Constantine’s eleventh episode, “A Whole World Out There,†is essentially about kids being kids. A group of college students perform what looks like a séance at the beginning of the episode. They all have an out of body experience and end up in some house, all in different rooms. One of the girls sees a man who says that he can see them and she has to hide him. The other girl sees a man who looks like he is going to attack her. Then the kids are back in their bodies inside the crypt at the cemetery.
First off, does this sound like a good idea? Naturally, these kids have gotten themselves into a bigger mess than they know! The next day, during class, Constantine shows up to check out the situation. It turns out that their professor, Ritchie, is an old “friend†of Johns. I use the word friend lightly since Ritchie seems to be a mess after the events at Newcastle. I hope we get to hear exactly what happened at Newcastle that ruined so many lives. Ritchie tries to keep to himself and not get involved in the rising darkness that is always threatening the world. But unfortunately, Ritchie notices that one of his students took a journal of Jacob Shaw.
Shaw believed in a ancient ritual that sends your consciousness to a separate world, thus the out of body experience. Before Shaw’s impending death, he sent his consciousness to this other world using his ritual. It’s this world where the kids sent themselves by performing the ritual in his journal. Later, one of the students, Carter, sees Shaw’s reflection in the glass of a door he passes on campus. In the next instant, he is back in the house with Shaw after him. Before he can even get his bearings, Shaw suffocates Carter by placing a plastic bag over his head. Back in our world, Carter dies for real from the exact same injuries sustained in the house with Shaw.
Two of the girls who were present for the ritual, Miranda and Lily, discuss what’s happening at Carter’s candlelight vigil on campus. Miranda doesn’t believe that anything supernatural is occurring. She shrugs it off as being a hallucination and goes to the gym to get her head on straight. While she’s dancing, she doesn’t seem to want to turn any lights on; this can’t be a good sign. The room is wall-to-wall mirrors, and Miranda starts seeing Shaw reflected in them. She is immediately transported out of her body and back to the house.
At this point, Adam, Ritchie’s teaching assistant and leader of the ritual, and Lily have figured out that something has happened to Miranda. Since Adam believes that she went back to the house accidentally, he leaves his body on purpose to try and save her. Both Adam and Miranda are brutally murdered by Shaw. Lily is now the only one left, and it is up to John and Ritchie to save her.
When Ritchie and John get to the house, they run into Shaw. Constantine helps Ritchie to realize that he can turn Shaw’s world into his own. In an underwhelming scene, Ritchie seems to have no problem defeating Shaw. All of a sudden it’s over. Lily goes back to her body, but John and Ritchie take a bit longer to go back to their world. Ritchie even considers staying in his new world, before eventually coming back to reality.
This episode found Constantine solving a case by himself, with some help from an old friend. Early on, he said that Zed is on bed rest and Chas is with his family. I can’t help but wonder if Zed’s powers could have helped those kids at all. I don’t know the extent of her powers, but maybe she could have seen what the kids were seeing in the house without leaving her body. In any case, an episode without Zed just can’t be as good in my opinion. She’s become a really great part of the team and always has something to add to the show.
