This modern-day demon-focused season stirs up so many thoughts about society today.
As someone who has often struggled with the “what is a meme” question, Evil Season 3 Episode 2 lays it out so well that it will never be a problem again.
We’ve become a meme-driven society, and it’s frightening.
While we never had the term back in the olden days without internet, let alone memes, youths have always veered toward stories like that of Visiting Jack.
Bloody Mary comes to mind, which likely spawned most of those that followed into the 21st century. Slender Man got many kids afraid for their lives, and some died because of it.
It’s troubling that our need for acceptance has gone so far astray that believing the unbelievable is now a rite of passage. As annoying as Kristen’s gaggle of girls can be once they all start talking at once, she’s done right by them, and they’re unlikely to become victims like poor Ren.
We saw how they tackled Leland’s attempts to lure them into unfiltered conversation on Evil Season 3 Episode 1. Even when her sisters pressured Lynn into doing the seven tasks just in case, they knew logically that they were pointless and unnecessary.
Memes like these are all-encompassing for some, and their need for acceptance is so great that they lose focus of what matters.
The more sophisticated the internet becomes, the easier it is to plant evidence to support the latest craze. Who hasn’t run to Google maps to see something that someone found that seemed impossible?
Sometimes, the motivations for these mind tricks are unexplained or even unthreatening. For others, the motivations are more nefarious.
If you have any doubts that Leland’s work on Lucifer’s behalf to eliminate hope and sow discord with doom-scrolling are far-fetched, then you haven’t been paying attention.
Michelle and Robert King have been feasting on ideas like these for decades. Even on The Good Wife, the NSA listening in to Alicia’s cell phone calls struck a chord. That was before Alexa and Google Nest became as standard in many homes as a wall phone used to be.
Sheryl needed a job, so Leland provided one — doing the devil’s work.
What else would she be doing? I can’t recall if Sheryl has any marketable skills. She’s computer savvy and good with a shrunken head, but only one of those is worth anything to anyone other than Leland.
Leland: This is your new job. You’re to keep the people doom-scrolling. Keep them glued to their computer so they’re glued to the new political fight or the economy or global warming, plagues.
Sheryl: So we can control plagues.
Leland: No, the father below controls plagues. But we control how people react to plagues, and these days, that is everything. Centuries ago, it was 80% Lucifer and 20% his followers. Now that’s been reversed.
Have we had a term like doom-scrolling previous to this episode? Everyone knows that fear sells right along side other types of negativity.
A cancellation post on TV Fanatic will always do better than a renewal, and there’s a reason we don’t cover celebrity births but jump on celebrity deaths.
The ten worst things will also get more clicks than the ten best. We saw society take a tremendous tumble during covid with the constant barrage of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. That ensured the largest pharmaceutical windfall of all time, and there aren’t any hints of abatement.
What covid also showed us was that politics would do anything in their power to sow division. When two (why, why only two?) political parties will lean hard away from the middle just to prove a point when lives and society were hanging in the balance, it proves Leland’s point.
The ruling parties want us on tenterhooks, worried and anxious about things that don’t make a significant difference in the overall scheme of things.
That’s not to say that dying of covid or the stifling inflation we’re suffering today aren’t meaningful. But that it continues and is pounded home daily without anyone discussing real solutions says everything.
Social media makes motives both simpler and stupider.
Kristen
When we’re wholly focused on what they want us to focus on, other things never come to light. Agendas can change, and plans can be made, and we’ll be unaware because our attention is pulled into planned directions.
And Leland and Sheryl aren’t just reaching the masses with their “missions.” They’ve also reached right into Kristen’s house.
Sheryl is somewhat of an enigma. My recollection from Evil Season 1 was that she and Kristen didn’t always have a great relationship. But desperate times call for desperate measures.
Kristen and Andy are stretched to capacity financially. Andy has been gone for many months at a time, trying to keep them afloat. Kristen’s work with the church doesn’t pay much. They’re in a pickle.
Kristen has let Sheryl slide. Sheryl pays rent ($2 grand a month??) and babysits free of charge. That’s an enormous help to a financially strapped family.
Andy returned with better vision when it comes to Sheryl. He doesn’t need a lot of evidence to know that something is very wrong with that woman. Their epic throwdown was so fun, but Sheryl wasn’t kidding when she threatened Andy.
Kristen cannot catch a break. Andy is just home, and now he’s off again for months (ever) to sell the company.
Eight hundred grand for the business seemed crazy to Andy, but people do crazy things. Then again, nobody is crazier than Sheryl, who just fed her daughter’s husband to Lucifer himself.
Seeing Edward was a shock, but Sheryl’s blase attitude when she rightly stated that Kristen’s logical side would prevail and Andy would take the bait was chilling.
Will Andy come back from that trip? I’d be shocked. After so many successful trips, that man is going over the edge. How Edward will be able even to start the trek is questionable, but with the power of the devil on your side, I guess things get done.
Kristen is going to need David now more than ever. She seems like a child lately. Where she was once stone-cold in mama bear mode, her vulnerabilities have bubbled to the surface once she was forgiven.
Kristen: I miss us.
David: It had nothing to do with us.
Kristen: I know, but we’re not what we were, and I think that I- [goes to the door and closes it] And I think I caused it-
David: No.
Kristen: -when I confessed to you and afterward.
David: Kristen, it’s OK. It’s done.
Kristen: Well, clearly, it’s not done because if it were done, I’d still have a friend and I can feel that I don’t.
David: Kristen, what’s going on with me has nothing to do with my, with our-
Kristen: Our feelings toward each other?
David: Yes. It’s to do with me being a priest, a new priest. That’s all.
Kristen: I feel lonely.
David: Don’t be. I’m here, and I’ll be myself again.
Kristen: I’d like that. Great. Friends again. I’ll see you tomorrow.
Of course, David’s work as a friend of the Vatican will undoubtedly cross paths with the harm Sheryl is inflicting on society and her own family.
Victor LeConte is interesting. If Monsignor hadn’t mentioned him, I’d wonder if he was the real deal. Fighting human evil is his gig like David’s has been supernatural.
David has barely been ordained and has already felt the pain of stifling mundanity.
Welcome to the 6 am mass. Let us begin as we always do.
David
That quote made me laugh out loud, and the laughs kept coming with the “sins” David heard in the confessional and the dull, conversationless soup-slurping he suffered dining with the others at the parish.
David is a part of real cloak and dagger stuff now. He’s got the new “friend” title and works under assumed names with no questions asked, dropping what he’s doing mid-sentence to accomplish it. All that’s missing is the secret handshake.
Why was the operation so secretive, though? David has worked with Grace Ling on Evil Season 1 Episode 6. He would have been down to help her regardless.
Perhaps it was to determine if David was up to the task. He’s spent his career questioning everything, and as a friend, he cannot. He must move with purpose and without emotion. Well, mission accomplished.
Victor: You’re late.
David: I didn’t know I was on a schedule.
Victor: This is the holy Catholic Church. You’re always on a schedule.
Hopefully, we’ll hear more from the prophet once she’s freed.
This new avenue for David is exciting, but how will it impede his work with Kristen and Ben? He’s already got full-time duties for the mundane everyday church work, and now he’ll be keeping another secret from his partners.
Never a dull moment on Evil.
Carissa Pavlica is the managing editor and a staff writer and critic for TV Fanatic. She’s a member of the Critic’s Choice Association, enjoys mentoring writers, conversing with cats, and passionately discussing the nuances of television and film with anyone who will listen. Follow her on Twitter and email her here at TV Fanatic.
