Confessions of Fangirl

As I mentioned previously, I think it may have been the plan to have John Constantine join the Legends in the upcoming season (season 4) for all, or at least most, of season three. I’ve been spending far more time on this than any person should, but I’m in it now. I’m very nearly done with my rewatch of Constantine (I may finish it before I finish writing this post, honestly), and I’ve also been through Constantine's appearances in Daddy Darhkest, Necromancing the Stone, and The Good, The Bad, and The Cuddly two or three times now so you know that I’m dedicated to this right now. John Constantine is my current obsession (The Meg is still kicking around in my brain, especially Jaxx and Lori, Avengers is basically always in there somewhere, and there are always things like Wynonna and Shadowhunters kicking around in there, but John Constantine, for the moment has emerged as Alpha Obsession.)

So basically this is about to be me rambling about John Constantine, the Legends, some random demons and what things are making me think Constantine’s joining the Legends for season four was planned from the beginning of season three (assuming they got renewed, of course).

John Constantine comes to the Legends, well to Sarah when he runs into Nora Darhk as a young, possessed girl and is trying to do an exorcism. All the shit with the exorcism goes down--it’s not pretty. The thing is though, Constantine has great chemistry with the group. Their group has always been one of misfits and broken pieces and John Constantine is both of those things.

(Quick side note, nothing is quite working right with JC’s spells when it comes to Mallus/Malice and considering the demon’s name is Malice, but they’re calling him Mallus it makes sense. They just don’t know that’s the issue messing up the spell. I love that they’ve been messing up his name the whole season. It’s like Benjamin Cucumbering his name unintentionally or something.)

They directly set up a few things--in my mind--with the Daddy Darhkest episode:

1. Obviously, they set up Norah’s background and how she becomes possessed by Malice.

2. Sarah is going to get taken over by Mallus/Malice again.

3. JC will be called on to help them again. No way is anyone going to just try to kill Sarah the way JC instructs Ray to do at the end of the episode.

4. Sarah in the past likely would not have paused before a hook up with someone to say “are we really that damaged?”--she would’ve just hooked up with them. She was sleeping with her sister’s boyfriend pre-Arrow, let’s not forget, and that was BEFORE she went through hell, became an assassin, died, got brought back to life without her soul, experienced her soul being tortured while her body walked around without it, lost her sister, and went through all the things she went through in the first two and a half seasons of Legends of Tomorrow. I love the girl, and I love that I don’t see her being slut-shamed, not really, nor am I slut-shaming now. What I’m pointing out is that she’s changing now that Ava’s in her life. I love that JC says he and Ava have great taste in damaged women when he finds out Sarah has been with Ava. Ava doesn’t like that Sarah had sex with John, but it’s mostly jealousy because it was after she and Sarah met and so close to the two of them starting to see each other seriously. And she doesn’t make it like Sarah is bad for sleeping with someone, only that JC is an arrogant, messy, weird, dumpster fire of a person. God love him. Shit… I digressed again. That is in the next Constantine episode.

So Sarah does get taken back over by Mallus (I know his name is Malice, but they spent so much time calling him Mallus that I can’t stop) and the team can’t bear to kill Sarah, as expected. It’s Ava and Gary (squee precious baby, I love him) who decide to go track down JC.

Here again, JC has amazing chemistry with Ava and Gary. Gary has amazing chemistry with everyone in my opinion, mostly because he’s just such a darling. Ava and JC though are such polar opposites. JC doesn’t have a cell phone, Ava has a device that lets her make doorways into anywhere in time and space. JC is a man of magic and chaos, Ava is a woman of order and technology. If ever two people were oil and water, it’s these two. And they work against each other so beautifully. (I think Ava likes JC just a little bit for kissing Gary because for all the shit she gives Gary, I think he means a lot to her.)

Matt Ryan has been playing JC on and off for four years, he has this character down. I’ll admit that I enjoyed the Keanu Reeves movie and they picked the perfect guy to play Papa Midnight, but when it comes to comic book character JC portrayals, Matt Ryan slays. And he comes on a set and just is unbelievable. It’s like he’s been working with them forever. I love him, I’m so excited that he’s going to be on this upcoming season.  

Right. Ah, concentration you are a fickle thing. So, back to my point.

In Necromancing the Stone, JC establishes a history with Beebo, which I mention because Beebo is such a wild concept as a plot point. He says he put a spell on one of the toys to make it talk and it told some crazy stories. We don’t hear the stories, but we know a good bit of what has been going down with Beebo, like one stumbling into Viking history. This would suggest that JC’s history is tied in some sense to the team’s experiences with Beebo.

A minor point which could mean absolutely nothing. But he does help save Sarah, and at the end of their battle, she offers him a place on the ship. He says it’s tempting. She’s not kidding and I don’t think he is either. The story isn’t ready for him to join up yet, at least I don’t think so, but it bears a strong resemblance, in my opinion, to when Deeks first appeared on NCIS: LA. When Deeks first shows up, he’s undercover and he goes back to finish that project at the end of the episode, but he promises he’ll “be back.” You can already see from the two episodes (JC is a major player in two episodes of Legends, another parallel) Deeks is in, that he’s going to be a good addition to the team. I think the same is true of JC. NCIS: LA didn’t have the room on the team or the plot line to support Deeks being on the show yet, but they were setting it up so that they would have the room and plot to bring him on as a major character not long after. I think Necromancing the Stone was the episode that directly foreshadowed JC’s eventual joining of the team.

I say that this is when they foreshadowed that JC would join, not that this is when they decided they would eventually have him join because I think they knew from the beginning of the season that they wanted that to be what eventually happened. At the end of season 2, there were already rumors that Victor Garber would be leaving meaning it would be difficult to keep Jackson on the show as a regular as well. The size and shape of the group have fluctuated a lot over the seasons, but it’s always been a big group. As a character, Amaya’s time on the ship was always going to have to come to an end before the others and the writers knew that they were losing Victor Garber and possibly also Franz Drameh. I think they were hoping that Keiynan Lonsdale would stay (I’m sad he isn’t going to be a regular, but I respect his choice to grow and explore!) but that still leaves three open places. There would certainly be room for JC.

Now here is the biggest clue, in my opinion, that they were planning on bringing JC on permanently if they could: Mallus/Malice is mentioned from the very first episode of season three. Guys, when they were plotting out the season they wrote that their “big bad” villain for season three was going to be a LITERAL DEMON. They live in the DC universe and a Demon is messing with time and space and he’s pushing through the barrier between the demon world and “ours.” There’s no way they don’t bring in JC for that. Even if they hadn’t written it that Sarah letting Malice come through to this “world” weakened the barrier separating us from demons further, they’ve already set up that demons are messing with us. I don’t think they did that and then went, “oh hey, you know who would be perfect for this plot? John Constantine!” I think they went, “You know who would be a great addition to the show now that we’re losing a couple of people? He’s even already under contract with us! Matt Ryan! We just have to write the show so that it makes sense to add him.” They’ve been steeped in magic and mythology from the beginning, but the entire second season was centered around the powers of The Spear Of Destiny so it’s not much of a stretch for a demon to come out to play is it?

I’m curious if JC will be on the show as a regular for more than one season. JC tends to be such a loner that I think it would be tricky to write the plot and his development in such a way that he doesn’t decide to go off on his own again once they’ve defeated the rising darkness. Granted, they may not get a fifth season and I’m guessing you can make “the rising darkness” and defeating demons throughout time and space quite a plot point. What I’m hoping in my heart of hearts is that the group eventually goes back in time and somehow saves Astra from getting sucked into hell in such a way that John doesn’t know she’s been saved. Demons are liars, and they’d torment John with her release even if she wasn’t in there assuming that John didn’t know she wasn’t.

I saw a trailer for the upcoming season and while there wasn’t much that was shown from the upcoming season, one of the major things--well, to me--was JC referring to the rising darkness. That was the big plot in the show Constantine and because the show only got one season, we never got to continue that. Having just finished my rewatch (told ya I’d finish the rewatch before I finished writing this), I remember why I’ve been feeling so frustrated about the show ending. I remembered that it ended with a cliffhanger and that nothing was really resolved, but I couldn’t remember specifically what had happened. I won’t go into it too deeply, but the entity that was urging John to fight the rising darkness also confessed to a different character that he was behind the rising darkness. The goal appeared to be to break the barrier altogether and make it so that earth could be taken over by supernatural creatures. I know we’re going to get a little bit of what’s been happening with JC since that show ended, but I’m wondering if we’ll get information on Chaz and Zed. I didn’t love Zed, but I didn’t dislike her either and I’m curious to see what happened to her. I did love Chaz and I think JC loved him and I’m very curious if that’s the “tragic love story” we’re going to hear. Could be something entirely different though.

I’m shipping the shit out of him and Gary, though again, how that would work long term, I’m not sure. I’d love to see it though, I really would.

I love that Brandon Routh is working with his real-life wife and that there may be something happening between their characters. I just think that’s fun.

The first season of legends was rooouuuggghhh. I don’t think I even made it to the end of the season. I don’t even remember what made me try the second season again. It could have been that I’d been watching Supergirl pretty religiously at the time and the crossover events got me reinvested. It could have been something someone said or posted. Regardless, I’m really glad I started watching again and I’m so, so excited for next season. Ughhh, I’m so ready!!