Constantine
Episode Title: "Rage
of Caliban”
Channel: NBC
Director: Neil
Marshall
Writer: Daniel Cerone
Genre: Fantasy,
Horror
Runtime: 43
min
Rated: TV-14
Original Air Date: November 28,
2014
This
week we've got a mostly John goes solo episode. Chas provides the
wheels, but pretty much stays out of the way and lets Constantine do
his thing. Zed was at an art class. An art class? Yeah, it sounds
pretty ridiculous, it's not a very good excuse to keep her out of the
episode; but her presence would have made the twist at the end a no
go. I understand why Cerone and Co. decided to exclude her this
week, but that's one of the lamest excuses they could have come up
with.
After
a gorefest opening, the rest of the episode was relatively mild on
that point. With the way it opened I was expecting things to
escalate into the truly disturbing. The fact that it didn't kept
there from being any real tension in regards to the outcome of John's
plans. Without a feeling of danger in regards to the child's parents
the proceedings just weren't as dramatic as they could have been.
That's not to say that “Rage of Caliban” didn't have its moments,
there were some fun things going on, as well as some of John's
backstory and more of Manny's talk on the Rising Darkness.
The
climax of “Rage of Caliban” was one of those fun moments.
Watching John stalk a real demon, while the jump scares of a haunted
house happened all around him was a good way to slow the pace down a
little bit. Seeing Constantine in a setting that makes regular folks
a little twitchy allowed that scene to build some of the tension that
was lacking in the rest of the episode. Seeing him punch a mannequin
in the face was good for a laugh too.
Most
of Manny's appearances thus far have made him seem like a disgruntled
student in class; assigned a group project and forced to take the
least useful student into his group. Part of this is due to his
inability to directly involve himself, but part of it also seemed to
be his attitude in general. His talk with Constantine about John's
past, the abuse he lived through, did a lot to alleviate this feeling
by implying that maybe he's been keeping an eye on John for far
longer than he was aware. It might be a bit of a stretch to think of
him as a guardian angel, but he is apparently more involved that we
first thought.
Conclusion:
I wouldn't say that this episode completely stalled the momentum
that Constantine
had been creating. It was a decent episode with some creepy moments
and insight into John, but the background stuff was more interesting
than the case itself.
Rating:
7/10
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