Michael James Shaw

At first, “Danse Vaudou” seems like a supernatural murder mystery with some added flavor from Emmett Scanlan’s Southern-fried police detective Jim Corrigan, but writer Christine Boylan’s script quickly takes a turn for the better by connecting the case of the week to the personal lives of the victims as well as of John Constantine himself, Zed, and Papa Midnite. The episode uses New Orleans’ voodoo tradition as well as jazz and reggae music to drive the plot and differentiate it from the other settings Constantine and Zed have investigated throughout the series.

The character of John Constantine is rooted in music as much as he is in magic or being a con artist. Before he was master of the dark arts, he was the frontman for Liverpool punk outfit Mucous Membrane. (Which gets a much needed shout out in this episode.) Even before he was fully fledged and named character, he was a guy in the background of Swamp Thing #25, who artist Stephen Bissette wanted to look like Sting. But enough of the origin story stuff. “The Devil’s Vinyl” is the strongest episode of Constantine to date as David Goyer and Mark Verheiden construct a plot filled with the trickery, double crosses, soul bartering, and exorcisms that were the Hellblazer comic’s stock and trade, especially during Garth Ennis’ run. The threat level is also upped thorough developing the show’s mythology by including voodoo priest and crime kingpin Papa Midnite (played with presence and a spot-on accent by Michael James Shaw) and hinting at a character that will make Hellblazer fans shake in their boots. With this threat escalation, Goyer and Verheiden start to dig beneath the surface of John Constantine (Matt Ryan), Zed (Angelica Celaya), and Chas (Charles Halford) while giving them active and pivotal roles in the plot.