By: Brandon Wolfe
‘Constantine’ is still in the process of putting itself together. Much of the legwork done in the pilot episode was all for naught as the show opted to change its course after that first outing was shot. As such, all of the material focusing on the character of Liv Aberdeen, the young woman initially being groomed to become John Constantine’s companion, was chucked out the window. This leaves Episode 2, “The Darkness Beneath,” with the task of setting Constantine up with a new partner, which it does in the form of Zed (Angelica Celaya), a young woman with some kind of psychic connection to Constantine, manifesting itself in visions that she sketches on paper.
Zed meets Constantine when the latter comes to a mining town in western Pennsylvania to investigate a disturbance where a miner was immolated in his shower (Constantine’s other partner, the seemingly immortal Chas, stays behind due to an outstanding warrant for his arrest in that region; it’s very awkwardly handled, like the best had to be made of a scheduling conflict). Upon his arrival, Constantine immediately runs into Zed on the street, much to her astonishment of seeing the man from her visions in the flesh. The two don’t instantly take to one another. Constantine is too mission-focused to have much time for her, but Zed, not unlike John himself, has a resourcefully sneaky side and keeps finding ways of putting herself into Constantine’s orbit in an effort to get answers. Over the course of this case, the two wind up bonding and, hey, it looks like she might just stick around. This is not unwelcome as Zed makes much more of an impression than did her predecessor.
The case in question concerns an ancient spiritual force awakened by the miners when they dug too deep into an area man was never meant to disturb. At first the phenomena only manifests itself as strange knocking, but then the members of the mining company’s upper management begin dying horrifically. In the course of his investigation, Constantine discovers that the force isn’t necessarily evil in nature. It is comprised of the spirits of dead miners who actually intend to warn their living counterparts of imminent danger. The spirits would only lash out in such a violent manner if being wielded as a weapon by someone dabbling in the dark arts. Which, wouldn’t you know, someone is indeed doing.
“The Darkness Beneath” isn’t a particularly strong outing. It’s very much a second episode, stumbling through a premise designed to show off what the show is going to look like before those behind the show have fully figured that out for themselves. All the business with the miners isn’t terribly interesting, and anyone who has ever watched a movie or TV show in their lives will figure out who the culprit behind everything is within the first five minutes (and then have to wait about 50 minutes for the show to come out and confirm it). The episode also displays a certain clumsiness when Zed meets a key figure in the plot at a bar and the man begins unloading his life story on her, unsolicited. With good writing, characters should glean useful information of their own accord, not have it simply fall into their laps without expending any effort.
What works in the series thus far is Matt Ryan. He imbues Constantine with enough character and detail to carry us through the series’ awkward first steps. After enduring the personality-scrubbed heroes of ‘Gotham’ and ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,’ it’s refreshing to be in the presence of a protagonist with something to him. Constantine has a sense of humor and can be a bit of a bastard (there’s a funny bit here where he attends a wake as part of his investigation and comes bearing an uncooked frozen dinner, the outer box of which he indifferently discards in the front yard). There’s some grit to this guy, and Ryan proves himself to be adept at conveying the character’s rumpled charm and affable abrasiveness. It’s hard to say at this point whether or not the series that bears his name will develop into something great, but for now, the character is strong enough to make one want to find out.
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