Evil: Let X = 9

"Do you have any idea how weird it is for me to be involved in this? I mean, I go to Whole Foods during the day, and at night I say things like, ‘Would you have told the exorcist?'"

Jeffrey Epstein and vindictive ICE raids. Did this air in 2019 or last Tuesday?

There are a couple of competing plot threads in this one, so why don't we take them in order of how heartbreaking they are when you really think about them.

This week, the church has sent our gang of plucky investigators to investigate a possibly legitimate prophet. For some reason this appears to strike David as odd, to the extent that he repeatedly asks why they're being asked to look into it. This, in its own turn, struck me as odd. In that looking into religious mysteries is kind of their entire reason for existing as a team. Is the possibility of a prophet really that much of a stretch from the possibility of demonic obsession or miraculous return from the dead? Why the incredulity?

To be fair, the team was specifically formed to evaluate if people legitimately needed exorcisms, so David is well within his rights to question this sudden pivot to investigating prophets. After all, it's not like he knows that he's living in a monster of the week, episodic television series. So, fair enough. But we also have to acknowledge that he didn't really question the pivot to resurrections to this degree, nor any other of the 'non-possession' workload that's happened to come up.

I think what bothers me about it - and I've already given it far more discussion than what would reflect my actual level of irritation with it - is that it's one of those occasions where a character only asks the 'perfectly reasonable and obvious question about the premise of the show' because that allows the show to reveal that there is, in fact, something different about this specific case. And that's a lazy trope that I'm not a huge fan of.

To put it more plainly, under normal episodic conditions David just accepts whatever the assignment is and gets on with it. So, the very fact that he's repeatedly asking whether or not the monsignor has some more clandestine reason for sending them on this particular assignment directly invites us to assume, 'OK, the monsignor has a clandestine reason for sending them on this assignment'. Because if he didn't, they wouldn't have wasted screentime having David ask the question.

But, as I've already said, I'm making far too big a deal about this relatively minor bugaboo of my own. It's a screenwriting convention, and it works just fine to get some pretty interesting information across to us here. I'm taking a deep breath and letting it go.

Local day care worker and side hustle Prophet of the Lord, Grace Ling, has been publicly making some prophecies that match uncomfortably close to prophecies found in The Poveglia Codex, a super double secret document hidden in the Vatican. At first we're told that it's 15 pages, but later we get the reveal that, no, it's actually 280 pages.

This actually mirrors something pretty interesting. When the Monsignor first admits to having 15 pages of the Codex, he tells the gang that it foretells the end of the Catholic Church. Later, when he's forced to admit that it's 280 pages, he's also forced to admit that it's really about the end of the entire world.

On the one hand, that's interesting because it sets up the stakes for what Leland is working to achieve. The literal end of the world is on the line here. But it also tells us something interesting about the Monsignor. When he tells them it foretells the end of the Catholic Church, he's very deliberately allowing the Church itself to look like it's only acting out of self-interest. He's letting the Church take the blame in order to prevent the idea of the literal end of the world getting out. Which makes his actions paradoxically noble, in an interesting way.

David, meanwhile, could not be more obvious in how jealous he is of Grace Ling's connection to God. When he asks her about whether she has to reach out and ask God to speak to her or if God just does it on his own, he's clearly attempting to justify his own drug use as being 'just an attempt to reach out to God', and it plainly cuts him to the core that Grace isn't plagued with the same self-doubt about her worthiness as he is. It speaks highly of him that he still treats her with respect and kindness, despite how much he's clearly envious of her.

OK, let's talk about the main event.

If you look at this episode from Sheryl's perspective, this is an absolutely inexplicable and heartbreaking nightmare. Here's what the story looks like from where she's standing -

- She met a guy that she really likes. He's fun. A little unconventional, a little unpredictable, but in a good way. And she's having the time of her life. It seems pretty clear that Sheryl has been lonely for a good long while, so it's not hard to root for her. If you watch this episode and deliberately forget that we know Leland is pure evil, it's basically a Hallmark movie.

- Her new guy wants to meet her family. He's excited to move the relationship forward. He brings presents for her grandkids and seems to honestly enjoy playing with them.

- Her daughter comes home, the crowning moment of introducing her great new boyfriend to the family, and... she hates him, stabs him in the throat, and forbids her from seeing him ever again for vaguely explained reasons. The ultimatum is very clear. Have her daughter and grandkids or have her new boyfriend. She can only barely begin to understand what's happening to cause the ultimatum, but its terms are explicit.

- So, of course, she does the right thing and breaks up with Leland to maintain her relationship with her family.

I have to imagine that this is exactly how he wanted thigns to play out. He's driven a wedge between Kristen and Sheryl. He's corrupted Sheryl just that little bit more by seducing her into sleeping with him after trying to break up. And as a bonus, he got whatever that was that he drew into Laura's notebook into the house. (That was Laura, wasn't it?)

The position that Leland puts Sheryl in in this episode is monsterous. And I couldn't look away. So well paced, So well told. Leland coming to dinner is the ticking bomb at the heart of this episode, and they blew it up extraordinarily well.

Bits and Pieces:

-- If you are in the middle of having sex and the bed itself bursts into flame, please do not continue having sex, but instead exit the premises as quickly as possible. #ThingsINeverHadToSayDuringFirePreventionWeek.

-- I'm a little unclear about what Grace's warning to Kristen about avoiding red was all about. Was it that the dress Sheryl found in Leland's closet should tip Kristen off that Sheryl has been corrupted?

--If there's a weak link in this episode, it's Ben. His 'rational' and 'scientific' counter arguments about what might be causing Grace to appear to be a legitimate propher are so thin and unconvincing that it feels like the episode itself isn't even bothering to pretend like it could go either way. This is a rare example of the show not getting the balance right between 'Team God' and 'Team Science.' Nothing Ben proposes as an alternate explantion seems even remotely plausible.

-- There are two examples in this episode of the show using narrative techniques in really clever ways. First, when we get the disorienting repeat of David and Kristen's confrontation about her actions in last week's episode. The premise of replaying a scene to reveal new information about the other character's perspective is very well established, and they used the language of that to completely wrong foot us for the sexy time/demon visit dream. Very well done.

-- Similarly, Kristen's realization that she wasn't wearing the blue string and was therefore dreaming was handled in such a way that allowed the viewer to experience the realization at the exact same time Kristen did, which was really nice scripting.

-- An Euler triangle is a real thing, although my grasp of Geometry isn't good enough to really understand it. Anyone that can offer an explanation in the comments would be more than welcome. Amusingly, I googled what it was while watching and when I looked up at the TV, David and I had both gotten the exact same search results. That was fun.

-- On a similar note, when Kristen found Ben in her house and walked him downstairs, I typed in my notes 'She might actually stab him right now' or words to that effect. I was therefore incredible self satisfied when she picked up the knife right after I typed that.

-- Wait, does that make me a prophet now?

-- What in the name of Grace Ling's sacred beach balls was up with the freaky demonic kid standing on David's chair while he was high?

-- I don't recall if the prophecy drawings that Grace did for them while in ICE custody ever come up again. They surely have to get the rest of the prophecy at some point, don't they?

-- It would be interesting to know more about Grace Ling's past. Was she a Christian before she became a prophet? She certainly could hold her own quoting scripture, but then you'd expect that a prophet could, wouldn't you.

-- My notes contain the words, 'Michael Emerson, sex object.' I'm willing to bet that's not a sentence that gets typed often.

Quotes:

David: "How does God speak to you?"
Grace: "Very slowly."

Kristen: "It sounds more like a fortune cookie than God."
Grace: "Sometimes God sounds like a fortune cookie."
Ben: "I checked out her..uh.. statements."
David: "Prophesies."
Ben: "Yeah."

Grace: "God loves you, David. You don’t need to see him to be loved by him."

Kristen: "Shut up, it’s survivable. I didn’t touch the coratid artery or the jugular vein."

Ben: "Just a lot of popes, and us."

A lot of great world building, some exciting new information about what's going on behind the scenes, and Michael Emerson, sex object. All wrapped around a countdown toward the world's most uncomfortable dinner party.

Four out of five flaming beds. Only the weakness of Ben's counterarguments really speak against this one.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, retired firefighter, and roughly 78% water. You can find more of his work at the 42nd Vizsla. If you'd like to see his raw notes for this and other reviews, you can find them at What Was Mikey Thinking.

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