Welcome to the Legion!

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The fate of the NBC show Constantine is still being quietly dealt with to the point where crossing fingers for this series is turning into a tiring exercise. It’s sad to see the network taking it’s sweet time deciding what to do with the show. At least we have one more episode to watch during this first season.

Looks are deceiving in the opening scene as a business woman slinks her way through the slums just to get her hands on some drugs. Apparently she’s going through a rather tough time in her life, but it’s going to get a whole lot worse within the span of two minutes. An odd humanoid creature with enormous strength leaps out of the darkness and after the woman, giving her a lethal dosage of the drugs she purchased earlier.

At the same time Constantine (Matt Ryan) is completely stumped as to what strange creature of the night the should go after next. The scry map isn’t really telling Chas (Charles Halford) all that much about where they should go, so Constantine decides to go ahead and bother Zed (Angélica Celaya). Poor Zed, all she wants to do is have a little bit of a break, but we all know that the rising darkness isn’t going to take a breather. Constantine uses some persuasive words and a sly smile to essentially drag Zed out of her calm meditative state and back to the chase.

Before Constantine finds a new lead, Manny (Harold Perrineau) spontaneously pops into the picture, per usual. In typical fashion, Constantine is extremely ticked off at Manny for his abrupt entrances, but the angel isn’t going to take the magic dabbler’s tone of voice. One burnt scry map later (thanks to Manny) and Constantine’s all ears about the latest lead that the angelic man feeds to him. Thank goodness for that. The last thing anybody wants is half an episode of this show where our three cohorts are sitting on their hands, waiting to see which part of the scry map will start bleeding for them.

Viewers are treated to a rare occasion where not only Constantine, Zed and Chas are on a mission together but they display a few minutes of honest-to-God teamwork. Chas stabs himself with a screwdriver just to get them all into the hospital for a reason. After that, Constantine and Zed make their way towards the barely-alive lady from the beginning to see what’s going on. Zed touches the lady’s hand and gets a vision of an angel, but it lasts only for a second. After a few seconds she falls over on the floor having a seizure, something that terrifies her. This isn’t the first time that our psychic’s had this kind of episode, and now she’s in a hospital .

There’s a lot more going on literally inside Zed’s head than anybody was imagining, especially Constantine. He’s standing there watching Zed go in for a CAT scan and the results are already reflecting off in his eyes. There’s something seriously wrong with the awesome psychic, something that may jeopardize her future in being part of this dark magic-fighting team. She finds out that there’s a tumor that could be causing her visions, something that needs to be removed soon. Constantine tries to say a couple of reassuring words towards her, but now they sound empty. The two actors have this wonderful dynamic between each other, that when they’re at odds in any way, shape or form it’s easy to see through their mannerisms or eyes.

The strange being has inhabited a part of the hospital in some way and Constantine has no real clue what to do next. Chas also got shoved off very easily offscreen due to research, which turns into a reoccurring theme here. All Constantine has to do is tell somebody to do research and they’ll be gone for practically half an episode. Not cool man.

Constantine tries to clear his head, go out for a smoke, when Manny takes over a human’s body and barges in again as usual. This time Constantine has had enough and decides to trap the angel in that particular body until the spell wears off. What does that mean? We’ve got a human Manny in the house. The former celestial being is flipping out over not being in contact with the heavens, but Constantine is more concerned about trying to find out what’s going on at the hospital. No clues just yet, but at least they find a second body inside.

Apparently one of Manny’s jobs in this episode is to blurt out necessary exposition, and that’s fine. Sometimes it just has to be done. He goes off about a powerful gem called the black diamond which contains all sorts of delicious dark magic. It basically sends the user into a steroids rage of a fit, which explains how the first two bodies were practically ripped apart. Constantine eventually shoves Manny into the “do some research” section so he can toddle off to headquarters to get some wonderful black diamond substance. He’s got some of it, but not all and the explanation about how it came into his possession is a little sloppy.

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Boy oh boy, Constantine is just using and abusing all of his friends tonight in this episode. He makes Chas hold onto the black diamond that they possess just to see what evil magic lurks through the stone. Chas goes into pure rage mode – go figure – and almost burns through another one of those precious lives. Meanwhile at the hospital Manny is seen disguised in human form as another doctor and gets a little too swept up in human interactions with a female co-worker. At least the celestial being can say he experienced a lot of what it’s like to be a human male in those couple hours.

Constantine and Manny run into each other outside the hospital. Manny feeds Constantine some information about the two recently deceased folks, but not before he rips into our hero for actively avoiding Zed. Constantine brushed off Manny’s suggestions to see Zed in order to do some more investigative work. At least Manny is kind enough to go and see Zed for a moment, consoling her despite the large decision she has to make. Celaya and Perrineau are fine actors, so it’s always nice seeing their characters interact with each other every once in awhile.

A third victim is claimed and it’s still unclear as to who’s committing these crimes. Constantine tries his best to stop the person but hey, a man double the size of our hero will obviously triumph over his own strength. The two are stumped for answers, that is until Manny slips out a little story about one of the doctors. A lightbulb flickers off in Constantine’s head and he’s finally off to see Zed whose life might be in danger. Surprise! The kind doctor who’s been treating her this whole time is the perpetrator behind the murder spree. Once Zed reveals to the doctor that she won’t be going forward with the surgery, he gets pissed the hell off.

All the people who were killed are junkies who could never fully quit, despite being under the doctor’s care. So when the doctor hears this decision from Zed, he goes back into crazy black diamond rage monster mode. Constantine finally releases Manny out of the human body – something he apparently could do the whole time – and the angel swoops in to save the day. Zed’s vision about the angel was right, but it was just more focused on the future this time rather than the past.

Epilogue time; Zed is sitting at church praying quietly, that is until Constantine shows up. He barely gets a few words in until Manny shows up beside him and, for the first time ever, Zed actually sees the angel. She talks to them all about how she’s going to deal with the pain and the tumor on her own just so she can use her powers for good. Now the real question is how long will Zed last before something worse happens to her thanks to a shiny new brain tumor.

“Angels and Ministers of Grace” doesn’t really sport a lot of the flashy lighting techniques or special effects from previous episodes, but the best parts rely on great character interactions. The continually budding story arcs that are going on with Zed, Constantine and Manny are getting even more complex. Between the actors’ performances and the good story, this episode is definitely better compared to what we saw last week.

Constantine airs on Fridays at 8 PM on NBC.

Melissa is a zany freelance journalist who isn’t afraid to share her love of movies, cats, comics and Dungeons & Dragons. Follow her on Twitter @Meli_Molina & check out her drawings on Tumblr.

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Melissa Molina