TV Recap: Constantine, ‘Waiting for the Man’

SPOILERS AHEAD

Waiting for the Man Plot Summary:

Detective Corrigan (Emmett J. Scanlan) calls John (Matthew Ryan) and Zed (Angélica Celaya) to New Orleans when Satanist known as “The Man” kidnaps a local girl to make him his virgin (corpse) bride. Gary Lester (Jonjo O’Neill) comes back to tell their is a price on the head of Constantine and Papa Midnite (Michael James Shaw) is out to collect.

SPOILERS AHEAD – YOU’VE BEEN WARNED TWICE

So, this is it. Or is it?

“Waiting for the Man,” the final episode in Constantine’s 13-episode run, was solid. “The Man” was a fun but hollow villain. He was creepy as all hell and his child corpse brides were a nice morbid touch. However, he never felt like that much of a threat, but maybe he wasn’t supposed to be. He was a regular human being after all. Maybe that’s what makes him worse. He has no powers, no supernatural qualities, nothing. Yet that might make him even more of a monster.

While this is a really good point, it just didn’t feel like the stuff for a proper season (and possible series) finale.

It felt as though the series was going to end with John Constantine walking into the rain, cigarette in mouth, smirk scrawled across his face. It’s a great ending for a mid-season episode, but for a conclusion to a season it felt flat.

Then we all got punched in the collective mouth with a twist none of us saw coming.

Once we leave Constantine in the rain, we get a scene of Manny (Harold Perrineau) confronting Papa Midnite. He frees Midnite from the grasps of the New Orleans Police Department, much to Midnite’s (and our) surprise. He demands Midnite drop his pursuit of the bounty on Constantine’s head. To the audience this makes perfect and utter sense, he is Constantine’s friend/ally.

Then he drops the bomb — Manny is the one running La Brujería — the ancient force that is causing the Rising Darkness.

HOLY HELL.

The twist came out of nowhere, and comes at the very last second. It leaves you with your mouth agape, wanting more. They can’t end now – we need to know so much more. Perfect ending. Well played, Constantine.

This revelation gives this writer hope — Constantine can’t leave us hanging like this. It has to come back for Season 2, whether on NBC, SyFy, a streaming service or what you have. This show cannot die, we cannot be left on this note. There’s so much fertile ground that needs to be tilled here. We need to discover Manny’s motives, we need to see John’s reaction to finding out Manny is behind La Brujería. We need to see how this impacts Zed.

The excitement we’re left with is the kind of excitement a well-written series is supposed to give you at the end of a season. This entire run for Constantine has had a black cloud of cancellation hovering over head, but it seems as the writers did not give a damn about that. They had their story and they were going to write it to perfect. Constantine is an awesome series and if NBC does the right thing it’ll see a second season very soon.

Rating: 8 out of 10

You can catch Constantine on Hulu.

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Bill Bodkin is the Owner, Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Pop-Break. Most importantly, however, he is the proud father of a beauty daughter, Sophie. He is beyond excited that Pop-Break will be six years old in 2015 as this site has come a long, long way from the day he launched in it in his bachelor pad at the Jersey Shore. He can be read every Monday for the Happy Mondays Interview Series as well as his weekly reviews on Law & Order: SVU, Mad Men and Hannibal. His goal, once again, is to write 500 stories this year (a goal he accomplished in 2014). He is a graduate of Rutgers University with a degree in Journalism & English. Follow him on Twitter: @PopBreakDotCom
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