BWW Recap: CONSTANTINE Whets Our Appetite with 'A Feast of Friends'

Tonight's story is literally ripped from the pages of the comic book HELLBLAZER on which the show is based.

John's former mate Gary Lester (Royal Shakespeare Company Associate Artist JonJo O'Neill) pays CONSTANTINE a ghoulishly delicious visit in "A Feast of Friends." Let's flip the Tarot and dive in, shall we?

Gary has just arrived stateside. He's either sick, nervous or both. He's busted for trying to bring in a strange bottle. He pleads with the border guard not to open the bottle. The guard picks it up, drops it, it shatters and thousands of flying insects fly out and into the guard's mouth.

John (Matt Ryan) and Zed (Angelica Celaya) are enjoying a sunny day in the park. Everyone around John freezes and the angel Manny (Harold Perrineau) shows up. Manny isn't sure if Zed is capable of helping John. John insists she's proved herself thus far.

Back at the magic cabin, there's been a break-in. Beetles scurry across the flow. Gary is caught in the zero gravity trap. He's no sooner free from the magical burglar alarm and he's telling John about his fateful trip to the Sudan. It's not the kind of thing you see on a Rick Steves' tour: a man with bloody markings on his face (a binding spell) has a demon is trapped within him. Gary recognized this as a chance to make up for the incident at New Castle (where Astra Logue was carried off to hell after a botched exorcism) and he trapped the demon in the bottle. Zed asks what happened to the bottle.

Back at the airport, the guard who swallowed a swarm of demon bugs is grabbing food off people's plates in the food court. He puts his hand into a fryer, shoves some fries into his mouth and then dies. The bugs fly out of his mouth.

In the magic cabin, John seems to be preparing for battle. He refers to Gary as "bloody hopeless." Seems Gary's dad was a successful car dealer. Gary was good for cash and not much else. Now, Gary's an addict. John finishes his incantation on a glass bottle

In an airport bathroom, the demon bugs find a new host and we next see the woman in a grocery store consuming everything in sight. A guard tackles her and she goes full-on zombie and tears off a piece of his face.

John watches the news and concludes it's a hunger demon that "consumes everything to excess" just like Gary. Gary swears he is clean. He offers to help capture the demon and John declines, telling Zed to watch Gary.

Zed learns all about New Castle and Astra. Gary puts his hands on the stigmata map, getting a rush of energy from doing so. Zed grabs him and immediately gets juiced along with him.

It's clean up in all the aisles as John interviews witnesses. A woman and her son saw the bugs enter a meat delivery guy. At the meat factory, John changes the board listing days without an accident to zero. There are at least two dead bodies from the bugs. John finds their current host and attempts to trap them in the glass jar, but drops it (oops). He takes cover under a cow carcass and crawls out of freezer, trapping the bugs inside.

In the magic cabin, Zed shows John the drawings from her visions when she touched Gary. John takes them to visit a shaman.

Not just any shaman, though. It's Nommo (a.k.a. Doctor Mist, played by Charles Parnell). He tells John they both have to ingest something that looks like beef jerky called "Mist" followed by something else to counteract the other drug (least the effects remain forever) so they can see visions through each other's eyes. And Nommo isn't speaking metaphorically. The both start tripping and he digs out John's left eye and swaps it for his own.

We see the man from earlier and learn how he came to host the demon bugs (short story: sacrificial host to stop the hunger plaguing his village). The trip ends and John realizes he has to find another ceremonial knife like the one that was used to first trap the bugs. And a sacraficial host to house them. It's been nice knowing you, Gary.

At the magic cabin, Gary won't stay put. He grabs Zed and she collapses from the psychic memories of countless drug and magic trips.

John tracks Gary down in a pub. Gary apologizes for betraying John in New Castle. He had been high during the exorcism. John doesn't blame Gary, he blames himself. They share a toast and then it's off to a museum where John will break some glass and Gary will steal a ceremonial knife.The theft is momentarily frozen by Manny, who asks John if he is really going to go through with it.

We get our answer in the theater where the demon bugs are currently nested in a body. John plans to use Gary as the sacrificial host. Gary decides he has had a good run and there's no better way to go out then by John's side.

John takes Gary back to the magic cabin. Zed is furious with him. John tells her that people who hang around him usually die.

Inside the cabin, John looks a little lost as he holds Gary's hand and the bugs slowly consume Gary. Manny arrives to watch Gary die.

And with that, we close the spellbook on another episode of CONSTANTINE. What'd you think of Doctor Mist's TV debut? Comment below.

Follow me on Twitter @triggercritic and follow @BWWTVWorld for all the latest updates, scoops and recaps.

To post a comment, you must register and login.