Constantine Season 1 Episode 7: “Blessed are the Damned” Review. “John Constantine Snake bite and feathers”

US Airdate – Friday 5th November on NBC catch up on NBC on Demand
UK Airdate – Saturday 6th November on Amazon Prime Instant Video

Directed by: Nick Gomez, Episode Written by: Sneha Koorse , Series created by David S. Goyer and Daniel Cerone.

Read our interviews with Matt Ryan, David S. Goyer and Angélica Celaya about Constantine or listen to the full interviews here or read our interview with Daniel Cerone and David S. Goyer about Season one here.

Full Spoilers for the episode 7 – Blessed are the Damned follow below.

Pastor Zachary (Patrick Carroll) is looking for an experience that will lift his followers who have been dwindling since his father passed away. In order to excite and entice the congregation he reintroduces poisonous venomous snakes into his sermon. After one of them bites the minister he returns from a near death experience with the ability to cure and heal the sick including regrowing a parishioners leg.

This strange occurrence puts Pastor Zachary on the blood stained map of John Constantine (Matt Ryan) and Zed (Angelica Celaya). What begins as an episode reminiscent of True Detective or Supernatural takes a significant turn when one of the cured flock attacks a doctor and police officer while trying to make his way back his way back to Pastor Zachary’s church.

Constantine is at a loss to explain why or how the Pastor has gained these extraordinary powers so he sends Zed to use her powers when she touches him to see the truth. What is revealed to her is an angel. Having had no experience with angels, Zed begins to question everything she knows about the supernatural. John attempts to enlist the help of his angel guide Manny (Harold Perrineau) but only gets confirmation that “The Rising Darkness” has led to significantly more powerful events happening than John has experienced before. Frustrated by the lack of advice from Manny, John uses Zed to locate the fallen angel.
He is told by the angel, Imogen, that a human she was carrying to the afterlife plucked a feather from her wings sending her plummeting to earth and him back to his body with the significantly enhanced powers. It’s up to John with the help of Manny and Zed to stop this ultra powerful Pastor Zachary.

As a viewer I found myself trying to solve the mystery of why the Pastor has these powers and the reveal of Imogen adds a lot to the series mythos. That’s one of the benefits of this episode in particular is that it does add more to the overarching story, we get more information about The Rising Darkness and what it is actually doing. Manny finally intervenes/interferes to help John saying there will be consequences. The shows insistence on a hybrid of standalone episodes ad serialized elements has frustrated at times. I find it difficult when sizable events such as the fate of Gary Lester have no impact on Constantine or the surrounding characters in following episodes, I also find the transient nature of Zed and Chas (Chalie Halford) difficult at times. Some episodes they are in some they’re out there might be a line of dialogue to explain it but there may not. But hopefully with both Zed and Chas in the two-parter “The Saint of Last Resorts” beginning on Friday 12th December these minor complaints will be resolved.

Constantine, starring Matt Ryan, Angélica Celaya, Harold Perrineau and Charles Halford, airs on NBC in the USA and will return at 10PM next Friday the 12th December for episode 8 “The Saint of Last Resort” part one of a two part episode to be completed in January. Constantine is also available in the UK through Amazon Prime Instant Video the day after broadcast in the USA.

Review copy of Constantine – Blessed and the Damned provided by NBC