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Five Thoughts On Constantine’s “Quid Pro Quo” [Review]

By | January 24th, 2015
Posted in Reviews | 2 Comments

After last week’s return for Constantine with a sadly, to me, rather disappointing episode, the home stretch to the end of the first (and at this point, possibly only) season is upon us. Dialing things down a notch from the craziness of the two-parter “Saint Of Last Resorts” that seemed to bend over backwards to address loose threads from previous episodes and finally explain the Rising Darkness, “Quid Pro Quo” takes a much more personal story and is all the better for it.

A warning: this five thoughts will likely contain spoilers for this episode, particularly pertaining to the episode’s main antagonist. Make sure you watch the episode before reading on. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

1. Chas Chandler, Father Of The Year

This is an episode I have been waiting all season for: the Chas-centric episode. Ever since the first episode, the nature of Chas’ “survival skills” has continually been teased, but never fully explained. Until now, that is. This episode doubles down on telling the story of how Chas turned into basically Wolverine as well as revealing his personal life with his wife and daughter and how the former has put a lot of pressure on the latter. While I was a tad disappointed in the reveal of the exact nature of Chas’ resurrection abilities – the finite number attached to the number of times Chas can come back was something I didn’t expect and at first it felt like an unnecessary constraint – the way this episode used that to focus on how his loyalty to John and his debt to those lives continually put strains on his marriage and his relationship with his daughter brought a lot of heart to the episode and showcased Charles Halford as a great actor for the role. Sure, it’s not quite comics Chas, but having an episode this good dedicated to this version of Chas makes me forgive that a little easier.

2. Why Did It Take So Long To Get An Episode This Good?

After last week’s rather middling return that jettisoned a bunch of much more interesting subplots in order to focus the whole episode on the resolution of a last minute cliffhanger, I was glad to see that this episode employed a lot of aspects I’ve been clamouring for the show to use. Sure, it went back to much more Monster Of The Week procedural format complete with a surprisingly tame cold open, but it linked the story to one of the main characters in a very personal way to give it a lot more emotional depth than pretty much every episode of the show save maybe “A Feast Of Friends”. Other than that, we finally got an episode that didn’t throw its supporting cast under the bus meaning we actually got an investigation where John’s, Chas’ and Zed’s skills all got their moment to shine in advancing the plot. Hell, Zed’s whole subplot with the Resurrection Crusade gets more development here than it did in the last episode in that not only does she finally name them, but she reveals to Constantine that it’s her dad who’s after her. This is everything the last episode wasn’t and everything I want the show to be. It wasn’t grand or flashy, but it had heart and used all of the components of the story nicely.

3. The Tragical History Of The Life And Death Of Felix Faust

Told you there’d be spoilers. But, unfortunately, this is one of those episode where if I didn’t talk about Felix Faust, I would have nothing else to talk about for the episode. They probably announced that Faust would be part of this episode somewhere, but I somehow missed that and the episode played his identity as a mystery until the reveal. Anyway, the point is I was not expecting Hector Salamanca to show up halfway through the episode. Nor was I expecting to do such a damn good job. I haven’t had much experience with Felix Faust in the past, so I can’t really tell you whether this is a faithful translation of the character, but I can say that I enjoyed him a lot in this episode. Mark Margolis was terrific and menacing and had the whole evil mage schtick down. I loved his little taunts as self-described dabbler Constantine, sparking a genuine rivalry between the two that could have been interesting to watch develop. If only they hadn’t killed him…

Continued below

I know, I know, this is an episode where the main focus is on how one of the characters keeps coming back to life, so why should I assume that Felix Faust is For Reals Dead? Well, mostly it was the grenade to the face, I have to be honest. I hope they find a way to bring the character back if they ever decide to bring the show back for a second season.

Also…

4. World Of JohnCraft

What the hell was up with the random ass fetch quest Faust sent Constantine on? Like, I get that Faust isn’t exactly a physical villain that John can scrap with and relies more on manipulation to be scary, but having him just sit in a warehouse while Constantine goes and does him a favour felt… well, it felt like padding. I feel like having them find Faust so early on in the episode and not being able to have a real confrontation between him and Constantine lead to a gap in the middle of the episode that had to be filled with… Zed playing dead in order to catch a tiger with stealth camo? It was such a weird deviation from the main plot that it felt like a scene spliced in just to boost the running time. Thankfully, the rest of the episode on either side of this scene is so strong that if it weren’t for my notes I would have forgotten it even happened. Still, a stand out weak moment in an otherwise really strong episode.

5. In Which I May Be Going Blind

Help me out here: is the tactic of getting around the whole no smoking on network TV rule by having John hold a lit cigarette in certain scenes without actually smoking it something that’s come up in previous episodes? Am I only just noticing it now? Because I feel like if they’ve done this before now it should have been something that I noticed and if I’ve just completely blanked on it, I will feel rather foolish.

Regardless, this is actually an interesting strategy to get around a very limiting rule and while I think the cries that this show should be on HBO or something similar are valid, this could go a ways in terms of legitimising this interpretation of the character. Now, if only there were a way of having him be bi…


//TAGS | Constantine

Alice W. Castle

Sworn to protect a world that hates and fears her, Alice W. Castle is a trans femme writing about comics. All things considered, it’s going surprisingly well. Ask her about the unproduced Superman films of 1990 - 2006. She can be found on various corners of the internet, but most frequently on Twitter: @alicewcastle

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