Constantine is back! And goodness, did we leave him in a bad spot during the mid-season break. Our resident exorcist is trying to save a couple of infants from being devoured by a really creepy, jacked-up looking demon (invunche), and when it looks like he and Sister Anne Marie won’t be able to outrun the invunche, she makes the executive decision to shoot Constantine, leave him behind, and save the babies.
The invunche stalks the injured Constantine in a tunnel.
I’m not going to lie, I was squealing and digging my nails into hubby’s arm as I wondered how the heck Constantine was going to get out of this one. And what was his solution? Remove all his spiritual protections and allow another demon, Pazuzu (the same one, by the way, from The Exorcist movie), to enter his body. Invunche takes a bite out of Constantine’s leg and looks ready to eat him whole, but then acknowledges the presence of the demon-king inside Constantine, and turns away.
Doh!
Immediately, the Angel Manny descends and gives Constantine a tongue lashing, quoting Corinthians 10:21–“You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.”
Constantine held the invunche off by inviting Pazuzu in, and it was both an affront to Heaven (Manny told Constantine that he would have helped if only he had asked), and a dangerous move, because does Pazuzu want to leave? Nope. He’s got John Constantine’s body, and he’s ready to take our friend for a spin.
Remember, they’re all still in Mexico, so when Constantine wakes up in the middle of a carnage scene, he gets arrested and taken to Mexican jail (Aye, Dios mio!). While he’s trying to warn people not to provoke the demon inside, he gets hold of Chas and tells him to join him at the jail, so he can conduct a self-exorcism (never mind the issues with trying to conduct a self-exorcism).
Once Zed deals with her not-so-interesting issue of her father’s mysterious cult members trying to kidnap her, she also makes it down to Constantine. And yes, Anne Marie sees the light and decides to jump in and lend support as well, though it’s her fault he was left shot and vulnerable to begin with.
Once they get into the swing of the exorcism, at the last minute Constantine decides that Pazuzu wasn’t going to “listen to a wanker” like him, and ditches his exorcism rite for that of the Catholic exorcism rite. Errr, Anne Marie correctly points out that if you’re using said Catholic rite, it’s best to get an actual ordained priest.
But this is a final Hail Mary for Constantine (no pun intended), and so Anne Marie reluctantly takes up the mantle of exorcist and conducts the rite. However, she falters, because she had never forgiven herself for her past transgression (Newcastle), but after a few desperate promptings from Zed, Anne Marie does the damn thing and exorcises the demon.
Yeah!
Now we are getting somewhere. These last few episodes of Constantine were the best of the season so far, and I think as long as the show continues along these lines (gritty, tough decisions, effective emotion and conflict), then it will be a winner! If you’re a fan of the Hellblazer comics, you may feel that the show (especially the earlier episodes) didn’t capture the essence of the comics, and I’d agree with you.
Hopefully we will see more of this good stuff.