Warning: This recap and review will contain spoilers.
Recap
On this week's episode of Constantine, a group of young people are doing a ritual and get transported somewhere else. Lesson learned: Don't mess around with magic unless you're Constantine... or Papa Midnight... or Felix Faust... or Doctor Fate... etc. Anyway, there's something dangerous there. The group wakes up back where they started the ritual and is confused.
John is having a drink and a smoke and Manny interrupts him and tells him to check the map. John heads up to a college and sits in on a lecture where he flirts with a local co-ed. One of the young folks from the ritual sees something in the reflection of a window. It's a man. The college student is transported somewhere where he is killed. Back in the real world, he's passed out and looks dead.
John meets up with a teacher, Richie Simpson. John thinks something is surrounded Richie. One of the students, Adam, from the ritual calls Richie and informs him the one student is dead. Adam's friend sees something in the mirror.
John and Richie go to a candle light vigil and John tries to ask one of the students from the ritual questions. She gives him nothing, aside from the fact they were at a cemetery. John knows she is hiding something and knows Richie is as well. He heads off to the cemetery and Manny makes a grand entrance. John uses magic to discover the ritual markers inside a tomb.
Another one of the students sees a man in the mirror and gets sucked back into the house where they originally transported to. A man tells her to open the door to get away. He can't do it because he has no hands.
John reports back to Richie and says he knows it was a ritual for out of body travel. Richie mentions the diary of Jacob Shaw. Richie says Shaw traveled to another dimension to escape his fate on Earth. Adam thinks that Miranda, the woman who was taken earlier, made it back to the other realm, and he wants to go back. Richie and John chat and Richie says Shaw had a theory that if your body is killed in another dimension, you die on Earth.
Adam heads back to the cemetery and goes back to the house. Miranda has been stabbed and says they need to hide. Meanwhile, the other woman finds Miranda at the dance studio, passed out. Back at the cemetery, John discovers Adam is in a trance. Meanwhile, back at the house, Adam meets Jacob Shaw who starts slashing him with a knife. These's cuts appear on Adam's arms in the cemetery.
Back at the house, everyone who is dead is still alive in the house. They're all in the same room and Shaw enters. Shaw essentially tells them that he is going to grab a weapon and hunt them down. The house they are in is his house. This is Shaw's world.
Constantine, Richie, and the young woman, whose name I still don't know, head back to the Mill (House of Mystery). She picks up her phone and looks into it and gets sucked into Shaw's house. She opens the door to the house and the house is the only thing around. She's trapped but she can stay alive in the real world if she stays alive in the house. John decides he has to go in to save her. Manny shows up because he's nosy. Only John can see him though. Why is he so invested in this?
John and Richie do the ritual and enter the house. Richie thinks he can overwrite the world and free everyone. Richie uses the power of the mind to create a door. John is impressed. Shaw confronts them. Shaw starts slashing them up, but Richie realizes Shaw forgot to create the sun in his world. Richie creates it, which startles Shaw and Richie unmakes Shaw. the house starts coming down. They save the young woman and she heads back to reality. John realizes that Richie stays in that world when John goes home. Richie wants to stay there. Richie says in that world, he can forget about the darkness closing in on him.
John heads back to the real world and takes Richie back with him. Richie goes back to his life as a teacher.
Thoughts
What a solid opening for the show. It really captures what's coming down the pipeline for the episode.
I don't mention how much I love Matt Ryan as Constantine. The guy is brilliant and has completely captured the essence of the character. I couldn't imagine anyone better to play the iconic character. He really adds a bit of humor to the show when needed, like when Manny disappears. He delivers his lines incredibly well and he has the demeanor of the character down.
Fanboys and fangirls rejoice, Constantine had a cigarette in his mouth! Ok, I know that's not something to cheer about and smoking doesn't really define John Constantine, but in a sense, it's a part of the character. He does all these things that are bad for him, while doing good for those around him.
This episode nails the horror tone. It's not "jump out of your pants" scary, which is a scary thought on its own, but it really pushes the idea of fear for your life and the idea of being hunted by a madman. Tonally, this is one of my favorite episodes as it feels like the most cohesive episode of the season thus far. In addition, when Richie and John get to the house, we get a full blast of suspense and it's utterly fantastic. Also, they totally do not pull the punches with the violence. It's not Walking Dead caliber, but this was a pretty bloody episode with a few wrists getting slashed.
The CGI is super rough at the end of the episode. It looks a bit cheesy and comes off as super-fake.
It seems like Richie being able to have more control over the house than Shaw wasn't really explained well or at all. I guess he had a more powerful mind? Also in the realm of not explaining everything, why was Manny so involved? He seemed to be really pushing John to help but there was no real reason given why.
How Richie took over the world felt like it didn't fit the episode. It had this very "Disney-ending" feel to it which felt like it worked against everything the episode built up. However, the aftermath and the speech Richie gave during his class was fantastic.
Aside from a few bumps during the end of the episode, this was a fantastic episode. I didn't like the idea of a solo John story, at first, because I love me some Chas, but this was an amazing episode that was really just driven by the main character. Matt Ryan does an awesome job in this episode, which really allows him to strut himself as the character, which he owns. Constantine is still my current favorite comic book television show and episodes like this prove why. Sorry, Flash.
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