Constantine Episode Guide: Season 1, Episode 13 - Waiting For The Man

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

When another detective goes missing while investigating the disappearances of young girls that coincided with the full moon, Jim Corrigan brings John and Zed in to help him investigate. Unfortunately, Zed can't shake her visions of Jim Corrigan's impending death.  Worse still, John just had a bounty put on his head by The Brujeria.  And Papa Midnite aims to collect....


Influences

Alan Moore's Swamp Thing (The Brujeria), Hellblazer #4 (the basic plot involving a Satanic serial killer called "The Man"), Hellblazer #181 (Gary Lester escaping Hell to deliver a warning to John), Hellblazer: Damnation's Flame (Papa Midnite going after John), Hellblazer #63 (John taking a piss while talking to a supernatural being) and the works of Garth Ennis in general (John's jokes about lung cancer, and the appearance by The Ace of Winchesters).


Performances

It's a small thing, but it says a lot that even the usually cool-nerved John Constantine has his composure shaken by finding all of The Man's child brides laying together in one bed and Matt Ryan perfectly captures the character's revulsion and righteous anger later once The Man is in custody.


Artistry

The general aesthetic of The Man's home perfectly emulates the comics and may well be the creepiest imagery the show has brought about yet.  Forget demons and spirits - a serial killer who successfully enslaves the souls of the young girls he strangles to death is disturbing on multiple levels.


Pub Trivia

The title, plot and a good deal of the imagery and dialogue are taken directly from Hellblazer #4.

Coincidentally, Hellblazer #4 was the issue where John and Zed originally met.

John makes a crack about how he's fit as a fiddle despite his smoking - a reference to how John was eventually diagnosed with lung cancer in the Garth Ennis story Dangerous Habits.

The address where The Man lives is 4 Delano Street.  This is both a reference to the issue number of Hellblazer that inspired this episode as well as the writer, Jamie Delano.


Arcana

Spontaneous Desiccation is the act of a body becoming quickly dehydrated and mummified.

A Blood Moon is another term for a total lunar eclipse, so called because of the red-tint this gives the moon.

A Lunar Tetrad is four successive total lunar eclipses with no partial lunar eclipses in between.

Biblical Tetrads are Tetrads where the Blood Moons fall on Biblical Feast Days.  These are quite rare, with the next one scheduled in 2015.  There is a prophecy - promoted by a pair of American evangelists - regarding the End Times coming about because of the next Biblical Tetrad.

Holy Water can be used to reveal magical ritual markings.

The Diablo Cauter (a.k.a. The Devil's Branding Irons) were used by The Inquisition in the 13th century to torture witches.  Apparently they are also used by Satan-worshipers to torture people.

Full moons symbolize rebirth.

Sacrifices made during a blood moon are used to usher in the new cycle.

It is possible for a human soul to possess a corpse and use it to speak to people, as Gary Lester does to deliver John a warning.

According to Manny, sensitives like Zed communicate more like spiritual beings than most mortals. When a sensitive such as Zed is in need, angels can sense that need and respond.

Again, Manny claims that angels do not have free will and are bound by the will of Heaven.  He envies the freedom mortals have to act freely on their knowledge.

John has a Tibetan spell that allows him to "pierce the vale".  It requires a DNA sample, the right incantation and an electrical shock capable of temporarily stopping the heart.  This last element is required to induce a state of Bardo - the transitional state between two lives on Earth in Buddhist tradition.  The spell combined with the DNA sample allows John to see through the eyes of the person the DNA belongs to.

Papa Midnite raises a zombie to kill John.  In traditional voodoo, zombies are souls trapped in dead bodies, enslaved to the will of a magician.  They possess enhanced strength and durability but can be killed by head-shots with an ordinary pistol.

The destruction of a zombie can stun the magician who created it.

There is a long tradition of magicians using animals as spies, as Papa Midnite does here.  The tradition dates back to at least the time of Norse myth, where Odin made use of two raven familiars - Thought and Memory - to watch distant events. Perhaps the most famous example of this in modern culture is Saurman using ravens and crows to track The Fellowship in The Lord of the Rings.

Papa Midnite arms himself with The Ace of Winchesters - last seen in C103 - when he goes to confront John directly.

For Papa Midnite, the reward for sacrificing John is to free his sister's soul from Hell. z

John knows how to raise a zombie.  He can also create a strong enough glamour to make the zombie look like him and fool as powerful a magician as Papa Midnite at close range.

John knows a ritual that allows him to free bound souls.  He uses this to save the first three girls killed by The Man.


Dialogue Triumphs

Zed: Are you going to roll the dice on Gary's warning too?  Just wait and see what turns up?
John: Yeah. Sounds reasonable.
Zed: You can't ignore the warnings, John
John: Oh, every time I light up I have the Surgeon General harping on about bloody lung cancer and look at me.  Fit as a fiddle!
Zed: What's your point?
John: My point is we all shape our destiny but none of us get to escape our fate. So when my time's up, that's it.

Zed: What are you doing here? John says you never come when he calls.
Manny: He doesn't ask as nicely as you.

John: There's a girl out there with a depraved killer. I'm her only hope of rescue. Can any bounty be worth that stain on your soul?
Papa Midnite: I gave up on my soul a long time ago.

John: Tell me... what would happen if a man like this, after everything he's done, all the children he's's murdered...what would happen if he were... to try and run away?
Jim: He ain't no demon, ain't no ghost.  He's a man.
John: Is he, Jim?
(Jim looks at The Man, undoes his handcuffs, and draws his gun)
Jim: Run.

John: I stare into the face of evil every bloody day. It usually manifests itself as a demon, a malevolent spirit, a bloody zombie, but now...
Manny: John, you've encountered human evil before.
John: I have, but this is something else entirely. We now know what happens when The Rising Darkness meets the worst of humanity  There's not an evil in any realm more bloody dangerous than that.
(John turns away but Manny grabs his shoulder)
Manny: This thing that we've set out to do, you and I - it's working. We can win this war. Trust me.
John: (chuckles) Of course we can. You know me. I don't play if I can't win. All I'm worried about is how to spend the rest of my days after I've driven every last bastard demon back to where it belongs.

Papa Midnite: So that's it? I'm free now? What's the catch?
Manny: You'll never be free. You gave up any hope of that when you went to work for The Brujeria.
Papa Midnite: What do you want?
Manny: I'm cancelling the contract on John Constantine.  You understand? He's off-limits.
Papa Midnite: You work for The Brujeria?!
Manny:  No. The Brujeria work for me.


Continuity

The "previously on Constantine" teaser shows clips from C103, C105 and C108, regarding Papa Midnite, Jim Corrigan, Zed's visions of Corrigan dying and being surrounded by green fire, The Brujeria and Papa Midnite's prophecy that the Rising Darkness was heralded by someone close to John who will betray him.

Zed says her visions always come true eventually.


Location

New Orleans


The Bottom Line

In a fair and just world, this would have been a stunning mid-season finale.  Sadly, this is not a fair and just world and the best that we can hope for is that some magic will see fit to deliver unto us a second season of Constantine and that more episodes will be like this one.

Constantine Episode Guide: Season 1, Episode 5 - Danse Vaudou

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

The Rising Darkness has come to New Orleans. The restless dead now walk the streets of The Big Easy and are killing random citizens. And John Constantine has put himself on the wrong side of Detective Jim Corrigan - a cop who witnessed one of the strange killings and has little use for supernatural explanations or British con-artists.

Fortunately, Corrigan is quickly made to see the error of his ways. Unfortunately, the trail of accidental resurrections leads to the last magician in the world John Constantine wants to see - Papa Midnite!  But like it or not, the two mages will have to work together in order to fight the shadow that has corrupted Midnite's magic...


Influences

Hellblazer: Original Sins (Papa Midnite and John Constantine unite reluctantly to deal with a larger threat), Hellblazer: Damnation's Flame (Expanded background for Papa Midnite, including his sister being given the name Cedella) and various American urban legends.


Performances

Matt Ryan and Michael James Shaw play off of each other wonderfully as Constantine and Midnite.

Angelica Celaya adds a flirtatious streak to Zed that gives the character a new sense of life. And she does a fine job playing up Zed's competence as she spends most of the episode without John backing her up or instructing her.
  


Pub Trivia

The episode title is French for 'Voodoo Dance'.

Detective Jim Corrigan first appeared in More Fun Comics #52 and was created by Superman co-creator Jerry Seigel and artist Bernard Baily. Corrigan was murdered by gangsters but this was only the beginning of his story. Because of this nature of his death, his anger over how it occurred and his religious upbringing, Jim was offered a chance by the archangel Michael to become an agent of justice against those who had defied the laws of God and escaped punishment. Jim agreed and became the human host of the Angel of Vengeance - The Spectre.

Jim Corrigan wears a green suit throughout the episode.  In the comics, Jim Corrigan is frequently depicted as wearing a green suit when he is not in the form of The Spectre, whose robes are also green.

Papa Midnite speaks to a skull who he addresses as Cedella, whom John refers to as "the hotline to Hell".  In the comics, Papa Midnite sold his own sister's soul to a demon, turning her into "a whore in Hell". His sister slept with various demon lords and, through her skull, told her brother about the events and goings on in Hell.  Apparently this is also the case in the Constantine TV Show universe.

Zed has a vision of Jim Corrigan soaked in blood and surrounded by green mist.  This is probably foreshadowing Corrigan's eventual transformation into The Spectre.


Arcana

John makes use of a zoetrope to put Zed into a hypnotic state.  He claims the one he repaired was used by Queen Victoria's personal medium to put people into trances at seances.

John and Chas both make use of a magical bracelet that can detect spiritual activity.  It glows blue if a spirit was nearby recently and green if one is in the immediate area.  John doesn't say precisely what happens when it glows red, save that "we wouldn't still be standing here".

John has some kind of ability to wipe people's minds after he's talked to them.

We see Chas' "survival skills" in action as he is stabbed to death by the masked ghost woman and is briefly left without a pulse. Later, his wounds seal up. Apparently Chas is truly being resurrected but we get no explanation for how it is happening.

Papa Midnite's ritual to speak with the spirits of the dead makes mention of Papa Legba.  In Vodou, Papa Legba is the spirit (or loa) who oversees crossroads, boundaries and acts as the intermediary between the spirit world and the world of man.  All Vodou ceremonies begin and end with an invocation to Papa Legba, whose permission is needed to speak to the souls of the dead or other loa.

Somehow, The Rising Darkness - using the guilt of living people regarding dead people they felt responsible for killing - manipulated Papa Midnite's spells to allow people to speak to the dead and used them to raise the spirits of the dead


Dialogue Triumphs

(As John & Zed are checking in at a hotel and the clerk says she'll return with the keys to their rooms)
Zed: Two rooms?
John: Oh, I'm flattered, love, but we really out to keep this professional, yeah?
Zed: Does that mean that you respect me?
John: (chuckles) I respect everyone I sleep with. But I usually like to get to know something about them first if you know what I mean?
Zed: You want to know something about me? Just ask.
John: Where do you come from? Why are you running? And how bad is it that risking your life every day with me seems like a pleasant alternative?
Clerk (returning): Can I offer you complementary champagne in your rooms?
Zed: No, thank you. I don't like champagne.  (To John) Now you know something about me.

Jim: How do you live with it? The knowledge that all this can be real? How?
John: It marks you. For life. But it doesn't change who you are.

John: Voodoo's nothing but a magical excuse for a party.

(Papa Midnite takes a seat in the back of his car)
Midnite: Pop the trunk. I need to question him.
John: (spinning around to face him from the driver's seat) Have at it, mate! Ask me anything you like!

Midnite: We have to stop this! We have to put these spirits back down!
John: Right.  So it's, ah... WE now, is it?  I could help you, for sure. But ah... I'm going to need something from you.
Midnite: ... your debt is erased.
John: Ta for that. And ah... I have a question. For your sister.
Midnite: ... only if we are successful.
John: Good enough.

John: You know that old song about the hammer that thinks that everything is a nail?
Midnite: No.
John: You may be Grand Poobah of voodoo, mate, but that's one very specific, very narrow modality.
Midnite: And what do you know? Jackass of all trades?  Master of none?

Midnite: Hear us, gods! This spell is of our own creation! We bow to you united!
John: Well, if it's come to that, mate, these are dark days indeed.

Midnite: You are a magpie of magic! A thief of tradition! You steal from other people's cultures and beliefs to suit your own purposes.
John: Oh yeah? Well.. whatever works, eh?
Midnite: It worked wonders on that little girl you sent to Hell.
John: Well, at least it wasn't my own bloody sister -


Continuity

Zed has a vision of Jim Corrigan as a boy, being taught to shoot a gun by his mother.

Chas prefers staying in chain hotels when he travels, apparently so he can build up reward points. John, by contrast, seems to prefer independently owned hotels and the more expensive they are, the better!

We see that Chas has finally fixed his cab, as he drives it for the first time since The Pilot.

John has impersonated INTERPOL agents in the past.

John is a talented escape artist and is capable of picking the lock on a pair of handcuffs and slipping out of police shackles.

Papa Midnite refers to the events of C103 and how John cost him the record with The Devil's voice.

Jim Corrigan recognizes Zed from a missing person's report, but notes the name Zed is not the one he saw on the report. He says the only other time Zed was spotted was on security camera footage when she stole an apple and a stale cheese sandwich from a gas station.

After consulting with his sister, Papa Midnite declares that John will not be able to stop The Rising Darkness.  More, it will be heralded by someone close to John who will betray him.


Location

New Orleans


John Screws Up

John doesn't consider that the guilt of the living might be responsible for the dead being unable to rest.


The Bottom Line

Probably the strongest episode of the series so far.  Most of the show's on-going mysteries get some exploration (Zed's past, Chas' immortality) and Midnite gets some development revealing that he is not quite as evil as he seemed in his first appearance.  Zed gets to stand on her own apart from John for much of the episode and John and Midnite snarking off each other works wonderfully on both the dramatic and comedic levels.  A must see.

Constantine Episode Guide: Season 1, Episode 3 - The Devil's Vinyl

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

John Constantine has many faults but he does try to look after the few friends he has.  So when the producer on his first (and only) album turns up dead of an apparent suicide, John would probably feel the need to look into matters even if the location of the suicide weren't on his map of supernatural brush-fires. And since it is, John definitely feels the need to check things out.

With Zed in tow, John makes his way to Chicago.  Before too long, they are tangled up in a web of mysteries involving Faustian pacts, a legendary blues man and a cursed record that captured the voice of The Devil. And behind the curtain, an old enemy of John's lies waiting to strike...


Influences

Hellblazer: Original Sins (the introduction of Papa Midnite, all the information we have on John's band Mucus Membrane, and the expansion of Zed's background), Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits (mention of The First of the Fallen), Hellblazer: Damnation's Flame (mention of The Ace of Winchesters), The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (the plot is a supernatural detective mystery set in Chicago and Chas mentions getting help from a local P.I. buddy), the comic House of Mystery (the interior of John's hideout seems to match elements of the titular house) Doctor Who (John's hideout is bigger on the inside and John's enchanted playing card is reminiscent of psychic paper), The Sex Pistols' Anarchy In The UK and the American urban legend of a bluesman who sold his soul to The Devil for fame and fortune.


Artistry

The scene of The Devil coming for Willie Cole is truly terrifying.

The sequence in which John storms the radio station, armed only with a recording of Anarky in the UK is a perfect combination of thematic form and visual irony.  There's something darkly funny about John using punk rock to fight a literally evil album and trying to restore order to the world using a song about destruction.  All mixed with images of people fighting and Chas trying to destroy a radio transmitter.


Pub Trivia

The hideaway John and Chas have been using being bigger on the inside may be a reference to the House of Mystery.  A location in the DC Comics universe, the New 52 version of  The House is owned by the comics version of John Constantine and used as a base of operations by Justice League Dark.  The House is well known for having ever-shifting architecture.

The hideaway being bigger on the inside may also be a reference to Doctor Who, where The Doctor's time machine - The TARDIS - is also bigger on the inside than it seems to be from outside.

Another possible Doctor Who reference lies in John's playing card that looks like whatever the holder needs it to look like. This is remarkably similar to the psychic paper that The Doctor uses whenever he needs a fake ID.

There are a number of American tall tales and urban legends about various blues singers selling their souls to The Devil for amazing skill as a musician.  One of the most frequent targets of this legend is Robert Johnson,who was ranked 5th on Rolling Stone's list of the greatest guitar players of all time. Johnson died under mysterious circumstances at the young age of 27 and his legend seems to have inspired the tale of Willie Cole that lies at the heart of this episode.

John makes mention of having been lead singer for a punk band called Mucous Membrane.  This is indeed the name of John's former band in the Hellblazer comics.  He identifies Bernie as the producer on their first (and only) album - a single called Venus of the Hardsell.

The name of Bernie may be a tribute to Bernie Wrightson - the artist who co-created Swamp Thing and did the artwork on a number of classic DC Comics horror titles. Interestingly,Wrightson's first professional work was on the House of Mystery comic.

John can fake a Southern USA accent.

We learn a few more details about Zed's life in this episode.  Chiefly that Zed was a name she gave herself and that she has a cross necklace that she wears in private.  This fits with the background of Zed in the comics, where Zed adopted her alias after fleeing a Christian cult that was headed by her father.

Papa Midnite was a powerful magician, nightclub owner and New York City mob boss, who first appeared in Hellblazer #1. A reluctant ally and occasional enemy to John Constantine, Papa Midnite would work with John only to avert magical disasters that would endanger the world at large.  He was originally depicted as a tall, heavy-set, bald, clean-shaven man, who wore a grass skirt, white tail-coat and white top-hat when working his magic. He would later be killed indirectly by John's actions in the Damnation's Flame story-line.

In 2005, at around the same time the Constantine movie was released, Vertigo Comics released a Papa Midnite mini-series which resurrected the character and rewrote virtually all of his established background. The new Papa Midnite also had an appearance closer to his depiction in the movie, as played by actor Djimon Hounsou. His previous appearances were explained as his using magic to cause John to see what he expected to see when confronted with a voodoo priest. Most Hellblazer fans consider this story non-canon and it is telling that no Hellblazer writer felt compelled to use the new Papa Midnite in any story afterward.

Papa Midnite has returned in the New 52 Constantine comic book.  His background is still largely undefined past him being a practitioner of voodoo and his having a reluctant alliance with Constantine to deal with larger magical threats to the world at large.  The show's version of Papa Midnite seems closest to this incarnation, though John confirms that he is a drug dealer and a voodoo priest like the original.

John identifies The Devil by the title First of the Fallen.  This was the name used by Garth Ennis during his run on Hellblazer to separate his version of The Devil from the other beings who were said to rule Hell in other Vertigo series and other books by DC Comics.

Papa Midnite being a fan of Christian religious programming is not as contradictory as it might seem. In the real world, Voodoo or Voudon is an adaptive religion that has incorporated and absorbed many deities into its pantheon over time.  New Orleans Voodoo includes The Virgin Mary and various Catholic saints among the beneficial spirits who may be called upon to aid a practitioner.

The Ace of Winchesters is a magical gun from the DC Comics universe.  It was first referenced by Garth Ennis in Hellblazer #72. John attempted to buy the guy from an agent of Papa Midnite but wound up stealing the gun after the agent doubled the sales price in an effort to bleed John for more money. The gun later showed up in Garth Ennis' comic Hitman, where the full history of the gun was explained.

In Hitman (and in Hellblazer, presumably) The Ace of Winchesters was a magical rifle forged by a Texas Ranger who sold his soul to gain the skill needed to create magical guns.  It was forged using the bones of saints, gems from Hell and the steel of an angel's halo. Instead of having the ability to never miss its target, The Ace of Winchesters in the comics had the power to permanently kill demons.

Supernatural creator Eric Kripke said The Ace of Winchesters was the direct inspiration for The Colt - a revolver capable of killing demons - as well as the inspiration for the last name of series protagonists Sam and Dean Winchester.  This was one of many Hellblazer references worked into Supernatural, including the appearance of the angel Castiel being based on John Constantine.


Arcana

When we first see John in this episode, he is learning a spell.  The process for this requires John to be naked, covered in blood and chanting while standing in a chalk circle.

John's basic travel kit contains holy water, a police scanner, cemetery dirt and duct tape.

John also possesses several nails from the coffin of Saint Anthony of Padua - the patron saint of lost souls. The nails exhibit a magnetic attraction to one another and can be used as a magical tracking device, assuming someone can plant the nail on whoever or whatever they need to track.

John makes use of a Hand Of Glory to speak to Bernie.  A Hand Of Glory is the severed left-hand of a man who died by hanging, picked in amniotic fluid for seven years.  Once prepared thusly, the hand may have its fingers lit like candles and any dead bodies in the immediate area will come back to life for so long as the hand continues to burn.   The price for casting the spell, according to John, is a few days of his mortality.

John has a playing card that is enchanted to look like whatever the holder wishes it to look like.  He uses it as both a fake ID to get into a hospital after visiting hours and as a credit card in an attempt to bribe a homeless man.

Those who are near death can sense the presence of angels and "see the shadows" on bad people's souls.

The reason for why demons (and The Devil in particular) try to steal humans' souls is explained thus - a soul is basically a spark of creation and a bit of God's love given form. Since demons are denied that connection, they treasure being able to possess it and The Devil himself hordes souls as revenge for having been cast out of Heaven.  Given what we know in The Pilot of how angels react to the suffering of souls, we can only imagine that demons getting a hold of a soul is akin to giving a junkie in drug withdrawal a fix.

Soul Brokers are mortals who act as middle-men between demons and any party desperate enough to sell their soul. This is in keeping with the rule that demons cannot usually manifest on Earth unless specifically summoned.  Soul Brokers presumably receive some sort of benefit from this relationship, though the exact specifics are never explained. John describes Soul Brokers as the ambulance-chasing lawyers of the supernatural world and many of them do hang around hospitals, looking for people who will do anything to save a loved one's life.

A person who has sold their soul through a Soul Broker receives a scroll, written in blood, as a receipt of the transaction.  When the writing on the scroll fades, their soul is claimed.  The only way one can break the deal is by making their Soul Broker literally eat the contract. This act also causes the Soul Broker to lose their ability to contact Hell.

The Ace of Winchesters is a magical rifle that never misses its target.


Dialogue Triumphs

John: The Devil used to be an angel. That's why he's called the First Of The Fallen. You ask a holy type and they'll tell you the soul is the purest expression of God's love. The spark of creation. Every time The First takes a soul he's exacting revenge. Paying back The Almighty for casting him out.

(After waking up in bondage after being knocked out by Papa Midnite)
John: You're gonna have to respect my boundaries. I don't do zip ties without a safe word.

(As Midnite lays out his death trap for John)
John: I always took you for a voodoo priest with a flair for the dramatic - not a cold-blooded killer.
Papa Midnite: I do what's needed.  But I don't need to darken my soul tonight. Not with the situation firmly in hand.  (holding up a small drug bottle) A pharmaceutical dose of Vitamin K. This will stop the bleeding... if you can get to it. Consider it a show of professional respect. If you live, you'll have worked very hard indeed.  If you die, it will be alone with your many, many sins.

Manny: (laughing) What happened?  What happened to the John Constantine with the cajones to tell an angel to go to Hell?
John: Cut me loose and I'll show you, you celestial wank!

John: Thanks for joining us. You bring what I ask for?
Chas: (handing John each item as he lists them off) Headphones. MP3 player. Clean shirt. Orange juice.
John: Really?
Chas: You've got to get your blood sugar back up.
John: (rolling eyes) Alright, daddy.

(Regarding Zed's plan based on her latest vision)
Chas: I think we should do what she says.
John: Alright, but we don't have to just jump when she says it!
(John just stands there a moment)
John: OK. That's long enough. Let's go.


Continuity

Chas's cab is still broken, apparently not having recovered from The Pilot.

As in last week's episode, Zed pickpockets someone.

Chas notes that Zed's fingerprints aren't in any law-enforcement database.


Location

Chicago, Illinois.


John Screws Up

John's use of a Hand Of Glory winds up rising up an entire morgue full of dead bodies.

John gets captured by Midnite and left for dead.  His attempts to influence a homeless man into freeing him would have gotten him killed if not for Zed.

John fails to guess the most obvious reason why a busboy wouldn't be affected by the album and gets into a good frenzied yelling fit before Zed points out he is shouting at a deaf man.

John gets his headphones ripped off and would have fallen to the effects of the album were it not for Papa Midnite's intervention.


The Bottom Line

One hell of an entrance for Papa Midnite.  One hell of an episode all around. Easily the best episode of the series so far, as we see all of the cast coming together and things beginning to gel.