for Denis to turn into a ravening psychopath that Cassidy has to put down. This leaves Cassidy even more miserable in the long run; this, combined with his falling-out with Jesse in the second season finale, eventually leads him to leave the team seemingly for good.
• Cassandra Truth: Tells Jesse he's a hundred-year-old vampire while the two are drinking together. Given the tone of the conversation, Jesse laughs off his statement.
  • He's also one of the first people to tell Jesse that The Word is starting to seriously inflate his ego and alter his priorities, which will eventually lead Jesse to endanger his friends.
• Combat Pragmatist: An Anti-Hero through and through, Cassidy isn't above dirty fight tactics, such as when he trips up one of Jesse's unsuspecting assailants with a stool and kicks Fiore in the crotch to get him to loosen his grip on his chainsaw.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Convinced that the constantly resurrecting DeBlanc and Fiore must be involved in a cloning program and when they say they're from the government, he feels this makes sense.
  • He also seems to believe that baby foreskin is being put into skin cream (which is actually true) and other products; he is also paranoid around tap water.
    • This claim become doubly hilarious when The Grail uses his own foreskins in making skin cream.
• Cool Shades: Grabs a pair to deal with the rising sun after escaping from the crashing plane. Since Cassidy is a drug-loving vampire, this attire makes sense.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Cassidy is on the giving end of one when he gets back at Frankie Toscani for torturing him and harvesting his foreskins by shoving a shotgun up his rectum and then blowing his brains out the top of his skull with it.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Gives one to a group of vampire hunters in the introductory scene.
• Deathless and Debauched: As with the original comic, Cassidy is a hundred-year-old vampire with a taste for booze, drugs, and grotesque sexual escapades. In his first scene alone, he's encountered doing a line of cocaine and regaling a gang of human revelers with the fact that they'll have to learn how to say "ass-hamster" in Spanish before they get to Tijuana, while in Season 4, he's such an Undiscriminating Addict that he'll happily resort to huffing flame retardant in lean times.
• Destination Defenestration: Tulip mistook him for someone else and shoved him out of a window. He got better, but it was messy.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In the comics, Cassidy becomes human after the end and leaves for parts unknown. In the series, he decides to kill himself after his companions have passed on forty years later.
• Establishing Character Moment: The first we see of Cassidy is him aboard a plane kicking the collective asses of a group of vampire hunters with anything he can get his hands on (from an Aerosol Flamethrower to golf clubs, to broken champagne bottles) before jumping out of said plane (which was beginning to crash) with a bottle of blood and an umbrella.
• Fascinating Eyebrow: see the character pic above.
• Fingore: He gets his fingers sliced off when he grabs the Saint's sword to keep him from killing Tulip. He gets better.
• Groin Attack: In Season 4, the Grail takes advantage of Healing Factor by harvesting his foreskins to use in skin cream and recreating Starr's ear after he loses it.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: His lower body is reduced to exposed entrails and paste after jumping out of a crashing aircraft. Fortunately, his vampiric powers (and a cow) help him get better.
• Healing Factor: Falling from a plane and splattering on the ground leaves him only temporarily immobilized until he gets an unwitting cow to approach him and drink its blood to heal.
  • It appears he needs to drink human blood to recover from sunburn.
• The Hedonist: The quality at the core of his personality.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: After literally crashing into Annville, Cassidy comes to the bar Jesse's in and requests his whiskey of choice, before declaring he'll drink rat water if it's all they've got ^note  Cassidy may not have meant literal rat water; Ratwater Whiskey is the prevalent brand in the series, named for the town which got wiped out by the man who became the Saint of Killers... and the label sports his silhouette .
• Kubrick Stare: Sports one after Tulip discovers his true nature.
• Made of Iron: Comes with being a vampire. So long as Cassidy has access to blood, he can recover from some truly horrific damage, including being split in two or shot full of bullets.
• Motor Mouth: Loves to talk.
• Mr. Vice Guy: Cassidy loves partying, taking all kinds of drugs, and has no problem killing people if it's necessary. Despite this, he takes care of Jesse when he's injured and protects him at all costs.
• No-Sell: He's unaffected by religious symbols, as a group of vampire hunters unfortunately finds out. See Our Vampires Are Different, below.
• Odd Friendship: Jesse is a preacher; Cassidy is a vampire. Despite this, the two get along really well and Jesse says that he enjoys having him around. This instantly guarantees fierce loyalty on Cassidy's part.
  Cassidy: When someone comes at one of my friends brandishing a bloody chainsaw, we’re gonna have issues.
• Offing the Offspring: He kills Denis in the Season 2 finale after realizing that his son is a bloodthirsty monster.
• Older Than They Look: Despite looking around Jesse's age, Cassidy's vampirism currently has him pushing the limits of a natural human life span, saying he's 119.
  • Reinforced in "Sokosha", where it's revealed that Denis, the old man that the trio has been staying with in New Orleans, is his son.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Cassidy burns in the sun, drinks blood and is supernaturally strong and durable, but he lacks fangs, and religious symbols have no effect on him. A vampire slayer tries pouring holy water on him, comically to no effect.
• Undying Loyalty: As noted above, if Cassidy likes you and considers you a friend, he'll always have your back. Threaten his friends with a chainsaw, and he'll outright destroy you - multiple times if necessary.
• Slasher Smile: Whenever he's feeling murderous; also evident in one of the promos◊.
• Super-Strength: Injured and in sunlight, Cassidy lifts and drags a cow closer to himself to drink its blood, even after being so injured that half his body is just a bloody paste.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: The reason why he won't bite his son, Denis. He doesn't want to let Denis go through what he describes a "living hell" for a long time. It's also why he initially wants nothing to do with Les Enfants du Sang. After Jesse and Tulip pass away in the Distant Finale, he decides to let the sun finally do him in after talking with their daughter one last time.

Supernatural Entities

The Saint of Killers

The Saint of Killers / The Cowboy / William

"I love my horse. I love my wife. I love my little girl. And, as for Jesus, he can join us all in Hell."

Portrayed By: Graham McTavish

The Saint of Killers is a supernatural, unstoppable, killing machine summoned from Hell to destroy Jesse Custer.

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• Absurdly Sharp Blade: His Civil War saber sword, which can even cut through steel easily - at one point, it gets pushed into and through a postal mailbox like the bottom was made of butter.
• Adaptational Badass: Not so much the Saint, but his former, human self. In the comics, he had already been killed, sent to hell, and granted his supernatural powers before massacring the townsfolk of Ratwater. Here, he completes his Roaring Rampage of Revenge while he is still an ordinary human being.
  • The Word does not work on him, which was pretty much his only weakness in the comics. However, this changes when a part of a soul is transplanted into him.
• Adaptational Intelligence: In the series, he figures out himself that the death of his family was ultimately all part of God's plan and confronts Satan about it when he returns to Hell. In the comics Jesse learned about this and told the Saint.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: He's immune to the Word and can track Jesse whenever he uses it; neither are abilities he or anyone else had in the comics. However, he becomes susceptible to the Word once he receives a small percentage of Jesse's soul.
  • His breath is hot enough to instantly heat steel.
• Adaptational Wimp: Marginally. Getting hit by a truck barely slows him down in the show, whereas it merely crumpled around him in the comic without budging him at all. He also seems to be unable to escape the Soul Happy Go Go van Jesse locks him in, despite pounding on its door for days.
  • In the season 3 finale, he gets pinned under a tank. His comic self memorably once kicked a tank like it was an empty tin.
• The Artifact: In the comics, the Saint has all the power and responsibilities of the Archangel of Death whose power he inherited. Nothing in the show so far has even hinted at why he's called the Saint of Killers. In the comics his revolvers are also forged from the archangel's sword, which explains all their supernatural abilities, most importantly being able to kill angels, demons, The Devil and God. In the series, there is no explanation of why he can do this with his weapons.
  • Fear of the Lord implies that the Saint may be the fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, Death. This may be a hallucination, however. The Saint's name is never explained.
• Batman Gambit: The Saint, of all people, concocts a risky scheme with Jesse that would leave God in the most vulnerable position. By confessing all of his sins inside a chapel right before Jesse slits his throat, even he would be allowed entrance into Heaven by default. By the time God returns to his throne, the Saint and a bullet would be waiting for him. And it works.
• Berserk Button: His family. Even Satan and the Angel of Death would be wise to take care of talking about them. They aren't. Oops.
  • Don't ever call him an errand boy - or an errand bitch. Tulip's words and his ensuing realization, combined with the truth of what happened to his family, lead him to instantly betray Sydney and Satan. He plucks out the former's eyes, and outright kills the latter.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With Herr Starr and Superintendent Mannering in Season 2. He definitely poses the biggest threat of the trio.
• The Comically Serious: Given who the head hancho of the show is, it isn't surprising that they seize the opportunity to have some moments with the Saint doing things with the straightest face.
• Curbstomp Battle: The inevitable result of any fight involving the Saint of Killers. Season 2's "On Your Knees" sees The Saint beat the shit out of not only certified tough guys Jesse and Tulip, but also the vampiric Cassidy and Denis... nearly all at once.
• The Cynic: He comes from a hard life; when asked by an optimistic traveler if he believes America to be a paradise, he immediately shoots the notion down.
• Demoted to Dragon: In Season 3, he is reduced to fulfilling Satan's bidding. Tulip even lampshades this at one point, calling him an errand boy, later even an errand bitch to tick him off. In the Season 3 finale, after getting his guns back, he rectifies this and shoots Satan dead on the spot.
• The Dog Bites Back: And how. After being horrifically flogged by Satan and forced to act as his errand boy, the first thing the Saint does after regaining his Walker Colts is blow Satan's brains out.
• The Dreaded: Considering his ability to seemingly permanently kill anything he shoots (even angels), he is feared by those he encounters who know who he is. He seems to have a supernatural aura of dread about him, as people become unsettled at any indication of his presence; even at just hearing his footsteps or seeing his silhouette in the distance.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • The Cowboy is certainly not a good or nice man; seeing the tragic fate of a new family in Ratwater - the father killed, the mother gang-raped, and their son is forced to watch it all - motivates him to try and prevent another family from falling victim to the same fate. It doesn't end well...
  • When he's working for Satan to bring Eugene and Tulip to Hell, he's appalled to learn that Satan is trying to take advantage of God's absence by bringing in and keeping people who aren't supposed to be dead or in Hell at all.
• A Hell of a Time: It is revealed that the Cowboy has been trapped in Hell since his death, which - for him - means that he is forced to endlessly relive the sequence of events leading to his family's death. Of course, he is also permitted to relive his Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the entire township of Ratwater, whom he holds culpable for the tragedy. As far as classical and contemporary depictions of damnation go, this is damn near cathartic.
• Implacable Man: The Saint of Killers never seems to hurry. He just walks at a leisurely pace towards his quarry, gunning down anyone who gets in his way. And nothing seems to be able to slow him down for more than a few seconds.
• Kick the Dog: Wherever he goes, he leaves a trail of destruction behind, killing scores of innocent people, for seemingly no reason other than them being in his way.
• Kill the God: As in the comic, he kills God at the end of the series.
• Named by the Adaptation: Season 2 reveals his first name to be William.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: As he leaves the town the Saint has an attack of conscience, remembering the sad fate of the family he witnessed earlier and goes back to warn the family of travelers who helped him earlier. When he gets there, he's horrified to find they are selling Native American scalps for coin, he is beaten and attacked by the people who he thought would have hurt the family, and then gets his horse killed by a preacher who claims to remember him from the Battle of Gettysburg. This means he doesn't get back in time to get his daughter the medicine she needs, finding both her and his wife dead, with crows eating what remains (their eyes, in particular).
• Oh, Crap!: Once he figures out that taking a piece of Jesse's soul makes him vulnerable to the Word.
  • Satan and the Angel of Death both get this reaction when they anger the Saint.
• One-Man Army: Throughout his life, he was infamous as a killing machine - death made manifest. And this is very much proven in his flashbacks as he slaughters essentially an entire town of people, civilians and gunslingers alike, all without even getting his duster grazed.
• Perpetual Frowner: Even after being warmly invited for dinner by a group of travelers, the Saint continues to give a glum expression and almost never speaks to anyone throughout, showing his grim outlook on life.
• Pet the Dog: After killing Satan upon learning that not only did the devil have a hand in his family's death, but he was also taking advantage of God's absence by keeping people in Hell who aren't supposed to be dead, he allows Eugene to leave with him. He also saves Eugene from being taken back to the orphanage (albeit by killing a cop, which frustrates the boy because he's sick and tired of all the death).
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Not his most defining trait, but it's definitely there, considering that he was a Confederate soldier.
• The Quiet One: He rarely speaks, even before his embittered rampage. He doesn't say anything to his wife when he leaves to get medicine for his daughter. While dining with a group of travelers, he only gives one sentence: "It ain't", when asked if he believes America to be paradise. When he visits the doctor, he wordlessly hands over the scrap of paper with the requested medicine. He does seem to become more talkative once he takes the piece of Jesse's soul, though.
• Rage Against the Heavens: Once he learns that both God and Satan had a hand in his misfortunes and his family's death, he kills Satan before going after God.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After his wife and daughter die because of the thugs that prevented the Saint from getting to them in time, the Saint is shown arming up with an incredible number of guns, implying that a truly epic one of these is about to happen. This is confirmed in "Finish the Song", wherein the murderous ex-soldier returns to Ratwater and slaughters men, women and children alike.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: At the end of "Sokosha", Jesse locks him in the back of the Soul Happy Go Go van and drives it into a swamp in Angelville. He eventually gets out with assistance from the Grail.
• Shrouded in Myth: According to Jesse in "Mumbai Sky Tower," he's known by mortals, but thought of as a ghost story.
• The Soulless: Lost his soul when his family was killed. This makes Genesis powerless against him.
• The Stoic: Never shows any emotion and seeing a warning sign accompanied by many scalped bodies on a tree doesn't even get a change of expression from him. Seeing a woman being raped with her husband's corpse next to her, while her son is forced to watch, doesn't get a reaction from him either, at the time.
• Super-Strength: A mild case, but it's definitely beyond human capacity to literally send someone flying across the room with a single solid punch.
• Supernatural Fear Inducer: He is hinted to cause a supernatural sense of dread by some form of aura - it's worse when he touches you, though (as Tulip can attest).
• Would Hit a Girl: As well as shoot and kill one, as he's done many, many times.
  • When he lifts Tulip off the ground by her neck and nearly strangles her in Season 2, she has nightmares about it to the point where she refuses to sleep. Tulip gets over it, albeit after she confronts him, and he throws her into a wall or two.
  • In Season 3 he slams a female foster agency worker through a wall (though it doesn't kill her). He later rips out the eyes of Sydney, The Angel of Death, when she mocks his family's fate.
• Would Hurt a Child: At one point he beheads a classroom of children.
• Worthy Opponent: When Mike kills himself rather than submit to torture, the Saint gives him a subtle nod of respect.
• Your Worst Memory: Almost the entirety of his first-season arc is spent in Hell, reliving the death of his family and his vengeful massacre of Ratwater.

Residents of Annville, Texas

Eugene Root

Eugene Root / "Arseface"

"Do you ever think there are some things so bad even God won't forgive?"

Portrayed By: Ian Colletti

Teenager Eugene Root has the heart of a saint and the face of a monster. Despised by most, he finds solace in Jesse’s sermons and is the new preacher’s biggest fan.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: Doesn't look anywhere close to as bad as he did in the comics in the AMC series.
• Adaptational Villainy: In the comics, Arseface didn't shoot a girl (and then himself) because she rejected him; he and a friend made a suicide pact to emulate their idol, Kurt Cobain. Subverted, as this is just what everybody in town believed happened with Eugene and the girl; in reality, he tried to talk her down from suicide (which failed after he revealed his feelings for her) and then shot himself because he both blamed himself for her death and was afraid of being punished for it.
• The Atoner: Although a good kid, he's still tormented by the inadvertent suicide and feels he needs to atone in the eyes of God.
• Broken Pedestal: After blindly following and looking up to "Preacher Custer" for so long as a bastion of propriety, Eugene is shocked and appalled at his arrogant and borderline megalomaniacal attitude near the end of Season 1. Jesse (inadvertently) sending him to Hell understandably makes it worse.
• Bungled Suicide: His disfigurement was brought about by attempting to kill himself by firing a shotgun into his chin, but when it didn't go off, he decided to peek down the barrel.
• The Dog Bites Back: Eugene shoots an apologetic Jesse in the back in Season 4.
• Dragged Off to Hell: At the conclusion of "Sundowner", his requests for Jesse to undo the Word of God forcing a woman to forgive Eugene causes Jesse to become angry and accidentally use the Word on Eugene, sending him to Hell.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After everything he goes through, Eugene decides that he wants to become a rock star and - against some truly horrible odds - actually makes it! The last reference to him in the series is when a customer at the hardware store where Jesus works wears a "Eugene" t-shirt, indicating that he really did become famous.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Despite Jesse's promise at the end of Season 1, he did forget about him, as he never once mentions him throughout the second or the third season.
• He's Back!: Finally returns from Hell in the Season 2 finale.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Was a little too quick to trust Adolf freaking Hitler, who apparently only acted nice to get out of Hell himself. He acknowledges his mistake in Season 3.
• If I Can't Have You…: Everyone believed he shot the local prom queen because she rejected him. In reality, he actually talked her down from suicide, only for her to try to kill herself because he misread her signals and kissed her, grossing her out.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Socially anyway. He accepts his disfigurement as punishment for his suicide attempt, but also wants to go to church and interact with the community. His father won't let him.
• Imaginary Friend: Jesse's guilt over sending Eugene to Hell has manifested into the form of a hallucination of him.
• I Was Quite a Looker: The flashback at the beginning of "Damsels" shows that Eugene was a pretty attractive adolescent before he shot himself.
• Mark of Shame: He's gotten a tattoo of Tracy's name on his back in Hell that could be considered to be one.
• Named by the Adaptation: Only ever referred to as "Arseface" in the original comic but given the first name "Eugene" in the show. Although after their first interaction, Cassidy describes him as an "arseface."
• Nice Guy: Eugene has a good heart; he's supportive of Jesse, he's respectful of his own father's wishes for him to stay out of church, and he is a devout Christian. He also has a great deal of personal integrity, refusing to accept what he wants if it comes at the cost of someone else's safety or free will.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: By burning Tracy's suicide letter, he destroyed the only piece of evidence that he didn't shoot her.
• Out of Focus: In Season 3, where he barely appears despite still being billed as a main character.
• Revenge: In the Season 3 finale, after being freed from Hell once again, this time by the Saint, he joins the latter in his quest to kill Jesse, the man he (not totally incorrectly) blames for everything bad that has happened to him during the last two seasons. He actually shoots Jesse in Season 4.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: No doubt one of the few genuinely nice people in the series. Who literally got sent to Hell as consequence for calling Jesse out on his abuse of "The Word."
• Trauma Conga Line: Eugene really has it rough. First, he gets blamed for Tracy Loach's coma. Then, Jesse accidentally sends him to Hell. After escaping from Hell, he learns that his hometown was destroyed while he was gone, only to then be "adopted" by the Saint of Killers, who has been ordered to bring him back. When he's back in Hell, his Christian faith, which he's consistently used to cope with his bad situations, is undermined when he learns from Satan that not only is God missing, he's not really the omnibenevolent entity that his faith made him out to be.
• The Unintelligible: His disfigurement muffles his voice to the point of requiring subtitles. Jesse has no trouble understanding him, however. Fitting, as his comic counterpart is shown in the featured picture for this trope's page.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Of a sort. After being baptized, he goes to see Jesse and tells him that he doesn't feel any different than before, wondering if his place in God's plan is where he already is. This causes Jesse to re-embrace his rage, and he goes to the house of a school bus driver who had been having sexual thoughts about a young girl. He proceeds to break into his house, fill his bathtub with boiling water and baptise him in it, while telling him to "forget her." On the other hand, this causes Jesse to realise his power, and he later attempts to use it to make a comatose girl with severe brain damage "see."
  • By burning Tracy Loach's suicide letter, he destroys the only evidence her death actually was a suicide, thus leading to his own suicide attempt, him being blamed for Tracy's coma, his status as town pariah, and, eventually, his banishment to Hell by Jesse.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: The poor guy tries to do anything to win his father's approval.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Gives Jesse a serious rebuke for forcing people to see the light. And gets literally sent to Hell for it.
• Your Worst Memory: The moment of Tracy Loach's attempted suicide and his own disfigurement, which he is forced to relive in Hell.

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