Kristen isn’t wrong when she comments that the gang’s last case as assessors for the church is an “anticlimactic†one. It’s not that I don’t enjoy seeing Evil use Kristen as a way to point out how rampant misogyny is in the Catholic Church — while looking into a renowned theoretical physicist, Professor Toppin, who the Vatican is interested in having join its Council, it turns out the guy is both a genius and an absolute creep, but it doesn’t really care about the latter (not even David or Ben!). It’s not that Christian Borle, who plays Toppin’s personal secretary, Neil, doesn’t make an excellent about-face when Sister Andrea discovers him to be a demon. It’s just that aside from that curious scene with Ben when Toppin tells him that he, too, could get a brain implant and upload it to the cloud so he can technically live forever, and Ben looks interested, maybe (?), there’s not much to this whole thing. We are barreling toward the series finale here, people, we shouldn’t be dealing with filler!
Perhaps I’ll regret complaining next week when this case plays a major part in Evil’s conclusion. But until then, I’ll just focus on the best parts of this episode, including some great David-Leland scenes and the gift of another Sister Andrea and Father Ignatius one-on-one.
Poor Father Acosta. The guy is trying to mentally grapple with the closing of St. Joseph’s — he says his final Mass and residents are being moved out with haste — and then he also has to deal with the Entity really riding his ass. But this is not the Entity by way of Victor LeConte or Father Dominic — we get the big guns, Father Giovanni, a member of “Vatican security†who once arrested the pope’s butler. Each new handler David’s saddled with gets more and more vague as to what they’re up to — and that’s really saying something.
The whole situation around the Entity is only getting weirder and David’s clearly fed up. He’s informed that LeConte recently died of a heart attack and Father Dominic is “unavailable†(but Giovanni says “unavailable†in a way that definitely means that man is never coming back). When David threatens to stop doing the Entity’s bidding, he’s basically told that they’ll kill him if he doesn’t. Giovanni can’t say that, of course — “We hunt killers, we are not killers†— but everybody, including David, knows exactly what that guy means when he says that if David tries to leave, he “will be gone.†He also puts David through a trippy lie-detector test to see if his recent anger with the Church has turned him into some sort of traitor. The lie detector consists of the blind monk from the crucifix room at the Vatican and a cup of seltzer water. I will provide no further context; you have to watch it yourself. Giovanni’s questions range from David meeting with Leland to the codex and finally landing on a whopper: Would David ever lie to the Vatican on behalf of Kristen Bouchard? He answers “yes†to that last one, and I’m sorry, but he’s never been hotter.
That is until he lies in wait at Leland’s apartment and sucker punches him as he walks in the door. You know that if Kristen saw that, she would be flinging off that priest’s collar and jumping his bones in record time. There are a lot of layers going on in these scenes when David visits Leland. We eventually learn that Giovanni has tasked David with cloning Leland’s phone to gain some intel about the upcoming meeting of the 60 and getting him to trust David in general. But I don’t know, team, those conversations David has with Leland about why he decided to leave the Entity and join Team Demon seem pretty genuine to me. Is this a sort of double cross going on here? I don’t think David will ever go to the dark side, but he could easily fight back against the Entity. Leland explains that once he learned to remote view, he noticed how the terrible people he was jumping into were basically just as bad as the Church. And then he came to a few conclusions: “There is no evil, David. There is free will.†He believes free will, the ability to make your own choices — to do what “tickles†you, as it were — is the only real gift God has ever given people. “So, why not stir up strife, discontent, misery?†he asks. It’s a good speech, but most of his moves throughout the series sure feel like more than Leland just exercising free will and wreaking havoc because it feels good, doesn’t it? It has always felt like more of a vendetta — against David, against Kristen, against the Church, against God.
David brushes a lot of what Leland says aside, but there are a few things that stick. First of all, Leland knows exactly how the Entity works — handlers disappearing, the monk lie-detector test. He tells David that if those things happen, the Entity doesn’t trust you — you’re “marked.†When David later questions Giovanni about trust, his new handler insists that the Vatican trusts David, but it’s obvious by this point that the feeling isn’t mutual.
There’s also Leland’s little observation about him and David leaving pieces of themselves in the other since remote viewing; Leland has a small piece of David’s virtue and David has Leland’s wickedness. For Leland, it seems, at least at the moment, that this “virtue†is manifesting itself by being emotionally stirred by adorable dog videos. For David, who might just believe what he’s been told, things are a little more serious.
When he confesses to Sister Andrea that he’s worried about pieces of Leland being fractured inside of him, she does, in fact, find some evidence that something is amiss with her favorite priest. David has a little sin leech on his back. She removes it with aplomb, but warns him that the leech gets larger with each offense and she won’t be around to help him remove it much longer. She believes that most of David’s sins actually have to do with the Entity. “Don’t let them pervert your talents,†she tells her friend. She is very much on God’s side, not the Vatican’s — and yes, for her, they are two very different things.
There is also that interaction with Leland in which David makes it clear that he’s not worried about protection from the Entity, he’s more worried about protecting Kristen. Leland promises to leave Kristen alone if David leaves the priesthood. David is smart enough not to make a deal with the devil, and again, a lot of this conversation is merely a ruse for that phone cloning — but it feels like a real plea. He might turn down the bargain now, but there is certainly a world in which it ends up back on the table in the finale.
The end of St. Joseph’s doesn’t just bring about anxiety and uncertainty for David — this week, Sister Andrea and Father Ignatius spend a little more time together while their lives are changing in big ways. We already know Father Ignatius is retiring, but it turns out Sister Andrea has pissed off enough higher-ups that she’s being forced to retire too. And in a fun little twist, she’s being sent to a silent monastery upstate — yep, that silent monastery. David’s not wrong when he informs her that she might not like it all that much. What I would give for a six-episode miniseries about Sister Andrea’s adventures there. Before she gets shipped off, however, she has a little adventure with Father Ignatius. The two are trying to hunt down the missing relic from St. Joseph’s church — supposedly St. Joseph’s thigh bone — and Sister Andrea is sure a demon has it.
Sure, it’s always fun to see Sister Andrea battle it out with a demon. This time, the demon in question turns out to be the same demon that she found in the Bouchard basement hole. Apparently, the guy was vacationing there — “the antichrist lived there!†And he says things like “suck my balls†and “we’ve got holes everywhere, lady, just like you†for a while until Sister Andrea guts him like a fish and pulls the thigh bone out of his stomach. But the most meaningful part of this story line is once again a conversation between a nun and priest over a bowl of marshmallows.
This isn’t the first time Father Ignatius has admitted that he’s not sure what he believes when it comes to his faith, but it is interesting to see just how in awe he is of Sister Andrea’s own unwavering belief system. He doesn’t quite get the whole “she sees demons†thing and finds it especially confusing that she sees demons but not God. “Is there a chance there is only evil, that there is no good?†he asks. But she assures him God is real.
He tells her that his parents wanted one of their children to become a priest, and so he did. He doesn’t know what he actually believes, but he is certainly alarmed by the fact that in a lot of recent polling — he loves polling — not only is church attendance way down but “the largest religious affiliation is ‘Nones.’†“Well, the ‘Nones’ weren’t the ones molesting children,†Sister Andrea retorts.
Father Ignatius feels like whenever he speaks to someone about God these days, they look at him like he’s “dim.†If no one believes in God anymore, then what has he dedicated his life to? “I’m reaching the end of my life feeling like a fool,†he says. But Sister Andrea has a response for that too: “Enter by the narrow gate for wide is the gate that leads to destruction.†They might be in the minority, but that doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Her big argument for staying the course in her beliefs has to do with what comes after we die. She doesn’t buy that people are comforted by the idea of dying and becoming part of the universe — just a scattering of atoms — God loves people for who they are as individuals, she reminds him. The reminder does, in fact, bring comfort to Father Ignatius.
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: What a show. Admittedly, I was mostly drawn to Evil in the beginning because it was a smart, biting send-up of the Catholic Church, an organization that deserves to get a smart, biting send-up. But how incredible that a series so unafraid to take religion to task also takes time to let two characters have a sincere conversation about their faith (and I say that as someone who leans closer to ‘Nones’ than anything else). Like so many of the episodes and cases throughout the series run, Evil offers up no easy answers and leaves room for ambiguity. Next week is the end of the conversation — what kind of answers do you think we’ll be getting then?
Church Bulletin
• Someone help Ben! When Professor Toppin calls him up, seemingly possessed by a demon, Ben’s jinn returns and latches onto his head — Ben screams out in pain. I literally have zero guesses as to where this Ben story line is headed in the finale.
• Okay, actually, someone help all three of our assessors! They are all still looking up their doubles to live vicariously through them. It’s honestly bumming me out. Will anyone on this show walk away feeling at least a little satisfied or, dare I speak the word, happy?
• David gets his reassignment: He’s being forced to join Vatican security in Rome. Kristen is devastated.
• David asks Sister Andrea to sit in on their meeting with the professor to detect any demons that might be afoot … eventually, she does realize Neil is a demon, but she doesn’t inform David? She just lets him recommend Toppin to the Vatican?
• I’m sorry: Neil the Demon staples his face back together after Sister Andrea slices it! It has become a thing I cannot unsee.
• Denis O’Hare joins Evil as Father Giovanni. It’s about time! You knew a show with an abundance of top-notch character actors wasn’t going to wrap things up without O’Hare. It feels good. It feels right.
• David gets a peek at Leland’s apocalypse painting, and it is certainly hellish! Especially unsettling: the Medusa head in the middle whose eyes open when David looks at it. Will my man turn to stone next week?
• “Are you being kooky again?â€