Constantine: One Step Closer To The Rising Darkness, Then Ten Steps Back

Courtesy of NBC

Warning: Spoiler Alert

A glowing new mother has just given birth to a child in a Mexican convent. With her husband by her side and a nun playing midwife, all seems right with the world. Later that night the unsuspecting mother awakes to find a relative humanoid with animal like claws standing over the child. The nun hears screams, but by the time she reaches the woman she has been slain brutally. As you might expect, the child is not in the room.

The nun just appears in John’s lair. She clearly has no soft spot in her heart for John Constantine. She also isn’t exactly in the room. A sort of spirit walk meets hologram situation. There is a history here that will not be a benefit for John .

Ann Marie Flynn (the nun) was not only a previous ‘fling’ but also present at the New Castle fiasco. For those keeping score at home, that’s now two people from New Castle. It’s beginning to feel like they are setting New Castle up as some sort of ground zero.

John discovers what looks like a mouse-hole in the wall. Ann Marie dismisses it as such. John knows better. Before he can perform the test to identify this particular demon, the second nun walks in. This same nun ironically bumped into Ann Marie moments before the murder and abduction. She has a played up annoying innocence that gives her away slightly.

They throw a black cloth over the table anchoring it in each corner with a lit candle. John holds in his hands a number of stones. He grips them tight recites a little something about the earth and drops them on the cloth. Shortly thereafter, they begin to glow. Then they engulf the cloth in flames. Now John needs something that could be tied to the child’s soul. The nun quickly offers up that the placenta is buried in the back yard.

At the site of the buried placenta Ann Marie’s airing of grievances continues. She has a hard time unearthing the placenta when John notices something. He stands up a plucks what looks like a pear from the branches above. It’s a little off-color wise. Ann Marie asks if it’s skin? John punctures it with a knife. The fruit begins to bleed. Then the entire tree begins to bleed. Just then the father bounds out from the house gun drawn.

Father: What is that?
Constantine: A piece of human fruit, mate. Your baby’s alive. And I know who took him.

The long and short of this is that the ‘human fruit’ is a tangible metaphor for the ‘forbidden fruit’. Apparently Eve had sisters who “turned on the proposal before Eve did”. Hugo (the father) gets up to answer the phone. Whoever it is, just took another baby.

Side note. With characters like Ann Marie or anyone else that might take issue with John’s approach or tone, all they have to do is accept that he knows what behind the current. They may have faith or belief one way or the other, but John actually knows the factual truth. Which in and of itself is a burden the uninitiated don’t carry. So pump the brakes sister.

The strange art class model with an agenda that goes far beyond anything Zed can recognize is back. In the last episode a strange man sat in the back of his car when he got stood up by Zed. He invites her out for drinks. She goes to pay for her art supplies. He sends a text. “I got her”. On their impromptu date, Zed accidentally makes contact with this man’s hand. Instant vision. The dark tones of the bar are replaced with their complete opposite. His black leather Members Only jacket is now white and the backdrop that used to be a bar is now the inside of what looks like a padded cell built-in the vein of a bank vault. His intentions are the opposite of what they seem, perhaps? Before John left Zed in the house, he said the house would protect her. So, she offers to continue this drinking contest at her place.

The new victims of this baby snatching demon, if you can believe it, are the son and girlfriend of the first father (and coincidentally police detective). Father #1 is now grandfather #1 in this scenario. The real fun part is that the newest mother is a complete stranger to Detective Grandpa.

John gives Ann Marie the cold shoulder and belittled her faith to be polite, to get her to let him work. Outside there is a fountain in the courtyard. John has laid out a train of earthworms along the edge of the fountain. He begins his incantation when annoying bubbly nun comes by. Her tone evolves from annoyingly innocent to downright rude. John excuses himself to rinse out his bowl, giving him just enough to identify the creature without the incantation.

Believing that this nun is the demonic sister in question, he opts to just flat-out ask. He spouts off four names before the fifth triggers something. Full disclosure, I was not prepared for a Lilith story this soon. Luckily it’s not Lilith. Luckily it turns out to be Lamastu. The very sound of her real name sends her into a rage. Shedding her human appearance, she attacks John submerging his head below the fountain’s water. John struggles long enough to pull his knife and stab her in the abdomen. Blood shoots from her torso, then she flees.

Zed gets back to the house with loverboy in tow. She kisses him to distract him long enough to get him in a compromising position. She demands to know why he is stalking her. His reply was slightly unexpected. Significant enough for Zed to knock him out though.

Zed: Why are you following me?
Loverboy: Your father wants you home.
Zed: What did you say?
Loverboy: We just want to talk to you. Mary.

Lamastu is the younger sister of Eve and a glorified vampire. As the lore goes, she doesn’t kidnap babies. She feeds from them. The fact that she is taking the babies and not just devouring them is peculiar. Especially since it seems Hugo’s family is being targeted. Ann Marie’s idea is to speak to someone who knows the family history. Grandma Pia. Hugo gives a two-line explanation and that’s all it takes. Pia knows clearly what the answer is.

We try admirably to get the characters and spellings as close as we can guess or find with a show like this. Especially since the context of this show is wrapped in a lore that not everyone is up to speed on. However, I’m not even going to try to spell this one. The cliff notes are that there is a prehistoric line of Warlocks who have been gone so long, that they belong in the ‘extinct’ section of any reference material that might speak of them. Grandma Pia retorts that they are not gone, only hiding.

Before we continue, let me amend the previous thought. I am not going to attempt the spelling tonight. For reasons you’ll read momentarily, I am compelled to research this for next week and beyond as these ‘warlocks’ just became a critical piece in our season long game of chess.

John: It don’t add up. Brucareu (??) wield a kind of magic that the world hasn’t seen since God turned on the lights. He struck them down. Not even hell would give them asylum. They were annihilated.
Ann Marie: You don’t believe them.
John: I can’t believe them. I don’t have a spell to take down the Brucareu, nobody does. She’s speaking gibberish.
Ann Marie: Then why are you scared.
John: I’m not scared. If the Brucareu were back we’d know it. It wouldn’t be subtle…
Ann Marie: What is it?
John: The ‘Rising Darkness’. The one I checked myself out of an asylum to fight.

Since Lamastu or the Brucareu are looking for a baby that has Hugo’s blood, that’s exactly what they plan to give them. A thawed chicken carcass will be injected with Hugo’s blood, a glamour spell will give it the appearance of an infant. Then, they can just follow the bad thing to the holding cell.
Eddie (loverboy) wakes slowly to find he’s been strapped to the banister. Then there is a cult like tone to his answers. “Our Father” only wants what’s best for you. “We have followers everywhere”. Then we get a small glimpse into Zed’s childhood. Or at least the part that involves being locked in a room against her will. Then two more people enter the house. These two Zed seems to recognize immediately. They both raise a gun and point it at Zed. This is about the time I’m expecting the house to start protecting her.

“Take this child into a dark room and give it eternal life” Ann Marie says just above a whisper. It works. Up to an including the glamour spell. And just as it goes every single time you involve a man/woman who has no perspective for what they are dealing with, Hugo decides that firing bullets at Lamastu seemed like a good idea. Luckily, all is not lost.

Zed is being chased by the recognized man and woman. By the way, the house is doing a very unimpressive job protecting her. Zed leads the woman down a corridor and eventually flings her through the door that John advised against opening back in episode two. The other side of the door seems to be a misty abyss of some sort.

John and Ann Marie successfully find the location of the stolen babies, underground in a sewer like arrangement. They grab them and turn to leave. Just then the blood soaked chicken carcass lands near their feet. Lamastu appears in more of a ‘willingness to talk’ sort of way. Demanding and repulsive to be sure, but at least speaking now. Then we have a standoff. John threatening to kill the thing she is supposed to deliver to the Brucareu intact. While holding the child inches above the water, Lamastu almost gladly hints at the plan. The Brucareu will attempt to fuse all realms together. Imagine a typical hell on earth scenario.

Earlier in an attempt to protect Ann Marie, John puts around her neck a talisman. It has some connection to an entity very familiar to Lamastu. Her once soul mate turned sworn enemy. With the information gathered and the children safe (for now) John takes the talisman lays it down in the mist of the sewer and utters a few words. Then more words. Then louder words. A blue fire engulfs everything in front of John and Ann Marie, including Lamastu.

The pair of assailants after Zed is now down to one. He sneaks up behind Zed and injects her in the neck with something that looks like Pepto. This would be a great time for the house to get off its lazy tookus and do something.

As they attempt to leave the sewer, they hear more baby screams. They turn to consider if they missed one. What they find is almost indescribable. It has flesh and a head. Human like in shape and texture. But the head does not have eyes or really any other recognizable features. It also moves like it’s crawling but it only has three appendages. John cannot believe what he’s seeing. What’s more he has no idea what to do next. Too bad for him, Ann Marie does. For the moment at least, her master plan is the whole “You’re not faster than a bear. No, but I’m faster than you” scheme. If she shoots John, the creature will attack John and not the children.

Wow. And she actually did it. “No price is too expensive to protect the innocent”. Wow are you stupid. Sure, the line has merit. But not if the price you are willing to pay is the only thing preventing complete and all out hell on earth. Awesome, you saved two babies that would be destined to die a painful horrible death in the not distant future without John Constantine. Whom you just shot, because your morality thinks it has everything figured out.

Care of the following week’s promo we get to see exactly what cost will have to be paid to get John Constantine passed Ann Marie’s stupidity. Even if this wasn’t a two parter episode, I would still strongly suggest you check back here at NJATVS. The stakes just got raised.