As some of you might know, I am terrible about keeping up with TV shows. I DVR them and then watch them like a year later. I am still a season behind on Teen Wolf. And I'm pretty sure there's some new My Cat From Hell hanging out on the DVR. So for me to be on episode 2 of Constantine is a pretty impressive feat. I might even finish getting caught up this week (if our cable and internet stop having outages).
Well, of course with this being a show about John Constantine, I have some thoughts. Opinions, really.
Strong opinions. But I'm only two episodes in so I don't have an overwhelming amount to say yet.
Firstly, why are they pronouncing his name that way? I can understand the Americans bollocksing it up... but shouldn't John himself be pronouncing it with the long "i"? That struck me as really weird.
The first episode was solid. They must have blown a fortune in special fx. It was downright movie quality. I don't expect the future episodes to keep up with that (for one, they'll most likely concentrate on just one monster-of-the-week anyway), but just knowing that they'll be using quality special fx when they do use them and not some hokey shit is a relief.
The story was pretty good. I would have liked to know a little more about Jasper but there wasn't much room with all the introductory stuff going on. Liv was a good character. I actually liked her a bit, but I'm also insanely glad they went with Zed instead. Having a naive kid as a sidekick would have completely changed the tone of the show. Not that you couldn't make a good show out of that... but that show wouldn't be Hellblazer. You could see it towards the end middle/end of the episode how a show like that would have gone... the wide-eyed ingenue constantly interrupting the flow in order to marvel at something, be skeptical, have questions, get kidnapped, etc. The focus of the show would have shifted to her experiences because she's "relatable" or some nonsense. It would have been dragged down into "family friendly" land and never recover. Yeah, no thanks. I want to see the world through John's eyes and get in his head. I don't need another character to bridge some non-existent gap between us. So good on them for bringing in an adult like Zed instead.
Random thought: "Zed" is really just the letter "Z" in the British alphabet. So now that our lovely Mary Martin is an American, shouldn't she be calling herself "Z" or "Zee" instead? Or why not make her a British ex-pat if they wanted to keep the name? It just doesn't make much sense.
But back to episode 1, my only complaints were some pacing issues, acting issues, the way a particular line was said. Minor quibbles really for a brand new show where everything and everyone is still gelling. Also, thank god Chas lived. I, and every other Hellblazer reader, would have flipped their shit if one of the most important (and long lived) people in John's life had gotten killed off in the first episode. And he's an actual adult this time and not Shia LeBouf!
Episode two was a bit different. There was some awkward teasing of a future romance between John and Zed, which felt like the writers just crammed it into the script after the fact. Which would make sense if they had originally written this script with the Liv character in mind. There were a few parts that felt like they were meant for Liv. Mostly I really like John and Zed together. I think they work well as partners. But I'm not really feeling them as romantic partners yet. I think perhaps the way it was scripted was just too hamfisted. I know in the comics Zed was instantly attracted to John... but like there are ways to portray an instant attraction believably and this just wasn't one of them. It wasn't just a lack of chemistry, but was full of complete and total awkwardness. But platonically, I think they're fabulous together.
There were moments at the coal mine where the cinematography made me think of MacGyver. It reminded me that this was a weekly tv show in the strongest way possible. But other than those few moments, I remained immersed in the fantasy world. Still, it gave me the uncomfortable worry that the show might become just another generic supernatural show, albeit one with a Constantine flavor, rather than a TV adaptation of Hellblazer.
The Coblynau (
Knockers, really) were a really great pick. Interesting lore that has ties to Pennsylvania and the UK so it makes perfect sense that John would know all about them and that they'd be in an American mine. Kudos to whoever researched that one. This part of the plot was thoroughly enjoyable.
The storyline about the
Romani woman... not so much.
I don't understand what a Romani woman would have to do with (primarily) Welsh spirits. Why not make her Welsh? Maybe some sort of Celtic druid? I mean... something to tie her to one of the cultures these things actually come from.
And then the line: "There's nothing blacker than gypsy magic."
FOR FUCK'S SAKE, REALLY?!
Look, I haven't read every Hellblazer book out there yet. I've only read a little bit with Zed, and that was the newer stuff where she's older. But I think I've read enough TPB's to say that John Constantine is NOT racist. This line made me cringe so fucking hard. I can't even.
AND... not to distract from the
racism of the line, but it's also terribly inaccurate drivel conjured up by old timey racists and xenophobes and perpetuated by modern media. John Constantine, Mr. anti-capitalist anarcho-punk chaos magician himself, would not actually believe such bullshit. One of the things I appreciate about the comic book is that the (magic) tech is
usually well-researched and doesn't just play into cliches about what non-practitioners believe thanks to wildly inaccurate TV shows, movies, and books. John should be the one correcting these stereotypes and inaccuracies, not perpetuating them. This was just painful.
And to MAKE IT WORSE... the show heavily hinted that the Romani wife was abused by her husband. It was never shown on screen, just implied by the way she cringed and shrunk in on herself as the husband demanded food and used his body posture to intimidate her. And more than once it was stated that there was a blackness or evil rising up that was twisting things. John knew that she was being twisted and manipulated by this evil... that it was using her rage at her abuser to provoke her towards evil magic. And I'm pretty sure he got enough hints during the bathroom scene to know she had been duped and abused by this asshole. Which is why the ending where he lets her abuser's spirit drag her down into the earth is SO FUCKING DISTURBING.
Look, even if she was for sure a lost cause and needed to be dealt with "permanently", you should have picked a different fucking way. This ending was so stomach-turning. It's a complete insult to anyone who's been the victim of domestic violence.
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| Epiphany does not approve. |
I was going to end this on a positive note, but now I'm quite upset again and don't remember what it was.
I'm not giving up on the show yet... I have about 5 more episodes DVR'd I believe. I'm hoping there was enough outrage that it knocked some sense into the writers. I guess we'll see. I just really hope they the powers-that-be don't give up on John Constantine/Hellblazer as a franchise. Because I absolutely believe that the real John Constantine from Hellblazer would be a hit with viewers... but if this show doesn't pan out, it'll be because of racism, sexism, and bad writing; not anything canon from the comics (because the so-called "offensive" shit that happened in the comics wouldn't make it to network TV anyway).
Anyway, it's time to watch another episode. Let's see how this one goes.
Edit - My friend asked me how I would have resolved the episode. That's a fair question. And easy to answer. There was a ton of completely innocent miners (and other not-as-innocent people from the mining company) that she killed with her magic. John could have called upon them as a group to take their vengeance. Same basic plot, but nothing to make me want to rage-quit. There was absolutely no need to call upon the abusive husband specifically.
As my friend pointed out, John fucks up a lot in the comics. Buuuutttt... his fuck ups get called out or bite him on the ass. There is always a sense that the comic writers are aware that he did a bad thing. But there was absolutely no sense of that in this episode. I feel like the tv show writers were not expecting this to be offensive at all. (This isn't an HBO show, after all). I will gladly eat my words if the writers punish him for it in the next episode or two (ie the ones that were filmed before fan feedback). But I wouldn't count on it. I'm 99.999999% sure this episode was a one-off, monster-of-the-week sort of thing and that the writers were completely oblivious to the sexism, misogyny, and racism they conveyed, not just in John's actions but in the depiction of the wife character herself.
Ya know, I think it says something rather negative about our society that we can have a storyline approved where the main character facilitates the revenge of an abusive husband upon his battered wife with no negative consequences or judgment, but everyone freaks out at the thought of him smoking (though that appears to be a non-issue now) or being bisexual (not holding my breath for this to get addressed).
