My Review of Constantine's 1x02: "The Darkness Beneath"

Written by Rocknes S. O'Bannon
Directed by Steve Shill

Constantine (to Zed): "Everyone who's put their trust in me dies."

To be fair, so far on the actual show itself that's only been true of Astra but I guess it's a statement that will have (or would've done had cancellation not been a thing) as the show goes on. With the exit of Liv from the opening episode, this one introduced Zed Martin as she happened to encounter Constantine around the very time she wasn't actually looking for him in the first place.

Zed was the woman from the end of the last episode doing all those rather neat sketches of John. Their first meeting in a Welsh mining town in Pennsylvania was certainly a fun one as the two of them kind of flirted a bit and mostly tapped into Zed's powers in order to actually figure out what caused the rather fiery death of a rather unpleasant miner at the beginning of the episode in question.

I did like that along the way with the mystery this week, we were getting to know some of the locals a bit more, including a disillusioned priest, a father and son duo and of course, the wife of the dead miner who surprisingly enough (or maybe it wasn't in retrospect) turned out to be the one who summoned the Coblynau (miner spirits) and who also ended up getting killed by them herself when they realised what she had done to her husband.

For a second episode, it was certainly a solid adventure and there's certainly a fun factor in knowing that each week we'll be in a different place (something which Supernatural fans get to enjoy too). Like with the opening episode there were more hints of bigger things to come with Constantine and Zed clearly having some kind of destiny with one another, which for the less comic savvy is intriguing in itself.

- Not much of Chas in this episode, save a few scenes and no signs of Manny either.
- Kind of funny we had a sort of Welsh themed surrounding of sorts, given that Matt Ryan himself is actually Welsh.
- Interesting that we had a Romani witch in this episode. I hope we do see more witches in the series as it progresses.
- The coolest visual of this episode was the scene where Constantine nearly drowned in the car. The show certainly knows how to pull off a trippy moment.

While the opening episode was better, "The Darkness Beneath" was a pretty solid one too. I'm not sure if I prefer Zed to Liv just yet but unlike the latter, at least we'll get to know Zed over the course of the season and Constantine himself continues to be played brilliantly by Matt Ryan.

Rating: 7 out of 10