Though it pains me greatly to say it, this week’s Evil is the first of the last four episodes ever . It looks and feels slightly different, right down to the title treatment, which has switched from the book format to more of a horror-movie-poster feel. There’s a certain momentum to the events of the hour. Most importantly, the Kings are making big moves in order to get everything aligned for the series finale.
Big Thing 1: Andy is a cheating dirtbag who, by the end of the hour, is on his way out of Kristen’s life. (Well, as much as he can be, given that they share four children.) Funny how this development comes one episode after Kristen and David’s tub-side confessions of devotion, eh?
Fan service? Maybe, but I truly don’t care, because I love it.
And the way we get there? Whooo it’s a ride that involves time-travel, something that’s like bitcoin, animal masks and a onesie doused in nerve agent. Read on for the highlights of “Fear of the Future.”
BOGG’S UNFORTUNATE SURPRISE | As the episode opens, Sheryl has been cremated. Leland is in a holding cell. And Dr. Boggs arrives at the psychiatric facility to deliver Sheryl’s letter. He tries slipping it under Andy’s door, but the door opens to reveal a couple having sex while wearing animal masks — like the ones we saw Kristen and Andy employ a while back. And when the guy takes his off, we see it’s Andy, looking stunned. Know who’s not stunned? Me, because this freakin’ guy has always been more trouble than he’s worth. But we’ll get more on that later.
CAN IT BE? | At the chuch, Father Ignatius announces that he’s retiring, and that David is going to take his place as head of the parish. But David’s not psyched about his new position, because the parish is “going under,” financially.
He and Ben attend a post-funeral reception at Kristen’s place. The house is full of music and people — a real party atmosphere — and Father Acosta finds Kristen and another woman drinking canned cocktails in the kitchen. The ladies are lit. Kristen introduces her new friend as Ellie (played by Veep ’s Anna Chlumsky), whom Sheryl used to babysit back in the day. Kristen didn’t know her before the service, but as Ellie says, “We really hit it off.”
When David and Kristen are alone, he’s concerned; she’s flip. They have a conversation about if you can get into Heaven “even if you’ve murdered people,” (her query), and he wonders why she’s asking. She muses that sometimes she likes that he’s a believer and she’s not, and sometimes “you’re just a mystery to me out of the middle ages.”
Ellie stays after everyone leaves. A few things quickly become apparent. First, she deflects whenever Kristen asks her a personal question. Second, she pretty quickly states that David is in love with Kristen. And as they drink tequila in the living room, we learn that Ellie is from Ryeland, N.Y., the same town as the particle accelerator from the beginning of the season. Ellie comments on how their investigation made news, which itself is news to Kristen, and that’s where things get WEIRD. Even for this show.
Ellie clarifies that the investigation, which caused a chain reaction of mini black holes that led to a wormhole, will make news “a few years from now.” Then she matter-of-factly tells Kristen that “Six months from now, David is going to leave the priesthood and move in with you.” Kristen suddenly realizes she’s very drunk. “Tomorrow, you’re going to find out that Andy’s cheating on you, and you’ll divorce him,” Ellie continues. Kristen demands to know who the woman is, so she tells her: She’s a grown-up version of her youngest daughter, Laura. “I stepped into the particle accelerator and came back her, to this moment” from 30 years in the future, she claims.
Kristen angrily orders her to leave. On her way out, Ellie/Laura spews fortunes: Lynn will become a nun. Lilah will marry a woman and make a fortune trading in a bitcoin-like medium. But Kristen doesn’t want to hear any of it, and pushes the woman out of her house, then sits down to process.
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CAUGHT! | After a nightmare in which George the Demon shows up (hey man, how you been?), Kristen calls Andy in the middle of the night. “What did he say?” he asks, assuming Boggs told her what he’d seen. As Kristen tries to figure out what her husband is talking about, he makes it painfully clear: “I met someone.”
She wastes no time driving to the hospital, laying waste to Andy’s room and announcing that he’s cut off. “This place costs $20,000 a month,” she says. “I’m not going to pay for $20,000 h—djobs anymore.” Then she forbids him from talking to her or the girls, and tells him to be out of the facility in a week’s time. (Side note: God, Kristen in a fury is one of the things I’m going to miss the most about this kooky show.)
Her ire has run out, though, by the time she returns home. She comes in the front door, sobbing with abandon. Ben is there, fixing the windows busted in the previous episode’s storm, and he hugs her as she weeps. They sit on the stairs, his arm around her, as she explains Ellie/Laura’s claims and Andy’s infidelity. And when she goes upstairs to tell the girls what’s going on, they already know, courtesy of Laura’s eavesdropping at the top of the stairs. “Is Father Acosta our dad now?” Lexis wonders.
CLOSE TO THE EDGE | Off of Ben’s suggestion, David goes to Kristen’s, where she’s throwing clothes into a box labeled “ANDY’S S—T.” (Heh.) She asks him to accompany her to the office to talk, because the girls are home. Once they’re out back, she has a simple request: “Could you hold me?” He nods, because he’s read this fanfic, too, and they slow-motion crash into an intense hug. When they pull back and look deeply into each other’s faces, it causes Kristen to say “You should go” and then take off.
Unfortunately, no good news awaits him at the church: The parish’s lawyer shows up to tell David that the assessor program is kaput, thanks to a lack of funds, so Kristen and Ben are out of a job in a month’s time. “Well, that sucks,” Ben says succinctly later, as he and David drink beers in David’s room. The conversation turns to Kristen, and Ben decides to just go for it: “Why are you a f—king priest, David?” he asks. “I mean, you and her, you’re meant to be together.” He brings up the conversation he overheard in the bathtub in Episode 10. “What is wrong with loving her?” Ben wonders. “You don’t think I think about this EVERY SINGLE DAY?” David shoots back, completely done in. He rails about how he’s pledged himself to God, and how he’s sick of all the broken promises in the world. He drops F-bombs. And he vows not to break his, uh, vows “even if it breaks me, even if I need Kristen.”
ULTERIOR MOTIVES | While Kristen is out Ellie/Laura shows up with a gift for Timothy, and they talk about how Kid Laura knows who the older woman is. While Ellie/Laura is using the bathroom, Kid Laura nips outside to snap a photo of her license plate. And when Ellie/Laura is gone, Laura texts Kristen, who comes running home.
The gift is a onesie, but Kristen forbids the girls from touching it when she realizes it smells weird. And that’s a good instinct, because — with Karima and the Super Secret Science League’s help — Ben finds out that the cloth has been doused in a nerve agent! Oh, and Ellie/Laura’s car is stolen. Ben says as much in a voicemail that Kristen misses, because George is torturing her in her sleep again.
Meanwhile, Lynn is getting something from the fridge in the middle of the night when the girls’ tablet fires up the ghost detector app and lets her know that there’s an “entity detected” nearby. It shows her a spectral being floating in the living room; she wonders if it’s Sheryl. The thing doesn’t answer but directs her to follow it outside. And just as it informs Lynn that they’re going “TO HELL,” she bumps into Ellie/Laura in the backyard. She wants to talk to Lexis, because “When Lexis is 35, and Timothy is 23, he will bring about a battle that will destroy the world.” Then she pulls out a box cutter and stops Lynn from going back into the house, babbling, “I’m a good person. I don’t want to do this. But I’ve been sent back to stop Lexis before she starts.”
ELLIE’S TRUE IDENTITY, REVEALED | Lynn manages to get away and hides by the railroad bridge. Kristen can hear her daughter’s cries, but she’s still sleep-paralyzed, and George chomps on popcorn while he watches. “This is getting exciting!” he coos. Ellie/Laura gets into the house and is about to smother Timothy with a pillow when Laura steps between her and the crib, blasting one of the airhorns that Kristen gave her daughters. “You’re me, right?” Kid Laura asks. “What will happen if you kill me?” And before we can find out, an awakened Kristen tazes Ellie/Laura from behind.
Ben arrives soon after — he was worried Kristen hadn’t gotten his message — and Ellie somehow disappears before the cops arrive.
The bedroom window is ajar, but maybe the wormhole sucked her up? Nope — after the cops leave, and David joins Ben at Kristen’s place, we learn that Ellie/Laura’s car belongs to a psychiatric doctor at the hospital where Andy is being treated, and it was stolen by a female patient. “ That’s how she knows everything about us,” Kristen realizes. “She’s f—king my husband.” Yep, Ellie is the woman — who was wearing a mask but little else — we saw at the top of the episode.
Kristen and David drive to the facility, but Andy is gone. A staffer confirms that he was sleeping with Ellie, and that Ellie had obsessively watched the thumb drive that Sheryl had Boggs deliver.
In the parking lot afterward, as Kristen tries to see things in a positive light (“it’s better that it’s unambiguous”), the truth comes out regarding her future employment. “You’re out of a job,” David says apologetically. And at home, Kristen watches a small part of the video on the thumb drive — in which Sheryl exhorts Andy to protect Lexis — then sings “You Are My Sunshine” to Timothy.
DISORDER IN THE COURT | What about Leland, you ask? Well, his judge is played by Richard Kind and his bumbling public defender is played by John Carroll Lynch — a pairing that is an embarrassment of riches to begin with — and when Leland tries to change counsel, he gets a huge surprise: Lynch’s character reveals himself as a hulking demon. “ You’re the evil coming to New York,” Leland says, awed, before announcing to the court that he doesn’t want to swap lawyers, after all.
Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the episode? Sound off in the comments below!
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