Constantine
Episode Title: "A
Feast of Friends"
Channel: NBC
Director: John
F. Showalter
Writer: Cameron Welsh
Genre: Fantasy,
Horror
Runtime: 43
min
Rated: TV-14
Original Air Date: November 14,
2014
It
was a lot of fun to see this story, inspired heavily by Hellblazer
#1,
brought to the small screen. None of the changes that were made to
the story really detracted from it at all, although I do wonder why
Papa Midnite was excluded from this episode. Trying to use him
judiciously at this point I assume. That aside the essence of the
story remains that same: Gary Lester comes to John having separated
a powerful demon from a dying man in Sudan, controls it just long
enough to get it to the U.S., then it breaks loose and wreaks havoc.
Enter John Constantine.
What
“A Feast of Friends” does very well is illustrate to the audience
some of the things we've been told about Constantine, but haven't
seen for ourselves yet. The pilot told us that he felt tremendous
guilt over the events in Newcastle, but he seemed to shake that off
quickly when weird came a-knocking. Here we see his guilt, during
his conversation on the subject with Gary the viewer can see that it
pains him to dwell on it, it was a well-acted scene from both Matt
Ryan and Jonjo O'Neil. Also established is that John will do
whatever it takes to succeed. We're accustomed to hearing that kind
of thing being said of someone, “A Feast of Friends” proves it's
no platitude when it comes to John.
Which
brings us to the next thing. Constantine has warned two people so
far that if they stick with him, they'll most likely end up dead,
they're both still breathing. It was important to prove to the
audience that they're not just empty words, Constantine's companions
have a short life expectancy. John manipulates Gary Lester into a
position where there is only one outcome that doesn't involve the
demon going free. He uses Gary's friendship, guilt, and desire to
atone against him. Manny even asked John if he could go through with
his plan, drawing more attention to his tendency to use his friends
as exploitable resources.
Additionally,
the audience got a little more info regarding the events in
Newcastle. John's group of hangers-on, revealed to be much less
powerful than he, got involved in something they were wildly
unprepared for. It wasn't a lot of information, but it was enough to
keep that aspect of the story moving along. Oh, and the eye scene!
Talk about uncomfortable to watch.
This
episode did suffer from a lack of Chas. After seeing John, Zed, and
Chas interact with each other in a group last week I was really
hoping for more of the same. A significant portion of the episode
occurs with John working on his own, so he's reduced to bantering
with himself. One positive side effect of this is that the pacing of
the show seemed to slow down, without John constantly talk to a
companion the scenes that needed some suspense got the chance to have
some, the meat locker scene springs to mind.
Conclusion:
“A Feast of Friends” gives us some useful insight into the
character of John Constantine, finally illustrating some of the
things that we'd previously only been told about him. This is who he
is, and these are the possible consequences for counting him amongst
one's friends. This felt like the most polished episode they're
aired so far.
Rating:
8/10
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