TV Review: CONSTANTINE: Season 1, Episode 12: Angels and Ministers of Grace [NBC]

NBC’s Constantine Angels and Ministers of Grace TV Show Review. Constantine: Season 1, Episode 10: Angels and Ministers of Grace played it safe with a case involving people getting attacked in the hospital, Zed (Angelica Celaya) having a health scare, and Manny (Harold Perrineau) learning to be human. Despite this being the penultimate episode, there weren’t any breakthroughs regarding the main plot of the Rising Darkness as it was put in the back burner for now.

The episode began with a woman in a shady part of town stopping by an alley in order to meet with a drug dealer. The drug dealer gives her something to deal with the pain of her brother’s death. As she is about to use the syringe, the street lights fuse out as a shadowy figure attacks her and puts the syringe into her chest. She appears dead when the medics show up, but she miraculously comes back to life.

Back in the cabin, John (Matt Ryan) and Chas (Charles Halford) discuss where they are going next. John searches for Zed and finds her at one of the rooms meditating in order to escape her visions. Constantine tells Zed that peace won’t come for them as the impending war looms.

Manny comes by to give John a case, which is directly connected with the woman from the opening scene. After John refuses to help the angel, Manny sets the map in flames and warns John not to waste his time and use his team at his disposal. Funny enough, John managed to use Chas to get to the hospital by getting him admitted into the hospital with a screwdriver in his leg.

The episode brought in a famous artifact from the DC lore, which was Eclipso’s Black Diamond. Sadly we didn’t see Eclipso, but the purple hearts of darkness did play a role in the episode, even giving the backstory from the Spectre comics. The villain turned out to be Dr. Gaelen (Nick Gehlfuss), who shared his background working in the military and ended up having the Black Diamond embedded in his heart due to the shrapnel. The case did leave some drama for Zed and a funny side story dealing with Manny.

Zed’s health was on the line after she gets a seizure and finds out that she has a brain tumor, which was the reason behind her visions. John tries to avoid Zed after knowing the truth that he may lose another person due to his work. Almost losing Zed felt more crucial for John even though she has no relation to John’s past. Zed’s scenes with both John and Manny worked out really well. Her emotions when it came to worrying about her tumor and questioning her visions felt raw and convincing. It would’ve been nice to learn more about the Resurrection Crusade and their plans for Zed, but at least we got to see Zed evolve more in the episode.

Manny truly came out as a highlight of the episode due to his comical arc. His time as a mortal had its moments as he learned how to deal with pain, death, and even sex all in one day. It was good to see Manny out of his comfort zone without worrying about the impending apocalypse. It did feel like John locking Manny into a human body and suddenly be able to change him back at will was too easy. There were some great visual effects when it came to Manny showing his full angelic form.

The penultimate episode of the season wasn’t able to lead us into the finale with any cliffhangers, but we managed to get some fine moments with Zed and Manny. Getting her to finally see Manny was also a nice touch. Despite not being able to segue into the finale, we got some character development from Zed and Manny with a nice tie-in to the DC supernatural universe.

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