TV Review: Constantine: "The Saint of Last Resorts: Part 2"

John Constantine faces possession and prison in latest adventure

Constantine
“The Saint of Last Resorts: Part 2"
Review by Brandon Wolfe

When we last left John Constantine, way back in the wilds of early December, he was left gutshot and dying in a sewer by former paramour/now nun Anne Marie as a demon advanced on him. We were left to wonder how our hero could get out of a situation this sticky, and “The Saint of Last Resorts: Part 2” resolves its cliffhanger straight away. Constantine decides to fight a demon with a demon by allowing the demon Pazuzu to inhabit his body, healing his wounds and frightening away his would-be attacker. While this does indeed save Constantine’s life, his soul is a different story, for allowing a powerful demon to hang his hat in your body has predictably undesirable consequences. Namely, the new tenant is bloodthirsty and doesn’t want to leave, sending John on a killing spree that claims five lives and lands him in a Mexican prison.

The big surprise of “Part 2” is that it doesn’t concern itself with virtually anything that “Part 1” made its focus. All the shenanigans surrounding the baby placed in peril in the initial outing are swept aside, as is Zed’s attempted hijacking by mysterious forces from her past. Once Constantine is possessed, that’s the top priority for the full hour, somewhat understandably, as the sidekicks and an initially reluctant Anne Marie band together to rescue their friend.

John’s dilemma in prison is that the men he killed to land him there have friends on the inside who are none too happy with him. Fortunately, when fending off prison thugs, having a powerful demon inside of you proves to be an unlikely virtue, and the way the episode has its hero engage in brutal violence, slaughtering his enemies in vicious fashion, registers as a surprise. John Constantine has never been a true-blue protagonist, but the Pazuzu-fueled carnage the series allows him to dish out without any moral hand-wringing is a nicely nasty touch.

“Part 2” also gives Zed and Chas a good deal to do for a change, and, unprecedentedly, at the same time. Zed escapes from her captors early on and she and Chas infiltrate the prison (Zed by strutting right in seductively under the guise of a prostitute, Chas by socking the guard at the front gate right in the mush). The team congregates at the prison chapel and attempts to exorcise Pazuzu from John, something that John knows is risky and requests to be killed if things aren’t looking good. Complicating matters is that another demon, the serpent from the Garden of Evil no less, decides that now is a good time to come after Constantine.

For an episode so mission-focused, there is a decent amount of levity at play. When the team needs a distraction, Anne Marie uses her powers of bilocation to project a vision of her naked self to avert the eyes of the guards. Anne Marie is such a staunchly joyless character that such a lightheartedly amusing moment is more than welcome. And this entry is, by a wide margin, the most personality either Chas or Zed have revealed thus far, casting aside their usual junior-sidekick roles to save the big man. Also on hand for an enjoyable guest spot is Efren Ramirez (Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite) as a prison mover-and-shaker who alternately sells out and aids Constantine depending upon the situation.

“The Saint of Last Resorts: Part 2” is a decent showcase for all of Constantine’s moving parts, a smart move considering how much the show tends to concentrate upon its star at the expense of everything else. For all the busyness at play here, the episode doesn’t prove as big of a gamechanger for the show’s ongoing narrative as it seems at times like it’s threatening to be. By the end, we’re still left with more teasing for this “Rising Darkness” that no one on this show can stop blathering about. However, it’s evidence that Constantine has more in its tank than many of its more plodding comic-book-TV brethren. Unfortunately, unlike those shows, what it doesn’t have is a future.

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