The Otherworldly Hits Keep Coming

Evil (the all-encompassing force, not the Paramount+ show) really doesn’t take a day off, huh?

This week’s Evil — the third-to-last ever (sniff) — doesn’t let up on its already besieged central characters. Sister Andrea is forced to relive one of the hardest periods of her life. David learns that he’s not only out of a job, he’s also soon to be out of a home. (Sister Andrea’s affected by that one, too.) Satan, can you please chill?

Read on for the highlights of “Fear of the Future.”

We have no idea what’s going on as the episode opens and Sister Andrea is sitting outside a hotel room, holding a tire iron, yelling “What do you want” at a man who briefly appears in the hallway. Then there’s suddenly a bloody corpse on the floor — where did it come from? — and a man standing behind the nun yells in horror.

The next morning at the parish, Sister Andrea says that the assessors are going to take on the case we saw at the hotel: It concerns a guy named Paul (played by Nate Corddry, For All Mankind ), who’s the person we saw screaming. Sister Andrea “was the love of my dad’s life,” he tells Kristen, David and Ben. Andrea ignores this and announces that Paul needs an exorcism.

Paul was a normal, happy guy until about a month ago, he explains, when he learned he had a doppelganger who lived in California and vlogged a lot. His last upload was of him committing suicide by setting himself on fire. “Now,” Paul explains, “he’s inside me.” He says he feels haunted, and that his ghostly double takes over his body around 2 am every day. It’s so bad that he’s moved to a hotel because he’s afraid of harming his wife and kids.

Sister Andrea lets the trio know that Paul’s dad also killed himself. Kristen quickly suggests generational trauma and suicidal ideation, advises that Paul get treatment, then hustles off to court. But the nun tells David and Ben to see for themselves that night at the hotel.

At the courthouse, Kristen is incensed to see Dr. Boggs testifying on Leland’s behalf. He does swear, under oath, that Leland is schizophrenic, which makes him ill and unable to be responsible for his actions. But just as Kristen is about to leave in a huff, Boggs adds that Leland also is a public security threat and needs to be locked away in a facility for life. “Well, he’s dead,” Leland’s demon lawyer, Stick, mutters to his client.

Kristen later joins her co-workers at the hotel, where they hang out in the room next to the one in which Paul is sleeping and discuss their imminent unemployment. She, for one, is feeling OK, because “that billionaire climber” Edward Tragoren has agreed to pay $800,000 for the disastrous “climb” that Andy went on. “I mean, it only cost me my marriage and my husband’s sanity, but it’ll give us a fresh start,” she quips.

Sister Andrea’s arrival brings them out into the hallway, and when they return to their room, Paul is there, staring at the wall and unresponsive. When he finally does speak, he says he’s Gregory — aka the dead doppelganger — and he says he offed himself because “he wanted me to”, though he doesn’t say to whom “he” refers. They all follow him out into the hallway, where Paul’s body falls out of Gregory’s and Gregory keeps walking. Sister Andrea follows the apparition, demanding to know who he is. In response, he turns to her and bares his pointy teeth as his grin grows supernaturally wide. Then he hisses.

Remember how Kristen wasn’t feeling the financial stress of losing her job? It all comes crashing in the next morning when her lawyer, Yasmine, calls to let her know that Tragoren already paid Andy 10 cents on the dollar — a total of $80,000 — and she’s probably not getting any of it. Her girls have creative ideas on how to remain financially solvent (Lilah suggests an OnlyFans account, which causes Kristen do to a literal spit-take), but she reassures them that they’ll be OK.

After a quick stop in court — during which Leland tries to pin the death of his IV “clients” on Sheryl, and Sister Andrea realizes that Henry Stick is a gigantic demon — Kristen, Ben and David see Paul again. Ben has found an online site that will find users’ doppelgangers via social media accounts, and he points out that there’s another guy that looks like Paul out there. Hence, as Kristen points out to the troubled man, Gregory “is not your only pathway.” David adds, “You get to choose who you want to be.” Paul seems heartened by this, and wants to call his wife and kids.

But when he does the next day, his wife is not having it. She wonders where this good-natured version of him was the night before, when he called and told her to murder their children in cruel and elaborate ways. She’s taken out a restraining order and tearfully demands that he leave them alone “whoever you are today!”

A disheartened Sister Andrea makes to leave after the call but gets distracted by a vision of Gregory in the hallway. He leads her to Room 378, and when she peeks in through the open door, she sees Paul sitting at a desk, facing the wall. She steps on something that we eventually see is part of a forehead; when Paul turns around it’s really his father, her former love, who is missing part of his noggin. “Go back to Hell, demon!” she cries, brandishing a cross. But she eventually hands Paul Sr. his missing piece, which he slaps back onto his head.

“Why are you trying to kill your son?” she demands, but he ignores her and instead leads her into another room, where a nun is praying in a corner. That nun turns out to be a version of her, wearing a full habit, that calls her “you most unholy demon” and hits her with a shovel.

Like we saw with that TikTok-like site a few seasons ago, the assessors are not immune to social media’s siren call. So Ben uploads his photo and finds his double in Bashir, a guy playing on the floor with his kid and wife. Kristen uploads David’s photo (at night in bed, which is important context for later) and learns there’s a MMA-type fighter named Monroe Yorn who looks just like him.

Kristen winds up having a sex dream about David’s doppelganger, who rips her clothes off as though they are made of spiderwebs. “My kids are in the other room,” she whispers. “Too bad,” DoppelDavid says. She wakes up smiling.

Her good mood carries right into her appearance in court that day, as she testifies against Leland. They go way back to Orson LeRoux’s case , and every time Leland’s lawyer challenges an accusation she levies against him, she has evidence to back up her claims. Then Kristen fakes crying about how Sheryl’s “legacy” is being “torn to shreds” by Leland’s lies, and that’s it for her time on the stand.

Leland’s day gets worse when he finds out there’s one more witness who’ll be transported from county lockup the next day. “Oh no,” he says, despondent, “they got Leslie to flip.”

Kristen comes home to find the first floor totally covered in flower deliveries, thanks to the girls’ putting up a GoFundMe-type page claiming that little, cardiac-challenged Laura has one foot in the grave. Mama Bouchard is Not Happy about this development, but while she’s in the middle of lecturing her daughters on how “we don’t ask for charity, we rely on ourselves,” she gets an idea and kind of trails off.

Next we see, she has Boggs over to her office to ask him for a favor: She’s going to start her own private practice in her garage, and she asks him for patient referrals. He’s hesitant at first, but eventually relents: “They’re sending me on a promotional tour for my book, hitting all the comic cons,” he says (ha!), and he’ll send his clients her way while he’s gone.

Money is also on David’s mind as he appeals to the higher-ups at the archdiocese: He’s got an idea to sell the air rights above the church to the CongoRun delivery service. But the bigwig priests are a step ahead of him, and they’ve sold the land to that very company for $45 million. The building will be deconsecrated. Everyone who lives and works there will be reassigned. David protests that nothing about that situation is fair, but it doesn’t matter: It’s happening.

So he’s in a somber mood when a tearful Sister Andrea enters the confessional opposite him later that day. She feels responsible for Paul Sr.’s death, sobbing that she’s the reason he’s in Hell. And though David gives her penance and absolution, she bolts from the booth, still crying.

Before Leslie takes the stand, the judge in Leland’s case talks to her in his chambers. Despite all the infernal pressure not to, she’s determined to testify. “Good,” he says, all avuncular… then grabs a sword from his wall and slices off her head! He neatly disposes of her body by wrapping it in a tarp and dropping it out his office window into a dumpster below, then returns to court and dismisses the case because the crucial witness is (now) MIA.

As court adjourns, Leland asks Stick how he did it. “Everyone has a price on their soul,” the demon lawyer responds.

Back to Paul, who isn’t doing well: He’s in a coma after taking too many sleeping pills, and David thinks it’s time for an exorcism. The rite is performed in Sister Andrea’s room at the rectory, and it gets ugly. Paul speaks to the nun in his father’s voice. Then Paul seems to speak as though he’s a young boy, wondering why his father abandoned him. “I was just a kid,” he says. “I needed him to stay.” Then, because God forbid we have an exorcism without bodily fluids, Paul vomits off the side of the bed and seems to come back to himself — it appears the process worked.

Kristen goes home and submits her own photo to Find My Doppel. Her double is a Dutch woman singing and playing guitar on a street. Kristen watches the video multiple times.

The episode closes with David telling Sister Andrea that the church building is being sold, and he’s upset. “I thought if I followed the path of righteousness, my life would fall in place,” he admits, sitting next to her at the rectory’s piano. “But it hasn’t. I’ve never been more lost.”

She takes his hand, and together they play the heavenly chord. A light shines in the room, and they both notice. “You see? He’s here,” she says reassuringly. “In this very room.” They play the chord again.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. Text MHA to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor from Crisis Text Line.

What did you think of the episode? What are your predictions for the lead-up to the finale? Hit the comments, and let us know!

Source: TVLine