Evil

Episode Reviews

Jun. 12, 2022 – S3, Ep1: “The Demon of Death”

Though David regrets his nights of passion with Kristen, he cannot seem to stop returning to them—but a demonic revelation might change his mind. A scientific experiment regarding the weight of the soul yields confounding results.

David and Kristen kiss, moan and have sex on multiple occasions. David is seen in his underwear, and Kristen is seen in lingerie. Movements are seen, and lewd comments regarding sex and arousal are made. Kristen forces David’s hands on her breasts and genitals, and Kristen’s breasts are partially exposed.

Kristen is seen with a forked tongue, and David realizes that he’s been having sex with a demon. The demon tells David to check the catechism to see whether sleeping with a “not real” entity is forbidden.

David shatters a glass in anger and prays for forgiveness regarding his lust. Leland calls liability a “cross we all have to bear.” Kristen comments that the Roman Catholic Church “has no issues with older men touching children.” David and Kristen quote Shakespeare regarding the soul. Kristen’s husband, Andy, sees a demon, and he crushes a shrunken head to flush it down the toilet. Kristen’s mother prays to a demon.

Frank, a dying priest, asks David to forgive his sins of lust, and he doubts his faith in God. Frank comes back to life after briefly dying, and David later theorizes that a demon left Frank and entered into another dead woman. Later, that dead woman is seen watching David having sex with a demon. Frank kisses a male priest on the lips after coming back to life, and he mentions that he always wanted to do that.

An online user says that he puts medicine in his mom’s food as a prank to see if she reacts. A man opens a book titled “The Pop-Up Book of Contemporary Demons.” In the book, a demon cuts off paper human heads, and naked paper people are seen being tortured in hell, though nothing is shown.

A nun explains that faith, not works, will save a man. Kristen’s mother has a glass of wine. A bloody ice pick is seen in the intro sequence.

We hear eight f-words, one of which is preceded by “mother.” The s-word is used twice, and a rude word for male genitalia is used. We also hear instances of “h—” and “a–.” God’s name is misused ten times, one of which is in the form of “g-dd–n.” Jesus’ name is inappropriately used twice.

Dec. 20, 2021 – S2, Ep1: “N Is for Night Terrors”

David is two months from becoming a full-fledged priest. Kristen is grappling with the aftermath of the murder she committed. But they’ve still got jobs to do for the Catholic Church. And this time, the Church has a doozy for them: Leland Townsend—the duo’s primary adversary in Season 1—wants them to perform an exorcism on him.

The reason Leland proffers is his impending marriage to Kristen’s mother. “I want no roadblocks to our future happiness,” he says. And he adds with a knowing grin, “I still have certain dark moments.” David, Kristen and their tech expert Ben believe they’re all being played, but they play along. “Let’s con him back,” Ben suggests.

We see and hear plenty of evidence of Leland’s links with the infernal. They include props he left in his apartment to goad the investigators, such as the book on his nightstand (the Donald Trump-centric Devil’s Bargain) and his computer password (“Lucifer8”). An upside-down cross hanging in Leland’s pad falls and reveals a secret that debunks supposedly infernal evidence.

Leland claims he sold his soul to the devil when he was in high school, says he prays to “my father below” and belittles Christianity. “Did you know that Christianity is the only religion that prays to a criminal?” When investigators expose some of his lies, Leland responds, “Of course I lied. I’m possessed!”

But they have no explanation regarding why Leland’s first wife (who informs on him) mysteriously suffers a near-fatal accident. And demonic influence seems to be all around the team. Kristen—perhaps because of the murder, the show suggests—suffers a burn from a rosary cross. (She calls it a rash, and Ben comes up with a more rational explanation.) David has a vision of Kristen walking toward a goat-headed demon who’s threshing wheat with a scythe as Leland dances to the disco tune “Funkytown.” Most disturbingly, Ben has a nightmare/vision of a female demon coming to him in the night. She tells him that she likes male nipples, magically lifts up his shirt, asks if he remembers their “safe word” and then seems to bite into Ben’s chest as Ben he up with a start. (Leland predicted that Ben would have disturbing dreams soon.)

Kristen’s daughter—who was conceived with the help of a potentially diabolical fertility institute—has some super-sharp incisors growing in her mouth. Kristen finds their home’s floors and walls stained with blood (because of the painful tooth problem). They go to a dentist to have the teeth removed. But while the girl is under general anesthesia, she suddenly bites down on the dentist’s hand. We see the dentist’s nearly severed finger lolling about on the stump amid a jet of blood. (The girl wakes up and doesn’t seem to remember a thing.)

David takes off his shirt, revealing a nasty looking wound on his stomach, and presses an alcohol-soaked cloth into the injury—causing him to faint from the pain. Kristen wipes blood off a pick she used to kill the serial killer, then sanitizes and hides it. She buries other evidence in her back yard, it would seem (avoiding curious questions from her children), and she confesses the deed to her own psychologist.

Leland describes the devil as a seven-foot-tall thing with the head of a goat—mirroring drawings that lie around David’s apartment. There’s a suggestion that Leland is trying to use the Catholic Church for his own infernal ends. Kristen tells Ben to illegally spy on Leland through a webcam. We hear about the horrific death of a bus driver. Characters use the f-word three times. The profanity count is otherwise pretty light, with “a–,” “b–ch” and “d–n” used once apiece and “h—” used twice. God’s name is misused five times.

Jan. 30, 2020 – S1, Ep13: “Book 27”

In the season finale, David and Kristen try to help a woman who believes that her unborn baby is possessed, and David makes a frightening connection with a fertility clinic. Meanwhile, a serial killer whom Kristen helped convict, but whose conviction was later overturned, stalks Kristen and her four daughters. His continued presence in their lives perhaps forces Kristen do something … drastic.

The pregnant woman, who’s carrying twins, suffers mightily from one of her unborn children. We see the unusual fetus move violently beneath the woman’s skin, and the would-be mother complains that the baby is eating her from the inside. During Mass, after she swallows the bread, she falls screaming to the floor as a massive pool of blood forms around her. Later, at the hospital, doctors discover that one of the twins is gone. David argues with a priest as to whether a fetus could be possessed (and how that factors into the immorality of abortion).

The killer, named Orson, claims that he’s a Christian now and is trying to make amends. It’s a lie, of course. He calls her up and apologizes for wanting to do terrible things to her and her daughters—describing his fantasies in detail. (They include “snapping the necks” of the girls and dismembering Kristen with a shovel.) Toward the end of the episode, Kristen eyes a mountaineering pick. Then, in a later scene, she wipes blood from her leg. (We later hear that Orson was killed—apparently bludgeoned to death.)

In dreams, Kristen hits Orson with a chair and stabs a demon in the back with a pair of scissors. A bipedal goat creature, representing Satan himself, haunts her dreams as well, and one of her children (either in a dream or a facsimile of real life) opens a door for him as he tells the girl that he’s there to take her to “the next level.” David also dreams of the devil-creature, harvesting grain with a huge scythe.

We hear a few quotations from Scripture and a prayer. A fetus seems to react to prayer angrily. A woman’s hand is burned when holding a crucifix. We see an exorcism and hear plenty of talk of its merits (or, from unbelievers, the lack thereof). Someone jokes about how much blood is in Christianity when a woman tells him that the eucharistic host was supposed to bleed.

There’s some talk about a man “touching himself” while looking at girls. People drink wine. Characters say “d–n” twice and misuse God’s name about four times.

Sep. 26, 2019 – S1, Ep1: “Genesis 1”

A serial killer named Orson is awaiting trial for his crimes. And while Orson claims to have blacked out during his horrific deeds, and some believe that he was possessed, Bouchard—currently an expert witness for the prosecution—is positive the guy knew exactly what he was doing. Or, at least, she was. But that was before she said the Lord’s Prayer in his presence (an intentional provocation which prompted him to attack her, shouting in Latin all the while).

Bouchard partners with Acosta, who has been hired by the Catholic Church, to see if Orson is truly possessed or merely psychotic. But as they begin to unravel the mystery, an apparent demon starts visiting Bouchard in her bedroom. And he’s certainly not there for tea and crumpets.

On his first visit, the demon (named George), crawls underneath Bouchard’s covers, asks if her new panties are for her “new boss” (Acosta) and talks about her Cesarian scar. (Though we don’t see exactly what the demon’s doing, we later hear that George took off her panties and sucked on the scar.) He urinates in the corner of Bouchard’s bedroom (Bouchard later dismisses the damp puddle as the result of an open window). The next night, He takes a knife to her hand—forcing her to answer a series of deeply personal yes or no questions (including whether she’s sexually attracted to Acosta). Lies cause the demon to cut her hand (which he does, sending blood dribbling down) or lop off a finger (which he does, laying the severed pinkie on her neck.)

Bouchard thinks the first visitation was a night terror accompanied by sleep paralysis, while the second was clearly a dream (since she still has her pinkie). But conversations with Roy, which indicate he knew about the visitations, suggest there’s something else at work.

We hear a lot of talk about demonic possession and other spiritual elements. Crucifixes are wielded, crosses are drawn, and prayers are uttered. We see flashes of Orson’s despicable deeds, including him drawing a knife across someone’s throat. We also hear the screams of another victim as she struggles. We’re told that he killed several people and raped someone, too. To provoke Orson, Bouchard asks him to answer yes or no to the question, “I like the sound of a woman screaming.”

Orson grabs Bouchard, inflicting bad-looking bruises on her arm. Someone is hit repeatedly with a baton. Bouchard’s mother bad-mouths Bouchard’s absent husband. Two men get into a fistfight. A demon apparently threatens Bouchard’s four daughters. Someone asks Acosta (who’s training to be a priest) why he’s not raping altar boys at the moment.

When demonic whispering proves to be just the sound of clogged pipes, the homeowner is clearly disappointed. “You killed Santa Claus for her,” Bouchard tells the investigator who made the discovery. We hear about the corrosive, sometimes evil effect that social media has on some people, including a reference to necrophilia. We see some graphic photos of dead bodies.

A couple of people drink margaritas. We hear two uses of the word “b–ch” and one misuse of God’s name.