Content warning: don’t watch this episode while eating pork. In fact, don’t watch this episode while eating anything at all.
The case of the week is a slaughterhouse filled with possibly-possessed pigs, seen through what is obviously stock footage, which looks nothing like Babe or Charlotte’s Web. Are the pigs possessed? Is it a possessed young man? Or a case of feedback (don’t look it up) that leads to porcine aggression?
As always, Evil lets us figure out our own answers to these questions while hitting a few social points: this week, drone surveillance, which is like NextDoor for rural farmers, and the absolute horrors of factory farming in a globalized world. Unusually for the show, we also got to see a few non-Catholic flavors of Christianity, like the Pentecostal pig farmer and the evangelical exorcism “Trio of God” girlies.
(According to the Trio of God, these are the things Catholicism has invented: “Latin, the holy water, and the indulgences.” Now I know who to blame for the ablative absolute.)
Meanwhile, Sheryl tried doing feminism with a consciousness-raising circle group in her glass-ceiling office. It’s hard to raise consciousness in such a small space, of course, so it’s not too surprising that the surrogate went into labor, although I’d expected Evil to wait until the end of the season to produce the Antichrist.
Kristin had bonded with the younger (possibly-possessed) pig farmer about how conspiracy theories provide a peculiar type of comfort to people in need of an explanation for the world’s insanity. After the events of the season premiere, she’s doing a good job of refusing to connect the dots or believe in the mysterious. I’m not sure that’s the right approach, given what we know, but I can understand her urge to focus on, for instance, poor Andy, or on just getting through the events of the day, even when that includes feeding her newly-born surrogate-baby Antichrist. AKA, Timothy. He's adorable.
Mike Colter does such an incredible job with David: he’s the perfect mixture of deadpan, compassionate, and wise. He has such an astonishing burden, too. Of all the characters on the show, he’s the one who seems to feel like he can’t rely on others, especially laypeople. He’s had horrible visions, and doesn’t feel like he has anyone to reach out to. Even Father Dominic is more of a co-worker, or supervisor, than a support system.
But David’s visions affect his demeanor. He gets angry now, which was fun at first, when I thought it was him finally willing to let loose a bit, but is more troubling when we know that these aren’t really his emotions, but the emotions of the people he’s inhabiting through remote viewing.
David’s aggression had a positive benefit, though. His and Kristin’s fight in the car led to Ben finally admitting that he’s been seeing a Qareen (a particular type of jinn). He’s taking pills. And David explained that he’s working with the Entity, in roughly the same tone of voice I might use to explain I’ve gotten back together with a bad boyfriend.
After a few episodes of idiot plotting, it’s really nice to see our team come clean about where they are in their personal lives. And they even hugged it out! I’m hopeful that we’ll get more plot and emotional progress soon.
A crueler reviewer than me would end this review with a picture of that horrific demonic pig that Ben encountered in the field. Instead, I offer you a fuzzy screenshot of David’s visions of Saint Monica. I really love the art style!
Sometimes Reality is Obscure:
- The surrogate: “Giving birth to the Antichrist is fucking crazy. Using my body for food is just normal crazy.”
- I loved the look on the pork lobbyist’s face when Ben explained they were familiar with the area from a previous werewolf issue.
- I was so freaked out when Kristin cut herself on the pigpen. Germs! Germs! Tetanus! Demonic germy tetanus possession
- Is it possible that David Acosta, a Black man, doesn’t know of any significance to a red, yellow, and green flag?
- Why don't we have a review of Babe on this site?
Josie Kafka is a full-time cat servant and part-time rogue demon hunter. (What's a rogue demon?)
Okay, this entire episode was worth it for the three of them hugging it out on the side of the road. :)
ReplyDeleteI kept thinking of Rosemary's Baby during the birth and nursing scenes. Are they secretly trying to get Kristin to mother the baby? Is Leland that diabolical? Of course he is.