Hey, at least Timothy’s having fun, right? That kid, who may or may not still be the Antichrist, is giggling away while every other character on Evil is suffering. It really is the agony and the ecstasy over here, babes! We’ve officially reached the final four episodes of this show (I have to keep typing it so I actually believe it) — these are the four episodes Robert and Michelle King were given to wrap things up once Evil was given the axe. Those very meta scenes in which characters were in disbelief that the Archdiocese was terminating the assessor program even though it proved to be quite successful — but it doesn’t make any sense, it’s all about money, is the gist of the responses — are both absolutely delicious and also heartbreaking. Alas, here we are. While “Fear of the Future†remains yet another fine outing in this excellent season-four run, you can certainly feel the pressure of drawing things in this complex, meaty show to an end. There’s a lot to cover and little time to do it, and those constraints show themselves a bit. With the pressure cooker of a timeline both outside the show and within it, in regards to the Big Evil and the 60 and the Antichrist stuff, imagine my surprise when I realized that this episode wasn’t putting the mythology front and center, but some gorgeous character work. What a time we are having!
The crux of this episode is set off by two events: First, Kurt Boggs goes to deliver Sheryl’s envelope to Andy and walks in on Andy having sex with a woman who is not Kristen while both participants are wearing animal masks (yes, that kink is back). The second is when a woman named Ellie (Anna Chlumsky joins the Evil crew!) shows up at Sheryl’s funeral and hits it off with Kristen, who really could use a gal pal, only to inform Kristen that, surprise, she is actually her daughter Laura from 30 years in the future. She stepped into a wormhole created by the particle accelerator and has come back to tell her mother that tomorrow she’s going to learn Andy is cheating on her and she’ll divorce him and in six months David will leave the priesthood because he’s in love with her. I don’t know about you guys, but I guessed pretty early on that the two events were connected. Even so, realizing that Ellie is actually the woman from the mental-health clinic that Andy’s sleeping with doesn’t make what transpires any less compelling. I mean, we are watching Kristen lose everything at a wildly rapid (perhaps, some might say, too rapid?) pace. She’s lost her mother, her job, and her marriage seemingly in one fell swoop. She doesn’t seem like the same woman who would murder a man with an ice axe, but with this much trauma — and whatever fresh hell awaits with Timothy and Leland — all bets are off.
Let’s talk about her immediate response, though. Kristen doesn’t want to believe that Ellie is a time-traveling Laura who has stepped through a wormhole to inform her mother of her father’s infidelity, but after a little visit from her Night Terror Demon George, she just can’t shake it. When she calls Andy to calm her fears, he assumes Kurt has already told her and uses the phrase “I’ve met someone,†meaning it’s more than just sex. Kristen goes off, and friends, it is a thing to behold. Just that moment of her keeping direct eye contact with Andy and slowly sweeping everything off his dresser really fuels my soul. Now, to be fair to Andy, as Kristen finds out at the end of the episode thanks to Sheryl’s second flash drive, he has had blood and brain matter drained out of his body for months and is highly susceptible to manipulation. Not to mention, Kristen has cheated on Andy as well. (And when Andy brings up David, Kristen really pops off.) Although, her little car tryst was a onetime thing, while Andy seems to have feelings attached to this woman from across the hall. Perhaps the end of their marriage does warrant a bigger conversation — but also, be better, dude.
Kristen comes home sobbing and finds Ben at her house and crumples into him. She tells him everything — about Andy and about the woman from the future. Everyone needs a friend like Ben. Not only is he constantly at Kristen’s fixing stuff around the house, but she can say things like, “She said she came through a wormhole,†and he doesn’t laugh at her. He also, though, points out that coming back 30 years to tell someone about a cheating spouse is highly suspect. Not to mention, Ben immediately offers to kill Andy for her, which on this show … well, you know. I love that Kristen’s response here is to ask him how and he immediately offers up poison. She’d rather Andy get an STD and die a slow, agonizing death. Our little sickos never disappoint!
The other kind of wonderful thing Ben does is let David know all of this is going on because Ben knows that Kristen needs David. (And that David needs Kristen.) David is hesitant because those feelings for Kristen he’s been trying to repress are only getting stronger — Demon Kristen seems to be a permanent fixture these days, and let us not forget about his “I wish I had two lives†sentiment; bathtubs haven’t been the same since. But of course David goes to see her.
The girls overheard her conversation with Ben, so rather than have to explain anything more before she’s ready, Kristen moves her conversation with David to the office. This private space only ratchets up the sexual tension between these two. The blocking of this scene is gorgeous. They’re keeping their distance from one another — David is especially aware of not getting too close — but you can practically feel the pull between them. It doesn’t take too long for Kristen to ask for what she really needs from him: For him to hold her. It is certainly the sexiest comfort hug my stupid little eyes have ever seen. The fact that, again, in the midst of so much going down within the mythology, we linger on this hug for as long as we do is yet another example of Evil really owning its many flavors. Sure, it’s a horror show and full of social commentary, it’s a thriller, and even funnier than most comedies on TV at times, but in the end, perhaps it’s a love story, too?
I know Ben would back me up here. It’s Ben who finally stops all the tiptoeing around David and Kristen’s obvious connection and asks David flat out: “Why are you a fucking priest, David?†The man obviously loves Kristen and she loves him, too. They should be together. David opens up about things he’s obviously been bottling up for so long. Of course, he thinks about a life with Kristen; of course, he thinks about leaving the priesthood to be with her. But he has made a commitment to God. “If that sounds like the Middle Ages to you,†he says, borrowing a phrase Kristen used on him earlier, “then fuck it, I am the Middle Ages.†He emphatically tells Ben that he will not break his promise because he is tired of “the broken promises in this world.†He remains a priest and committed to his faith because it shows him what is right and what is wrong and he is sick thinking about the amount of evil out there. “I will not break this promise, even if it breaks me. Even if I need Kristen.â€
The delivery here — yet another great Mike Colter scene; someone make this guy a romantic leading man tomorrow — is full of passion and emotion, but there’s anger and a bitterness, too. It’s easy to believe that David really believes all of this to be true. And, yet, isn’t the argument kind of flimsy? I was ready for Ben to take it in and follow up with a question about committing to Kristen. Isn’t that good and right, too?
While the boy chat is going on, Ellie shows up at the Bouchard house with a “gift†for Timothy. Only Laura is home, but Ellie insists on handing it directly to Lexis, if possible. It’s all very ominous! Thankfully, the Bouchard women are pretty smart. While Ellie is in the bathroom, Laura runs out and grabs her license plate. When Kristen gets home, she makes sure not to let anyone touch the onesie in the box Ellie left. Both are great instincts. Ben runs with both and discovers that the onesie has been doused in a nerve agent and that the car was recently stolen by a patient from a doctor at Andy’s mental-health clinic.
As Ben and his sister, Karima, are putting two and two together about the Ellie/Laura of it all, Ellie has returned to the Bouchard house. It’s late, but Lynn winds up lured outside thanks to that pesky demon-detector app and runs right into Ellie, now armed with a box cutter and seeming more unhinged than ever. Kristen is upstairs listening to her daughter scream for help but unable to do anything because, yup, you guessed it, another paralyzing night terror. Lynn flees, but not before Ellie dumps all of this info on her about Lexis, that she will help Timothy bring on the end times, that something is wrong inside of her. Ellie might be batshit crazy, but I have to believe some of it is going to stick with Lynn. Will we get a big sister confrontation? Will Lexis be redeemed when all of this is done? I do not know and we do not have the time at the moment! Because now Ellie is upstairs.
Thankfully, Laura’s home, because this kid is crushing it. She heard her future self might be in town, and she said NOT TODAY. She uses that handy-dandy air horn to surprise Ellie before she suffocates Timothy. Kristen, finally able to break free from her nightmare, uses the stun gun. Ben arrives, and they realize Ellie must be Andy’s new girlfriend. Then they realize that she has escaped out the second-floor window. This woman is resourceful!
By the time Kristen and David get to Andy’s clinic, Andy and Ellie have already run off together. Ellie did, however, leave behind a certain flash drive she’s been obsessed with watching, in case you were wondering how she learned all of that information about Lexis and Timothy and the end of the world. Does this mean Andy is still in the dark about his missing brain matter? Will that change things once he learns the truth about what’s happened to him? Apologies for all of these questions, but Evil is really setting up a whole bunch of plot that is going to need to be resolved in just three episodes.
It doesn’t matter at the moment. What matters is that Kristen and David are once again alone together. Unfortunately, the mood is less can we make out for a little and more I have some terrible news. David, at the top of the hour, was made pastor of St. Joseph’s because Father Ignatius has retired. (I refuse to believe this is the last we’ll see of Wallace Shawn, though.) He assumes, and is later proved correct, that this promotion reeks of the Black Bluff, in which a Black person is promoted to a position of power when there is no power left — in this case, the parish is going under financially, which means it will close down under David’s leadership. This also means that it’s David who has to deliver the news about the assessor program getting the first cut. He has to inform Kristen that on top of everything, she’s also losing her job. Kristen lets out a small “that tracks†laugh because, man, has she had a week. And as we all know from this show and from life, generally and repeatedly, if you’re not laughing, you’re crying, you know what I mean?
Church Bulletin
• Some items of note in regards to the now arrested Leland Townsend: He still cannot remote view into David without hearing crippling marching band music. His bumbling lawyer, Mr. Stick (John Carroll Lynch!!), advises him to take an insanity plea, which Leland than threatens Kurt into helping him secure. Just as Leland is about to fire Mr. Stick, the man shows up in court no longer bumbling and Leland now sees him as possibly the most terrifying demon Evil’s deployed. He is, apparently, the “Evil†coming to New York, and he tells Leland that if he fires Stick, he “will eat [Leland’s] brain out of [his] skull like soup.†Leland keeps Stick around.
• Okay, this demon is grotesque, what with all the skulls and teeth and the bodies it is dragging behind it, but I let out a big laugh when I saw that even in demon form it still had Stick’s mustache.
• George the Demon snorting Sheryl’s ashes while wearing a Sheryl wig? I really missed that guy.
• The fact that Lexis’s most pressing question after learning that her parents are headed for divorce is “Is Father Acosta our dad now?†sent me.