Constantine Episode 1.03 The Devil's Vinyl

Zed pulls up to the Mill House and matches the setting to a recent charcoal drawing - another vision that led her straight to John. She meets Chas and he gives her the quick tour, ending with the most recent stigmata on the scry map. This time, Chicago bleeds. John points to a Chicago newspaper that states music producer Bernie Reed (an old friend of John's, the man who produced the only record of John's punk band Mucous Membrane) died in an apparent suicide, but when Zed touches the map and the paper, she's transported to a bitter-cold field of jasmine... there's something else at play here. And it's not normal.

John and Zed travel up to Chicago and make their first stop at the morgue. From his mysterious bag, he produces the Hand of Glory and lights each finger with a candle, an ancient method of raising the dead. Sure enough, Bernie returns to life just long enough to confirm his murder and mutter something about "moonrise." That's all Zed needs to connect Bernie with the long-defunct Moonrise Records and the former owner, Marcus, now an invalid in a nursing home. He relays the story of Memphis bluesman Willy Cole, a man who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for success as a musician. Legend has it, Willy's final recording caught the voice of the devil himself on the record (aka, acetate), and anyone who hears the song dies, complicated by the fact anyone near the record feels compelled - urged by whispers - to play the song. Unable to destroy the acetate, Marcus buried it long ago, but he notes that a so-called "private investigator" with knowledge of the legend offered to buy the acetate with a check. Marcus recalls the last name: Fell.

The name jars a memory from John - Ian Fell used to be a talentless metal-head. Nowadays, Fell enjoys massive musical success, exemplified by his lavish home where John and Zed confront him. Despite John's persistence, Ian denies any knowledge of a deal with the devil, but when his wife Jasmine appears with a gun in her hand, it's clear: she made the deal (hence Zed's vision of jasmine from earlier). Jasmine sacrificed her soul to save Ian from terminal cancer, a deal she brokered with a man named Anton. Anton recently came to Jasmine with a new offer - if she could find the acetate and bring it to him, he could return her soul. She planned to hand it over tonight.

John decides to meet this Anton in Jasmine's stead, but after rattling Anton's cage he finds the real monster behind the madness - voodoo priest Papa Midnite, interested in the acetate as a get-out-of-hell-free card. Midnite quickly subdues John, cuffs him to a grate and cuts his arm, leaving him for dead. As he weakens and bleeds out, losing hope, Zed arrives in the nick of time. Turns out John left her a nifty tracking device using a pair of magnetized nails.

Later, they discover that Midnite's goons broke into Ian and Jasmine's home and stole the acetate by force. Zed and John connect that event with a major series of deaths at a club. Under the acetate's spell, these goons want to broadcast the song to as many people as possible. Chas arrives to offer help and the trio settles on the key destination for maximum impact: the local radio station.

Sure enough, they find the goons already holding the station hostage and playing the song over the airways. Zed and Chas crash a car into the satellite to end the transmission, while John ventures into the station with his earbuds blasting punk rock to protect him from the deadly song. But the earbuds pop off and John drops to the ground with the rest of the staff, agonized by the sounds from the booth - until Papa Midnite kicks down the door and destroys speakers with his Ace of Winchester rifle. With the music muted, John seizes the moment and unleashes a spell that turns the acetate against the goons - they explode and a crater to hell opens, sucking in the acetate... much to the chagrin of Papa Midnite.

Back at Ian and Jasmine's house, John pulls in Anton and demands he renege on the contract with Jasmine's soul. John forces Anton to eat the contract and, once gulped down, Jasmine's suddenly ailing health returns to normal.

Meanwhile, Papa Midnite places the finishing touches on a voodoo doll that looks very much like John Constantine... and tosses it into a burning pot.