Constantine - 'Waiting for the Man'

John Constantine, now with 100% more firearms.

Satanists, voodoo kings and zombies; we're going back to New Orleans for Constantine's mid-season season possibly-series finale, 'Waiting for the Man'. A teenage sort-of-runaway is lured by three tripped out waifs into coming with them to 'marry the Man', and receive a 'wedding ring' in the form of a neck brand. When a detective investigating is desiccated and branded with 'the Devil's Mark', Jim Corrigan (he of the 'second-husband of the action hero's ex-wife' beard and glowing future in undead vengeance) calls in John and Zed to help investigate while Chas... isn't here. Meanwhile, the Brujeria have put out a hit on John - a fact he is warned of by dead friend Gary (making what amounts to a stunt appearance, animating a corpse, quite possibly tacked on when they knew they weren't getting the second half-series) - and Papa Midnight is inclined to collect.

'Waiting for the Man' is a decent enough monster of the week story, intended to show the impact of the Rising Dark on ordinary human evil. The Man is a garden variety serial killer suddenly able to suspend the souls of his victims in some sort of thrall and use them to trap the unwary and incredibly stupid (seriously, the show does not provide an adequate reason for the victim to follow the creepy brides home, and although it does imply she was in some sort of trance it isn't really shown enough.) This part of the episode plays like an occult themed episode of Criminal Minds or a crossover with True Detective, and is pretty damned creepy, as ordered.

Where it falls down is as the conclusion of the series, or even the season. The producers were clearly confident of a pick-up when they made this one, because it hits the beats for a mid-season break, not a closer, and even that it doesn't do as well as 'The Saint of Last Resorts'. It's a shame, because the show had been getting very strong, and this is only okay.