Well, here it is, folks. The final episode of Constantine. Will we ever see another episode? Who knows, but for the time being lets look over how this show decided to end its first season. And, boy, do I have some thoughts. Five of them, to be exact. After last week’s penultimate episode of the season which finally seemed to embrace all of the show’s working parts and using them to tell a simple, but effective story because everyone had a part to play and was affected and grew because of the story. This episode? Well, we’ll get to that.
While I usually try to keep these mostly general talk and spoiler free, this one we’re digging deep. There will be major spoilers for last night’s episode as well as the season as a whole here. Be warned.
1. Waiting For A Better Finale
I’m going to be blunt. This episode, as a season finale, did nothing for me. If it was just another episode slotted into the middle of the season I would have called it passable with some good moments. However, with this being the season finale and possibly the last episode of the show ever, depending on how NBC react to the show’s second season pilot (because, apparently, that’s how that works), there is simply too much going on with not a whole lot of consequence.
Here’s my main beef: the main story of this episode is taken from the fourth issue of Hellblazer where a dark magician kidnaps John Constantine’s niece, Gemma (here, she’s just a random kid from New Orleans), and he and Zed track him down to save her. The show throws in Jim Corrigan’s return to the show for good measure, but he seems to only serve to remind viewers the he’ll maybe eventually turn into Spectre because for some reason it doesn’t happen in this episode. The show also excises any mention of the Resurrection Crusade from the story, despite them being a part of the original story, making Zed’s kidnapping by members of the Crusade in episode 8 even more pointless. On top of that is a sideplot where Gary Lester warns Constantine that someone has placed a bounty on his head while Papa Midnite returns to try and claim that bounty.
What we end up with is basically a standard fare episode with so much going on that it almost breaks under the weight of its own subplots while not actually producing anything of consequence. It might as well have been filler.
2. Loose Ends
While the episode could have been enjoyable, it slowly became more and more frustrating as it continually failed as a season finale. It finally crystallised the fact that this season had no arc. There was no structure to this season as it continually introduced more and more elements, but didn’t see any of them through to the end. Instead, it wanted to focus on the monster of the week while introducing plot elements in the background that they really want to develop into something important while not putting the work in to make them important. The Rising Darkness/La Brujeria. The Ressurection Crusade. Corrigan becoming The Spectre. Each of these were touched on in this episode, but only to remind viewers that they exist while focusing on a filler story. If the show does get another season, then they better start making something out of these, but if this is all we’re getting then having so many go-nowhere plots feels self-indulgent and time wasting.
3. Directing 101
Being on network television, Constantine has never had much vision in its directing, but it’s mostly been serviceable. There are some standout laughable moments like in “A Whole World Out There” where the show somehow turned into Goosebumps, but for a TV show it served its purpose. Here, the whole thing falls apart. For some reason, director David Boyd jumps from location to location without ever really establishing to the audience that the location has been switched.
For example: in the cold open, we see the Man wake his three brides in their bed and tell them it’s his wedding night. Cool, it’s creepy and whatnot, but then we’re all of a sudden in what looks like Lakeside Amusement Park from Silent Hill 3 with some random girl and then all of a sudden the brides show up and there’s a moment of confusion where the audience doesn’t know whether the brides know this girl, where we are in relation to the bedroom from the previous scene or what’s going on. Eventually, we’re shown the Man’s car on the other side of the trees, but that moment of the confusion breaks the scene entirely.
Continued belowAnd it keeps happening. Midnite’s zombie just happening to be where Constantine is even though Constantine just found out he needed to be there and Midnite has no idea about the plot with the Man feels like a contrivance to introduce Midnite’s plan to Constantine seeing as the zombie poses a threat for less than a minute. The directing is all over the place and it’s not helped by a script that’s trying to accomplish too many things at once.
4. The Twist
Okay, here we go. The twist. The big reveal. The shocking ending. This might end up being the talking point for this episode, but for me it was emblematic of why this episode failed to me. On top of at least three major story threads being introduced throughout the show and outright ignored in this finale, the very end of this episode reveals that Manny has been playing Constantine this whole time and that La Brujeria have been working for him. Why? To what end? And why would Manny even tell Constantine about the Rising Darkness and continually push him towards fighting the symptoms of it as they arise and basically allow Constantine to amass a group of people who could wipe the floor with Manny’s feathered ass when Constantine finds out he’s been played? Hell if I know, because for all I know, this could be the last episode we’ll ever see of this show. Do you see what I mean? It feels self-indulgent to me to create a finale where there is no payoff to a single story thread that has been built throughout the season only to try and crowbar in yet another one at the last second.
Look, I’m not saying this show should not have introduced those elements, but to introduce them all so early with so little payoff is ridiculous. Sure, the show is victim or circumstance in that it had to deal with the season not getting the full 22 episode order, but that shouldn’t mean the show can’t wrangle together a finale to payoff one of those story threads in some way. I mean, look at The Flash. That show is introducing something new every single episode, but it’s also giving the audience payoff by introducing something and then bringing it back to further the story. Instead of having Leonard Snart show up once to hint that he might become Captain Cold and then have him disappeared for eight episodes and then show up again only to keep hinting and not have him become Captain Cold, he became Captain Cold in the same episode he was introduced and then came back to form the Rogues. That’s how you structure payoff in an episodic format where continuations of story aren’t guaranteed. You don’t just keep dropping hints and hope you’ll eventually be able to make something out of it.
5. Let’s Look At The Brightside
I’ll admit, I am being harsh on this episode. It wasn’t the worst episode of the show and, as I’ve said, if this were slotted in the middle of a season, I would not have nearly as many problems with it. Sure, the directing would still be all over the place and the script would be juggling too many things and I’d probably make a big thing about how Chas wasn’t even in this episode? What the hell was up with that? It’s the finale, for god’s sake, you can’t even write him into the finale? Whatever, the point is, this show had it’s moments. In my eyes, it’s still has a long way to go to reach the heights of something like The Flash which, while it isn’t perfect, understands the structure of the medium that it’s in and plays into that. But, you know, at least it isn’t Gotham. At least these characters feel like the characters they were adapted from. And hopefully the strength of the performances on display throughout this season, particularly from Matt Ryan and Angélica Celaya, can get this show a second season where the writing can address the issues of this season. If not, then at least this show was closer to “Hellblazer” than that Keanu Reeves film ever got.
