On the latest episode of Constantine, “Quid Pro Quo,” we finally learned where Chas’ powers of resurrection came from. But what will he do when his time runs out?
Chas was always a familiar face to anyone who had read the Hellblazer comics. Much like his television counterpart, he is both John’s oldest and longest surviving friend. In Hellblazer there’s no outright supernatural explanation for his uncanny ability to outlive any of John’s other friends or acquaintances, though John tries his damnedest to protect that Chas from the dirtier and more dangerous aspects of his life. As we’ve seen so far from Constantine, things aren’t quite the same for Charles Halford’s version of the character.
“Quid Pro Quo” — a loose adaption of the Hellblazer standalone story, “All His Engines” — offers some welcome development for John’s partner in crime, and finally lifts the mystery on his ability to resurrect himself. In a move that should surprise absolutely no one, John places a drunken, half-assed protection spell on his friend — which subsequently saves and ruins Chas’ life.
The spell in question was devised by Merlin and cast on the Knights of the Round Table. If any of them were killed in the presence of lesser knights, they would take on the lives of the other dead around them, allowing them to fight another day for their King. John Constantine isn’t much of a king, but when Chas is caught in a fire — claiming the lives of 47 people, plus his own — he eventually wakes to the burden of carrying those lives inside him. Something that is both a blessing, and a curse. (Much like being John Constantine’s friend, we’d imagine.)
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In a bid to honor the sacrifice of the lives bestowed upon him, Chas appoints himself the lone knight at Constantine’s table. Leaving at all-hours, subject to John’s particular needs and whims, puts an unbearable strain on Chas’ marriage — and ultimately leads to his divorce from Renee. “Quid Pro Quo” heavily emphasized just how important family is to Chas, especially in the friction between the two friends when John fails to secure his daughter’s soul from Faust, which must have been the burden that weighed most heavily upon his shoulders.
But as we also learned in this episode, his lives are finite and running out fast. By the episode’s end Chas has 30 souls remaining from the fire, and with the Rising Darkness snapping at their heels it’s only a matter of time before that number dwindles down.
What will come of Chas’ fate then? We’ve seen him willing to do what is necessary for the ultimate good, and his fear of dying in increasingly gruesome ways is practically non-existent, but what happens when those souls reach single digits? We could assume that Chas will take a more cautious approach to his sacrifices, which would pose some interesting questions — ones that John Constantine plays fast and loose with on a daily basis.
How do you weigh up the worthiness of offering up one of your souls to save someone? Should we reach those kind of meaty episodes, it would be fascinating to see whether Chas — who is often a more moral person, when compared with John — would turn his back on a fatal situation, in order to save his limited souls for a more pressing issue. As has been posed before, would the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? Or the one? (Thanks, Star Trek.)
Or, would the habit of not thinking about his own mortality leave Chas slightly more reckless? As we saw with his plan against Faust, he was more than willing to take a risk with his souls — when the cause was more personal. We’re not entirely convinced that we’ve seen the last of Faust (he looked far too calm for a man about to be blown sky-high by a grenade), so could we see a cyclical plot appear down the line? It would certainly pose a far more tense and threatening plot to have Chas on his final soul, having to offer it up to Faust with no feasible way out. Assuming, of course, that the spell John cast was a one-time deal.
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And what of his friendship with John? When all is said and done, will their friendship hold fast and true? Will his life be irrevocably changed by his “curse,” and find him unable to walk away from those in need, his own mortality be damned? Or, will Constantine’s lone knight choose to walk away with his one remaining life, and offer it up to his other love — his family.
Constantine airs Friday nights at 8 p.m. EST on NBC.