It’s not really much of a surprise to me, anymore, when Constantine churns out a five-star episode like this one. It’s really more become something I’ve come to expect – even weaker episodes bring something new to the table, and at the very least we have Matt Ryan’s indomitable charm to weave us into a trance like he’s some sort of snake-charmer.
“It’s my accent. Yup, definitely my accent.”
This episode features a faith-healer who, in the most predictable twist to ever exist ever, starts “really” healing people except for the fact that his healing is secretly evil and turning the people into psychotic monsters with really bad smoker’s-mouth.
What? Just because I love the show doesn’t mean I can’t criticize it when it does something silly.
Still, despite the predictability of the general theme (no, I really thought that the faith healer was healing everyone with absolutely no repercussions! I really did!), it contains some twists and turns that are difficult to foresee and certainly caught me off guard. The show seems briefly content with the amount of character development it’s dutifully crafted, and decides to simply let the story play out rather than sitting us down for more story-time regarding each and every character once again. Of course, there are some small developments with religion as a strong factor in this episode’s themes – we get to see Zed struggle a bit with her belief or lack thereof, and most importantly, we get a lot of Manny.
Master of the “concerned-yet-slightly-enraged” look.
That’s something I suppose I should touch down on. Manny’s been kind of a confusing character for me, for a couple reasons: First, because we don’t really see much of him so there isn’t all that much to go on. Second, because my mind attempts to associate him with other Lawful Neutral angel stereotypes, and while Emmanuel plays close to a lot of them, he tends to defy them at the last second. Returned are the themes of angels as unfeeling servants, holding immense power but entirely unable to meddle in human affairs. Manny, however, shows that he has a great deal of feelings and a desire to break the rules. Despite the fact that he can occasionally seem dickish by necessity, he’s showing us more and more that he wants to be helpful, and tries to be as much as possible… even taking great risks to do so. Unlike other “rebellious” angels, however (hi Castiel), Manny keeps the rules very much in mind when he makes decisions. He never seems unhinged so much as conflicted, and it creates some very intriguing scenarios he can be central to.
This show is making it very, very challenging for me to have a “favorite” character. At this point, the entire main cast is my favorite, and I don’t say this lightly. I’ve never been one to say “well I like X for Y reason, and A for Z reason, so it’s all equal!” I enjoy picking favorites and I don’t pussyfoot around with ’em. But Constantine is really stumping me – my favorite character tends to be whichever one last had an important storyline. Or did something cool. Or had a cool line. Or just took a bath.
Did I say bath? I meant bath.
I couldn’t find a screencap of Zed in the bath. So have Zed about to be doused in water. That’s… close enough, right?
As an afterthought, John mentions “the Grim Reaper himself” in this episode. So… am I to take it that this show’s established religious canon does not feature Death of the Endless and is otherwise detached from the Gaimanverse? ‘Cause, like, that would be the Grim Reaper herself.