Constantine, Episode 11: A Whole World Out There
It's an episode that honestly would've worked better as one of the filler episodes earlier in the show's life. As the third-last episode in a season, though? A season that built up two big organizations, one of which is causing the still-vague 'rising darkness' deal that is the driving force of the season's plot... you'd think they would go for something more plot relevant. Yeah, Constantine really had a fair bit going on for it, but poor plot and character management (once more supporting characters Zed and Chas take a break and are wholly absent) and it's honestly no wonder that the show got cancelled after its first season.
On paper it's a solid concept, even if it plays on two more overly-used horror genre -- a serial killer targeting a group of young friends, and a killer that lives in a dream world/mirror world. In this episode, an Egyptian soul-hopping ritual thing went awry on a campus where Ritchie Simpson was teaching with. Ritchie, the reluctant ally that Constantine recruited in the pilot, ends up getting screentime to develop his character since he's a stark contrast to the likes of Zed and Chas who are all in for fighting the fight. Ritchie is, as Constantine points out, a coward running away ever since the Newcastle incident, and despite his knowledge regarding the spiritual world he wants nothing to do with it. An episode starring him is awesome.
Only... Jacob Shaw, the titular antagonist, is not very threatening, nor does the show really make him feel threatening. Someone who has jumped out of his soul a long time ago and is living in a twisted house that he can manipulate all Inception or Matrix-style, and is kinda hellbent on enacting some Freddy Krueger shit through mirrors... yeah, a random serial killer doesn't feel all that threatening to John Constantine.
There is some creepy visuals as the wounds inflicted on Shaw's dream world manifests on the students in the real world, of course, and some nifty intentionally-bad-CGI as Shaw and Ritchie both manipulate the dream world... but it's ultimately filler stuff, and a filler plot that honestly dragged on for way too long than it should. Both Constantine and Ritchie really play well off each other and their characterization and discussion about guilt and whatnot are decent, but the general filler-y nature of the plot really doesn't make me engaged in what is going on. The philosophical bit near the end where Ritchie seems happy to be left behind in the dream world is done quite well too. There's some nice discussion about Gary and about Constantine's past, but there's a bit of a sinking feeling that since we're only two episodes down the road we probably won't get the full story about Newcastle, or if we do it'll compete for screentime alongside the Brujeria and Resurrection Crusade plots.
The random deus ex machina that Ritchie somehow has There Is No Spoon powers and can manipulate the dream world really came out of nowhere, and felt like a cheap way to end the crisis.
Honestly, as well-acted as Ritchie's character is, he's ultimately throwaway. We already have Constantine confronting the events of Newcastle with both Gary and Anne-Marie, both of the part of far more interesting and engaging stories respectively. So I really don't know what the point of this episode is in the grand scheme of things.
Overall, though, there really isn't much content to really analyse in this episode. It's one of the filler-y-est of Constantine, possibly rivaling or surpassing the child murderer one in how detached and utterly meaningless filler fluff it has. Manny tries to substitute for the lack of Zed and Chas and Rising Darkness by uttering some cryptic lines, but not even his scenes really had any weight to it. It's an episode you can easily skip without missing much.
No comments:
Post a Comment