Evil: Exorcism Part 2

Andy: "You got more demanding."
Kristen: "You don’t know the half of it."

Evil takes a moment to reckon with some consequences from earlier in the season and introduces my favorite ever supporting character.

No, not Bishop Marx, played by the late and much-lamented Peter Scolari. Although he does also get introduced in this episode and is also great. He's presented here initially as an interesting blend of pragmatic and stern, commanding and yet social. The entire gamut of possible implications that he weaves into the brief 'Did you know that you have a bird?' conversation is fascinating. When he leads David into his own room to discuss the situation, he approaches the conversation firmly in the tone of 'strong hand sent to fix the situation and rein in David's team', but then interrupts his own line of thought with a casual, 'Oh, Flannery O'Connor. I love her.' In lesser hands that would have seemed like heavy handed scripting, but he manages to convey it as so completely humanizing that it's hard not to like him.

Flannery O'Connor, by the way, is an interesting choice for them to randomly name drop. Her work is strongly influenced by both her catholic Faith and fascination with birds. Full disclosure, I did not know that until I looked her up - Southern Gothic has never really been my wheelhouse. That little side quest delayed the writing of this review by a solid half hour, because she's legitimately fascinating. I could have cheerfully kept reading about her all day long, but did not because I take my obligation to you people very seriously

But as I was saying. Despite the wonderfully understated and even slightly foreboding performance of Peter Scolari in this episode, he is not the favorite supporting character that I mentioned above.

That would, of course, be the utterly fabulous Renee Harris.

Where to even start when discussing Renee. Clearly, she's at least partly there to be a romantic hurdle for the Kristen/Andy/David situation, but outside of her character's function, she's just such a good character. Relentlessly competent, extremely good at her job, and refreshingly free from any trace of the 'competent women being put in unnecessary competition with one another' trope. I think the moment that I loved her was when David confessed to her that he'd gone to Kristen and tried to 'get their stories straight' and Renee's immediate response was to compliment Kristen for being smart in how she handled the situation. That's refreshing, particularly seeing as how the two of them are being set up on some level as dueling love interests for David.

The other most admirable thing about Renee is the depth of her understanding of the importance of aesthetics. She's clearly also an incredibly skilled attorney (is there a different term for a lawyer that works for the church? I think they might have used a different term, but I'm not going to go back and check at the moment.) Picking up that sentence again, not only is she incredibly skilled as whatever her legal job title might be, she also understands the importance of the details like wearing a blazer and insisting on the usage of Kristen's proper title. Throughout the deposition she was consistently working as hard on the aesthetics of the questioning as she was on the letter of the law. She's good at what she does.

And so, the church is being sued for emotional damage inflicted on Caroline Hopkins back in 'October 31'. I have to wonder if this sort of thing happens with any regularity. I mean, can the church make the possessed sign some sort of waiver in advance? That doesn't seem like it would hold up since the church is also simultaneously stating that the possessed is very literally not in their right minds. I wonder what the actual real-world implications of this are. The church does still do the occasional exorcism in the real world, don't they? Or maybe I'm mistaken about that.

In any case, given how popular entertainment tends to show exorcisms, it's almost more surprising that they aren't sued after every single one, if only for furniture costs. Which is a good time to mention that I had to go back and double check which exorcism this was actually about. This is honestly more a factor of the glacial pace at which I'm getting these reviews done, but it did leave me to wonder if anyone else was confused, even briefly, about which one they were talking about.

And with Renee winning the lawsuit problem thanks to listening to Kristen's advice which was suggested to Kristen by Andy's emotional honestly with her about faith, things get wrapped up in a way that satisfyingly uses almost all of the different plot threads coming together organically. And even more satisfying is the fact that that victory was won by treating the science of the case with the same level of incredulity that was being directed at the religion of the case. Renee changed the aesthetics of the debate. And won because of it.

A requiem for the humble Commercial Break:

I did say above that it used almost all of the plot threads. One particular thread didn't really come into play in the exorcism lawsuit at all. That thread is of course Leland's gradual coaching and corruption of incel-killer wannabe, Sebastian.

To get into that, we need to take a minute to talk about the way the language of American television was shaped by commercials. This was originally part of the above review, but then it got way too long and pretentious and started using phrases like 'ad metrics' and 'revenue maximization', and at that point I knew I needed to take it out behind the shed and put it down, Ole Yeller style. Here's the stripped-down version.

For most of the history of American television, a fairly rigid footprint for timing has been imposed on it. Shows are, with the occasional exception, either a 30-minute footprint or a 60-minute footprint. Within that footprint it was also rigidly structured as to where the commercial breaks were and how long they would last. And many screenwriters started to find ways to play games with the imposed structure.

It's important at this juncture to remember that season one of Evil aired on broadcast television and was therefore subject to the rigid timetable for commercial breaks. Which means that when you watch season one on Paramount plus (or whoever has the rights to stream it in whatever year you might be reading this) you can see the scars from where the commercial breaks used to be. And they're playing with them in a fun way, because every return from commercial break returns us to Leland and Sebastian, apparently separate from the rest of the storylines. the episode even begins exactly where the last episode left off, but not until after it shows us a scene of Leland and Sebastian.

This is a structural technique that underscores 'this will be important at the end of the episode'. It's a periodically repeated war drum in the distance letting the audience know subconsciously that this is the X-factor that our heroes won't see coming.

And then they abruptly rug pull it at the last moment by having Sebastian accidently blow his own face off because he's too busy cosplaying to pay attention to basic gun safety. That's a deeply dark comic twist, and it was made possible by using the commercial break structure to create incorrect expectations in the audience. I loved it and it's a little bit sad that the greater flexibility of streaming shows has eliminated the basic tool they used to do it.

Bits and Pieces:

-- Stating it clearly, damn right. You achieve a Doctorate; you get called Doctor. Sadly, I've learned that a similar guideline does not accompany my Master's degree.

-- Also, technically Renee didn't win anything, speaking strictly legally. She totally crushed it at a deposition to such a degree that the party filing the lawsuit saw that they weren't going to win and instead chose to settle for a much lower amount. This is actually how most legal cases in the US get settled, sadly.

-- Unfortunately, I can personally verify that they got the atmosphere for that kind of deposition involving that many people exactly right. The only thing wrong was that both the room and the furniture were way too nice.

-- It's an interesting parallel that Kristen got a mystery cat and David has a mystery bird. Still sifting through the implications of that.

-- What happened to the Monsignor? I don't think he was written out of the show at this point, but I don't think we saw him here either. Does anybody know? Was the actor just busy?

-- Also largely missing, Ben the Magnificent and his new lady love interest. He just kind of hangs out at the deposition being supportive. Which is nice of him, and to be fair he did get lots of plot in the last few episodes.

-- And speaking of Ben tM, It was nice that Andy admitted to just a bit of jealousy and concern regarding Ben's presence in Kristen's life. And that they were both so adult and emotionally honest about it. I can't help but think that if Andy had more accurately asked about David that it would have been a very different conversation. Witness the way that Kristen only refers to David as her 'coworker' and the way she guards the opening of the front door when David stops by.

-- Why the hell were Kristen and Andy lying in bed with their heads pointed at opposite ends? Was it just a visual choice to look interesting?

-- Speaking of visual choices, The DP did an amazing job with the two bookend shots of Renee framed on David's bed while he sat in the lower right corner of the screen, and then later when David was framed sitting on the bed and Renee was sitting in the lower left. Absolutely beautiful.

-- You shouldn't google 'Angry Incel Videos'. Just don't.

-- Everything about Ms. Lemonhead was fantastic.

-- Leland says that Adam is one of 59 people he trusts, pretty much confirming that Adam is either the head or the avatar of one of the 60 demons on the map. Interestingly, it also begs the question of whether Leland himself is one or if they currently have a vacancy. Have we confirmed that Leland is that high up?

Quotes:

Kristen: "The Tibetan band can play tomorrow."

Kristen: "Like a baby’s ass."
Andy: "That’s what I like. Sexy talk."

Lila (I think): "All of our fish died! We need a cat now!"

Renee: "That’s Julia for ya. Always has to have the last word, even from the grave."

Kristen: "Hi, It’s just Kristen."
Renee: "You have a doctorate, that deserves a Dr."

Renee: "Judith Lemonhead."
Kristen: "Lemonhead?"
Renee: "I know. Stupid name. And she’s angry about it. Wants to take it out on the world."

Judith: "And did she tell you anything about me?"
Kristen: (without hesitation) "Yes, she told me that you hated your last name and wanted to take it out on the world."

Adam: "That’s how you get good at it. You kill people."

Judith: "So you really sold your soul?"
Renee: "Go to Hell, Lemonhead!"

A solid episode that made me belly laugh several times while also maintaining the level of creepy and advancing the season long plot. I did miss Sheryl though.

Four out of five Lemonheads – a vastly underrated candy.

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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