Constantine Review – S01E07 – Blessed Are The Damned

Another week and another great Constantine episode.  In Blessed are the Damned, we are treated to some great contrasting character interactions and some twisty revelations.

Spoilerific Recap

A preacher, Zachary, carries a mysterious wooden box into a church.  We soon learn that it has rattlesnakes in it when his sister, Sarah, asks about it.  Using the snakes in a sermon, Zachary is quickly bitten.  Falling dead, he’s revived when a glowing feather appears in his hand.  Seeing the miracle, a man with a missing leg, Nate, asks Zachary to heal him, and instantly, Nate’s leg grows back.

In art class, Zed receives a vision of snakes.  As she prepares to leave, the male figure model, Eddie, asks her out on a date.  Reluctant at first, Zed gives Eddie her phone number and tells him to meet her at a restaurant.

Excited, Zed tells John about her vision.  John already knows and tells Zed that her visions coincide with the news reports about Zachary.  Preparing for the trip to Kentucky, John packs a sickle that he took from the Grim Reaper.  Before leaving, John tells Zed that they’ll be going on this mission alone because Chas is visiting his daughter.

Arriving to a packed church, John and Zed witness Zachary actually healing people.  But the most interesting thing that catches John’s eye is Zachary chanting in Enochian — the language of the angels.  Zed is surprised that angels actually exist.

In an examination room, a doctor is amazed at Nate’s healed leg.  Suddenly, Nate turns beast-like and attacks the doctor, brutally killing him.

Zed meets Zachary, and upon touching his hands, she has a vision of him reaching out to a silhouette of an angel’s outstretched wings.  When John meets Zachary, he asks him where he learned Enochian.  Zachary only tells John that he doesn’t question his gifts from God.

On a roadside, Nate grabs the attention of a police officer.  Pulling over and leaving his car, the officer is attacked and killed by Nate.  As Nate leaves, he runs off on all fours.

Zed reports her psychic findings to John.  She believes that Zachary is legitimate and that his faith is real.  John is skeptical because this location was on the scryed map and the map always points to evil.  Upon further investigation, John and Zed find a lake filled with dead fish — proof that the healings are rooted in darkness.  John calls out to Manny, but is ignored.  Zed is fascinated and excited that John actually knows an angel.

At the church, Sarah is concerned about Zachary’s new powers.  She thinks that he should slow down and reevaluate his new situation.

At the lake, Constantine creates an incantation to lure Manny to him.  Soon, Manny possesses Zed and appears to John.  As John tells Manny about Zachary’s ability to speak Enochian, Manny tells John to face the sun when he hears the language.  When John becomes frustrated with Manny’s cryptic answer, Manny reminds John that he cannot sway the outcome of events.  As Manny leaves, Constantine tells Zed to hum the Enochian she heard from Zachary.  After a few tries with them facing the sun, they hear an angelic echo.

Arriving at the source of the echo, John and Zed find a female angel buried in leaves.  She stands, and they see that she’s dressed in white with giant white wings.  For some reason, she’s weak and in pain.  John and Zed bring her to a barn for shelter.  The angel introduces herself as Imogen: she was taking Zachary to Heaven when he pulled a feather off of her wing; she fell to Earth as a result and entered the mortal plane in physical form.  Manny suddenly appears, but cannot be seen by Zed because he’s on the spirit plane, something only John can see.  Manny tells John that he didn’t know Imogen fell because angels are compartmentalized, part of the design to keep angels from swaying humanity.  Manny then tells John that Imogen will die because she doesn’t belong here, and when she does, her soul will be extinguished.

John sets up a protection spell so that Imogen will be safe when he goes after the feather.  Zed tells John that she grew skeptical as she got older.  But now that she knows that angels exist, she wants to ask them where her and John’s powers came from.  John doesn’t care about the source of his powers, he only cares about how they’re used.  He thinks religion and praying are useless, and the fight against evil takes hard work.

At his home, we see Zachary wearing Imogen’s feather around his neck.  Coming back from talking with a police officer, Sarah tells Zachary that Nate is wanted in the murder of a doctor and an officer.  She goes on to confront Zachary that the wielding of his new power caused these things.  Sarah coughs up blood, but refuses to be healed by Zachary.  He finally tells her to leave because she’s a nonbeliever.

John goes to Zachary’s home to confront him about the feather.  As John tries to take it, he’s thrown back by a powerful blast of energy.  Zachary quickly goes to John and tells him that it was the feather, and that it detected him as being evil.  Zachary then commands John to leave his home.

Sleeping in a tent, Zed is dragged out and attacked by Nate.  John shows up just in time.  After a brief fight, John kills Nate by stabbing him.

At the barn, John informs Manny and Imogen that Nate became a ghoul — creatures formed by magic gone wrong.  Nate attacked Zed because he was looking to be healed and mistakenly went after her — when Zed touched Zachary, she took on some of his energy.  Manny tells John that they’re limited on time because Imogen is quickly getting weaker.

Zed approaches Zachary and claims to want to join his church.  While being baptized in a lake, Zed sees her opportunity and takes Zachary’s feather.  Suddenly, multiple ghouls arrive and start attacking.  John fights them off and tells everyone to run.  As John and Zachary seek shelter in the church, Zed tries to get the feather to Imogen.  Thinking that the events are a punishment for his sins, Zachary admits to accidentally killing someone while driving drunk.  John figures out that Zachary wasn’t on his way to Heaven when he died, he was on his way to Hell.

As Manny complains to Imogen about humanity’s faults, Imogen goes too far and says that angels are crutches for God’s creation.  Manny pulls back and thinks that they shouldn’t be speaking ill of their situation.  Imogen goes on to tell Manny that she wants the world back for themselves.  Zed the runs in with the feather.

John now knows that they cannot let Imogen have her feather back.  The ghouls finally break through and attack John.  At the barn, Zed reinserts the feather into Imogen’s wing.  The ghouls at the church turn back into normal humans.  As Imogen heals, her clothes and wings turn stark black.  Manny finally sees that Imogen is a fallen angel.

Imogen tries to fly out of the barn, but is stopped by John’s original protection spell.  As John arrives, he explains that Imogen tricked Zachary into thinking that the gates of Hell were the gates of Heaven.  She placed the feather in his hand so she could break into the mortal plane.  The ghouls were created by her so that they could retrieve the feather.  Imogen then grabs Zed and threatens to kill her if John doesn’t lift the protection spell.  Manny asks what she did to be cast out of Heaven.  Imogen replies that she killed a human to see how easy it would be.  As John pleads to Manny to intervene, Manny disappears, but he suddenly reappears in Zed’s place and tears Imogen’s heart out, killing her.

At the church, Zachary starts his sermons again and begins his journey to atone for his sin.  John is disturbed by the ease of Imogen’s breaking through into the mortal plane.  Manny explains that the barrier between Hell and Earth is getting thinner — a consequence of the rising darkness.

Taking a bath, Zed answers a call from Eddie, who’s calling from his car.  Missing her date, Zed apologizes and reschedules.  When Eddie hangs up, a man wearing a crucifix is seated behind him.  Eddie tells the man that Zed isn’t coming.  The man replies that it’ll be “soon, then.”

“Hell” Yeah! Moments

• Manny finally making a stand for humanity and tearing Imogen’s heart out.

The Devil is in the Details (References)

• The Easter eggs are light this week, but we have the Medusa Mask — the mask is shown next to where John places the jar containing Imogen’s heart.  Originally three masks, they were forged together as one by Roger Hayden, a.k.a. Psycho-Pirate.  The mask has the power of the whole Emotional Spectrum.
• John makes a note that Chas is visiting his daughter.  Although unnamed, this is most likely Geraldine.  It’s unknown if this current incarnation of Geraldine has a daughter named Tricia, which makes Chas a grandfather.

Final Thoughts

This week’s Constantine episode, Blessed are the Damned, was lean and mean with some great character interactions.  John’s cynicism was balanced out by Zed’s child-like optimism.  When told that angels do exist, her curiosity and excitement was definitely endearing.  I also enjoyed the semi-twist ending and an antagonist that was sympathetic.

Zed’s character development really shined.  It would’ve been easy for the writers to go down the path of total pessimism for a character like Zed, but they added a layer of complexity to her — she wanted to believe, but started losing her reasons.  She noted that she lost her faith in religion after she was able to expose lie after lie, but when presented with evidence, she still wanted a divine power to be true.

The characterization of Zachary was also well done.  I applaud the writers for creating an antagonist that was subtle and sympathetic.  This made the overall episode a lot fresher than other shows that also had an overzealous preacher.  Zachary wasn’t all bad, and we can see that he was a man who made a mistake in his past, and wanted it to go away.

It was also interesting to see the writers bring everything back to the rising darkness and a story arc for Zed.  From the way Imogen was able to pass through planes, and Eddie having ulterior motives for his date, Constantine has definitely found the right balance between a mystery-of-the-week story and an overall epic tale.