by Graham Osborne
This week’s episode of Constantine manages to be both astoundingly good and frustratingly annoying at the same time. It feels like the show is trying to juggle too many balls at once, setting up an explosive second part to the storyline, but ultimately letting things get too tricky.
This week’s episode of Constantine manages to be both astoundingly good and frustratingly annoying at the same time. It feels like the show is trying to juggle too many balls at once, setting up an explosive second part to the storyline, but ultimately letting things get too tricky.
The episode revolves around another of Constantine’s old friends, Anne Marie, who was with John in Newcastle and became a nun to repent for what happened there. Constantine and Chas are called away by her to uncover a demonic entity that is stealing children from a convent, meanwhile Zed is left back at base camp to recover after the events of last week’s episode, and to bring some payoff to her mysterious past.
The action switches between the two story lines quite rapidly, generally attempting to leave each scene on a tense cliffhanger before moving back to the other plot. Unfortunately, it fails to make the tension and threat of danger believable, leaving it to fall flat before cutting. It also serves to highlight the dullness of Zed when compared to the more action-oriented antics of Constantine and Chas. Her encounter with the Resurrection Crusade members feels sloppily added in, and acts like a cheap “home invasion” scenario. It doesn’t help that it was only last week when we were introduced to the people trying to kidnap her; if they had made this a longer running, background storyline, it may have had the legs to go the distance, but at the moment it feels randomly tacked on to give Zed something to do this episode.
The action switches between the two story lines quite rapidly, generally attempting to leave each scene on a tense cliffhanger before moving back to the other plot. Unfortunately, it fails to make the tension and threat of danger believable, leaving it to fall flat before cutting. It also serves to highlight the dullness of Zed when compared to the more action-oriented antics of Constantine and Chas. Her encounter with the Resurrection Crusade members feels sloppily added in, and acts like a cheap “home invasion” scenario. It doesn’t help that it was only last week when we were introduced to the people trying to kidnap her; if they had made this a longer running, background storyline, it may have had the legs to go the distance, but at the moment it feels randomly tacked on to give Zed something to do this episode.
Juxtaposing the relative tameness that was Zed’s half of the story was Constantine and Chas visiting a Mexican Convent to deduce who is stealing newborn children. There was also opportunity to see more of the people that John has hurt throughout his life. Anne Marie is an interesting character, John’s former lover turned nun in penitence for Newcastle, it’s a shame that the actress who portrays her (Claire van der Boom, incidentally, a wonderful name!) comes across as wooden, delivering her dialogue in a stilted manner and offering expressionless questions about some of the more surreal things within the episode. Her actions at the end of the episode show a glimmer of hope that next week will see some improvement as she warms to the role, but this remains to be seen.
Overall, this episode is brilliantly told. The pacing is tight, if the two story lines are taken separately, however together, they become a bit of a fumbled mess. Next week offers up the conclusion to the plot and will hopefully see a brilliant result to this week’s cliffhangers. Next week should also see whether or not the writers will be sticking to the stories from Hellblazer closely, or if they’ll take another path and break away from the comics, at least for a while. Regardless, the show is great fun to watch, and worthy of your time, if the ratings spike for the last episode is anything to go by, Constantine will be around for at least a little while longer.
Overall, this episode is brilliantly told. The pacing is tight, if the two story lines are taken separately, however together, they become a bit of a fumbled mess. Next week offers up the conclusion to the plot and will hopefully see a brilliant result to this week’s cliffhangers. Next week should also see whether or not the writers will be sticking to the stories from Hellblazer closely, or if they’ll take another path and break away from the comics, at least for a while. Regardless, the show is great fun to watch, and worthy of your time, if the ratings spike for the last episode is anything to go by, Constantine will be around for at least a little while longer.
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