Culture of Pop

‘Constantine’ Review: Blessed Are the Damned

This week’s Constantine had him visiting a snake-handling preacher in a small town who gains healing abilities, while Zed learned more about the mythology of angels. Was it formulaic, a little boring and lacking in depth and character? Sorry to be a broken record, but yes. You bet.

In the beginning of the episode, Zed has a vision of snakes and Constantine tells her good, that means her visions are getting better. He’s already aware that what’s going on and knows they need to head to Kentucky to solve the case. I’m a little annoyed that they didn’t make Zed’s vision remotely useful. Yes, she’s new and should still have a lot to learn, but the way they’ve set this up made her and her power legitimately useless to Constantine. My eyebrows raised further when the episode revealed that Zed doesn’t even know about the existence of angels yet. We’re halfway through the season. Constantine only talks to three people and one of them is an angel. He’s supposed to be teaching Zed how the supernatural works? How did this not come up at all yet?

They continued to characterize Zed mostly by making her mysterious. Several times Constantine tries to attempt to find out things about her backstory and gets shot down. I don’t find this dynamic interesting. They haven’t told me enough about Zed for me to find simple mysteries like where she was born interesting on their own and it feels out of character for Constantine, who himself is mostly defined by being mysterious and stand off-ish. It is nice to see her turning inquisitive and  awe-struck around angels, but the faith vs. skepticism conversation that unfolds throughout this episode feels extremely tired. It’s like watching an echo of other supernatural shows. Lines like “how can you be so cynical?” just make me feel like I’ve seen this all a hundred times before.

This show continues to be fine. It’s not unpleasant. But, wow, I hope it finds some way to stand out from the pack eventually.

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