Evil: Fear of the Unholy

“This seems... mean.”

Twenty-five years after Robert Putnam warned us of the dangers of bowling alone, those of us who live in WEIRD Anglophone cultures are beset by loneliness. The US Surgeon General declared it an epidemic. The UK has a loneliness minister. The World Health Organization called it a “global public health concern.” It’s as bad as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and is likely caused and causing the “ruins of civil society.”

This episode pretends to be about the fear of the “unholy,” but I think it’s really a meditation on loneliness, which is to say a meditation on the importance of maintaining social ties, friendship, community, and even in-person conversations with another human.

I’ve struggled a lot this season with how often this show uses apps to solve problems (or create them). Kristin needs to limit her girls’ screen time, in my not-a-parent opinion. And, while I hate an AI robot dog as much as the next person with a “Luddite” t-shirt they bought on Amazon, I think there’s been an overreliance on apps-as-plot-magic, like with last week’s doppelganger thing.

Yet this episode seemed to spotlight reliance, not at the level of the show’s plot construction, but in the way that technology has come to act as a substitute for actual human interaction. Something like the new Friend AI device is an obvious example, but that recent invention isn’t the only way that we—and these characters—rely on screens rather than people.

Kristin watched her doppel dance. Ben watched his doppel play with his son. David literally turned away from a picture of Jesus to finally look up his doppel as he thought about the path his life has taken. His final mass announcement ended with an underwhelmed “we’ll update the website” to a near-empty church; declining church attendance was one of Putnam’s key points in Bowling Alone as an indicator of the increasing solitariness of American culture.

Even Leland tried to deal with his feelings through online videos. I couldn’t stop laughing when he started to cry while watching a cheesy clip of two dogs hug each other. His reaction to his emotions: “C’mon, what is wrong with you?” made me laugh even more, since that’s exactly what I say to myself when I get all weepy watching animal videos. (It’s so on-brand for him that he switched to a video of people fighting, too.)

But almost no one in this episode is satisfied with the tech they rely on. The only exception is Professor Taupin, who relies on a neural implant to use his voice box, and chooses to do so despite the risks of losing his mind, not only because he wants to communicate (reasonable) but also because he likes the extraordinary mental power it gives him (“demon mode”), as well as the fun hallucinations. And, after all, he wants to live forever in the cloud, because, in his words, “technology has made heaven irrelevant.” How singularity of him.

David described the case of the week as “kind of an anti-climactic last case,” and that’s either true, or not true. It’s a Schrodinger’s case, I suppose: either physicist Johan Taupin’s work is relevant to my multiverse theory (which I am clearly not going to let go of), or it’s just a weird coincidence that his “personal assistant” is a demon in a geeky meatsuit.

I want it to be relevant, but I also suspect that Evil is going to be really, really evil and just... not resolve anything. As the kids say about texting, they’re going to “leave us on read.” They’re laying out breadcrumbs faster than they could retrace the path back to plot, after all.

The real case of the week, to me, felt like David’s side hustle for the Entity: breaking into Leland’s apartment, finding the red painting he was supposed to locate a few weeks ago, and interrogating Leland. The first time we saw David in the apartment I thought it was some sort of dream sequence. It came out of nowhere. David’s actions started to make more sense, though, after Leland explained that when they remote-viewed each other, they left “seeds” of themselves behind. Is David becoming more like Leland and the other bad guys he inhabited? Is that part of why the Entity wants him to be Vatican security? (Is that a potential spinoff?) (And what do you make of his little sin parasites?)

Leland also got a chance to explain his life’s mission statement: There’s no such thing as evil, only free will. So he asks, hypothetically, “Why not stir up strife, misery, if it tickles me to do so?” It’s such an interesting example of someone taking a reasonable idea (free will) and warping it to fit what they already want (to be a bad person). If we have free will, why not use it for the betterment of human flourishing or something?

Leland may feel like he has all the answers, but Father Ignatius isn’t far behind in asking the hard questions. We’ve seen him struggle with his faith before, and this week he asked Sister Andrea “Is there a chance there’s only evil, no good?” Sister Andrea knows God is real because she’s seen demons be afraid of God, which evokes the idea of “looking through a glass darkly” rather than face-to-face.

But Sister Andrea also does the most basic kind of good work here, similar to David’s pastoral care in “How to Save a Life”: she talks to someone. Specifically, she talks to Father Ignatius (with care similar to the concern she showed back in “How to Build a Coffin”) about his doubts, his concerns, and—above all—the fact that he doesn’t feel like he has anyone to talk to.

Sister Andrea doesn’t follow the polls. She’s never heard of “the nones” (although she thinks it’s a terrible name). But she does talk to people, or at least she lets them talk. She’s there, in person, when they need her. She doesn’t go for the AI-generated frictionless relationship of artificial conversation. She uses her free will to put in the work of taking care of people. Like Father Ignatius. Or, by the end of the episode, David himself.

Oh, Well. It Happens.

• The Deconsecrating Priest: “Please be packed and ready to go.”
• Father Ignatius: “I’m gonna need a rabies shot.” I will miss him.
• Lou: “No, not the Pledge!” (It was nice to see Lou again.)
• For what it’s worth, I don’t think everyone involved in quantum physics is a wizard. I think they’re all secret time travelers.
• Why didn’t Sister Andrea mention that the assistant was a demon? Why didn’t anyone ask what was going on with them? WHY WON’T THESE CHARACTERS HAVE BASIC CONVERSATIONS?
• Denis O’Hare, David’s new Entity boss, was in True Blood, among many other things.
• There’s a lot to unpack from a disability studies perspective on the portrayal of Taupin here, but I thought it was probably better that I just get this review posted before the next episode airs.
• According to the Evil subreddit, Leland’s painting was probably the work of David’s father.
• According to the same subreddit, the “subliminal” stills in the opening credit were from very old films, including the first kiss ever filmed.
• Usually, turning off the lights indicates a standing set is closing, like in Cheers. I love that Evil took a different approach, and gave us a well-lit church for the first time. Goodbye, pretty church!

Four out of four cans of Pledge. Because we’re still not getting any forward progress, but this episode’s themes were like catnip for me, and I could have written another thousand words.

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

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