"Yeah, I got it. Thanks," I said to Dave on the phone, then looked at my TV screen showing eight video files.
All of them were the eight episodes from the first TV series of the DCU, Constantine.
"I'm going to binge the entire thing. Yeah, call you tomorrow," I said, ending the call.
I quickly walked over to the kitchen, where I'd prepared some snacks for the seven-hour-plus binge I had planned. I grabbed the bowl of popcorn, a bag of chips, some chocolate, and a few bottles of water and soda.
Perfect.
I walked back and sat down on the couch, remote in hand.
Only for Margot to show up.
"What are you doing?" she asked, hands on her hips. "I thought we were going to look at the venues today."
I looked at her, confused. "No, we're going to Australia to see the venues. Why are we looking at them here again?"
She opened her mouth to speak.
I cut her off. "And I thought I had no say in this since you already had the place in mind since you were ten years old."
She huffed, walking closer. "Well, I wanted your input."
"My input on the venue you've been dreaming about since you were a child?" I said, grinning. "Sure."
She narrowed her eyes, then glanced at the TV. "What are you watching?"
"I'm going to watch the new DC show. You want to join?"
"No."
"I have more important things to do," she said.
"Like what?" I asked.
"...Looking at centerpieces."
I stared at her. "Centerpieces."
"Yes."
"For the wedding that's ten months away."
"Yes."
I stood up, setting the popcorn down. "You know, we could just skip all this. Go to a judge, sign a paper, boom, married. None of this centerpiece, seating chart, or flower arrangement stuff. Just you, me..."
Margot stared at me.
Then she turned and walked off.
"You know that was a joke!" I called after her.
She stopped at the doorway and turned back. "Oh, it better have been a joke."
She left.
I muttered, "That was a stupid thing to say," as I sat back down and pressed play on the first episode.
I settled in.
Constantine was going to have eight episodes and was set to be released in April on Netflix, with Netflix becoming the home for DC TV content.
The Marvel shows that had been on Netflix, Daredevil and the others, had ended. Only two seasons for Daredevil this time around. With Disney getting serious about streaming, it was only a matter of time. But this time, the cancellations happened a bit earlier than in my old world.
I turned my attention fully to the screen as the show began.
The first episode was called The Devil You Know.
1997, Newcastle it showed on screen.
A young John Constantine and his friends, the Newcastle Crew, stand in a dimly lit room. A girl named Astra, twelve years old, is strapped to a chair, screaming, her voice distorted and inhuman.
They are trying to exorcise her.
The exorcism begins, but it's clear the demon is powerful. Too powerful. Constantine realizes they're in over their heads. Against the others' wishes, he decides to summon a more powerful demon to fight it.
He draws the sigil. Chants the incantation.
But he makes a mistake.
The new demon, Nergal, doesn't fight the possessing entity. Instead, it drags her down into hell.
"NO!" Constantine reaches for her, but he's too late.
The portal closes.
The girl is gone.
Constantine stands there, frozen, horrified.
The others stare at him in shock and disgust.
The quality was great, on par with Game of Thrones. I knew that would be one of the big talking points. The production value, the cinematography, the atmosphere, it all felt premium.
The episode continued.
Present Day, 2018.
Constantine works as a stage magician, performing card tricks in pubs for drinking money. He lives in a dingy flat, chain-smoking and drinking cheap whiskey.
During a performance, he collapses, coughing blood. At the hospital, doctors diagnose him with stage four lung cancer. Six months to live, at most. Constantine refuses chemotherapy. "I have my own remedies," he says, and leaves to smoke a cigarette outside the hospital.
The plot kicks off when Chas Chandler, a cab driver and one of Constantine's few good friends, tracks him down at a pub.
Chas is devastated. His daughter, Geraldine, has died in an apparent suicide. She gouged out her own eyes, carved symbols into her chest, and jumped from a building. Chas recognizes the symbols as occult. He begs Constantine to investigate, reminding him of an unpaid debt from years ago, when Constantine's actions nearly got Chas killed.
Constantine reluctantly agrees and begins investigating. He discovers four other victims with identical deaths, all carving Brujería death marks into their bodies before jumping.
The episode also sets up some characters, one of them being Kit Ryan, a woman John has been seeing on and off.
He tracks the next potential victim, Gary Lester, another member of the Newcastle Crew.
Constantine arrives too late.
Gary, eyes already gouged out and bleeding, stands on the ledge.
"It's starting again, John," Gary whispers, his voice hollow. "Newcastle... Astra... she's calling us back."
He jumps.
In the crowd below, Constantine sees a little girl in a white dress watching him.
Astra's ghost.
She vanishes.
Constantine returns to his flat, shaken. He pours whiskey, hands trembling.
He walks to the bathroom.
On the mirror, written in blood:
"HELLO, JOHN. I'VE COME TO COLLECT. - NERGAL."
Constantine stares at it for a long moment.
Then he laughs, dark and bitter.
"Bollocks."
Great first episode. I was hooked.
I mean, I knew the plot, I'd read the script and greenlit it, but still. Seeing it come to life like this? A completely different experience.
I grabbed another handful of popcorn and hit play on Episode 2.
Constantine visits Ritchie Simpson, the last surviving member of the Newcastle Crew, a paranoid hacker living in a bunker. Ritchie notes that five of them survived Newcastle, and now Gary is dead. He fears they're all being hunted. Using his skills, Ritchie traces the Brujería's activities and discovers that all the victims visited the same location before dying: the Casanova Club, an exclusive occult nightclub in London.
Constantine infiltrates the club using illusion magic to blend in. Inside, among the drugs and decadence, he encounters Papa Midnite, a voodoo priest and old acquaintance. Papa Midnite explains that the Brujería are preparing a major ritual requiring sacrifices from people who've "touched the other side," people like the Newcastle Crew. The cult is building a bridge to summon something older than demons.
Constantine tracks a Brujería cultist to an abandoned church and finds him possessed by a hunger demon. Calling Papa Midnite for assistance, they trap the demon inside its host and let it consume itself from within.
As the cultist dies, the demon projects a vision into Constantine's mind: a throne room in Hell with a figure sitting on the throne, red glowing eyes in shadow.
Constantine returns home to find Ritchie's body in his flat. Ritchie's ghost appears, screaming at Constantine that it's his fault, that he brought them here, before vanishing. Constantine is now haunted by two ghosts, Gary and Ritchie, both blaming him for their deaths. Constantine ignores increasingly urgent calls from the hospital about beginning cancer treatment, believing magic can cure him instead. He coughs violently, blood covering his hand.
The third episode began. It was called "Original Sins."
Constantine wakes to find a woman sitting in his flat: Zed Martin, who claims she's been dreaming about him for weeks. In her visions, Constantine is dying of cancer but also stands at the center of something dark that wants to end everything. She cannot tell if he will save the world or destroy it. Zed reveals she's running from the Brujería, who believe she's special and meant to be part of their ritual. Constantine asks if she is special. Zed doesn't know, but the cult is hunting her relentlessly.
A militant fundamentalist Christian group called the Tongues of Fire attacks Constantine's flat, attempting to capture Zed. Constantine uses fire magic to fight them off, the first unambiguous display of real magic in the series. Afterward, Constantine carves protective sigils into Zed's skin to hide her from magical tracking.
Throughout the episode, flashbacks reveal more details about the Newcastle incident: the crew's preparation for the summoning, Astra's desperate father begging them to save his daughter, the moment Nergal seized control of the ritual, and Astra's final terrified scream as she was dragged into Hell. The guilt and trauma that bound the surviving crew members are shown in full.
By the end of the episode, there is a reveal of the main antagonist of the season. He comes to Constantine.
A tall, gaunt figure: Nergal. He introduces himself, explaining he's been known by many names, but is called the First of the Fallen.
Constantine asks if he's the Devil.
The First smiles. different people, he says, though they have been misidentified as the same.
The First explains he has waited years since Newcastle and now wants Constantine's soul.
Constantine laughs and tells him to wait his turn.
The fourth episode was called "Unholy Communion."
Constantine brings Zed to Papa Midnite's club for protection. Papa Midnite questions the wisdom of protecting her when Constantine is dying and can barely stand. Zed, shocked to learn about Constantine's cancer from Papa Midnite's comment, confronts Constantine, who dismisses it.
Constantine meets Kit Ryan at a pub. Kit notices Constantine looks terrible and demands to know what's happening. Constantine warns her to stay away for her own safety, but Kit refuses to be treated like a damsel and insists on being told the truth.
The Brujería launch an attack on Papa Midnite's club, attempting to capture Zed. During the chaotic battle, Constantine collapses mid-fight from a violent coughing fit, while Papa Midnite and Zed fight off the cultists. Zed experiences a terrifying vision: she sees herself sitting on a throne, crowned in darkness, screaming as something grotesque crawls out of her mouth. After the battle, Papa Midnite agrees to continue helping protect Zed despite Constantine's deteriorating condition.
Desperate for a cure, Constantine visits Brendan Finn, an Irish magician and heavy drinker who claims to have discovered holy water that cures all ailments. Brendan has magically transformed the holy water into enchanted beer. Both men drink together, Brendan hoping to cure his liver disease, Constantine hoping to cure his cancer.
That night, Brendan's liver fails and he dies. When the First of the Fallen appears to claim Brendan's soul, Constantine tricks the demon into drinking the beer, which Constantine has secretly transformed back into holy water. It burns the demon from the inside, creating enough distraction for Brendan's soul to escape to Heaven.
The First of the Fallen reforms, furious, and warns Constantine that he's tricked him twice, and one more time will bind the demon by Hell's own laws. Constantine, alone in his flat afterward, realizes the cancer remains and his condition is worsening.
The fifth episode was up next; it began with Chantinelle, who goes by Ellie, a succubus, appears in Constantine's flat, bleeding and terrified. The First of the Fallen is hunting her because she helped Constantine in the past.
A flashback reveals that years ago, Ellie fell in love with an angel and became pregnant with his child, a forbidden union. Constantine helped Ellie by carving protective sigils so deep into her soul that Heaven couldn't detect her, allowing her to hide her child and survive. Now, with the First seeking revenge against Constantine, he's targeting everyone Constantine has ever helped.
Constantine performs the same ritual again, carving a sigil into the very essence of Ellie's soul, making her completely invisible to Hell's sight. The process is agonizing for both of them.
Later, Zed sits with Constantine and tells him she's used her psychic abilities to look at his soul. She tells him she sees someone who's trying to save himself but doesn't know how.
Constantine asks Ellie if there's a demonic cure for cancer. Ellie explains that Hell deals in curses, not cures, but there might be a way if Constantine is willing to sell his soul. Constantine reveals he's already promised his soul to someone else.
The episode ends with Constantine getting an idea that might save him. He calls it a bit mad.
The sixth episode, named "The Con," opened with Constantine summoning Beelzebub in an abandoned warehouse. The scene shifts to show Constantine in a graveyard years earlier, where he summons Azazel. The scenes overlap with each other, showing him making deals with both. Both agree to cure his cancer in exchange for his soul upon death. They seal the pact in blood.
The episode continues with Zed experiencing an increasingly detailed and horrifying vision. She sees Constantine's death, surrounded by screaming demons tearing at each other in a maelstrom of violence. She wakes, terrified, and warns Constantine that she's seen how he dies, describing it as "terrible beyond words." Constantine dismisses her concern, stating that everyone dies eventually.
Kit confronts Constantine after noticing his increasingly erratic behavior. She demands the full truth. Constantine finally reveals he has terminal cancer and is involved in something dangerous involving the occult. Kit is devastated that he kept this from her but insists on staying by his side. Constantine, knowing the danger ahead, tries to push her away, but Kit refuses to leave.
The Brujería, having tracked Zed's movements through the magical disturbances caused by Constantine's demon summoning, launch a coordinated assault on Constantine's safehouse. Despite a desperate defense by Constantine, weakened by cancer, along with Chas, Papa Midnite, Ellie, and Kit, the Brujería overwhelm them through sheer numbers. Zed is taken. Constantine collapses on the floor, coughing blood, and watches helplessly as they disappear with her. Chas helps Constantine to his feet and asks what they do now. Constantine, grimly determined, responds, "We go get her back."
I stretched as I lay on the couch, hitting the six-hour mark, and began episode seven, "The Vessel."
It began with Constantine, Chas, Papa Midnite, Ellie, and Kit tracking the Brujería to a massive hidden temple complex deep beneath London's streets. In the central chamber, Zed is bound to a stone altar, surrounded by dozens of chanting cultists.
The Brujería leader, a former Catholic priest, reveals himself. He explains that Zed is "the vessel," the prophesied door through which the Great Darkness will enter the world. He welcomes Constantine, noting that Constantine has arrived just in time to witness the birth of a new reality.
A violent battle erupts throughout the temple. Papa Midnite uses necromancy to raise the dead, creating an army of corpses to fight the cultists. Ellie wields hellfire, incinerating attackers. Chas fights with a shotgun. Constantine, despite being barely able to walk and coughing blood constantly, uses every trick in his arsenal.
Despite their efforts, there are too many cultists, and they're fighting on holy ground consecrated to dark powers. The Brujería complete the first phase of their ritual. They summon the Invunche, a grotesque messenger created by twisting a child's body through dark magic and sewing it into a monstrous form.
Zed begins to convulse on the altar. Her eyes glow with an unnatural light. Her mouth opens impossibly wide as something tries to force its way into her body from another dimension. Constantine, using the last of his strength, breaks through the cultists and reaches the altar. He grabs Zed's face, forcing her to look at him.
He tells her to fight it.
Zed, tears streaming down her face, screams back, "I CAN'T! IT'S TOO STRONG!"
"Yes, you can! You're stronger than any prophecy! You CHOOSE who you are! NOW FIGHT!"
With a final, agonizing scream, Zed pushes back against the presence trying to possess her. The entity recoils. The possession fails. The Invunche, its purpose unfulfilled, explodes in a burst of dark energy that kills the Brujería leader and collapses parts of the temple. Constantine throws himself over Zed, shielding her from debris.
When the dust settles, the cultists are dead or scattered. The temple is destroyed. But Papa Midnite points upward with growing horror. Through the cracks in the ceiling, they can see the sky outside. It's turning black, not the darkness of night, but the absence of light itself, a wrongness spreading across the heavens.
Papa Midnite speaks quietly, "John... what have we done?"
Constantine, helping Zed to her feet, stares at the blackening sky and realizes the terrible truth. The Invunche's scream weakened the barrier between worlds. The ritual may have failed, but the damage is done. The Great Darkness is leaking through.
They evacuate the collapsing temple and emerge onto the London streets. People are screaming, pointing at the sky.
Constantine collapses on the street, coughing violently. Kit rushes to his side. Chas demands to know what's happening. Constantine, blood on his lips, looks at his assembled allies and says, "The door is cracked. It's coming through."
They ask how to stop it.
Constantine smiles and says he has a plan.
The season finale was called "Dangerous Habits."
It opened with the world in crisis. News broadcasts showed the spreading darkness covering more of the sky.
There were also the first cameos, Nightwing in Gotham, Superman in Metropolis, and Wonder Woman. Henry and Alexandra had shot these small scenes while making their movie sequels. Basically, it was the first look at the League coordinating as they calmed the masses.
The episode shifted back to Constantine and his group. He was deteriorating badly as Constantine put his plan into action.
He explained he was going to summon the three demons he'd sold his soul to and planned to expedite his death.
Kit protested that it was suicide. Constantine responded that he was dying anyway, he had weeks at most, and this way his death meant something. Papa Midnite realized what John was planning and called it the most arrogant con he'd ever seen, but acknowledged it might work. Ellie warned that even if it worked, Constantine would have made eternal enemies of the three most powerful beings in Hell.
Before the ritual, Constantine shared private moments with each person.
With Chas, Constantine apologized for getting Chas's daughter killed and for dragging him into this life. Chas, fighting tears, said Geraldine's death wasn't Constantine's fault, the Brujería killed her. But he admitted he didn't know if he could forgive Constantine for the years of manipulation and near-death experiences. Constantine nodded, accepting this.
With Kit, she told Constantine she loved him, but she couldn't watch him destroy himself anymore. She had tried to save him from his demons, literal and figurative, but realized Constantine was the only one who could save himself, and he didn't know how. She kisses him goodbye.
Constantine prepared the ritual circle in his flat. He took a blade and slit his wrists, letting his blood pool on the floor to power the summoning. As he weakened, he spoke the incantation.
The three demons materialized in the room. They stared at Constantine dying on the floor. Then they looked at each other and realized what had happened.
Each demon claimed Constantine's soul. They understood they'd been tricked. Each was promised the same soul. Only one could claim it. If they fought over it, they risked Heaven's intervention, which could mean losing not just the soul, but Hell itself.
Constantine, lying in his blood, grinned through the pain and laid out the situation: cure his cancer, seal the crack between worlds, use their combined power to push back the Great Darkness, and then leave.
The First of the Fallen asked what would happen if they refused and let him die.
Constantine explained they'd tear each other apart fighting over him, and Heaven would take everything. The soul. Hell. All of it.
A long, terrible silence followed.
One called him a cunning bastard.
Constantine said he preferred "artist."
The First, consumed with rage, whispered to Constantine that this wasn't over. Constantine would die eventually, and when that day came, whether tomorrow or fifty years from now, the First would be there to claim what was his and make Constantine suffer for eternity.
Constantine whispered back that he'd be waiting.
The First placed his hand on Constantine's chest. Constantine screamed in agony as the demon painfully, deliberately painfully, burned the cancer out of his body. Constantine convulsed, screaming, as the disease was ripped from him.
Next, the three demons combined their power, a rare and humiliating act of cooperation between rivals, to seal the crack between worlds. Their combined essence flowed outward, wrapping around the Earth, pushing back the Great Darkness and repairing the damaged barrier. Outside, the blackness receded from the sky. Light returned.
Constantine told them it was a pleasure doing business and not to let the door hit them on the way out.
The demons vanished.
Constantine collapsed into a chair, exhausted but alive. For a moment, he was alone in his flat, surrounded by the remnants of the ritual.
The episode and season ended with John alone, as the others had left.
He was back in his apartment.
He looked around the empty room.
Constantine grabbed his trench coat from the back of a chair and walked to the door.
He emerged onto the empty London street. The sun was rising. The sky was clear, no trace of the Great Darkness remained. The world was saved.
He pulled out a cigarette and lit it with a flick of his fingers. He looked at it and laughed bitterly, the very thing that caused him cancer, then laughed again and said, "Old habits."
He took a long drag. Coughed.
Constantine began walking down the street, hands in his pockets, collar turned up against the morning chill. The city was waking around him, birds singing, early commuters starting their days.
"Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds began to play.
"Take a little walk to the edge of town / Go across the tracks..."
Constantine walked through the awakening city, a solitary figure in a trench coat, smoke trailing behind him.
"Where the viaduct looms like a bird of doom / As it shifts and cracks..."
He passed a newspaper stand. Headlines screamed about the "Mysterious Global Darkness Event" and "Worldwide Panic Subsides."
"Where secrets lie in the border fires / In the humming wires..."
A young woman hurried past him, giving him a wide berth, some instinct warning her away from the dangerous man in the coat.
"Hey man, you know you're never coming back..."
Constantine kept walking, disappearing into the London morning.
"Past the square, past the bridge, past the mills, past the stacks..."
The camera pulled back, rising above the street.
"On a gathering storm comes a tall, handsome man / In a dusty black coat with a red right hand..."
Constantine, small now, just another figure in London.
Wow, that was great I thought. What a way to start the TV universe of the DCU.
As the credits rolled, I texted Dave.
What's the progress on the season 2 script?