While the rest of the comic book shows on TV right now have been wrapping up the first half of their seasons with big finales (running the full gamut of bad to pretty good to great to I don’t actually watch Arrow so you can figure out what the other three are), Constantine isn’t taking a break. Instead, we were treated tonight to the first half of the series’ first two-part episode that is sparking the beginning of the end of this season. And it was a doozy.
So, without wasting any more time, let’s dive right into Constantine‘s “The Saint Of Last Resorts”.
Oh, and, as a note, this review’s going to contain spoilers for last night’s episode. Like, a bunch of them. So go watch it before reading this because otherwise I’d have nothing to talk about except for Matt Ryan as young, punk Constantine.
1. The Rising Darkness
Normally, I try to do these thoughts in some sort of chronological order as I progress through the episode, but I want to start big with this one, Last week, I talked about how I tired I was with this continually mentioning the illusive Rising Darkness as a plot point to explain the continued occult occurences in each episode without even giving a hint to what that actually means. You can’t just drop two words each episode as if that just handwaves any explanation.
Thankfully, though, this episode addresses that. As revealed over the course of this episode, the Rising Darkness was instigated by an prehistoric cult of warlocks known as La Brujeria who have been in hiding for eons and who have returned to seek power and combined the realms of Earth and Hell into one so that demons can have power. When you put it like that, it actually sounds like a great plot and it’s something that I’m really interested to see where they go with it. I just can’t believe it took eight episode just to get that information about it. Even if they kept the reveal of who was behind it until this episode, I really feel like the whole Hell on Earth business should have been hinted at more clearly in earlier episodes. But, hey, better late than never, right?
2. Home Alone With Zed
This episode did something that I haven’t really seen this show do before: it had a fully fledged b-story. While I’ve complained a lot about the really streamlined use of the show’s supporting characters, the episodes have almost always had a singular focus on the main story at hand. Any side stories usually linked back into the main plot somehow. But here, while Constantine and Chas head off to Mexico, Zed stays put in Atlanta to recover with her contact with the angel from last episode, a nice little touch that I really appreciated. After telling Zed to stay put and rest and then cutting straight to John and Chas in Mexico, I was expecting not to see Zed again until either the end of this episode or the next episode entirely. Instead, we actually got a nice little side story to break up the action in Mexico that followed up more on plot points from the last episode while actually connected to “Hellblazer”.
For those of you familiar with “Hellblazer”, you’ll remember that Zed is the daughter of an evangelical member of the Ressurection Crusade and one of her first appearances in the comic was her father capturing her in order to offer her to an angel. This episode hints very heavily (like dropping an anvil heavy) that that’s where the show is going with her arc as we find out that the nude model who asked Zed on a date last episode is a member of the Crusade as is luring her into a trap to be captured. As I said, this is the first of a two-parter and we will likely see how this resolves next episode and how that ties into the rapidly approaching finale, but I honestly can’t wait to see where this goes.
3. Angels & Demons
Last episode, we had angels on Constantine’s side as he fought a fallen angel. This episode, we have a nun on his side as he fights against a Goddess of Hell disguised as a nun. Are we sensing a pattern forming? No, but seriously, the parallels this show is creating by having John fight side-by-side with those on the side of the Judeo-Christian God against evil forces co-opting the identities of those of the side of the Judeo-Christian God is a very interesting move. Sure, I have spent most of the last couple of episode really hoping this show doesn’t fall down the same trap Supernatural did when it introduced angels, but the inclusion of ancient Chilean warlocks as the Big Bad seems to help with that. Still, I have to wonder whether JC will end up having to call on the Big G Himself in the finale. Now, that would be something to see…
Continued below4. Matt Ryan As Punk Constantine Is The Best Thing I’ve Ever Seen
On this week’s dose of “I Love Matt Ryan As John Constantine”, we have as follows: seeing Ryan as a younger, punked up Constantine has completely made my day; Constantine’s interactions with Sister Anne-Marie, a member of the Newcastle Crew who was there when they lost Astrid’s soul, stand as some of the best writing of John so far; and that last scene was simply heartbreaking. See, this show has finally gotten it in its head that John Constantine isn’t the heartless cynic he pretends to be, he’s just been so hurt he retreats into this awful shell of loneliness. This episode using Anne-Marie as an old flame who still holds a grudge against Constantine to really call him on his BS and use that to get some personal reflection for the character in the writing. It works really well throughout the episode, especially in what it leads up to in the final moments and, along with “A Feast Of Friends, I’d say this episode comes closest to actually getting a grip on the writing of Constantine instead of just coasting on Matt Ryan’s performance.
5. Looking Ahead
Speaking of which: next episode, John has to save his life by intentionally allowing a demon to possess him. Holy shit, that is going to be great. Don’t miss that. And if you haven’t been following the show so far, I think this episode was an indication that, even if the show does only get the one season, it will eventually make for a good viewing as a singular story. It just took a while to get there.
