This week’s Constantine saw a continuation of last week’s guilt theme as we had an episode without a real monster of the week. At the same time, we still had no inclination of a greater villain, other than the “rising darkness.”
We also had two notable guest stars, in the form of the returning Papa Midnite and the debuting Jim Corrigan. Corrigan is not an extension of any deity’s wrath just yet, but he had quite an interesting team up with our paranormal investigators. Midnite was up to his usual voodoo antics and some outside forces were causing the dead he was communing with to rise from the grave.
The three ghosts provided the main storyline as we slowly built up from the one we saw at the beginning. Each one provided nicely distinct storylines that helped to spread our team out across even more places and also gave us the opportunity to see them playing up their strengths in one way or another. Even though we were working with the same theme as a week ago, this episode still felt quite distinct in all that it covered. Which could easily have been because of the addition of the forgiveness element.
Positives
There was a lot to like in this episode. Corrigan was a great addition to the show, and he had some interesting backstory teases. Though, none of that was quite as cool as the Spectre tease we got with him at the episode’s end, which was one of my favorite character teases ever. This was great use of Zed’s power, though not as much fun as Chas’s resurrection abilities. After dying once to the ghost, his later line about how long it took him to ask questions makes me wonder just how many times he died without us seeing.
On the other side of things, Constantine and Midnite’s team up was quite enjoyable. Their contradictory styles played up well with this conflict that Midnite actually sort of caused. I loved how they pulled in the element of the guilt causing the loved ones to stay, rather than simply the intended communing.
Negatives
The number of the ghosts put a damper on things. For one thing, we didn’t get to see much of their supposed killing sprees. More than that, we didn’t get to experience enough of the guilt and feelings associated with them Things were able to still have some impact, but by the end, I felt very little attachment or knowledge about the first ghost, which felt glaring because she was the first one we saw.
As much as I liked the use of “guilt” as the almost pseudo-villain, it still managed to reduce the tension a bit too much in the episode. Coming off of last week’s also reduced tension episode, I’m hoping this is an element they remedy soon.
The Verdict
Constantine “Danse Vaudou” was another great installment of the show. The storylines on the show continue to get sharper and sharper.
