Review - Constantine, Season 1, Episode 10: Quid Pro Quo

Unlike some, I was never reflexively opposed to the idea of John Constantine having a more or less constant entourage following him around on his show. There are definitely merits to having the character constantly alone, particularly since it would emphasize the extent to which the abrasive aspects of John pushes everyone away no matter how hard he tries, but at the same time the sharp demarcation between those who hate Constantine and those who trust him far past the point of reason says just as much about the character, as well as providing some as yet unexploited opportunities to comment on the nature of fandom, but I digress.

All of that said, the various hangers-on only really work if they exist as characters in themselves, not merely as functional tools in the arsenal of the main character. Otherwise they might just as well be spell circles or reliquaries that occasionally deliver lines of exposition. We have gotten some hints of that sort of development with Zed in the last couple of episodes, and now we get a sudden rush of that sort of development with Chas. In this episode alone, we are introduced to his wife and daughter, told about his first run-in with Constantine, given an explanation for his extraordinary resilience, and shown perhaps the biggest piece of character development we have gotten in the show so far.

While the introduction of all this information can feel somewhat rushed at times, the backstory given to Chas is genuinely compelling and tragic, all tied up into a thought experiment that never loses its sense of the human cost of the magic involved.

The plot of the episode is - perhaps by necessity - not as interesting as everything that surrounds it, although it does manage to slip in one dramatic little twist just at the climax. Fans of the comic will doubtless be pleased at the introduction of legendarily weaselly magician Felix Faust to the show, and we will doubtless be seeing more of him down the line. Also, the last two scenes in the show may be the best that this show has yet produced.

In fact, while by no means perfect, this episode is one of the best of the series so far. And, as I mentioned above, if we are to be saddled with not only John Constantine but with his ragtag family, then developing the characters that make up that family can only bode well for the future of the series, and I will be returning to see whether the show can make good on its promising new direction.

Review - The Flash, Ep. 10, Revenge of the Rogues

This week on The Flash, we saw the return of Captain Cold and the introduction of new villain Heat Wave. As it has from the beginning, the show continues to highlight the rogues gallery of its comic book source material, which makes a lot of sense. The villains associated with The Flash may not as be as operatic and thematically resonant as those of, say, Batman, but their simple and easy-to-grasp concepts certainly make them eminently memorable.

Case in point, Captain Cold is called Captain Cold because he has a freeze gun. Heat Wave has a heat gun. And there you go, another fruitful day at the office.

So it is perhaps unsurprising that this episode focuses mainly on Barry and his personal struggles both as himself and as the Scarlet Speedster - and incidentally, I was delighted when Captain Cold referred to him by that epithet during their final confrontation of the episode.

In the last episode, Barry confessed his romantic feelings for his lifelong best friend, Iris, dispensing with what had long been a tedious ongoing source of forced tension in the show up to that point. The risk going forward, then, was that the show might merely replace the forced tension of romantic longing with the forced tension of awkward avoidance, but by the end of this episode all of that is resolved and the characters are free to move on with their lives. Well done. Somewhat belated, but well done.

The episode does not ignore the other fallout from the mid-season finale, either. The fear and uncertainty Barry feels concerning the mysterious, newly-christened Reverse Flash is the main emotional thrust of this episode, as he wonders whether those he is sworn to protect are best served by tackling the petty immediate threat of the Cold-Heat coalition or by continuing to train for the next time his new arch-nemesis zips into town.

The subplot concerning Ronnie/Firestorm also gets a look-in, with multiple hints at intrigue that will doubtless carry through the rest of the season.

The regular cast members are very good as usual, with Jesse L. Martin as Detective Joe West proving once again that he is the real secret weapon of the show, making every gesture in his interactions with daughter Iris and surrogate son Barry seem astronomically more meaningful than they might have been in lesser hands.

Wentworth Miller, reprising his role as Captain Cold, occasionally slides uncomfortably into camp territory but largely gets away with it by dint of playing a character who is clearly as in love with the codenames and theatrical affectations of supercrime as imperishable geek Cisco is.

Meanwhile, Dominic Purcell gives an oddly stilted performance as Heat Wave that actually works really well for a character who is not quite right in the head and into fire in a way that implies that he probably has burns on parts other than his arms, so well done there.

Overall, this was hardly the best episode of the show, largely devoted as it was to picking up the pieces left over from the installment immediately prior, and the conclusion was less imaginative than we might reasonably have come to expect from such a consistently smart show. But that is the thing about consistency - the troughs and the peaks remain fairly close, and even a below-average episode of The Flash is better than most of what is on network television at present. In short, The Flash is still a good show and still worth your time. In other news, let us go to our bears-pooping-in-the-woods correspondent...