The gang heads to New Orleans to get to the bottom of some unexplainable deaths, but ends up crossing paths with an old, dangerous acquaintance in this week’s episode, and, while the episode is entertaining overall, it still dangles the “rising darkness” mystery in our faces without any sort of pay-off.

New Orleans, Louisiana is the perfect setting for a little voodoo and a little hell-raising (almost literally) as the city’s occult history is well-known—in a pop culture sense—in part thanks to ‘American Horror Story: Coven.’ If only ‘Constantine’ had been picked up by FX, the show’s brutal, disturbing source material could be more directly translated to the small screen, but, alas, our favorite Master of the Dark Arts has to file his teeth down to look presentable for NBC and its audiences. This, of course, is all neither here nor there.

This episode takes guilt by the horns and ruminates—in its mystical, magical way—on the sometimes terrifying effects of holding on to guilt. The show seems to be teaching Constantine a lesson, trying to reach out to him and massage him into out growing the pain he feels for accidentally banishing an innocent to Hell for all eternity. Still, at only episode five, we can’t expect Constantine to grow emotionally until at least the season finale. I’m only half joking there, unfortunately. Mid-season character growth (read: significant change in a character’s personality) is pretty much a no go in most shows. Not that the show needs Constantine to stop being a hard-boiled jerk with a heart of…I was going to say “gold” but I think “silver” would be more accurate. We’re only just getting a feel for Constantine, and this episode does work to paint him as a complicated leader of sorts who trusts his “people” to get results for him without trusting them with much else (except for maybe Chas). And given how this episode ends, maybe he’s right to be so selective with his trust…

SPOILER: Midnite plays a significant role this episode and, despite wariness of both parties, has to join up with Constantine to stop what appear to be Midnite’s out-of-control magic. Midnite’s appearances are quickly becoming one of my favorite parts of the show: he provides us some history of Constantine and of the magic-using world while serving as a curious foil for Constantine. Midnite is traditional; Constantine appropriates from all magic-using cultures. Seeing them together—and even sharing a drink—is a treat that I can’t wait to see again.

“Danse Vaudou” does a grand total of just about nothing to move the main arc of this season along, but it does offer a vague prophecy for the show’s writers to deal with when the time comes. In other words, the series continues to make promises of big events to come while managing not to try my patience too much. But I really really hope we learn more about this frustratingly sterile “rising darkness” (terrible band name, by the way. I have dibs.).

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