Constantine [2014] Season Review

Constantine [2014]

[originally released as individual reviews from Nov 2015 - Jan 2016, compiled into this page]

Constantine, Episode 1: Non Est Asylum

Before we review this, let's put all cards on the table. I'm not... very well-versed in the mystical side of DC comics. I haven't read Sandman, I haven't read Hellblazer, and I don't see it happening in the near future. Any knowledge I know about all the mystical aspects of the DC comics generally come from JLA stories or crossover ones like Underworld Unleashed, something decidedly more fantastical and involving more superheroes and supervillains and less about damnation of souls and heaven and hell than what we deal with in Hellblazer. Or, since we're talking about the TV show, Constantine. 

But, hey, sometimes it just takes an actor. And Matt Ryan's performance as the wisecracking, snark-ass British exorcist John Constantine in Arrow's crossover episode interested me enough to, well, find out more about this character whose backstory and personality I only know in fragments from all the DC comics I've read. And, hey, why not kill two birds with one stone and review the TV series at the same time? Surely it can't be as bad as Gotham.

Well, I should really have known that delving into a TV series about demons and exorcism -- even one based on DC comics -- would involve horror. And those fucking jumpscares! We get quite a few here. Done to great effect, perhaps, but I am not someone who watches horror movies. The ones here honestly aren't that bad, because I'm expecting something to happen -- like when there appears to be something behind Liv's car, or when Talia's corpse started trashing... it was still scary when what did happen, y'know, happened, but stuff like, oh, the bloody eyeball randomly popping, or that fucking scene when the grandmother randomly vomited out black blood from her eyes and mouth... did we need that? Motherfucker.

Unlike most reviewers out there, though, I haven't read the critically-acclaimed Hellblazer and there's like 300 issues so I'm not about to start to, so maybe I'll give a different perspective from most of the reviews out there? I dunno.

Now the pilot throws us into the deep end, and, something I'm thankful about in regards with most of the superhero TV shows, it's not another origin story. John Constantine, in fact, is in flunk because of a past event that he's done which haunts him throughout this episode. A failed exorcism caused the damnation of the soul of a little girl, Astra, courtesy of a powerful demon Nergal, and it's implied that Constantine's soul is next in line. We peel back this backstory bit by bit through the episode, as well as things about why Constantine is so obsessed with the occult -- he 'killed' his mother in childbirth and has been trying to find out a way to contact her spirit. Also his father is abusive because why not.

Of course, this ends up changing as a message from beyond delivered by a combination of possession, red paint and cockroaches causes Constantine to get out of the mental institution he's in and start investigating the paranormal activities around the female lead, Liv Aberdine, daughter of Constantine's old deceased friend, Jasper Winters... and both father and daughter have scrying abilities, as well as the ability to see the spiritual world around them. While she's built up to be the female lead in this episode, and has all the hallmarks of one -- plot-important powers, relations to Constantine's dark past, and being the 'fish out of water' archetype that the audience is supposed to identify with. She apparently gets written out of the pilot, though, as I'm told, and she exits the show, spooked out by all the crazy shit happening, though not before filling Constantine's map with lots of blood dots.

The pilot episode jumps hard and fast, and while the focus is on Constantine and Liv, we get introduced to a slew of supporting characters. We've got Manny the angel, who has the ability to apparently stop time, take the place of other people to creepily talk to Constantine and has wings. We've got Chas Chandler, Constantine's oldest friend and ally who has the strange ability to apparently regenerate from being stabbed through the chest by a power line. And Ritchie Simpson... who doesn't want anything to do with Constantine after Astra's death but is apparently a hacker dude.

The villain of this episode, a demon who stalks Liv, is Furcifer, an electrical-type demon, and it's mostly just generic evilness and dismemberment and possession, though it doesn't dip too deep into horror imagery and alternates it with something more fantastical, like possessing the power cables and causing big hellfire explosions. And there's the end, of course, where he uses a fake version of Astra to try and trick Constantine. It's mostly standard stuff, a starter villain to get our hero out of his funk and peel back his character a bit, as he eventually accepts Manny's role for possible redemption and goes on a rampage to kill all demons or something along those lines.

We get a couple of nice Easter Eggs to go, too. Obviously there's Dr. Fate's helmet being the spotlight of a short scene, but Constantine's little hideout is a treasure trove of DC Easter Eggs. There probably are a lot more Hellblazer-related goodies that I'm not able to recognize, but among others we've got Pandora's Box, we've got mentions of Horus and all that -- Horus being involved in the origin stories of both Captain Marvel and Hawkman -- and of course there's Constantine summoning flames onto his hands and transitioning into one of his comic-book line arts... before transitioning again into something that's being drawn by a mysterious character. A nice little meta moment, there.

Also apparently the namecard thing from Arrow is a running joke, it seems! And apparently up until the Arrow crossover Constantine still hasn't gotten his name cards changed. Hee hee.

Overall, it's a pretty decent episode as far as pilot episodes go. The main appeal is still Constantine and just what is driving him and his hilarious dry wisecracking. I'm not sure if all the scary horror aspects sits well with everyone -- though I guess you can't have a show about demons without a couple of horrifying shots. Not sure if it will live up to the hype that Hellblazer had, and its cancellation seems to imply exactly the opposite, but the pilot's certainly interested me enough to sample a bit more. Just probably not all in one go.

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Constantine, Episode 2: The Darkness Beneath

A bit of a stepdown as the series goes into a more 'monster-of-the-week' format. We kind of leave behind the supporting characters we met last episode -- Liv is outright written out, Ritchie and Manny don't appear, and Chas can't come along because of dome noodle incident involving a succubus and a derailed train. So this episode focuses almost solely on Constantine and our new female lead, Zed. Who, uh, has a fair amount of similarities to Liv last episode. They both have mystical scrying powers, Zed's just involve less blood. They both have no experience with the spiritual. Constantine doesn't want either of them along since he works along and all that.

The two of them investigate a mining town, while Zed tries to convince Constantine that she can help out for... uh... reasons? I dunno. This episode brings them against *looks up spelling* the Coblynau, spirits of dead miners who are normally docile and actually help out real miners, but have for some reason gone around and trying to kill people. We've got a dude that got killed by burning into flames, and another dude drowned by having muddy water fill up a car. They don't really feel as threatening as Frucifer last episode, though, and it's just as well since this episode mostly functions to introduce Zed. We get a pretty long red herring involving an ex-priest, and the pacing feels a bit jumbled as Constantine and Zed just jump from one clue to another, and finally face off against the one who summoned the Coblynau, a gypsy who's married to the miner killed at the start of the episode, in typical Scooby Doo fashion -- it's the character introduced in the first act and disappears for the rest of the episode.

I think it's also borderline racist for Constantine to just go 'oh then I remembered, you're Romani', though. Zed's... an okay character. She's your average nonoffensive sidekick character, but on the other hand she doesn't have anything going on for her or her personality beyond having vision powers. She's not whiny and I'll take that, at least.

It's basically a pretty decent monster of the week episode, introducing us to Zed -- who has like 11 episodes to grow to a character I like, because right now she just fells pretty generic. So's the monsters in this episode, and other than some throwaway lines about some rising darkness and ominous greater force, this episode ultimately only serves to introduce us to the main female lead. It succeeds in that regard, at least. There honestly isn't much to talk about this one, a wholly middling episode.

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Constantine, Episode 3: The Devil's Vinyl

That is actually more like it. The general plot of this episode, with soul brokers and a cursed vinyl that compels you to play it but will kill whoever listens to it, is far more interesting than the previous one. It helps that the stakes to the whole thing, the people that Constantine and Zed need to protect -- the couple who had made the unfortunate deal -- are made relatively clear in the first fifteen minutes of the episode instead of the haphazard 'who's the bad guy' deal we had last episode.

It helps that we don't need much of the exposition and character introductions that so burdened the first two episodes. The focus is still very much on Constantine and Zed, but this episode gives them more room to actually muck around with more colourful magical artifacts and just feels generally funner while still retaining a sense of horror. We've got crazy stuff like the coffin nails that attract each other, we've got the playing card that turns into whatever helps the user out, the creepy hand of glory which gives a spectacularly eerie visual as all the bodies in the morgue are brought back to temporal life... far more fun than just the two of them running around a mining town looking for clues.

We also peel back more layers of Constantine beyond one-liners. We learn he was in a rock band, which isn't super-crucial or anything but is a hilarious detail. He has no problem dealing with Zed but is suspicious enough to have Chas dig into her. We see him struggle a little against using the cursed vinyl as a leverage to get his soul back, or just burn it back to hell where it belongs.

Zed's motivations for sticking around Constantine is explored a little -- she's trying to learn to control and understand her scrying powers. And, y'know, help out the people who're involved in all of this madness and all that stuff. We also see a bit more of her shrewdness with pickpocketing the morgue guard earlier on, showing that stealing Constantine's wallet last episode wasn't just a fluke. And her smart thinking managed to get her in time to do a big damn heroes moment to save Constantine from zipties and a hobo, because the show isn't crazy enough as it is.

Chas gets a couple minor roles introducing Zed to their mystical safehouse, and promises some more mysteries surrounding their base, including a corridor of doors. He also smashes the radio station's power unit as the most practical way to prevent the vinyl from being broadcasted. Manny shows up a bit to send off a dying man, and later on just to do another cryptic talk with John.

The main villain of this episode, however, isn't a demon. Yes, there's the cursed vinyl, but it's more of a plot device than anything. Papa Midnite, who I assume is based on a comic-book villain thanks to his name, is a voodoo priest that also happens to be a mafia boss. And the man behind Anton the Soul Broker (himself having a more hilarious name than Papa Midnite) and the concept of damnation is explored a bit more in this episode. Papa Midnite is smooth and cool, and has this never-miss shotgun he uses during his big damn heroes moment to rescue Constantine. Obviously Papa isn't a good guy -- he leaves Constantine to bleed out and plans to use the vinyl for nefarious purposes -- but he is a calculated element, and his 'professional respect' by giving Constantine the antidote to the anticoagulant on a nearby table to reward him if he escapes is pretty nice of him. And while he wants to use the vinyl as... leverage or something, he isn't about to let the two possessed goons broadcast it all over town.

That said, though, it was a gigantic coincidence that a deaf dude was around when the two goons played the vinyl in the club. And I thought that the red herring with the daughter being tempted by the vinyl not being followed up is... a bit strange. But whatever.

Overall a far superior episode than the previous two, and, y'know, far less jumpscares and far more crazy magic objects. Which is good for me.

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Constantine, Episode 4: A Feast of Friends

 

In a story that’s apparently based on the first two issues of Hellblazer, we see something that’s definitely miles above the first two episodes in terms of quality and storytelling. Now I haven’t read the comics, so obviously I can’t do a commentary on where they got things wrong and what changes improve the story and all that jazz, but I do appreciate how much smoother the execution of the story is compared to the previous two episodes. The demon of the week is a hunger demon called Mnemoth, which manifests in the absolutely grotesque form of a gigantic swarm of roaches… er, sorry, khapra beetles, which will swarm in the air before entering a person through the mouth – itself a horrifying shot – before driving the person to basically be a zombie, eating anything in its path be it normal food, raw meat, hot boiling oil or at one point a chunk of a security guard. It leaves its victims a desiccated husk, bursting out as a swarm of beetles again before finding a new host.

Actually seeing these things in action as they rampaged from host to host when an unfortunate customs officer broke the jar that held them in place is horrifying by itself – a far more supernatural yet still tangible threat than just some dude that can control electricity (granted, Furcrifer does do a couple of scary demonic shit before we see him in full view) or a haunted vinyl tape. Also, y’know, there’s just something so primal in seeing something natural like a swarm of beetles behave so unnaturally.

At the cost of marginalizing the side cast – Chas barely appears, Manny only shows up to deliver cryptic dire warnings, whereas Zed has minimal roles hanging around at the safehouse – we are introduced to Gary Lester, poor poor Gary Lester. He’s someone who’s involved in the Newcastle incident and an estranged ‘friend’ of Constantine… if you can even call him a friend. An acquaintance that pisses Constantine off, more like. Constantine constantly verbally abuses him, calling him a heroin addict who’s been wasting his life despite all the opportunities he had.

And apparently Gary’s been in going around generally making a mess of his life after running away from the whole Astra incident. And when he saw a young boy with markings that indicated a demon is trapped within him, he was at least competent enough to seal it in a jar… except that, as Constantine finds out later, the only way to seal Mnemoth was with a human sacrifice, whereby the demon will then destroy both the host and itself with nowhere else to go to. So Gary’s well-meaning act of exorcism has instead unleashed this unstoppable hunger demon – and Constantine’s attempt to seal it in a bottle similarly fails.

Granted, Mnemoth seemed relatively content hanging around in Gary’s initial fancy-looking jar, and it’s not until it’s gone on a rampage and presumably grew stronger from all the binge-eating its victims did that Constantine wasn’t able to contain it, so.

We get an absolutely trippy acid trip thanks to the help of Nomo the shaman, which includes some grotesque visuals like Nomo ripping out Constantine’s eyeball (in a vision, but still) and Mnemoth’s original host’s tongue being cut out.

And then, well, Constantine basically emotionally blackmails Gary to become Mnemoth’s new host. We don’t know exactly how much of what Constantine says before confronting and eventually sealing Mnemoth is true – all the talk about how people can change, all the sweet honeyed words telling Gary that Constantine’s going to break his ‘work alone’ rule just this once… the sheer glee on Gary’s face as he goes along with Constantine’s plan to break into the museum, and then confronting Mnemoth and realizing that he was to be the sacrifice… and then the resolve on his face… granted, yes, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and all that, and Constantine’s apology to Gary and whatnot sounds at least sincere. But there’s no denying that while Constantine absolutely looks guilty as fuck when Gary agrees to be the sacrifice – it was still a dick move on his part, and Gary even lampshades this. He goes through with the sacrifice, at least.

But, hey, we need to show that Constantine’s morally not as straight as most of DC’s offers, and this was apparently far more sympathetic compared to the comics version. So I’ve been told. It was definitely a powerful moment as Constantine holds the hand of a dying Gary as he trashes against… whatever the fuck it is you feel when a demon that takes the form of a swarm of beetles rages around within your body.

Meanwhile Manny watches, presumably in disapproval.

Could Constantine have found another way? Yes, he could've tried other spells, used a different and preferably terminal person as the sacrifice. But he didn't. The hunger demon will continue on rampaging and killing and killing, and it won’t stop. So Constantine chose the easier and morally more ambiguous way out. Yes, Gary did give his consent, and Constantine looks guilty and heartbroken as fuck, but at the same time, he did emotionally manipulate Gary with the express purpose of having him be the vessel.

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Constantine, Episode 5: Danse Voudou

Been a while since I did my last Constantine review. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of horror shows and while this particular episode isn't bad in the jumpscare or horrifying imagery department, y'know, sometimes you just need to take a break. Plus, y'know, Jessica Jones is a gigantic distraction. But hey, Constantine is back for the three or four of you who read it.

Anyway, episode five and we already have the obligatory team-up between the protagonist and his arch-enemy against a greater threat! Constantine's setting of having his nominal arch-enemy as a voodoo priest slash mob boss makes it a rather unique situation where neither of them want to have these ersatz murdering restless spirits running around after a talk-to-the-dead spell by Papa Midnite went awry and start raising the spirits from the dead, killing off random people. It's a standard horror ghost story, starting off with two ghosts that kill with a pattern and it turns out that the regrets of the ones who brought them to life ended up anchoring them to the living world. And, well, the whole Rising Darkness thing that's been hinted since episode two is the main fault of this. We get a hint that someone will betray Constantine and bring about the Rising Darkness, and since no one's really developed enough to actually be suspicious... I'm guessing it could go either way.

On the surface it's a relatively straightforward monster-of-the-week episode, with elements that draw from Western hitch-hiker ghost stories and the Japanese urban ghost Kuchisake-onna (with a perfect transcription of how the ghost acts depending on your answers). It's not terrible, it's not exactly memorable, and in the grand scheme of things it'll just be one among the many episodes leading from Constantine's introduction to the big plot twists and ending at the end of the season. But I do like it! I don't think it's as strong as the previous episode which featured some actual hard character moments on Constantine's part, but it's still fun.

Constantine and Midnite are absolutely awesome scenery chewers, absolutely rocking it with some insane pieces of dialogue. "You're the jackass of all trades and master of none", and Midnite talking about how Constantine is a 'magpie of magic' who try to cobble together his own haphazard magic from multiple cultures instead of just trusting a single pantheon of old gods like Midnite's loa is a nice little touch, though how much this will be delved upon I'm not quite sure. Midnite also mentions his voodoo-head sister, Cedella, and apparently it's a 'hotline to hell'. Throw in some nice little hints about their past meetings, plus Midnite sending Cedella to hell just like Constantine did, and the two's relationship feels a lot deeper instead of just two episodes.

Also, Jim Corrigan, better known to DC fans as alter-ego to the Spectre, shows up! We also get a bit of a prophecy hinting (it's so easy to randomly throw it in shows like Constantine) that he is well on his way to suffer from a tragic death and be reborn as the green, speedo-wearing angel of vengeance. But DC knowledge aside, Corrigan is an entertaining cop, and while he doesn't get to do much here beyond being a cynical cop who later, well, believes in all the ghostly things going on and delivers some hints about Zed's past, it might set him up for future appearances! If he does this season. Otherwise people unfamiliar with the Spectre will just be absolutely confused at the random green mist and bloodied face he has at the end.

Zed and Chas also get fairly more screentime here, with Zed getting a not unsignificant amount hanging around with Constantine and Corrigan. Constantine and Papa still steal the episode, of course, but Zed dealing with the hitchhiker ghost and doing her own detective work that go way beyond Constantine's safe zone and hints that Corrigan has about a missing person's file or whatnot. Chas actually puts his immortality (well, resurrection powers) to good use by braving the Kuchisake-onna and allowing her to stab him. A lot. Before waking up.

Constantine also makes use of more wacky magical trinkets... though the ones here, like the tacky-looking glowing bracelet jewel thing, isn't quite as spooky or creepy as the ones we saw before.

There's a nice little change of pace in that there's no unleashed demon or evil gypsy practitioner that Constantine needs to hunt and put down -- yes, people die because of the ghosts, but the root of it all is still an accident. One perpetrated by Papa Midnite instead of Constantine himself, yes, but still, it does give us a breath of fresh air after the throwaway villains (plus one where Midnite was the main villain) of the previous few episodes. The whole 'fixing your own mistake' thing probably resonated relatively well with Constantine's own goals for his soul's redemption.

Overall, though, it's an okay monster-of-the-week episode. It's a self-contained story that lets our main characters shine and develop for a bit, an unexpected cameo from another DC character, and utterly vague hints at the Rising Darkness and a traitor in the midst, whatever the hell that is. Zed's the obvious choice with her mysterious past and unexplained powers, so she's definitely the red herring. Chas? Manny? That hacker dude whose name I forgot? Does Papa Midnite count?

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Constantine, Episode 6: Rage of Caliban

Again, I'm not a big fan of horror. But topping the list of scary shit for me personally has to be creepy kids. I think it's why I stopped watching this episode a couple of times after starting it because, well, fuck creepy kids. I'm just not very good at this horror thing.

Ahem.

After the initial scary scenes (the scene where the ghost showed up in the kid's room, and later when the father's just fumbling around in the darkened house) the episode gets going with a far less jump-scare-y episode. And what a weird episode! Zed is conspicuously absent, written off with a quick "Zed's in art class" around one of the first scenes that featured Constantine and Chas. The episode had a pretty weird series of introdump dialogue, taking a fair bit longer for Manny to show up and talk about the rising darkness -- something that didn't deserve a rant this far into the series -- and telling Constantine about the rules of how angels cannot interfere in mortal business, something that really should've been established earlier on before we start wondering why Manny isn't doing jack shit.

Apparently this episode was intended to air as episode two before they introduced Zed, and it kinda shows. It's very much your standard filler episode with Constantine and Chas going around to fight a monster-of-the-week, and there's not much to really lift this episode from being a bogged-down filler. Oh, sure, Chas gets more screentime than he did in the past five episodes combined, it's scary thanks to the classic demonic child, and there's the nice twist that the thing possessing Henry isn't a restless spirit but the soul of the first (now catatonic) victim that has left his body. There are some nice clever hints thrown in here and there with the ax and such a focus on the first victim and Constantine going to see him and finding that he's catatonic... Marcello's role is definitely a role, we just don't know what it is until, well, it's the soulless body of the killer.

The one-off characters that Constantine helps this time around is a family with a single kid, with an asshole father that's like a sane and non-psychotic version of Kingpin's father, a mother that's far more sane and, well, the possessed kid. The episode spends an inordinate time on them, more than I think Jim Corrigan got in his guest star episode, and it honestly is a cheap way to get some scares. Like the aforementioned scene of the father stumbling around in the dark. I actually liked the bit with the haunted house with super-convincing props. That doesn't rely on jumpscares or tense familiar 'this could be your house' scene, and we have Constantine instead of poor helpless daddy facing the possessed kid. It's just scary in an atmospheric way, not scary in a 'be on your seats while the jumpscare builds up' way.

As for the characters... Constantine is still in tiptop snarky form. Manny makes some cryptic remarks and tells us a bit of backstory regarding Constantine's shitty-ass childhood, and gets some nice dialogue trades with Constantine for that. Chas apparently broke up with his girlfriend or wife, whichever she is. Poor Chas. He gets so little screentime. We get a bunch of random one-off characters like Nora, the lady that Constantine fucks, and the random paralegal that gave Constantine some stuff. Wow, there really isn't a lot in this episode, yeah?

Overall, though, it's a filler episode that's mostly devoid of character development and content beyond the odd quip or two from Constantine and the obligatory creepy lines from Manny, and way too much screentime spent on one-off filler characters. Easily the definition of a filler episode. 

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Constantine, Episode 7: Blessed Are The Damned

We take a break from an onslaught of fillers starring demons and demonic creatures to bat on the other side of the spiritual spectrum this episode. We learn more about the mythology of the Constantine universe concerning angels and fallen angels, how they can't interact with the mortal world, and how if someone plucks the feather from an angel's wing they will be stuck on the mortal world and eventually die. Oh, and the feather grants miraculous powers that has some nasty-ass side effects including causing the surrounding nature to basically die off, and eventually turn those healed by the feather into Ghouls, basically bestial humans with the mentality of zombies.

I've always known that DC comics had a rich history regarding their very loose adaptation of the biblical mythology, but beyond Zauriel and Phantom Stranger I've never really cared enough to delve into the religious aspects.

Mythology aside, though, this episode is truly great in delivering some great characterization for Zed -- hinting more at her ever-mysterious backstory without revealing anything -- and Manny. Finally, it only took seven episodes for him to do something beyond just stand around and deliver cryptic warnings. Manny here ends up with a pretty disturbing heart-to-heart with his angel brethren Imogen, which reveals that he has some rather disturbing discontent with his role and how the mortals are basically idiots that keep failing over and over again.

It turns out to the surprise of, well, practically everyone (including myself) that all the angel feather stuff isn't just a honest mistake from two well-intentioned people -- Imogen and the preacher -- but rather a gambit by Imogen who turns out to be a fallen angel, banished thanks to killing a mortal. Imogen's wings are pretty fucking awesome, by the way, and the simple transformation of her wings into black is a pretty awesome scene.

Father Zachary is pretty interesting too, as this preacher who truly thinks he's given a great power to do great things. Granted the dude's an absolute moron for sticking his hand into a cage of poisonous snakes because holy shit that's dumb, but the nice little backstory about the mortal sin tainting his soul causing him to be susceptible to Imogen and causing it to fool people like Manny and Constantine to simply thinking that Imogen is a normal angel.

And Manny breaks the rule in the most awesome way, making great use of his usual 'replace someone' shtick to replace Zed and rip Imogen's heart out. That was a great scene for Manny, that's for sure, especially as he kinda seemed to have bailed, and all the talks about how the humans are squandering their gift of being able to live in the physical world.

I'm honestly disappointed that the scythe taken from the Grim Reaper himself (Black Racer) doesn't end up coming to play, though.

Also, of course, more stuff about the rising darkness with Imogen making use of the thinning walls between hell and earth to get through. Also, random seemingly-one-note hot dude at the beginning that modeled for Zed and is insistent on a date ends up showing up in the end and, well, it appears he's working for someone more sinister. I have no idea who this dude is, so, uh, yeah. Ominous foreshadowing for the future, I guess. Hopefully we can peel back the odd curtain of mystery that is Zed, because, well, all the aura of mystery around her really should be enough, no?

Chas is absent for the umpteenth time because he's "making good" with his daughter. Man, if it's not Zed, it's Chas that's absent. So much for a team.

Overall, though, it's still your generic monster-of-the-week episode, but it builds so much more into the lore compared to the previous one -- and that's really how these kinds of filler episodes should be.

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Constantine, Episode 8: The Saint of Last Resorts, Part 1

This is the point in the middle of the season where the show drops the filler arcs and starts delving into something more epic and addressing the plot points built up throughout the season. And, well, with a two-parter smack dab in this short season, it certainly does so. Among the things we get covered in this episode are: more of Constantine's mysterious Newcastle incident, more on the Rising Darkness including a name of the organization, and finally some progress on Zed's ever-mysterious past. Also, the villains here are actually bigger mythological names so they certainly feel more threatening than Child Ghost #9592.

The episode starts off pretty generic, just like any of the last three or four filler Constantine episodes. We get a couple of horror movie cliches that we haven't already covered before, even -- a nunnery and baby abductions. We even get a possible bit of lampshade hanging as Constantine decides to take Chaz on this particular journey and leave Zed behind -- a subtle jab at how the previous episodes had Constantine take one or the other but rarely both?

It ends up with both groups fighting against the two big bad organizations of this season (well, show) though. Constantine finds out that what seems to be a simple 'figure out what demonic creature is babynapping' case ends up against a far more ancient evil than he thinks, real-life Mesopotamian childbirth demon Lamasthu (romanticized as a Sister of Eve on the same level of Lilith in this show, though Constantine's first guess was Lilith), and finally put a name to the cult of witches causing the Rising Darkness -- La Brujeria. La Brujeria is one of the villains in Hellblazer, or so I'm told, so yay for that.

Meanwhile, Constantine's stupid decision to lock Zed in the magic house ends up causing her to explore and escape... and bump into naked model man Eddie. Or whoever he's called. Zed seems to do the monumentally idiotic thing of bringing Eddie into Constantine's magic sanctuary to have some bang bang... but she's better than that and beats Eddie into submission. Though she ends up being followed by people working for her father, and it's implied her father abused her to utilize her powers. Also her real name's Mary. A bit convenient as the very same random magical things like the bottomless foggy Willy Wonka pit that Zed finds earlier ends up getting rid of one of her pursuers, but she gets away from all of them. It's honestly not much, but it gives a fair amount of depth to Zed while still not revealing a whole lot, other than her father wants her back, and he's the leader of a cult or some shit. I would've thought her father is a member of La Brujeria, but apparently it's a different villainous organization called the Resurrection Crusade or something?

This episode also introduces Sister Anne-Marie, Constantine's old love interest and a participant of the Newcastle disaster... and she's turned into a nun after the whole incident. Constantine actually knew her before Newcastle, though, and the two of them are apparently old friends and Anne-Marie is actually the one who introduced Constantine to mysticism. She also has the ability to create astral projections to contact Constantine, which we don't exactly learn how she gets it -- but will no doubt prove useful in the second part.

Constantine and Anne-Marie, actually, are the ones that really work the best here. The chemistry between the two work really well, and their history, which we get hints and bits of but never the full picture, is really effective in telling a story without devoting a crapton of screentime to flashbacks or whatever. And Anne-Marie calling Constantine out in the present day for being, well, a douchebag and for seemingly not repenting for the whole Newcastle thing really works well and hits home more than usual.

Anne-Marie is rightfully disturbed at Constantine's rather unorthodox methods at dealing with mystic stuff, and quickly guesses the guilt-trip plot that Constantine used on Gary a while back. But she goes along with it willingly, and the clincher for her had to be when Constantine threatens to snap a baby's neck, or drown a baby, to extort a confession out of Lamasthu. This ends up leading to Anne-Marie shooting Constantine and leaving him as bait for the Invunche -- quoting Constantine's own line about sacrificing everything to save the innocent. Now with five more episodes to go no one really buys that Constantine isn't going to worm his way out of this one, but it's still a pretty interesting plot twist.

The demon-hunting baby-rescue bit is general stuff. Lamasthu honestly looks a lot more like a live action version of the evil witch crone from Snow White, but hey, I'd prefer this over jumpscares. As much as Lamasthu is built up, Lamasthu's got a pretty generic backstory, about how La Brujeria and the Rising Darkness is allowing her to expand her domain on Earth. The way Team Constantine handles her also ends up being kinda mundane, with Constantine rather hilariously dipping a chicken in blood and using a spell to fool Lamasthu into thinking it's a third baby... before using an amulet belonging to a demon of famine, Pazuzu, who also apparently hates Lamasthu. Convenient, that. (Pazuzu's another real Mesopotamian god and starred in The Exorcist, a horror film you might have heard of).

I'm honestly not sure where the Invunche came from. I mean, yeah, it's cool that the Invunche's appearance was foreshadowed by Zed's creepy drawings, but when it showed up in the end all twisty and twitchy and crawly and shit, its appearance... well, let me put it this way. Before Constantine identifies it by name, I thought Lamasthu transformed the blood-chicken they used to trick her into a demon. Because it does look pretty much like raw plucked chicken. It does end up being creepy, but again, good creepy in a way that does not involve screaming into the audience's face. How Constantine is utterly batshit scared by the Invunche in a way that he isn't for any of the horrors he's met before except maybe the Khapra Beetle demon... yeah.

Overall, though, it's all pretty decent stuff. This episode really makes liberal use of Chekov's Gun, and the sheer amount of how something gets mentioned early on only to appear later on is insane and at times rather too predictable. We get some payoff on the Zed end, though regrettably not quite enough to satiate curiousity -- it's nice to see the girl holding her own in multiple situations and getting out of her predicaments, though. We get some great moments between Constantine and Anne-Marie, who is a surprisingly engaging character despite being a presumably one-off character. The Invunche is suitably creepy. And both Lamasthu and the Resurrection Cult or whatever are pretty decent mooks that build up their respective organizations.

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Constantine, Episode 9: The Saint of Last Resorts, Part 2

In part two of this two-parter… we don’t really get much connection between the two beyond sharing Anne-Marie and Pazuzu as guest stars. None of the themes brought up in the first part of this two-parter is relevant here – not the Rising Darkness, not Zed’s Papa’s organization, not Lamasthu or the babynapping rituals, and the Invunche only features for like three minutes… the plot this time around revolves around Constantine slowly being possessed and taken over by a demon, and his desperate attempts to exorcise it while (a) another supernatural member of La Brujeria is lawyering it up, (b) he’s trapped in a Mexican prison and (c) Sister Anne-Marie is struggling with her own problems. Yet the character arcs that Constantine and Anne-Marie went through this episode really makes the two episodes feel like a mini-arc of itself, so kudos for that.

The Invunche cliffhanger from the previous episode was downright disappointing as all Constantine did was pull out the Pazuzu amulet, disable all protective enchantments and shit and allow Pazuzu to possess him and scare the Invunche off. This apparently causes Pazuzu to infect Constantine ‘like a cold’, as Constantine puts it, where there’s an incubation period before full possession happens. Apparently.

We see Constantine go from a range of emotions which mostly is just acceptance – he accepts that if he fails at self-exorcism he’s going to hell and he’d rather have Chaz stab him with the pretty golden knife instead of unleashing Pazuzu on the world. He’s angry at Manny for what he views as not giving a shit – when Manny himself notes that Constantine didn’t even bother to ask. He’s apologetic to Anne-Marie, yet has enough faith in his old friend in the end. He’s horrified when he found out he mutilated those Santa Muerte gangsters, yet isn’t afraid of throwing his weight around in the Mexican prison to get what he wants. And, um, he frothes and drools like a total madman when he gets possessed. Kudos for the actor for nailing that possessed version of Constantine.

Also, Pazuzu!Constantine just saying all the dark shit and trash-talking Zed, Chaz and Anne-Marie is great. Anne-Marie undoubtedly worked through her self-esteem issues by the successful exorcism, but bringing out Zed’s father (which is totally a raw wound) and talking shit about Chaz being left by everyone including his mentioned-but-never-seen daughter. And, whoa, Chaz does look angry in that scene. I think that’s the most emotion we ever saw out of Chaz.

Anne-Marie seals her character arc as well, firstly by running away from Constantine like Gary and she did after Newcastle, and eventually embracing that she needs to be at least try to help out when Zed and Chaz confront her, and outright active when she helps to sneak into the Mexican prison and even help smuggle Constantine out by astral-projecting… a naked image of herself. Which is totally a huge distraction, I can tell you that. And her scene in the end, where she fails to exorcise Pazuzu and he apparently takes control… before Zed gets Anne-Marie to accept and forgive herself… it’s cliché, for sure, the whole ‘the problem is within you’ zen thing, but hey, it works for the context of the story.

Pazuzu himself is pretty bland. He’s better than Lamasthu last episode for being scarier both literally and figuratively – a frothing, angry, screaming and cursing possessed Constantine is a lot scarier than a generic hag, and the threat of possessing Constantine and overwriting his entire personality while damning Constantine to hell is considerably higher stakes for our heroes. And what’s to say there isn’t a bit of Pazuzu left in Constantine?

We get a bit more of Manny, too, and he was totally disappointed and pissed off at Constantine in the beginning, but his short appearance in the end hinted that he might’ve helped out unseen. Manny’s weird. But he’s cool. We get a bit more on the Constantine-soul-damned-forever plot thread, but nothing much came out of it because the Pazuzu thing is more prominent.

The Pazuzu plotline really took over the entire storyline, though, and any other side plots really felt like distraction. And honestly I’m not convinced we needed to spend so much time with the Mexican gangster stereotypes in the prison. Why couldn’t we have built up the agent sent by the Rising Darkness more? We get a potentially interesting dude in Vicente, otherwise known as Nahash, who apparently is the original tempter. He… doesn’t get to do much. He gets this creepy scene where his jaws extended like a snake and ate a lawyer, and he shows up and is all Medusa-esque and snakes and “I AM NAHASH” and shit, but really we could’ve had more built-up because after the long speech about who he is, he ends up being taken in less than a minute. There’s a nice little moment where this villain-of-the-week might actually do something as Anne-Marie seemed to be tempted like Nahash’s epithet suggests, but nope, instant knife to the back and he explodes into snakes.

These La Brujeria demon operatives end up really underwhelming, aren’t they? Other than the Invunche, who’s presumably still hanging around writhing all painful-like in the sewers. Why not bring it back as the big threat in the middle of the episode and cut out all the superfluous Mexican prison bits? Julio’s cool, though, as stereotypical and meaningless to the plot as he is.

It’s definitely a great episode for both Constantine and Anne-Marie’s characters, a nice little tense plot with the Pazuzu possession and in those regards it’s definitely a really solid episode. As far as an episode building up to a bigger plot and a climax – for both La Brujeria and the Resurrection Crusade, it doesn’t really do much. But still, I'd still take a solid episode any day. Makes you really wish they cut out all the filler from the earlier parts of the season, don't you?

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Constantine, Episode 10: Quid Pro Quo

So this is the Chas (I may have misspelled his name for like nine episodes now) origin story. We learn about his backstory and his family life, which has been built up for quite some time now. Apparently Chas isn't just immortal -- he's got 47 lives stored within him all Full Metal Alchemist style. By the end of this episode, he has 30. Apparently a half-drunk Constantine cast a 'joke' spell from the ages of Merlin which, when Chas ended up being trapped in a burning accident, ends up sucking the souls of the other 47 people present (because he's a worthier knight than the rest) and, well, basically having the ability to return from the dead 47 times.

And apparently his wife and daughter are estranged simply because Chas keeps going off to help Constantine to fight Monkey Kings and shit, a far more mundane and non-mystical reason than I expected with this show... and while it's understandable and we don't get to see a lot of the interplay between Chas and Renee I felt that this angle could've really been explored further instead of just having Renee being upset because Chas missed a birthday party or two. Bringing up Newcastle and being afraid that Geraldine would end up like Astra is actually a good point, but after that one line of dialogue it ends up being shuffled aside in favour of the rather trite TV excuse of "you don't spend enough time with your family" deal.

The villain of the piece is Felix Faust, a classic DC villain that is the go-to villain when they need a sorcerer villain that's threatening enough but don't want to disturb the fringe properties like Hellblazer or Sandman or cheapen one of the bigger pan-series threats like Trigon or Neron or whatever. Felix Faust here is basically a pretty generic evil wizard, with Constantine consistently pointing out what a big loser Felix Faust is if not for the Rising Darkness. He's casting this spell that steals the souls of random people in Brooklyn -- Chas's daughter included -- to power him up for, uh, generic evil villain purposes, I guess.

I honestly didn't expect Felix Faust to appear in the show, so I was, well, pretty surprised that the big scary Fennel-possessing evil demonic voice was good ol' Felix Faust. He's dressed more like Emperor Palpatine than his normal quasi-Egyptian (well, Atlantean) garb from the comics, and looks far less menacing, though it fits for this particular incarnation on the character.

(Poor Fennel! Apparently he's an actual character from Hellblazer. In any case that was a gruesome death for someone who clearly wants no part in this)

Felix Faust's power boost does complicate things because he can threaten to kill Chas's daughter, and he sends Constantine to do his dirty work in hunting down the demon Karabasan (who looks like a lightning wolf). Random little fun fact here -- in real life, Karabasan is the Turkish version of the Germanic evil spirit Mare, who, like Karabasan in this show, attacks the sleeping. The spirit Mare is the origin for the english word 'nightmare', because unlike lightning wolf here all the Mares did was give you nightmares. The bit with Karabasan is honestly a bit unnecessary and merely a bit of padding for Constantine and Zed to have a couple of action scenes here before Chas steals the show again.

Anyway, Felix Faust just keeps altering deals and Chas makes the good point of why not just assault and beat Felix Faust right then and there, while Constantine doesn't want to take the risk of Felix Faust just snuffing out Geraldine's soul. Chas's lack of self-control is more than understandable considering all the warnings his wife has told him about staying away from Constantine, and, well, the fact that his daughter's soul lies in balance here.

Of course, Chas ends up knocking Constantine up in the head and making his own yolo gambit of trying to offer thirty-one (well, thirty after his demonstration) souls to Faust in exchange for his daughter's... and then altering the deal with a well-placed grenade. I thought having Renee come in just to see Chas blow up and then coming over to their way of thinking was a bit too overdramatic and didn't play off as well as it could've, but it's a fine little climax where Chas manages to remain the star of his own episode. Granted it's foreshadowed with Chas telling Constantine how if a mage dies all his spells go null and void, but with all the precautions Constantine seems to be taking over the whole situation you'd expect something more.

Felix Faust explodes, of course, but hey, this is DC comics. Faust can come back. If Constantine didn't get cancelled or somehow gets a season two, I would bet good money on Felix Faust returning. Sadly, though, poor Faust probably will only ever show up if they ever decide to do another crossover on Arrow.

We get a wee bit more on the Zed situation in the beginning and the end, with a nice little warm scene between her and Constantine to cap off the episode, with her telling Constantine how his mother didn't consider her death his fault, and a rare moment of vulnerability from the master of the dark arts. Zed also gives his daddy's organization its name, the Resurrection Crusade... though I knew this since two episodes ago when they debuted thanks to some people in the internet telling me. It's not much, but at least she's not keeping it a secret from Constantine and Chas and sparing us potential needless drama in the future.

Overall, though, as someone who amounts as a tagalong dead weight with a peculiar ability, Chas finally gets a chance to shine after ten freaking episodes of staying in the background and serving as black comedy whenever he dies. We get both an awesome flashback and a decent showing in the present day with him taking down a pretty big villain all on his lonesome. It's honestly a pretty basic episode without anything really refreshing or game-changing here, but the sheer novelty of a live-action Felix Faust and the awesomeness of giving Chas actual backstory and characterization elevate this a bit more than just being throwaway filler.

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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.

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Constantine, Episode 12: Angels and Ministers of Grace

Yeah, we're at the penultimate episode of not just the season, but the series. Because of all the cancellation and stuff. It's a bit sad, really, how ultimately filler-y the series ended up being. Way too many episodes are just generic horror movie cliche settings, building up cryptically towards the ever-present Rising Darkness without really revealing anything. We get some nice buildup for recurring villain Papa Midnite, the B-team and hints at Zed's ever-mysterious Resurrection Crusade backstory. Alas, it seems that with one episode left to go, and this one being relatively filler-y as well.

Don't get me wrong, as always there's something relatively good here with developing both Manny and Zed -- a two-for-one deal when most Constantine episodes generally tackle a single supporting character. We get some nice funny moments as Manny gets himself trapped within a mortal body, and some deeper ones as he gets a bit more metaphysical and kinda goes all flustered over things that he previously really doesn't seem to be bothered with. Zed gets to face the question of whether her visions are side effects of a tumour, or something granted to her by higher powers. Chas even gets significantly more screentime than his non-spotlight episodes, and has a more emotional role as he keeps emphasizing to Constantine the need to pay attention to his allies' mental health. It's a nice little question and honestly these plot threads could've been running through so many of the more filler-y episodes of the past.

We get a nice little DC Comics nod too, with the Black Diamond, the cursed plot device of the week. I kinda smiled a little when the Black Diamond got mentioned -- the Black Diamonds are pieces of Eclipso, the Angel/Spirit of Wrath that kinda likes going around and causing shit as one of DC's bigger villains. We don't get a mention of Eclipso or any of that backstory, though, other than a sly nod about the properties of the Black Diamond, how the shards want to rejoin with each other and stuff. It's otherwise an unremarkable demonic plot device granting berserker powers and amplifying anger.

The plot, though? Again, like last episode, it has nothing to do, really, with the Rising Darkness and the Resurrection Crusade and I probably have to make my peace that only one, if any, of these big organizations will play a role in the series finale. It's a generic cursed plot device causes a serial killer, and the episode even plays out like a generic Scooby Doo episode -- around one-thirds into the episode and we're introduced to an obviously assholish ugly-looking character that looks like the obvious killer but is not, and there's a good-looking guest star that is memorable enough to remember if he shows up later, but doesn't really give much of an impression... other than he's suspiciously unremarkable for someone that the show lingers so long upon. And lo and behold, the crazy angry drunkard isn't the killer, but rather the nice doctor who showed up a couple of times to deal with Zed.

The main points of the episode, of course, go to Manny as he actually gets a chance to be a character instead of a plot device that yaps mystical gibberish. Though honestly I'm not quite sure just why Constantine trapped Manny in a mortal body other than to get back at all the passive-aggressive mysticism he's done throughout the season. Yes, Constantine is a dick, but honestly that really could've been written far better.

Overall, though, it's a far stronger episode than most of its filler ilk, and possibly the strongest of the filler episodes, really, considering the character work done for Zed, Constantine and especially Manny, but it's overall really just filler... and one that's unfortunately placed one episode before the finale. And that's not an optimal spot for filler episodes.

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Constantine, Episode 13: Waiting For The Man

Ah, it’s such a shame that this series – this season, even – got cut off before it can have a proper conclusion. Trying to judge this as a season or series finale really isn’t fair (and likewise I wasn’t really being fair to the previous two episodes), because the way it is written it really feels like a mid-season finale and the show writers are really confident that they are going to get around ten to fifteen more episodes down the line to properly flesh out their plotlines and characters.

And this episode really feels like an ‘escalation’ episode. We get the surprising but not unwelcome returns of both Jim Corrigan (a.k.a. Spectre) and Papa Midnite as the horror movie cliché we go for this time around involves satanic weddings, hillbillies and implied pedophilia. This rather sorry excuse for a filler plot really hurt this episode the most, because, well, the one-shot guest stars for this episode are borderline annoying, and “the Man” isn’t threatening at all to our heroes. Sure, we fear for the life of the poor little girl but honestly I’d rather we just dispense with the filler plot entirely. For all the buildup that this is yet another in a series of many, many things caused by the Rising Darkness we get scant little in lieu of information about said Rising Darkness.

The fact that the girl doesn’t really seem to come from a particularly broken home, neither did the Man or his ghostly child-wives really tempt Vesta or whoever beyond going all “hey, y’wanna get married?” which really screams idiocy that the girl played along all the way through the Man’s fly-infested home and all the creepiness and only backing out at the satanic altar. The Man and his ghostly child-wives don’t even seem to be putting any kind of spell on her, so it’s yet another strike for the moronic filler plot.

Also, this episode it’s Chas’s turn to go absent.

There is a lot of content in this episode. There is Papa Midnite and his voodoo zombie (an actually accurate adaptation of how voodoo-created zombies are, actually) trying to claim the bounty that the Brujeria has put on Constantine’s head, with Papa Midnite having somewhat of a sympathetic goal in reviving his sister. Midnite’s definitely being built up to be more than just a villain with a funny accent, and, again, it’s a shame that the show didn’t get to do as much with him as I would’ve liked. There is Jim Corrigan’s return as your helpful friend in the police force, and Zed having to deal with both falling for Corrigan as well as seeing visions of his death and eventual rebirth as the Spectre – something we’ll sadly never see. And honestly I'd rather we get more stories about Constantine instead of just trying to jump the gun and make even more DC character tie-ins. We get a bit of nice little moral ambiguity from Constantine, which is something the show version sorely lacks – he goads Corrigan into letting the Man run away so they will have a justifiable reason to shoot him. We also get a surprise appearance by a corpse-possessing Gary that warns Constantine about the Rising Darkness and Brujeria, neither of which we are getting real answers about.

And, most of all, we get the final twist that Manny the angel is really the man pulling the strings behind the Brujeria all along. It’s a nice, awesome little twist that makes sense yet warrants a crapton of explanation. Why is he doing this? What are his motives? Why did he deem Constantine untouchable at the end of the episode? How far does the Brujeria organization extend? Why recruit Constantine to fight demons and the rising darkness if Manny is the one behind it all? I’m thinking of all the previous Manny appearances. Him being dissatisfied with his lot in life has been hinted in his two most prominent episodes – the previous episode and the Imogen one – and he has been uncharacteristically cryptic and whatnot. Just who the identity of Manny, and what his main goal is…

Ah, so many questions, and none of them will get answered. Or maybe they will, if I ever decide to read the gigantic collection of comics that is Hellblazer.

Also, y’know, add Resurrection Crusade, Spectre and Papa Midnite’s fight against Constantine into the big pile of “unresolved things” alongside Manny and the Brujeria. It’s a shame, really, and I know this episode isn’t filmed with the mindset of resolving things, but honestly I wanted and expected at least one of the plot threads to be tied up. There really isn’t any finality, or even a sense of finality, to the episode. Maybe it would’ve been better spent cutting either the filler ‘the Man’ plot or the Papa Midnite angle and having something more Brujeria-related thrown in. But alas, we are out of time. This review is written a fair amount of time after the show’s cancellation and any attempts at resurrecting it like a voodoo zombie is cut short.

Although I do mourn the loss of the show thanks to losing the opportunity to learn about the stories of these interesting characters and all the mystery surrounding them, the things that work against the show’s favour really isn’t ignorable either. The show focuses way too much time on meaningless filler horror show with vague allusions about ‘rising darkness’ every episode, and while it’s interesting… fifteen episodes down the line and we really didn’t get much answers. The fact that the show is insistent on putting one or two of its primary supporting cast (Zed and Chas) out of commission every other episode is also a bit of a poorly-managed thing, as is the whole “oh, this episode is supposed to be aired after the pilot” or “oh, this episode is going to introduce the NEW female lead” mess that is the earlier episodes. The fact that Constantine tries to adapt Hellblazer… and then proceeds to create a fair amount of their own original – and in several cases, extremely filler-worthy – stories is probably another mark in the fans’ eyes. I have it on good authority that they filed off a lot of John Constantine’s more questionable character parts, more of the darker side of his character that we saw in the Gary episode, ended up not being adapted in favour of a more family-friendly lead. And the fact that, well, Constantine is trying to compete with shows like the ten-season-strong Supernatural and what-have-you on the network that also cover a lot of the same angel/demon/mystical beings premise and really based on Hellblazer a fair bit… yeah.

I think it’s still a bit too harsh for the network to hammer the nail down on the coffin before they can get at least 20 episodes to wrap up this first season, but hey, at least part of the cancellation is justified. Doesn’t mean that I like it, though, because what the hell Manny I need to know the conclusion to that!