Evil Season 4 Episode 3 is brimming with juicy details and reveals that really get the conversation going for the remainder of the season.
Sheryl's working from the inside to take down Leland? The Anti-Christ was born! David's first remote viewing mission is life or death for many.
Let's dig into Evil!
David's First Mission
David's remote viewing training was very short, and his first mission was literally life and death.
But David can be quite stubborn when he wants to be, so he barely gave viewing a shot when Father Dominic gave him the assignment. David feels used, and he doesn't like that one of only 250 priests in the US is now his handler.
If it's a conspiracy of some sort based on race, I'd be surprised. Father Dominic's Nigerian origins are the more likely explanation for his involvement.
Americans are skeptical of things like remote viewing, but when you come from somewhere that has a different cultural viewpoint, it makes sense to take advantage of that.
Having a skill like that would be scary as hell, and that compounds his trepidation about Father Dominic. But if he can ultimately save even one life, David will continue his new metaphysical journey.
What is unclear is whether what David sees is what's already happened or if it's what's to come, similar to Grace's visions.
His training in Evil Season 4 Episode 2 wasn't clear on that either.
But if he sees dead bodies strewn around and they're hoping to save the missionaries, his visions must be prescient. It would be scary to have such visions, but man, would they be useful in day-to-day life?
Why Does Everyone Still Turn to Dr. Boggs?
At the end of the last episode, Ben turned to Boggs for help with his Jinn. We didn't see how that conversation went, but Kristen is giving him another chance now, too, hoping he can help Andy.
Andy's night terrors are out of control, and even watching him sleep is anxiety-inducing. I suppose Boggs helped Kristen before he landed under Leland's spell, and he may have been scared enough during the third season that he's willing to turn away from him.
But just tossing out his automatic writing contraptions won't do the trick.
Leland, of course, has a plant in the office, watching over Boggs and reporting on his actions. Will Leland be willing to let Boggs go now that the Anti-Christ has been born? That seems unlikely.
Beware Big Pharma
We did discover that Boggs turned Ben on to a Big Pharma solution for his Jinn problem, even if we didn't see the conversation itself.
Ben doesn't seem like the kind of guy to jump on a drug, so what he's experiencing freaks him out quite a bit.
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Did you laugh when the Jinn suggested Boggs was trying to get him hooked on drugs? I had to rewatch a bit of the show to see if the drug Boggs prescribed was the same as the one he gave Ben.
It wasn't, which bodes well for turning that corner away from Leland's influence. Still, the way they kept showing the pills and mentioning the doses of the drug Ben was taking was a little suspect.
Do We Believe Sheryl?
In a moment of clarity from her short-ceilinged new corner office, Sheryl admitted to five other women working for The Manager that she's hoping to take down Leland from the inside.
Understanding Sheryl's motives has been difficult from the start. On the one hand, she seems like a loving mother and grandmother, and on the other, there's Leland, The Manager, and the serum she drinks regularly to stay relevant in a world obsessed with youth.
Did the tide swing gradually, or was she always working from the inside out?
Taking down Leland is a tremendous and worthy effort, and it makes sense that you'd have to get your hands dirty to do it.
She's also expecting a new grandchild, and if the love she feels for her family is real, staying nearby for the baby's sake is advantageous.
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She seemed truly shocked to learn they wanted to kill Leslie and feed her to the baby. Whatever is happening with her, at the very least, the stupor she's been in for too long seems to be wearing off.
It better wear off soon if she's to save Kristen from being baby food. That was a surprise!
The Anti-Christ is Born
I got a little lost between Leland's conversation with Leslie and Leslie's escape from the hospital's evil clutches. Did she run to Kristen because Leland said she'd be spared if she delivered Kristen?
Does Leland really want to grind up Kristen and feed her to the baby?
Isn't it more likely that what shreds of common sense Leland has speak to the fact that if he doesn't engage Kristen in raising the baby, the baby will suffer?
We had the nature vs nurture discussion when we talked with Katja Herbers, Mike Colter, and Aasif Mandvi, and nobody truly believes that the baby is the anti-Christ.
Still, the signs have added up -- the dates, David's visions, etc. -- to suggest there might be something to it. Why on earth would Leland tempt fate by bringing Kristen into the equation?
Leland is evil; Kristen is not. If there will be a battle for that baby's soul of the nature vs nurture variety, then his influence will be paramount.
Your Truth
I live for on-screen conversations like the one Kristen, David, and Ben shared during another car ride in an episode where they were often in the same space.
I've never thought that the "your truth" mumbo jumbo was faith-based, but as they had that conversation, it began to make a little sense.
When you believe in God, you accept things as common truths. When you are a skeptic, you're more willing to see different sides of the same discussion.
Bringing this up reminds me of the many people who have made "my truth" their mantra, not because they're looking at things logically but because they are unreasonable and unwilling to listen to it. Kristen is not unreasonable, and her point about seeing both sides of the same elephant was apt.
Getting into that discussion popped the cork on all of their current secrets, and the setup worked well to reveal Ben's mental challenges, Kristen's wavering commitment to taking her girls to mass, and David's latest assignment with The Entity.
That's how life should work. You poke, prod, and question each other's beliefs to arrive at common ground. It's something we're missing in America today. Kristen, Ben, and David shouldn't be close and trust each other as they do, but that they are speaks volumes.
The Possessed Pork Challenge
Don't be shocked, but there is a history behind the idea of possessed pork, and we can blame Jesus for it.
The ridiculous girls conducting exorcisms were speaking an abridged truth, as the story they told originates in the bible, where many similarly strange stories begin.
This story, though, wasn't entirely the fault of misguided young women casting demons into pigs. It was just as much a tale of human darkness as the farmers, to save money on feed, grind up dead pigs, and feed them back to their flock.
Whether or not the demons were cast into the pigs and fed back to the flock, this cannibalistic process is another in the long line of reasons that American farms (and probably elsewhere) are cruelty factories just as much as they are food factories.
Why we can't care well for the animals we will ultimately eat will never make sense to me.
Being a writer on Evil or working with Robert and Michelle King regularly must be so much fun. You get to scour the internet (probably Reddit) to find what gets people talking, and then you incorporate it into the latest episode.
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We need more thoughtful incorporations of such discussions in our entertainment, not less.
Did you enjoy this episode as much as I did? Shoot me a message in the comments and share your thoughts.