More Constantine
Feb. 6th, 2026 03:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI watched both parts of Saint of Last Resort today.
Constantine is a compelling character and all the character stuff for him is fascinating, but this show is doing Not Great at the racism of, like where the evil comes from.
Like it keeps on being about evil breaking in from outside and the outside is specifically racialised and it's... a problem.
But John's problem is the thing where he goes straight for threats and violence, deception and manipulation, the tools of team evil, and he does it because he thinks it will work. And it ties that to his background over and over. And there are characters telling him off about it, telling him he should ask god nicely, ask an angel again again, no matter how many times that hasn't worked. But they're going to John to ask him to fix things, over and over. So it shows you really well how he is in this hole. Him and his consequences keep on digging.
Horror believes in the fall but not redemption.
But this one got complicated.
as in, sure, they very much killed a bunch of people, and he glosses straight past that as Self Defense, but, the story drags him through it.
Thing is though by isolating him in another language, he does lose his chat and more than half his arsenal, but the story also just skips right past most of the tools for showing
those dead people were people too.
Calling on the wrong saint for the wrong reasons? They were very connected to the main plot there.
So I think the story is showing us other people who made the same choice as John and now will not get any more chances to do the work and fix things
but
the story definitely showed us a bunch of dead people as if it's John's suffering that's the problem about it.
Also, the roman catholic nun specifically saying John isn't sorry... the story used a lot of catholic twirly bits and art and suchlike without, for instance, confession coming up.
Horror story theology is always special but
it isn't supposed to be 'talking to an angel' that is key here
there's a whole process.
And while the novice nun is pretty sure about the Not Sorry
the story is giving us a different angle.
Like calling him arrogant and self centered, while he asks for help and can't save himself and tells his friends to kill him. There is a pretty significant tension between those angles, even when they are both true.
John Constantine is the story's favourite chew toy.
I will be watching these again later to watch him get chewed on.
I am not however as impressed by the plot or how the story treats other characters.
Makes me want to write about what the Hellblazer in my head was about and how I feel like these evils are missing the mark, but I haven't read the comic for decades so the version in my head is likely to be somewhat tenuously extrapolated by now.
Still. Making me think plot bunnies.
Even if it is in reaction to.
Constantine is a compelling character and all the character stuff for him is fascinating, but this show is doing Not Great at the racism of, like where the evil comes from.
Like it keeps on being about evil breaking in from outside and the outside is specifically racialised and it's... a problem.
But John's problem is the thing where he goes straight for threats and violence, deception and manipulation, the tools of team evil, and he does it because he thinks it will work. And it ties that to his background over and over. And there are characters telling him off about it, telling him he should ask god nicely, ask an angel again again, no matter how many times that hasn't worked. But they're going to John to ask him to fix things, over and over. So it shows you really well how he is in this hole. Him and his consequences keep on digging.
Horror believes in the fall but not redemption.
But this one got complicated.
as in, sure, they very much killed a bunch of people, and he glosses straight past that as Self Defense, but, the story drags him through it.
Thing is though by isolating him in another language, he does lose his chat and more than half his arsenal, but the story also just skips right past most of the tools for showing
those dead people were people too.
Calling on the wrong saint for the wrong reasons? They were very connected to the main plot there.
So I think the story is showing us other people who made the same choice as John and now will not get any more chances to do the work and fix things
but
the story definitely showed us a bunch of dead people as if it's John's suffering that's the problem about it.
Also, the roman catholic nun specifically saying John isn't sorry... the story used a lot of catholic twirly bits and art and suchlike without, for instance, confession coming up.
Horror story theology is always special but
it isn't supposed to be 'talking to an angel' that is key here
there's a whole process.
And while the novice nun is pretty sure about the Not Sorry
the story is giving us a different angle.
Like calling him arrogant and self centered, while he asks for help and can't save himself and tells his friends to kill him. There is a pretty significant tension between those angles, even when they are both true.
John Constantine is the story's favourite chew toy.
I will be watching these again later to watch him get chewed on.
I am not however as impressed by the plot or how the story treats other characters.
Makes me want to write about what the Hellblazer in my head was about and how I feel like these evils are missing the mark, but I haven't read the comic for decades so the version in my head is likely to be somewhat tenuously extrapolated by now.
Still. Making me think plot bunnies.
Even if it is in reaction to.