Constantine season 1, episode 10 aired tonight and finally revealed how Chas received his amazing ability to stay alive.
Stop running
Constantine season 1, episode 10, “Quid Pro Quo,” begins with a mysterious cloaked figure chanting on a rooftop. In a room below, a little girl is brushing her doll’s hair when the room fills with unnatural smoke, surrounding her in its grip.
Back at the Millhouse, John casts a duplicity spell around the premises to protect the house even further. Zed is still worried, though, and Constantine presses her to learn more about who she’s running from. Zed calls them the Resurrection Crusade, and explains how their leader is a maniac — and also her father.
Still, John wants to help her, claiming, “Doesn’t hurt that you’re easy on the eyes.” We can see right through you, John Constantine. You actually do have a heart.
Late again
Zed notices the scry map is bleeding again, and it just so happens to be in New York, where Chas was headed for his weekend with his daughter. It seems 12 people have ended up in a coma, but they don’t quite know what they’re dealing with yet. In that case, John packs a few special items like something from Alistair Crowley and the sinew from Achilles’ heel. You know, just in case.
In New York, Francis arrives at his daughter’s house, late as usual. Renee is not pleased, but Chas brushes her off and goes upstairs to see if his little girl is still awake. That’s when he finds her on the floor, bleeding from her nose.
John and Zed show up at the hospital and immediately get to work. John uses the powder and brush from Alistair Crowley to determine that Geraldine has celestial burn marks, which means her soul was stolen from her. She only has a few days before she dies, so John takes her doll to a medium friend of his.
Hijacked
Friend is a loose term, however. Only by force does Chas get Fennel to help them. He does the seance, and for a minute it seems as though everything is going according to plan. But then another presence takes over that recognizes John and uses a spell to char Fennel to a crisp.
John tracks down the spell that was used by the other mage, saying that it only exists in five books across the world. If they can locate the closest one, they’ll find their enemy. Zed takes the spell in hand and ends up in Haskin’s Railroad Yard, but not before the mage appears out of the smoke and manages to slice her arm with a knife even through the vision.
When the trio arrive at the railroad yard, they find a man named Felix Faust, who John clearly does not respect. The man claims responsibility for taking the souls, as they give him an extra boost of power. He’ll return Geraldine’s, of course, but only if John agrees to serve him and take down a demon that’s been feeding off his new-found power. John agrees.
But Chas is getting impatient with John’s tactics, so Constantine sends him back to the hospital. “I know that man better than I know myself,” he tells Zed. “He’s a bloody powder keg, and we don’t want to be anywhere near him when he blows.” (A+ pun there, Constantine writers.)
Here, demon, demon, demon
To draw the demon out, Zed gets inside a circle John drew on the ground. The plan is to send it back to hell without getting Zed killed. John’s trusty lighter doesn’t do its job, however, and John has to improvise. Good thing he picked up that cattle prod he was eyeing earlier in the episode.
Unfortunately, Faust changes the terms because John didn’t send the demon back to hell, but killed it instead. John is willing to find another way to get Geraldine’s soul back, but Chas has lost all trust in his friend and knocks him out, shoving him in the back of the taxi.
Chas offers himself up to Faust, saying he’ll give him all 32 of his souls in exchange for his daughter’s. Faust doesn’t believe him, however, so Chas slits his throat. At least he got the guy’s attention.
Deal with the devil
Meanwhile, Zed is back at the hospital, and she decides to use her power to communicate with Geraldine. But something goes wrong, and Zed looks like her head is about to burst. As the doctors come in to help her, Renee sees Faust’s address and you just know she’s going to go after Chas and John.
Chas comes back to life and Faust agrees to take his soul in exchange for Geraldine’s. John rushes in and tells him not to do it, but Chas is determined. Besides, he has a plan. Chas shakes Faust’s hand and wraps it in Achilles’ sinew, claiming that he’s changing the terms of agreement. As Renee rushes in, Chas uses a grenade to blow him and Faust sky high.
When Chas returns home, happy and healthy, Renee greets him with a hug. Things aren’t going to be perfect between them, but at least Renee has a better sense of the sacrifices Chas has to make working with John. Chas goes upstairs to talk to his daughter, who’s also happy and healthy, and Chas sits down with her to show her an album of his friends, beginning with Susan Smith.
Parting words
Back at the hospital, Zed wakes up to find John watching over her. She’ll be fine, but she blew a fuse because she’s not ready to perform the magic she tried when she was channeling Geraldine. Zed rolls over, but she has a few parting words for John before she falls asleep again:
“One more thing about your mother.”
“What about my mother?”
“She said her death wasn’t your fault.”
Chas’ mysterious origins
In this episode we also learned how Chas came across his remarkable abilities through a series of flashbacks. Two years ago, Chas was in a bar with John, who was leaving with a girl. Clearly Chas was drunk, so John cast a spell on him to keep him safe.
John leaves with his catch, but Chas sticks around for a few minutes to watch the band Lillian Axe perform. Before they can get too far into their set, however, the stage catches fire. Chas tries to help, but he’s buried alive in the smoldering remains.
Chas wakes up in the hospital under Geraldine and Renee’s watchful eye, and they are surprised and relieved that he was okay. They said he was dead when he was pulled out.
Chas goes to talk to John, who laughs at his good fortune. Constantine was drunk all right, but the spell he used on Chas worked just fine. The only thing? It wasn’t supposed to. That spell was a myth, said to be created by Merlin so that any Knight of the Round Table who died alongside a lesser knight would absorb the life of the other man and continue to live.
Since 47 people died in the fire that night, Chas currently has 47 lives. This might seem awesome, but it tears Renee and Chas apart, with Chas often putting his job with John before his own wife and daughter. Chas wants John to reverse the spell, or Renee will leave him, but John can’t figure out how. Chas will just have to live with his burden and use it to do good in the world.
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