Constantine S01E02 – Review

I described Constantine‘s pilot as Supernatural-esque, which is to say, Constantine isn’t all that different from any other supernatural series with an obviously limited budget. That may be fine for the occultoholics, but for a comic book fan and a member of an audience that’s inundated with TV shows that all kind of look the same, I need something more. Fiery special effects and excellent make-up just won’t cut it.

I’ve already gone over the show’s failure to stay true to the John Constantine of Hellblazer, Swamp Thing, The Books of Magic, and all the other Vertigo classics. I’ve also discussed why NBC won’t—and can’t—bring that John to TV. I won’t rehash any of those things here. But there are things the network can do to make its John a little more compelling, a little less formulaic, and there are no signs from this episode that it will.

The Latin-ish gibberish, for example, has to go and soon, lest the show grow too committed to the gimmick to turn back. It’s the kind of stuff you expect from bad Exorcist rip-offs—which Constantine sort of is—and it leaves no room for us to understand what’s going on. I’ve made this point before, and I stick by it: magic requires at least some ground rules to be credible. You’re just making things up as you go along, otherwise. Frankly, the less magic John uses, the better the show will be; the writers should rise to the challenge of solving problems without making the hero shed blood everywhere or pour water on his head.

Instead, the show gives itself another narrative shortcut in Zed Martin, the lucky young lady chosen to replace the drearily boring Liv. To her credit, Zed is an improvement over Liv in that she’s more assertive, able to stand up to John’s railroading and stoop down to his unsavory habits (i.e., snatching his wallet, breaking into his hotel room). This strength of personality also makes her more viable as an emotional support for John, even if you do cringe at her sensing of his “[l]oneliness, pain, desperation.”

What’s more concerning is her vaguely defined powers of “visions I can’t control. Sometimes feelings.” Seems like another way to magically shortcut through some detective work to me. Or, in the case of this episode (and probably future ones), magically send John barking up the wrong tree, even when the rest of us knew the correct suspect all along. It’s not that difficult; there are only two of them, and John latches on to one about fifteen minutes too early, not to mention the fact that the other one all but admitted her “Romani” heritage* in the first fifteen minutes of the episode.

As you can tell, the plot is not exactly what you’d call craftily constructed. O’Bannon basically finds an unusual ghoulie that hasn’t been put to use on a supernatural show yet, unleashes it on some people, and John gets rid of them. That’s good enough to pass the time, maybe, but what do we get out of it long-term? Not much out of John, not much out of Zed, and nothing from anybody else.

– Minhquan Nguyen