Constantine Review: Rage of Caliban

The show opens inside a house that has been completely wrecked, with the inhabitants clinging to life. At the hospital, the cops are attempting to comfort Emily Cooper (Christa Beth Campbell), who happens to be the only survivor from the incident. She seems to have telekinesis abilities. Meanwhile, John Constantine (Matt Ryan) is thrown out of bed, by a one-night stand. Next, he decides to travel to Birmingham.

Zed (Angelica Celaya) is nowhere to be found, as John and Chas (Charles Halford) break into the crime scene. John pretends to be Wilfred, as he sniffs and licks the walls, before being interrupted by Manny (Harold Perrineau), who explains John is dealing with stronger evils and his old methods may no longer work. After a little hocus pocus, John believes that Emily was possessed and the spirit will likely attack another child.

Next, we meet Henry (Max Charles), who is comforted and then scared to death by his father, Daryl (Niall Matter). We also met Henry’s mother, Clarie (Laura Regan). That night, Henry is attacked by a spirit. When the show returns, Henry is clearly possessed, while Constantine gets an encounter from a friend (Amy Parrish), who provides him with information regarding Emily. They discover similar incidents have been occurring over a period of twenty years, with three in the past few months. The pair decide to make contact with an early survivor, Marcello Panneti (Sean Freeland), who killed his family with an axe.

Constantine attempts to communicate with Panneti, who is stoic and stone-faced, with no reaction. In the meantime, Henry and the spirit are beginning to play around with Daryl, who steps on lightbulbs.

Constantine sympathizes with Marcello, before discovering that all of the victim’s homes line up in a straight line on a map. Meanwhile, Henry becomes a dog whisperer, as he calms a ferocious pit bull with his mind. Claire and Henry are prepared to carve pumpkins, but Henry seems more interested in carving up his mother, but somehow resists his urges. When Claire tries to enter the house, a bird smashes into the door.

John and Chas track down the house and decide to wait for an attack, while Henry grows more psychotic inside. When the returns, Henry is at school getting picked on. Constantine tries to get the teacher to stop the fight, but the teacher is a full blown idiot and ignores it. Sound familiar? John visits the family home and pretends to be with the school. He uses a mandrake root to make the spirit show itself. Instead of accepting John’s help, Daryl knocks him out and John ends up in jail.

Manny suggests John should remember what it was like to be a kid, if he wants to help the kid. Meanwhile, Daryl and Claire argue with one another, which angers Henry. After the outburst, Claire visits John at the jail and questions about the possession. After learning the truth, Claire is willing to let John perform a seance. At John’s suggestion, Claire gives Henry some sedative, which knocks him out.

Afterwards, Claire, Chas and John meet at Marcello’s home to attempt to bind the spirit to the location. The team perform the seance in the room of the murders, which causes Henry to react. When the seance is complete, a three-legged deer enters, which John suggests is a sign of failure. John begins to doubt his own abilities, as Henry awakens.

John and Claire head to their home and John prepares to exorcise Henry, who escapes and runs out of the home. During his escape, he traps Chas between two vehicles. John chases Henry into a carnival fun house. When the show returns, Constantine is searching for Henry in the haunted house. Constantine’s protective mirror is broken, as he finds Henry carrying an axe. He calls the spirit Marcello and attempts to calm him. After being tossed around and dodging a few axe swings, John grabs Henry and removes the demon. As the show ends, Marcello Panneti is shown going crazy and Constantine begins to light a cigarette.

Review

Rage of Caliban was a fun episode of Constantine. The evil, possessed children storyline was fun and it is always fun to see how much punishment Chas is going to take each episode. Where was Zed during this episode? On the other hand, where is the central struggle of Constantine? Is it the Rising Evil? Overall, the episode didn’t push any plot lines further. However, it was still a silly, fun episode thanks to the possession of children. For that, the episode deserves a 7.5 out of 10.