What did you miss? For a review of the last episode, click HERE
from decider: https://decider.com/2021/07/08/evil-season-2-episode-3-recap/
Evil S2 Ep 3: F is for Fire
By Abby Monteil @abbyemonteil Jul 8, 2021 at 10:00am
When we speak about evil, we traditionally do so in absolutes. Perhaps it’s a testament to the many ways in which secularized American culture has been influenced by Christian morality, which tends to filter things through a black-and-white binary of intrinsically good and inherently sinful. While Evil Season 2, Episode 3 leans harder into the show’s demon-of-the-week structure than the previous two did, it further expands on the show’s religious mythology as Ben and Kristen continue to enter the fold.
We pick things up with David and Sister Andrea, who are poring over the Vatican sigil map together. He still believes the 60 demonic houses listed correspond to 60 children that RSM Fertility corrupted before birth, but the clinic has conveniently wiped its records clean. David is also unable to translate a handful of houses, which aren’t in Greek or Latin. Andrea is able to translate one, which features a name: Mathilda.
That conveniently happens to be the name of the nine-year-old girl the Evil trio have been tasked with investigating this week. She’s been living with foster parents Brian (Ben Rappaport) and Jane (Zuleikha Robinson) Castle ever since biological mother set her room on fire the year before, but this arsonist tendency seems to be genetic — Ever since Mathilda moved in with the Castles, there have been three fires. Mathilda insists to Kristen that the culprit isn’t her, but a man who’s followed her throughout childhood — one with no eyes and a head of flames, who begins the fires whenever she angers him. Nanny cam footage of Mathilda screaming from her bed as a fire mysteriously erupts in her doorway proves that even if she’s repeating her mother or started that first fire herself, something else is clearly going on here.
Kristen and David draw blanks on what the fire-headed demon could be, but Ben comes to realize it’s not a demon at all — it’s a jinn, a supernatural being of Islamic origin. More specifically, it’s an ifrit, a spirit that can use a spell known as hellfire. Ben’s mother used to terrify him and his sister with tales of the ifrit, and as it turns out, a jinn exorcism isn’t nearly as cut-and-dry as a Catholic one. Jins can be both good and bad, while good jinns can do bad things and bad jinns can do good things. He may be an atheist, but when it comes to organized religion, at least the faith of his childhood leaves room for moral gray areas.
The case also allows Ben to play a larger role in the show’s core mythology beyond that of the non-Christian skeptic, especially as he begins to bristle against the “religious nationalism” of Christian beliefs taking precedence in both team investigations and everyday life. “[Your friends] don’t care about what you believe,” Ben’s she-demon croons later that night. “They think your religion is a joke.” But when Mathilda’s eyes roll back and a jinn seemingly begins speaking through her in Arabic, it’s an overdue moment of satisfaction for Ben, even if he only culturally associates with his religion.
But the jinn warns that it needs to enter someone else to truly leave Mathilda, and of course, her eyes flash red as she zeroes in on Kristen. Sleep demons are something of the past for her, and she begins to see the ifrit trailing her: First on the way back from her jinn conversation, and again when she’s inspired to put on her best minidress and head to the local bar to flirt with some hapless guy over drinks. Watching Katja Herber relish such scenes with wicked glee as we ponder whether Kristen is truly possessed or just leaning into her darker impulses is already a season highlight, but when she whispers “Next time, stay” after dodging a hookup offer, it’s impossible to tell whether those words were uttered by a demon, Kristen herself, or something else entirely.
While Leland hangs over the episode offscreen, Cheryl’s attempts to win back her daughter also serve as a reminder of the moral grayness that runs through the Bouchard women themselves. In hopes of reconnecting with Kristen, she secretly begins seeing her therapist under false pretenses, and convinces Lexis to fake sick so Kristen is forced to hear her out. In an eerie twist of fate, the potentially possessed Lexis has the same toy tea set as Mathilda, but her penchant for misbehavior could just as easily be coming from inside her own home.
It’s too soon to tell how Lexis will turn out, but the fight to save Mathilda’s soul results in quite a faith face-off. Even though they agreed that she seemed to be haunted by a jinn, practicing Catholic Brian decides to request a priest for an exorcism. Unbeknownst to him, his wife Jane (a practicing Muslim) has called a sikh to perform an exorcism of his own. The priest insists he can’t work within the realm of “mythology,” but as the sikh points out, “You’re the one who will try to perform an exorcism not by invoking the name of Allah, but a man: Jesus.”
For all their attempts to one-up each other, the creature finally seems to leave Mathilda after making one last ominous decree to Kristen: “Father from below will embrace you in his hellfire.” That night, after taking anti-hallucination medication, Kristen’s attempt at going out is foiled after another vision of the ifrit leaves her in tears. But even after two exorcisms, the episode ends as Mathilda makes a garbage can catch fire that very same night, watching in fascination. Whatever is going on in the Evil universe, the kids are not all right.
We pick things up with David and Sister Andrea, who are poring over the Vatican sigil map together. He still believes the 60 demonic houses listed correspond to 60 children that RSM Fertility corrupted before birth, but the clinic has conveniently wiped its records clean. David is also unable to translate a handful of houses, which aren’t in Greek or Latin. Andrea is able to translate one, which features a name: Mathilda.
That conveniently happens to be the name of the nine-year-old girl the Evil trio have been tasked with investigating this week. She’s been living with foster parents Brian (Ben Rappaport) and Jane (Zuleikha Robinson) Castle ever since biological mother set her room on fire the year before, but this arsonist tendency seems to be genetic — Ever since Mathilda moved in with the Castles, there have been three fires. Mathilda insists to Kristen that the culprit isn’t her, but a man who’s followed her throughout childhood — one with no eyes and a head of flames, who begins the fires whenever she angers him. Nanny cam footage of Mathilda screaming from her bed as a fire mysteriously erupts in her doorway proves that even if she’s repeating her mother or started that first fire herself, something else is clearly going on here.
Kristen and David draw blanks on what the fire-headed demon could be, but Ben comes to realize it’s not a demon at all — it’s a jinn, a supernatural being of Islamic origin. More specifically, it’s an ifrit, a spirit that can use a spell known as hellfire. Ben’s mother used to terrify him and his sister with tales of the ifrit, and as it turns out, a jinn exorcism isn’t nearly as cut-and-dry as a Catholic one. Jins can be both good and bad, while good jinns can do bad things and bad jinns can do good things. He may be an atheist, but when it comes to organized religion, at least the faith of his childhood leaves room for moral gray areas.
The case also allows Ben to play a larger role in the show’s core mythology beyond that of the non-Christian skeptic, especially as he begins to bristle against the “religious nationalism” of Christian beliefs taking precedence in both team investigations and everyday life. “[Your friends] don’t care about what you believe,” Ben’s she-demon croons later that night. “They think your religion is a joke.” But when Mathilda’s eyes roll back and a jinn seemingly begins speaking through her in Arabic, it’s an overdue moment of satisfaction for Ben, even if he only culturally associates with his religion.
But the jinn warns that it needs to enter someone else to truly leave Mathilda, and of course, her eyes flash red as she zeroes in on Kristen. Sleep demons are something of the past for her, and she begins to see the ifrit trailing her: First on the way back from her jinn conversation, and again when she’s inspired to put on her best minidress and head to the local bar to flirt with some hapless guy over drinks. Watching Katja Herber relish such scenes with wicked glee as we ponder whether Kristen is truly possessed or just leaning into her darker impulses is already a season highlight, but when she whispers “Next time, stay” after dodging a hookup offer, it’s impossible to tell whether those words were uttered by a demon, Kristen herself, or something else entirely.
While Leland hangs over the episode offscreen, Cheryl’s attempts to win back her daughter also serve as a reminder of the moral grayness that runs through the Bouchard women themselves. In hopes of reconnecting with Kristen, she secretly begins seeing her therapist under false pretenses, and convinces Lexis to fake sick so Kristen is forced to hear her out. In an eerie twist of fate, the potentially possessed Lexis has the same toy tea set as Mathilda, but her penchant for misbehavior could just as easily be coming from inside her own home.
It’s too soon to tell how Lexis will turn out, but the fight to save Mathilda’s soul results in quite a faith face-off. Even though they agreed that she seemed to be haunted by a jinn, practicing Catholic Brian decides to request a priest for an exorcism. Unbeknownst to him, his wife Jane (a practicing Muslim) has called a sikh to perform an exorcism of his own. The priest insists he can’t work within the realm of “mythology,” but as the sikh points out, “You’re the one who will try to perform an exorcism not by invoking the name of Allah, but a man: Jesus.”
For all their attempts to one-up each other, the creature finally seems to leave Mathilda after making one last ominous decree to Kristen: “Father from below will embrace you in his hellfire.” That night, after taking anti-hallucination medication, Kristen’s attempt at going out is foiled after another vision of the ifrit leaves her in tears. But even after two exorcisms, the episode ends as Mathilda makes a garbage can catch fire that very same night, watching in fascination. Whatever is going on in the Evil universe, the kids are not all right.
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