Constantine - The Darkness Beneath

Still not as creepy as the church graffiti in True Detective.

The first 'proper' episode of Constantine (if you consider 'Non Est Asylum' as a slightly disconnected pilot,) takes our eponymous and surly antihero to a Welsh-descended mining town in Pennsylvania, and makes me begin to wonder if he isn't going to find himself in a lot of communities with strong Britannic roots as the series progresses, the better to utilise the source material without alienating the main audience with all those limey accents.

Or maybe I'm too cynical.

John Constantine knows how to show a girl a good time.

Hard-to-kill Chas is sidelined this episode (due to an outstanding warrant for derailing a train which is oddly limited to Pennsylvania; that feels like something that could go federal,) in order to introduce the replacement for Liv, Zed Martin (Angélica Celaya), an artist who experiences visions, including recurring dreams about Constantine. Martin pushes to be involved in Constantine's investigation of a series of murders surrounding a dangerous mine, while he pushes her away to test her commitment.

An interesting twist in the tale is that the supernatural killers are actually protective spirits distorted by human malice. The series kind of squanders this with a bit of pointless anti-Romani prejudice (there is, apparently, 'nothing darker than Gypsy magic'), but that aside it's a decent episode, with Constantine very much in his element being out of his element, as well as getting to reference his background in an apposite fashion. Martin manages not to be too annoying (many series mistakenly feel that a hot female character can be as much of a whining load as they like) and actually shows promise as a lead; she's tougher than Liv and her abilities have more potential to be a rolling part of the plot, rather than acting as the set up.

'The Darkness Beneath' is a solid second episode, with a pass for any pacing problems from the need to introduce a new second lead. They have the ball now, so let's see how they run with it.