Meredith Quill January 18, 2015 Share January 18, 2015 Episode Synopsis: Thousands of people across Brooklyn have slipped into a mysterious coma, including Chas' daughter. John must find and defeat the evil behind it before it consumes the city. Link to comment
janeta January 24, 2015 Share January 24, 2015 While i appreciate the backstory, i think the nightclub scenario was in poor taste. Or maybe i'm just older than the show's target audience... 2 Link to comment
kwerkee January 24, 2015 Share January 24, 2015 I didn't enjoy this episode as much as the past lot. Not sure why but I wasn't pumped by the end of the episode. It was, dare I say it, boring? Also, apparently, it was another story ripped from the comics. But I definitely did not love this as much as 'Feast of Friends' (still my favorite episode so far). Link to comment
Dot Com January 24, 2015 Share January 24, 2015 I think John used more magic in this episode than in most other episodes. 1 Link to comment
Grammaeryn January 24, 2015 Share January 24, 2015 While i appreciate the backstory, i think the nightclub scenario was in poor taste. Or maybe i'm just older than the show's target audience... It wasn't just you! I was grimacing and feeling queasy remembering the Rhode Island nightclub fire. Old shmold - that was 2003. 1 Link to comment
Actionmage January 24, 2015 Share January 24, 2015 Not sure why but I wasn't pumped by the end of the episode. I don't believe we were supposed to be pumped. The story was about Chas and how he seemed to be Immortal Man. The book was, probably, the 47 lives/souls that he's had and used in fighting Evil. I think it is very cool, and sobering, that Chas not only is actively using that "ability" as a weapon ( as John said), but has a way of memorializing them. Telling Geraldine about those folks is a way to explain why he's off with Uncle John, imo. She looked like she caught the tense used when Chas was talking about Ms. Smith. I'm glad that Renee got to see up close. She was such a stereotype of the Spouse Who Doesn't Understand. I just hope that seeing a man you love/d take himself out, unflinchingly, with a hand grenade shows her that he's not some ass; that's John's role. By the same token, she know knows, presumably, what the counter is at for Chas. (IIRC, it is 30 now, right?) I get the frustration she must have felt. I'm just tired of every spouse/SO in the same spot written that way, I guess. Notthat she's all uber-understanding and lurves John, but someone who isn't so openly hostile to her child's father,who is interested in having her in his life. Hey, I know everyone was tuckered out, but the hell, John? Zed is the one needing the flipping bed and it looks like you are close to pushing her out of the thing! Zed is all but on the edge and there's John all spread out. Grab a couple of chairs dude, or ask for a cot. 1 Link to comment
thuganomics85 January 24, 2015 Share January 24, 2015 So, Chas isn't Highlander Immortal or anything, but has a limit. Thanks to a wacky protection spell John put on him while drunk, he basically has 47 souls in him, so he basically has 47 chances to screw up and get killed. Well, I'm guessing he's down to 30 after this episode. But, that does make things more interesting then if he was just the typical "I'm going to live forever!" immortal, and that he can't just sacrifice himself all the time, because there is an expiration date. Mark Margolis was fun as Felix Faust, but he certainly got taken out in an anti-climatic way. But I guess it was to show that all the magic and summoning in the world, isn't enough to counter a good old-fashion hand-grenade, Achilles's heel, and a guy who can service an explosion. Zed was put in the back-burner for this episode, which was fine. Although, I guess her attempting to be a median could be a set-up for future story-lines. 2 Link to comment
Dot Com January 24, 2015 Share January 24, 2015 My question is: couldn't Chas wait until his daughter is 18 or so before he starts actively trying to use up his extra lives? Does he have to help John all the time? Or is it just because he feels obliged to John for saving his life? When Zed turned over she ended up at the edge of the bed. Then John crawled in with her. So she was about to fall out of the bed all on her own. He could have at least not had his leg sprawled out like that. But I agree he could have slept in a chair. It being a hospital bed the partial side rail thing should have been up at least. There wasn't even anything for her to hold on to after she turned over. Odd for a hospital bed. 1 Link to comment
placate January 24, 2015 Share January 24, 2015 My question is: couldn't Chas wait until his daughter is 18 or so before he starts actively trying to use up his extra lives? Does he have to help John all the time? Or is it just because he feels obliged to John for saving his life? Nah, it costs too much to have both him and Harold Perrineau in a episode so he has to keep risking his life :) 1 Link to comment
Primetimer January 24, 2015 Share January 24, 2015 Who's better at career and relationship advice than a creepy old magician? No one, that's who! Read the story 1 Link to comment
Morrigan2575 January 24, 2015 Share January 24, 2015 I liked this episode. Chas and John are my favorite characters so it was nice to see their history/relationship explored. I also liked the insight into who Chas is and why he does what he does. Not to mention the costs to himself, his family. 2 Link to comment
Happytobehere January 24, 2015 Share January 24, 2015 It saddens me that this show is all but cancelled, it is really proving to be a solid show. My one complaint continues to be the casting of Constantine. The actor still doesn't quite work for me in the role. I do however love Chaz, so I like that we got more of him and his background in this episode. Link to comment
MisterGlass January 25, 2015 Share January 25, 2015 Just had a chance to see this. It had some good moments, though it was choppy for me taste. The flashback placement felt random and forced. The dialogue also felt like dialogue in several places. Sometimes it doesn't sound like conversation, but like a series of short monologues. The part that I liked best is that Chaz had an effective plan that used his own set of skills and didn't require anything from Constantine except that he stay back. It makes Chaz more of an independent contributor to this partnership. Between that and Checkov's cattle prod, practical solutions were in the lead. I also like the idea that Chaz has a counter, and it seems fitting that this is a result of something John did at random while drunk. I agree, the wife was written stereotypically. I feel like they tried to cram too much of the dissolution of their marriage into one episode. It would have been a good idea to get glimpses of her before diving straight into this. It's a small thing but I'd like to see them start a case on location and skip the five minutes of preamble at the mill. Does anyone remember the single season "The Dresden Files" ? Canceled, of course, but the use of magic felt more organic and natural in that than it does here. "Constantine" seems to bounce from trick to trick without much actual searching. But beware, for the phone carries a terrible curse: twice per day, without warning, Letterpress will reject a word that you know perfectly well is legitimate. Heh heh. 3 Link to comment
Latverian Diplomat January 25, 2015 Share January 25, 2015 (edited) Does anyone remember the single season "The Dresden Files" ? Canceled, of course, but the use of magic felt more organic and natural in that than it does here. "Constantine" seems to bounce from trick to trick without much actual searching. Yes, fondly. It was another one of those shows that really started to click just as it was cancelled. It had the advantage that it was based on books by a single author, with a specific vision of how magic worked. Constantine was originally part of a much messier universe -- Felix Faust was a Justice League villain for goodness sake. But, I think that when the original character was created, Moore, Bissette, and Totleben turned that into a strength. Constantine was a genuine eclectic, drawing from the magic of a variety of different cultures and having allies all over the world. I don't think the show has really captured that aspect of the character. In fairness, it's one of those things that's easier to convey in the original medium, where a single page or even a single panel can convey a lot. Edited January 26, 2015 by Latverian Diplomat 3 Link to comment
Zahdii January 25, 2015 Share January 25, 2015 All I can think of is that the medium was right to not want to work with Constantine. Once again he brought death with him. He's going to have no friends left if he's not careful. 1 Link to comment
Dot Com January 25, 2015 Share January 25, 2015 When the Fire started did anyone else think that it was John's drunken spell that caused it? Link to comment
cyan January 26, 2015 Share January 26, 2015 I kind of wish the characters, including Constantine himself, would calm down about all the deaths around him. Because it's actually quite normal to have people die when you deal with dangerous people, creatures and gods who mostly just want to kill lots and lots of people. The remarkable thing is not that they die, but that John manages to stay alive. 1 Link to comment
The Real Chon January 26, 2015 Share January 26, 2015 Seems like Mark Margolis (Tio Salamanca in "Breaking Bad") is destined to blow up in his TV appearances. Shame, because I thought he radiated menace, particularly in the scene where the medium became well-done. 1 Link to comment
Actionmage January 26, 2015 Share January 26, 2015 I kind of wish the characters, including Constantine himself, would calm down about all the deaths around him. ... I think John, Chas and Zed work on the Not One More principle: Demon, devil, whathaveyou may have killed X amount of people/souls before we were aware of the danger, but you ain't takin' anyone else. For Chas, it's trying to honor the people whose souls he ended up with; trying to give them meaning, not just a sad, stupid loss. John, though, while I don't think he gives a flying fig about the individuals he tries to save, he isn't going to let Evil just walk around the planet and act like it's picking wildflowers. Good needs people as much as Evil, and it's up to the people to decide where they stand, if I am reading the series to date correctly. Every soul/life lost is weakening both sides, but Evil seems to be taking and growing and not giving a damn about anyone anywhere. So someone needs to do the caring. John's taken it on. More specific to this episode, John and company had no intention of anything bad happening to the medium. It was supposed to be a quick find-ask-locate. Unfortunately, it was a juiced-up Felix Faust behind things and with apparently a big grudge against John. Unfortunately, the medium was caught in the crossfire, as it were. John's reaction to losing another associate to The Rising Darkness was frustration, primarily and imo, because once Faust had the medium, John apparently had nothing to counter the possession or the flames. Then his twigging to who it had to have been, some toadying, self-righteous wanna-be who has taken to bullying to get "respect?" It had to piss John off mightily. I get what you're saying, but John, Chas, Zed and others often deal with people who haven't asked for the problems they're dealing with. Exceptions being the miner's wife in West Virginia, the guy whose consciousness possessed children to kill their parents, the wife who made a pact and stole the Devil's Vinyl, and more than likely, the preacher who stole an angel's feather. People across New York City didn't deserve to have their souls held hostage. John was fighting harder for Geraldine, but he was also trying to get everyone out, souls intact. That includes cops, kids, criminals, corporate types, teachers and more. John wasn't going to allow Felix to take anyone's soul for Felix's reasons. Felix Faust, in that moment, was a spiritual/magickal terrorist: Give me what I demand or everyone's souls are mine. (Personally, I was okay once I knew Chas' plan. It would've shortened the show, but it was a more succinct response, imo.) I appreciate John and company's concern, but I do also wonder if he ever smiles un-ironically or not smugly. I think we got one after Zed delivered the message from John's mom, but after ten episodes of that kind of rarity, maybe folks think this is just a slog? 1 Link to comment
MrWhyt January 29, 2015 Share January 29, 2015 All I can think of is that the medium was right to not want to work with Constantine. Once again he brought death with him. He's going to have no friends left if he's not careful. that's pretty much Constantine's whole deal, he's the guy who gets his friends killed. 1 Link to comment
darkestboy September 12, 2015 Share September 12, 2015 It was nice to get more on Chas's family life and immortality but I found this episode a bit of a chore to actually watch and his ex-wife was just annoying to watch. I did like Felix Faust but thought he should've been introduced in a much better episode than this one. Zed's scene at the end where she told John about his mother was nice though, 5/10 Link to comment
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