TV Review: CONSTANTINE: Season 1, Episode 5: Danse Vaudou [NBC]

NBC’s Constantine Danse Vaudou TV Show Review. Constantine: Season 1, Episode 5: Danse Vaudou showed some progress for the show even though it wasn’t as a strong as last week’s one. The episode was a mere ghost story that involved some voodoo magic taking place in New Orleans. There wasn’t a big evil to face for John and his team, but we did see some team-ups between two foes and an introduction to a future DC character known to fans as The Spectre.

The last time we saw Papa Midnite (Michael James Shaw) was during the episode “A Feast of Friends” when John was trying to catch him playing a crossroads demon. Fans were denied the partnership between them but this episode made up for it as we see enemies working together. It was pretty good seeing John (Matt Ryan) and Midnite quarrelling against each other on their methods of magic. Midnite pretty much sees John as an unaligned man who has entered the realm of magic without any prior knowledge. John does the same as he mocked Midnite’s use of voodoo saying it’s nothing more than an excuse for having a party.

Despite his dislike in voodoo, John does ask Midnite in the end for help in using his magic to speak to his dead sister Cedilla to get answers on the rising darkness that John was warned about early this season. Midnite gets the answer and tells John that someone close to him will betray him. John seems to get suspicious as the answer he seeks may have him keep an eye on his team.

The episode gave us an introduction to Jim Corrigan (Emmett Canlan), a New Orleans cop who takes an instant dislike towards John during their first encounter. Despite arresting him for knowing too much on the case, Jim manages to become more open to John’s world after seeing how bizarre this case has become. It would’ve been nice if we learned a little more about Corrigan besides him working in Missing Persons for a while.

Another team build up that happened during the episode was between Jim and Zed as they went after the ghost of hitchhiker Phillip. Learning a bit about Corrigan also opened up about Zed’s (Angelica Celaya) past. We find out that both Corrigan and Zed knew a little about each other despite never having met before. Zed saw glimpses of Jim’s past through her visions seeing him as a young boy being taught to shoot a gun by his mother. Jim knew Zed from an old missing case file after the psychic ran away from her family years ago. We also got to see Zed foreseeing Corrigan’s brutal death. Zed hasn’t told Jim of what she saw, but it’s a matter of time till the lights go out for Jim. Whatever happens to Jim will likely set up the events for when our scruffy cop becomes the undead once The Spectre takes control of him.

We also see more of Chas (Charles Halford) during the episode as he was helping John deal with one of the ghosts. Even as a killer model in the alleyway stabs Chas, we finally get to see Chas’ mysterious power of healing as his wounds start to close up. Hopefully we learn more about Chas as the series progresses.

Back to this episode’s case, the situation was nothing more than vengeful spirits back from the dead only because their loved ones are ridden with guilt and are unable to let them go. It seemed at first that Midnite was using his voodoo spell to raise the dead, but it turns out that his spell only amplified the effects of what he truly wanted to do, which was to help his clients find closure. Not much of a conclusion to “Danse Vaudou” but it did raise some questions and answers about the “rising darkness” that is on John’s mind this season. Hopefully we will get more information sooner rather than later during the season.

In the end, the case turned out to be more of a supernatural occurrence rather than an evil demon like the past couple of episodes. We saw a few team dynamics being played out with our cast, which worked out well here. Chas and Zed finally had a purpose during the entire episode with a bit of some new discoveries about them.

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