Constantine’s sixth episode, “Rage of Caliban,†takes Chaz and Constantine to Birmingham, Alabama where parents are being brutally murdered. The only survivor is the child. Sadly, Zed won’t appear in this episode. Initially, this episode was supposed to be shown second, but the showrunners wanted Zed to be brought into the show earlier. I’ve really grown to enjoy Zed, so they did a good job with bringing her into the fold. However, some of the scenes in this episode did seem slightly out of place.
Constantine and Chas travel to Alabama, and Constantine breaks into the scene of the crime. Manny shows up to talk with Constantine. Their exchange is very humorous as Constantine is ready to punch Manny for showing up with no warning. Their exchange also gave more context as to why Manny is so cryptic all the time. Manny explains that when humans were given free will, angels were prohibited from influencing them. So, when Constantine tries to ask Manny for straight answers, he won’t be able to provide them. I think this would have been better said earlier in the season.
Constantine uses his skills to see how a scene unfolded from after the crime. He sees that a spirit was possessing the little girl who was the only survivor. It turns out that these killings have been going on for at least 35 years, but the police never made the connection until recently when the killings became more frequent. The killings all had the same M.O. where the parents were killed violently and their only child was unharmed. When Constantine visits the first surviving child, Marcello Panneti, he is in a catatonic state in a mental institution.
Chas and Constantine use a map to get an idea of where the crimes have been happening. When they realize that the killings are all happening in a line on the map, they have a chance to find the spirit and prevent another murder. By using Frankincense, Constantine tracks the spirit down. Chas suggests that they approach the couple directly to let them know that their child has been possessed. When Constantine dismisses this saying it won’t work, he observes the child on the playground. Constantine can’t get the teachers attention in time to prevent the child, Henry, to hurt another child badly. At home, Henry’s parents don’t seem to understand what is happening to their son.
Constantine decides to try Chas’s idea and confronts the parents. The dad acts out and ends up getting Constantine arrested. Luckily, some of what he said rang true to the mother who bails him out of jail. While in jail, Manny visits Constantine. I’m glad that we finally got to see more of Manny. Plus, he revealed that he’s not a complete jerk all the time. When Constantine struggles with how to help Henry and the spirit inside, Manny reminds him that he knows what it’s like to have a bad childhood. Manny even tells Constantine that he was there by his side during his hardships.
Enlisting the mother’s help, Constantine and Chas work to summon the spirit back to the house where the killings first started, Marcello Panneti’s house. Constantine tries a seance to trap the spirit in the house. When it doesn’t work, they all go back to see Henry. Henry, or rather the spirit inside, acts out in rage and runs out of the house. He goes into a haunted house with Constantine right on his heels. It’s in the haunted house where Constantine realizes that the spirit is the spirit of Marcello Panneti. Even though he hasn’t died, he was so traumatized by murdering his parents that his spirit went right on killing. Constantine sends his spirit back into his body at the mental institute where doctors can help him heal.
This episode showed a lot of great sides of Constantine, Chas, and Manny that we hadn’t seen before. Chas was a bigger part of the episode, and if they are smart, they will keep giving him more scenes. Since we can’t go back in time, I can’t say whether or not airing this episode sixth was or wasn’t a good idea. There was definitely a hole where Zed should have been, and it would have been nice if they could have found a way to reshoot a scene to explain her absence. I will say that the Halloween setting would have been better closer to that holiday. There were some good parts to this episode as well. The child possessions were very creepy and well done. The twist that the spirit wasn’t actually from a dead child was very creative.
