Note: There will be spoilers in the recap of the episode
Recap
On this week's episode of Constantine, a scared young girl is alone. Three other girls, all in white, talk to her. The three are married to a man in a trucker hat. The three girls have bruises or marks around their necks. They convince the lonely girl to marry the trucker hat man.Trucker hat man sits in his truck and a cop comes by and says he'll help him with his truck. Trucker hat man kills the cop.
Corrigan meets Zed and John in a bar. He asks about the Luna Tetrad. Meanwhile, the trucker hat man gets a blowtorch ready and heats up a brand, with what looks like a magic symbol on it. Back in reality, Corrigan tries to woo Zed, but she sees something dark within him. There's green mist floating around him because he's the Spectre. John takes a body out of its grave and uses holy water on it to reveal a brand, it's the devil's branding iron. The dead body comes to life. Gary Lester is inside and warns John that there's a price on his head.
Papa Midnitetalks to a man about collecting the bounty and the man says he'll do whatever to assist. Papa kills him and says "a life for a life."
Constantine and Zed enter the home of someone whose husband and daughter ran away. The young girl from earlier wanders around the house she is in. The three young wives talk to her. The young girl, Vesta, follows the wives in white.
Zed and John talk and Zed tells John she saw Corrigan dead in her vision. Manny visits Zed. She explains she saw a vision of a friend dying and wants to change it. Manny says she can act on her visions if she chooses to. John does some magic and gets some visions of what happened to Vesta.
Papa Midnite has made the man he killed into a killing machine. Papa gives him instructions and sends him on his way. John, Zed, and Corrigan find a cop car. Corrigan asks Zed what's wrong and says she can talk to him.
Papa's minion finds John and Papa speaks through him. John can't seem to hurt the minion. Corrigan shoots him down, and far away, Papa feels the pain. John explains it is a voodoo zombie. Zed has a vision of the policeman who was murdered. Zed writes something down and it's the address where the girl is being held. Meanwhile, Papa does some more voodoo magic and makes a crow his eyes to find John.
Vesta prepares for her wedding, in a new wedding dress. Again, this is all very disturbing. John spots a crow on a fence, which is Papa's eyes. The team approaches the door to the house and Corrigan opens it up. In the attic is the officer, strung up with barbed wire. John says Zed and Corrigan need to leave because there's trouble coming. Back at the wedding, trucker hat man returns home to spot his new soon to be wife. He's excited. He takes her away and strangely enough, the other wives are gone.
Papa shows up to the house Constantine was at with a gun and shoots John. John says that there's a girl that needs help but Papa wants the bounty because it will free his sister's soul. John offers to tempt him, but Papa shoots him in the head. It turns out that John reanimated a corpse. He takes down Papa.
Trucker hat man prays to his satanic alter and tries to get his new child bride to kneel down in front of the alter. Vesta freaks out and runs. John pulls up and enters the house with Papa's gun. He enters a room with a bad smell and finds three dead bodies in there, the wives of trucker hat man. Meanwhile, trucker hat man searches for Vesta outside.
John, Corrigan, and Zed all meet back up. Trucker hat man finds Vesta and takes her back inside. John sees this and the man runs off. Vesta is still alive. The man takes a shovel to the head from Zed. Corrrigan takes him in. But they let him go and he runs off... then BANG! John does a spell to release the spirits of the girls. Papa Midnite gets arrested. Corrigan and Zed grab a drink together. Zed tells Jim about her vision. John walks into the bar and sees the two kissing. John lights a smoke and walks out. John takes an outdoor pee and hears Manny arrive. They discuss the rising darkness. Manny says that what they're doing is working and they can win.
A cop car stops and Papa is in the back. Everything stops and the door opens. Manny shows up. He says he's Papa's savior. Manny says John Constantine's contract is cancelled and he's off limits.
The end... for now... hopefully
Thoughts
If the goal was to creep people out with that opening then mission accomplished. The Trucker hat man is just weird and creepy. This character as a whole is insanely creepy and this is a story that really fits the world of Constantine. It feels strangely grounded and although it is a villain of the week story, it doesn't come off as one.
That's why this was such a strong episode because there was a supernatural element to it but it felt real, and again, real creepy. Trucker hat man wasn't this villain that was unstoppable. What made this episode great was the thrill of the hunt. Sure, it was another episode where they had to save a child, but that's forgivable because the secondary plot of Papa hunting down John kept the episode feeling fresh.
The cast of this show is amazing. Matt Ryan is Constantine, although I wasn't the biggest fan of him walking around with a gun for some reason. Anyway, Ryan has the character down and made John his own. On top of that, Michael James Shaw does a wonderful job as Papa Midnite. It's a tad different from the comic, but Shaw's Midnite does come off as a great villain for John, much better than any of the other villains we saw in this first season.
Where's Chas? We have a season finale and one of the coolest characters isn't here? Well, he wouldn't be too much help in this situation and we already have Zed and Corrigan here, so maybe it's a good thing he wasn't shoehorned into the episode.
That ending was awesome. We've gone through a whole season of Manny helping but not doing much more than saying something and he imposes his will on Papa Midnite at the end. It's this really cool moment where you can see the winds of change for this group.
Overall, I really hope this isn't the final episode of Constantine but if it is, it went out on a really good note. It didn't have the "umph" that most season finale's have, but it was a great stopping point that really sets up a lot of different potential story lines for a future season. Anyone else excited to see Corrigan turn into Spectre? I am.