Constantine, Episode 1: Non Est Asylum
Before we review this, let's put all cards on the table. I'm not... very well-versed in the mystical side of DC comics. I haven't read Sandman, I haven't read Hellblazer, and I don't see it happening in the near future. Any knowledge I know about all the mystical aspects of the DC comics generally come from JLA stories or crossover ones like Underworld Unleashed, something decidedly more fantastical and involving more superheroes and supervillains and less about damnation of souls and heaven and hell than what we deal with in Hellblazer. Or, since we're talking about the TV show, Constantine.
But, hey, sometimes it just takes an actor. And Matt Ryan's performance as the wisecracking, snark-ass British exorcist John Constantine in Arrow's crossover episode interested me enough to, well, find out more about this character whose backstory and personality I only know in fragments from all the DC comics I've read. And, hey, why not kill two birds with one stone and review the TV series at the same time? Surely it can't be as bad as Gotham.
Well, I should really have known that delving into a TV series about demons and exorcism -- even one based on DC comics -- would involve horror. And those fucking jumpscares! We get quite a few here. Done to great effect, perhaps, but I am not someone who watches horror movies. The ones here honestly aren't that bad, because I'm expecting something to happen -- like when there appears to be something behind Liv's car, or when Talia's corpse started trashing... it was still scary when what did happen, y'know, happened, but stuff like, oh, the bloody eyeball randomly popping, or that fucking scene when the grandmother randomly vomited out black blood from her eyes and mouth... did we need that? Motherfucker.
Unlike most reviewers out there, though, I haven't read the critically-acclaimed Hellblazer and there's like 300 issues so I'm not about to start to, so maybe I'll give a different perspective from most of the reviews out there? I dunno.
Now the pilot throws us into the deep end, and, something I'm thankful about in regards with most of the superhero TV shows, it's not another origin story. John Constantine, in fact, is in flunk because of a past event that he's done which haunts him throughout this episode. A failed exorcism caused the damnation of the soul of a little girl, Astra, courtesy of a powerful demon Nergal, and it's implied that Constantine's soul is next in line. We peel back this backstory bit by bit through the episode, as well as things about why Constantine is so obsessed with the occult -- he 'killed' his mother in childbirth and has been trying to find out a way to contact her spirit. Also his father is abusive because why not.
Of course, this ends up changing as a message from beyond delivered by a combination of possession, red paint and cockroaches causes Constantine to get out of the mental institution he's in and start investigating the paranormal activities around the female lead, Liv Aberdine, daughter of Constantine's old deceased friend, Jasper Winters... and both father and daughter have scrying abilities, as well as the ability to see the spiritual world around them. While she's built up to be the female lead in this episode, and has all the hallmarks of one -- plot-important powers, relations to Constantine's dark past, and being the 'fish out of water' archetype that the audience is supposed to identify with. She apparently gets written out of the pilot, though, as I'm told, and she exits the show, spooked out by all the crazy shit happening, though not before filling Constantine's map with lots of blood dots.
The pilot episode jumps hard and fast, and while the focus is on Constantine and Liv, we get introduced to a slew of supporting characters. We've got Manny the angel, who has the ability to apparently stop time, take the place of other people to creepily talk to Constantine and has wings. We've got Chas Chandler, Constantine's oldest friend and ally who has the strange ability to apparently regenerate from being stabbed through the chest by a power line. And Ritchie Simpson... who doesn't want anything to do with Constantine after Astra's death but is apparently a hacker dude.
The villain of this episode, a demon who stalks Liv, is Furcifer, an electrical-type demon, and it's mostly just generic evilness and dismemberment and possession, though it doesn't dip too deep into horror imagery and alternates it with something more fantastical, like possessing the power cables and causing big hellfire explosions. And there's the end, of course, where he uses a fake version of Astra to try and trick Constantine. It's mostly standard stuff, a starter villain to get our hero out of his funk and peel back his character a bit, as he eventually accepts Manny's role for possible redemption and goes on a rampage to kill all demons or something along those lines.
We get a couple of nice Easter Eggs to go, too. Obviously there's Dr. Fate's helmet being the spotlight of a short scene, but Constantine's little hideout is a treasure trove of DC Easter Eggs. There probably are a lot more Hellblazer-related goodies that I'm not able to recognize, but among others we've got Pandora's Box, we've got mentions of Horus and all that -- Horus being involved in the origin stories of both Captain Marvel and Hawkman -- and of course there's Constantine summoning flames onto his hands and transitioning into one of his comic-book line arts... before transitioning again into something that's being drawn by a mysterious character. A nice little meta moment, there.
Also apparently the namecard thing from Arrow is a running joke, it seems! And apparently up until the Arrow crossover Constantine still hasn't gotten his name cards changed. Hee hee.
Overall, it's a pretty decent episode as far as pilot episodes go. The main appeal is still Constantine and just what is driving him and his hilarious dry wisecracking. I'm not sure if all the scary horror aspects sits well with everyone -- though I guess you can't have a show about demons without a couple of horrifying shots. Not sure if it will live up to the hype that Hellblazer had, and its cancellation seems to imply exactly the opposite, but the pilot's certainly interested me enough to sample a bit more. Just probably not all in one go.
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