Constantine Episode Recap, Season 1 Episode 5: Danse Vaudou

Episode Recap of Constantine, Season 1 Episode 5: Danse Vaudou

In the opening scene, a New Orleans detective witnesses a woman wearing a surgical mask stab another woman in an alley. When he shoots at the stabber, his bullets don’t seem to affect her at all. Then, she runs off and mysteriously disappears.

Back at Constantine’s place, he has just repaired a zoetrope, and spins it. As Zed watches it spin, she sees a vision of a woman teaching a young boy how to shoot a gun. When she comes out of the vision, they notice that the scrying map is wet on the spot for New Orleans, so they head there.

They check out the alley, and Constantine puts on a special bracelet, which lights up blue – telling him that the killer is non-human, a spirit. Detective Jim Corrigan from the night before walks up and introduces himself. Zed realizes that the man is the boy from her vision. When he hears that they’re occult investigators, Jim accuses them of being con men. Constantine gives him his card so they can work together.

Checking in at the hotel, Constantine has booked two separate rooms for him and Zed. She seems a little surprised at that. Meanwhile, 40 miles outside of New Orleans, a man picks up a teenage boy named Philip who’s hitchhiking. Back at the hotel, Zed seems to get a vision of the scene. She sees a tree with scars, and a car drives straight toward her. Going back to the man in the car, he talks to Philip, who suddenly disappears. The next thing he knows, a bloody Philip is standing in the road ahead. The man swerves to miss him, and runs into a tree.

The next morning, Chas, Constantine, and Zed drive out to investigate the car accident. They find out from an officer that this is the third time in two weeks there’s been an accident at this tree. Just then, Jim Corrigan shows up and arrests Constantine, saying that anyone who calls the police about an accident before it happens isn’t a psychic, he’s a murderer. Constantine tells him to check his reports.

Chas goes back to the alley, and finds the ghost woman about to attack her next victim. He yells at the man to run. Chas approaches the woman, who asks if he thinks she’s pretty. He says yes. Then she removes her mask, and we see that her face is scarred. Chas still insists that she is pretty. But she attacks him with her shears, leaving him for dead.

Back at the police station, Constantine has guessed that Jim ID’ed the murderer as a dead woman. Constantine tells Jim that he shot a ghost. Jim says that the murderer was a model named Misaki whose face was slashed by another model named Tammy. Then Misaki committed suicide 5 years ago. Jim tells Constantine that Tammy is out on parole for good behavior. Jim has also identified Philip the hitchhiker, who died 3 years ago. Constantine wonders why all of a sudden these spirits have been awakened.

Paramedics find Chas in the alley, without a pulse. Suddenly, Chas comes back to life and heals himself.

Constantine visits Tammy, who is working in an animal shelter. She says that she carries guilt for what she did to Misaki, and every time she helps someone, she asks Misaki’s spirit for forgiveness.

Meanwhile, Zed visits Philip’s grandmother, who says she had kicked Philip out, and that night he hitchhiked into the city. The driver lost control of the car, and Philip died.

It turns out that both Philip’s grandmother  and Tammy went to Papa Midnite and with his help, they were able to talk to the spirits of Philip and Misaki.

We see a woman go to Papa Midnite in order to contact her husband, Clark, who died of cancer. Papa Midnite chants some words, then suddenly he is possessed by Clark, and the woman speaks to her husband through him. Just then, Constantine shows up and interrupts, informing Papa Midnite that he’s not merely talking to the dead, but raising them, and sending them on a killing spree. Papa Midnite blows some dust into Constantine’s face, which makes him fall asleep, but not before Constantine advises him to talk to his clients. Then Papa Midnite’s men put a passed out Constantine into the trunk of a car.

Zed goes out the the tree and puts up some flares to prevent people from running into it. Jim drives by, and has an idea: for them to pick Philip up.

Papa Midnite talks to a skull and asks if Constantine is telling the truth. The next day, Papa Midnite visits the woman he helped the night before. He sees that her husband Clark is back, but that the woman is sick. While he’s inside, Constantine escapes from the trunk. Papa Midnite admits that Clark is killing the woman, draining her energy. He thinks there’s something wrong with his magic, and that something is working against him. Constantine says it’s the rising darkness. He agrees to help Papa Midnite in exchange for him erasing his debt, and to ask his sister a question, if they succeed.

Zed and Jim finally come across Philip hitchhiking and pick him up. As they drive for a bit, he disappears from the car, and ends up in the road in front of the car. Zed speeds up and drives right through him. He disappears into thin air.

Papa Midnite and Constantine go to the mausoleum that contains Clark Devereaux’s body. They break into the tomb and steal the body. Then they proceed to obtain the bodies of Philip and Misaki, and bring them back to Papa Midnite’s ritual place to burn them, which should release their ghosts from this plane. Constantine and Zed talk on the phone, and determine that one thing these people have in common is that the people they left behind are riddled with guilt. Papa Midnite and Constantine combine spells and burn the bodies.

Meanwhile, Zed and Jim pick up Philip again. She talks to him about his grandmother, and he asks her to pull over, which she does — right by the tree.

Back with Papa Midnite and Constantine, their spell doesn’t go very well, and they begin to argue. Suddenly, Constantine realizes what went wrong.

Chas goes back to the alley again, and starts asking Misaki questions, which seems to prevent her from attacking him.

Jim brings Philip’s grandmother, Mrs. Devereaux, and Tammy to Constantine and Papa Midnite. Constantine explains that it wasn’t really Papa Midnite that raised the spirits, it was the three of them. Papa Midnite says they keep the dead alive because they can’t forgive themselves. At first, Mrs. Devereaux is reluctant to let Clark go, but she eventually consents. Papa Midnite and Constantine try the spell again, and this time it works. The three spirits are sent back.

Jim drives back out to Zed. He remembers her face from a missing persons file, and knows that her family reported her missing, but she was only spotted once on a security camera, shoplifting at a gas station mart. She says it was an apple and a stale cheese sandwich. She then she confirms with him that her file no longer exists. She looks relieved. When he takes her hand and kisses it, she gets a vision of him, bloody and riddled with bullet holes, with a green aura around him.

Papa Midnite and Constantine have a drink together before ending their truce. He offers Constantine the opportunity to talk to his mother, but Constantine says he wants to know what he’s dealing with concerning the rising darkness. Papa Midnite asks the skull of his sister, and reports that all of Constantine’s efforts are in vain, that a darkness is coming, heralded by someone close to Constantine — someone who will betray him.