Constantine could really use a breather episode. Just, maybe, like one.
Of course, we aren’t gonna get one. With only two episodes yet from here, and assuming those two episodes will be a two-part finale, our chances of having an episode that isn’t gut-punchingly intense have just officially dropped to exactly 0%. This is a show of small (sometimes very small) victories. It’s a bleak, bleak, bleak world.
In which people are beaten to death with sledgehammers for fun.
Maybe Constantine wants to remind us that it isn’t Supernatural. Things aren’t gonna turn out okay. A week doesn’t pop up on occasion where you can just breathe and relax. The tension is gonna stay high. The losses are gonna keep piling up. The darkness is gonna keep rising.
This episode focuses entirely on John himself, but also features a guest — Ritchie Simpson (Jeremy Davies), who you may remember as the reluctant occult hacker fella from the first episode. Chas is busy trying to be a good dad, while Zed is extremely busy not-being-in-this-episode (which I’ve heard can be exhausting). Manny does pop up a couple times, but this narrowing of the cast gives us a little more time to see John struggle with someone he’s more comfortable around and can share more of his feelings with.
This guy!
While the actual storyline of this episode is solid stuff, it’s not a masterpiece, serving more as a vessel for the interaction between John and Ritchie. A lot of concepts are explored, such as grief, reality, despair, and even madness — some deeper than others.
There were a couple little burps in this episode, small enough to let slide, but that I’ll mention anyway — like how exactly did Richie know how to manipulate a reality-figment? He mentions that he knows some stuff about it and might be able to figure it out, but the whys and hows are kind of neglected. I would have gladly swapped a few scenes of teenage victims running through dark corridors for some greater understanding of Ritchie’s knowledge and how it worked. But, again, that’s more of a nitpick than anything.
This episode works really well, and has a very intense payoff that legitimately had me on the edge of my seat waiting to see how things would culminate. Constantine has no qualms about killing off minor supporting characters, even ones that seem like they may be important in the long run (<cough>FelixFaust<cough>). So, when push finally came to shove in this episode, I had no sense of safety in what I thought might happen. As I mentioned a few episodes ago, I’m pretty impressed by that.
Iiiiiit’s time to play “Spot the References!” Can you spot all the references in this picture?
To summarize, yeah: This is yet another powerful, brutal, and intense episode that may leave you thinking about it for some time afterwards. Another great episode of what has, so far, proven to be a consistently fantastic show.
Two more episodes. As previously stated, I can’t see them being anything other than a two-parter. Let’s hope for some resolution… and enough of a boom in ratings that NBC will have no choice but to renew Constantine for its immensely-necessary second season!