Evil, who hurt you? As if one disgusting demon goblin baby that I can never unsee wasn’t enough back in season one, now there’s a second disgusting demon goblin baby that I can never unsee?! Why? Also, WHY? This week’s episode is called “The Demon of Parenthood,†and if Evil’s goal was to scare people into never having children lest they bear a hairy, many-armed creature WITH TOO MANY TEETH, mission accomplished, team.
Another person emotionally scarred for life after the events of this episode is Kristen Bouchard. Buddies, Kristen has a lot on her mind these days. We know this because guess who’s back? Night Terror Demon George! Now he’s flossing with Lexis in Kristen’s bedroom. And not the good flossing (dental) but the bad flossing (dance). It’s horrifying. It also spurs Kristen to finally have a follow-up conversation with David about the Entity and Victor LeConte’s reveal that Leland is grooming Lexis to take over a demonic house.
This episode is bookended with two great one-on-one Kristen/David scenes that not only reinforce the complexity of their relationship but also let Katja Herbers and Mike Colter really do their stuff. In this first one, Kristen is mostly concerned with if she can still trust David. If Leland’s interactions with her have been “designed†from the beginning and David hired her to be an assessor at the same time, was that all “by design,†too? Was it part of some plan of David’s? And how can she trust someone that’s been lying to her about all those Victor LeConte phone calls? Although she doesn’t believe in all the religion stuff, she’s always, always admired David for his faith. He was someone she aspired to be like. But after all of this, now she sees that David is “just like everyone else.†David insists there was nothing planned about their relationship, apologizes for the lying, and promises to tell her anything he learns about RSM Fertility from LeConte. They leave things in a rocky place.
In turn, this conversation spurs Kristen to check in with her delightful, refuses to drink margs-in-a-can, lawyer Yasmine. Yasmine has been working behind the scenes on a $43 million lawsuit against RSM Fertility if they don’t produce Kristen’s missing egg. The good news is that RSM is finally admitting to the egg’s existence; the bad news is that it was donated to “medical research,†which means it could either have been destroyed … or donated to someone who wants to get pregnant. The thought that someone could be having a baby with her egg sends her into a panic. And we know that things that stress Kristen out the most show up in her dreams, and thus we have arrived at the aforementioned disgusting demon goblin baby. I don’t really know what to say about this but the facts: Kristen walks into the kitchen and finds a crying mound of fleshy, hairy horror and she breastfeeds it. So, like, that’s what’s happening on Evil this week.
Unfortunately for her, the stress about her egg is warranted. Yasmine tells her that the egg was fertilized and implanted, and it’s not long before Kristen sits down with the eight-month pregnant Valerie and her husband, Logan. They’ve wanted a child for so long, so this is like a miracle to them, but everyone agrees this is a terrible situation. Still, they want Kristen to be a part of their daughter’s life.
Speaking of stressed-out people, Logan is having a lot of pre-baby anxiety. He’s heard the rumors about RSM Fertility, and he’s worried. He’s also worried because when he listens to the baby’s heartbeat, he hears an animal growling. So, I mean, he’s probably more concerned about the second thing, but both are tied together. When Kristen visits them at home, Logan has only gotten worse. He’s going to town in his garden with his hand rake, trying to pull up all the flowers that could be harmful. He explains that he just wants to be helpful — the pregnancy has been hard, and he’s seen how much Valerie is “suffering,†and he wants to do whatever he can to alleviate that for her.
If only he had taken Kristen up on her offer to find someone to help with his anxiety. At the end of the episode, Kristen gets a call from Logan. Something’s really wrong with Valerie, but she’ll only talk to her. By the time Kristen gets there, it’s too late. She finds Logan just dripping in blood, holding his hand rake. “I was trying to save her. I had to cut it out. It was killing her,†he says. Kristen runs upstairs, finds the nursery walls covered in blood, and looks over to find Valerie’s bloodied body. She screams in horror. We only see Valerie’s feet, yet it might still be the grisliest thing Evil’s ever depicted. Kristen’s seen a lot of messed up shit, but how does she recover from this?
Meanwhile, David’s had a real positive turn with Victor LeConte. His mission for David this week sounds bananas — someone during their next assessment will say the word “honky-tonk,†and the 12th word the person says after that is the word David needs to bring back to Victor — and like David, I was starting to wonder if this was all some sort of game or … Victor was a psychotic person? But we are both proved wrong because things get very real on the way to free our prophet friend Grace.
David hears the word honky-tonk twice during his latest assessment of a toy store with a demonic infestation problem. When he brings the first word to Victor, the guy is elated. Seriously, have we ever seen him smile before?
He’s less enthused when David meets with him to tell him that a second person gave him a post-honky-tonk word, and he thinks this is the real one. Forget the first. Victor puts him in his place, reminding him that he is “an intermediary,†that is all. Basically: Know your role and shut your mouth. (The Rock did make some fair points, you know?) But David is persistent. He goes back to the man and tells him that he needs to give him more so that he can convince LeConte that his message is the real one. David’s instincts are correct, this guy seems legit, and he desperately wants to help free Grace. His addendum to the honky-tonk message is this: “Talk to Lau, not Xi.â€
That message gets Victor LeConte all hot and bothered, and he brings David to this secret priest meeting where a Vatican representative is making a deal with reps from the Chinese government to get Grace out of a labor camp. That sentence sounds made up, doesn’t it? It’s not. The negotiations are going poorly until David relays his message and the Vatican rep begins negotiations with a different person, a Mr. Lau, and it works! Grace comes home. We even get a nice button on the episode where she comes to the rectory to thank David in person.
While that’s nice, what this whole situation does for David is making his work with LeConte tangible. He finally sees the value in it. All he’s wanted is to serve God in a real, meaningful way, and now he sees these missions aren’t all bullshit. He’s doing something and that reaffirms his decision to work with LeConte.
It also brings us to that second David/Kristen conversation I mentioned. This scene! This scene is one of my favorites in the series. It’s so well-earned and such a testament to the development of both of these characters over the past three seasons. David is obviously beside himself that he could disappoint Kristen. To think that she can’t trust him anymore is hurting him more than he can really say. But, as he tells her, he believes “in something that goes beyond what [they] have.†His faith is his priority. It’s his mission. It’s his life. “I care for you more than anyone I know, but when God commands something of me, I have to obey.†Earlier this season, we watched David really question his faith, but now he is all in, even if it costs him the person he cares about most in this world. And that is something that Kristen cannot comprehend, especially, after everything they’ve been through with the church. It is baffling. She tells him she loves him. She loves him as a friend and as a person she respects. She clearly loves him deeply, but they will always be diametrically opposed on this subject. What does that mean for them as they move forward? No, I’m asking. What does it mean?!
Church Bulletin
• David does make good on his promise to stop lying to Kristen and Ben about the Entity. He tells them that Victor informed him the haunted toy store was tied to everything with Grace and getting secret messages out of Chinese labor camps.
• I can’t believe Ben being covered in goat blood and having sex with a cult leader was not brought up even once this week, but yes, I did enjoy that Kristen/Ben scene in which he tries to comfort her when she’s spiraling about the egg situation. She’s worried about RSM Fertility messing with the DNA of the eggs — she doesn’t want anything bad to happen to Valerie (insert eyes emoji here!), but obviously she is always thinking about Lexis, too. About Lexis, Ben tells her, “She’s a good kid. You’re a good mother.†I just love Ben so much and am constantly fearing for his life. It’s an exhausting existence, I know.
• This is wild but true: I think Ben finding that severed finger in the Magic 8-Ball knockoff was the least disgusting of the disgusting things to happen in this episode.
• Since Kurt only snagged some of Sister Andrea’s hair from her shower drain instead of cutting it all off, his demonic muse won’t return. Leland suggests Kurt attend a demonic possession to really get the writing juices flowing … and then he suggests that a real writer would actually experience being possessed by Satan. Kurt agrees to this. Kurt! What the hell! The last time we see him, he’s writing at a furious pace, rocking a no-shirt-but-necktie look and quoting Tom Hanks from Castaway by screaming, “I have made fire!†This seems bad.
• Leland’s “invitation†to the demonic possession says, “your presence is commanded,†and the dress code is “red tie.†This show is the best.
• I guess it’s Take Your Granddaughter to Work to Meet Your Demon Boss Day. Sheryl brings Lexis to meet The Manager. Sheryl warns her about who, er, what she might see (and smell!), but Lexis says the guy she chatted with had just two eyes. Apparently, this was some kind of test to see if she really is demonic. When Sheryl tells Leland what happened, he tells her to be patient. Even if she isn’t “the one,†she is still “the ambassador.†I don’t know what this means but poor Lexis!
• Nope, I have to cover my eyes anytime The Manager opens up that biscuit box. I’m not watching a giant horned demon vomit on cookies and then slurp them up, Evil! I’m just not!