Evil: Fear of the Other

“My mother always said that if you ran into your doppelganger, you would die.”

Evil takes us on a journey through the long dark hotel corridor of the soul this week. As a standalone episode, it was very good. As the antepenultimate episode of the series, it doesn’t do much.

What Kristin sees as Paul’s struggle with his father’s death is more like a faux-father-possession. But it’s more horrifying to consider the idea of being possessed by a demon masquerading as a parent who is overwhelmed with regret. At a certain point, we must remember what Andrea told Paul: he is his father’s son, but he is not his father. We aren’t required to repeat anyone’s life.

The show doesn’t make an explicit connection between Paul’s struggles and Kristin’s recent loss, but it doesn’t surprise me that Kristin identified grief as the cause of someone else’s misery, since she’s not processing her own. And although Kristin is not her mother, they were remarkably similar. They’re both very comfortable with breaking standard social norms (like murdering people). They have tempers. They are loving and angry and intelligent, often all within a single scene. Kristin’s ability to lie on the stand... Sheryl could have done that equally well. Is it just chance that Sheryl wound up working for demons and Kristin wound up working to defeat them?

What if? is a powerful question, and one that people in our team’s situation—about to get laid off, struggling with the apocalypse, drinking too much, and staying up too late—may be doomed to think about. The doppelgangers are an interesting way to consider those moments: what if we could see how someone who looks just like us lives their life? Ben found a cleancut family man. Kristin’s double is the kind of person who plays an acoustic guitar in public and doesn’t seem weird. Kristin found David’s double, a well-muscled fitness influencer (with hair!).

David didn’t look himself up, perhaps because he’s thought too much about this question already, as when he said he wished he had two lives. Now, he’s losing most of the one life he does have: no parish, no actual church building, no assessor program. Sure, he’s still a priest, but he may start to wonder if he’s truly called to that life, or if he just enjoys his current version of that life.

I really wish Ben had made a connection to the idea of doppelgangers and his own situation with Renee. In the words of Buffy: “I didn't jump. I took a tiny step and there conclusions were.” I’m not saying Ben’s doppelganger was messing with his girlfriend. I am saying that he needs to start thinking more about what’s happening to him. And why a company (Who? The particle accelerator people?) would pay him nearly a million dollars a year.

The star of the episode, though, was Sister Andrea. If the show weren’t ending, I’d be delighted that we got an episode that showed her vulnerability. I loved that she made peace with the path she chose, playing the heavenly chord with David in the final scene.

I also loved the hotel setting. Hotels, like all standardized spaces, are terrifying. The Shining knows this, as does Barton Fink. As with the previous episode, there was some fun cinematography. The opening title card being upside and rotating to right-side up made me think of the floaty hotel corridor scene in one of the dream levels in Inception.

But we are getting so close to the end, and I just don’t see any movement towards closure. The show is obviously working through some cancellation-trauma of its own at a metatextual level. There were numerous failures of authority here. David’s parish home being cruelly taken away, brick by brick, by ecclesiastical authorities corporate overlords who want to sell “air space” and real estate more than provide a useful service. (I’m also horrified that they’d raze that church, which is gorgeous.)

Even the judge, meant to be a symbol of fairness, turned out to be a really evil human being who likes decapitating people. Andy was never a symbol of authority to Kristin, but he was the girls’ father, and so he didn’t just scam $800,000 from his wife. He stole it from his children.

Despite those nods to the situation the network put us in, this episode and the previous one both feel, in an odd way, rushed. There were so many connections and themes they could have explored a bit, but didn’t. Maybe that’s how the Kings decided to leave it. No grand finale that ties up any loose threads. Just gradual disintegration.

As Ben said: “It all comes crumbling down.” Or as Kristin said: “It’s all coming apart, isn’t it?” Evil is like that stack of assessment cases the team doesn’t have time to get to—abandoned and hopelessly hoping for a second chance.

Future episodes.

Let’s Go Out with a Bang:

• Kristin (to her kids): “Oh my god, what kind of a monster raised you?”
• According to the Internet, Katja Herbers had one of those very international childhoods that have always fascinated me. She speaks fluent Dutch and German. As well as English, obviously. (She’s not bad at French, either.)
• In googling Katja Herbers, I discovered that we are the same age. Why don’t I have fancier clothes? Should I buy bootcut jeans? They look amazing on her. Should I go back to a side part? We are the same age, after all. We’re basically doppelgangers.
• Kurt seems very unwilling to refer patients to Kristin. Does he distrust her therapy skills, or is he just remembering how many of his patients are her friends and colleagues?
• We definitely need reviews of Inception and Barton Fink.
• Although we don't have those, my quest for accuracy on that Buffy quote reminded me that we do have this.

What do you think? How many nuns who got away out of four?

Josie Kafka is a full-time cat servant and part-time rogue demon hunter. (What's a rogue demon?)

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