Constantine
Episode Title: "Blessed
are the Damned”
Channel: NBC
Director: Nick
Gomez
Writer: Sneha Koorse
Genre: Fantasy,
Horror
Runtime: 43
min
Rated: TV-14
Original Air Date: December
5, 2014
No Chas this week, so the alternating
of sidekicks continues on Constantine.
I'm not really sure what the purpose of it is, but I guess we just
have to get used to it. With Zed's presence the audience does get a
few hints into her past, and it was nice to see that the mystery
there is slowly being revealed. It also led to some dialogue between
John and Zed on religion, which felt a little out of place. Zed has
been exposed to demons already, so her initial reaction to the
possibility of an angel just seemed strange. They also exchanged
some banter on religion itself, and what it means to believers. I'm
not sure what her motivation in those exchanges was though, they both
have first hand proof that the divine exists. Was she arguing with
John's attitudes towards the faithful, or just trying to sort out her
own feelings?
“Blessed
are the Damned” also featured a lot of Manny. He maintained his
stance of staying uninvolved for most of the episode, but just having
him there really built the character. When the case this week really
started to ramp up he had a very interesting conversation with
another angel, initially about pain, and then moving onto humanity
and its collective selfishness. This accompanied this week's twist,
and it was one of the more satisfying of the season thus far. It
also left me wondering if we're going to be confronted by an angel
suffering a crisis of faith at some point, which considering the
powers available to him could be quite terrifying.
The
case this week followed a snake-handling preacher who, following a
near-death experience, gained the power to heal. It goes about the
way you expect it to go for there to be a story to be told. As
things go from bad to worse John nearly begs Manny to get involved in
the struggle, which he does, breaking the rules that keep him from
interfering. As the episode was wrapping up Manny mentioned that
their would be consequences to his actions, which has my interest
piqued. It also appears that we're finally going to learn something
substantial about Zed's past, as it's revealed to the audience that
she's the target of some sort of plot. I'm glad to see that they're
setting up a multi-episode story to carry us through for a while.
One can only subsist for so long on case of the week episodes in the
current television climate of sprawling season-long stories.
Conclusion:
“Blessed are the Damned” contained more character development
than the proceeding episodes, and was better because of it. I also
noticed that the break neck pace that the show normally maintains was
slowed down for this episode, without getting too exposition-y. With
things finally setting up for some longer running stories I think
this was an improvement over last week.
Rating:
7.75/10
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