The fifth episode of Constantine, “Danse Vaudou,†brings our friends to New Orleans, Louisiana. The episode starts with a man who is clearly drunk walking into an alley to urinate on the side of a building. A woman walks by, and he flashes his detective shield. Disgusted she keeps walking but runs into a woman wearing a surgical mask. The woman asks, “Do you think I’m pretty?†Then she continuously stabs the woman to death with a pair of scissors. The drunk detective empties his gun clip into the woman with the mask, but she is not harmed and runs away.
Back in Constantine’s house, Zed has a vision of a small boy who is being taught to shoot a gun by his mother. Then, the map reveals that New Orleans is the next city on their list. This time, we get to have the whole gang on the case. I, for one, was glad that Chas was going to be helping out on this one. When they arrive in New Orleans, they meet the drunk detective who has no idea what he saw. Enter Detective Jim Corrigan. Fans of the comic series should delight in seeing this familiar face. Constantine tells the detective that they are dealing with a ghost and that is what he shot. Realizing that Corrigan is the boy from her vision, Zed tries to convince him that they are to be believed and trusted.
Next, we see an older man driving a car down a dark road 40 miles outside of New Orleans. He picks up a hitchhiker named Phillip and agrees to take him into the city. Moments into their ride, as the man is talking to Phillip, Phillip disappears from inside the car. He reappears standing in front of the car, all bloodied and battered. The man swerves to miss Phillip but crashes into a tree. As they are checking in to their hotel, Zed has another vision. This time it is the scene of the car crash.
When Constantine and Zed arrive on the scene, they are convinced that there are now two spirits in town killing people. Corrigan pulls up to the scene to arrest Constantine for reporting the car crash before it happened. He’s convinced that Constantine must be a killer. While at the station, Constantine mentions that Corrigan should look into cases that have similar causes of death. Corrigan traces both of the cases back to the spirits. The woman with the surgical mask was once a model who was attacked by a jealous friend. She committed suicide after her career ended from the assault. The hitch hiker turned out to be a boy who tried to hitchhike his way to New Orleans only to have the driver lose control. Phillip died in the crash.
When Constantine hears that these people died years ago, he questions why they are no longer resting in peace. Something or someone brought them back. Constantine and Zed speak with those who knew the victims, and they each speak a name that is very familiar, Papa Midnite. Constantine seeks out Papa Midnite to show him that his magic is out of control and that he is raising these spirits from the dead. Papa Midnite has to see for himself, so he goes to see the last woman that he helped. She was so grateful that he allowed her to talk to her deceased husband, but she was over the moon when she realized that Papa Midnite’s magic brought him back from the dead. Now that Papa Midnite believes Constantine, they must work together to put these souls to rest.
While Constantine and Papa Midnite work on a spell to put these spirits to rest, Zed, Chas, and Detective Corrigan work together to keep anyone else from dying at the hand of these spirits. Chas works on keeping people out of the alley where the model is still trying to stab people with her scissors. At one point, Chas seems to confuse her by continuing to ask her questions, thus welcoming some dark humor to this episode. Corrigan and Zed end up driving the route where Phillip will be in hopes that if they pick him up, he won’t be able to cause any accidents.
Proving that they both constantly have to be right, Papa Midnite and Constantine are at each other’s throats when the spell goes awry. Realizing his mistake, Constantine gets the three people, who helped to bring the spirits back, to come to the site of the ritual. These three people all have immense guilt over the deaths of the spirits with which they were trying to communicate. It was their guilt that was helping to duel the resurrection of the spirits. Thankfully, the spell goes right the second time, and the spirits are put back to rest. Papa Midnite left Constantine with a message from hell about the darkness that is coming. He tells Constantine that there is no stopping the darkness, and someone close to him will betray him.
Afterwards, we get a small glimpse into Zed’s past. Throughout the episode, it seemed as if Jim Corrigan knew her. At one point, he even asked why she changed her name. Corrigan explained that he used to work the missing person’s desk. He remembered her face from her file, and it was her family who reported her missing. It’s hard to know from what Zed was running, and hopefully, we will find out. For now, Corrigan told her that she no longer has a file with missing persons, so maybe she won’t have to keep looking over her shoulder.
What’s great about Constantine is that there is no clear cut hero or villain. When first introduced, it seemed that Papa Midnite was purely evil. In this episode, we saw that his magic is going out of the control because of the impending darkness. Papa Midnite didn’t intend to resurrect those spirits and even helped Constantine to put them to rest. We also got a nice glimpse into Zed’s past. In the weeks to come, I’m hoping that we get to hear her side of the story. We’re also left with the mystery surrounding Jim Corrigan. Why did Zed see a green aura surrounding him and him being bloody and beaten? For those of us that don’t know the comics, we will just have to wait and see.
