[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Evil Season 4 Episode 13 “Fear of the Unholy.”]
It’s the beginning of the end—for Evil and for the assessors and the church.
In the penultimate episode of the series, David (Mike Colter) leads the last mass in the church and finds out where he’ll be heading next. He, Kristen (Katja Herbers), and Ben (Aasif Mandvi) take on their last case. And Sister Andrea (Andrea Martin) takes Father Ignatius (Wallace Shawn) along on a search for a relic.
Read on to find out how Evil just set up its series finale (dropping on Paramount+ on August 22).
The Trio’s Last Case
With the assessor program no longer financially feasible, Kristen, David, and Ben take on one last case: a top theoretical physicist invited to consult on quantum analysis who is rumored to have been involved in the dark arts. At their assessment, the professor’s private security insists it’s just a misunderstanding of his genius. But Kristen’s own encounter with him, along with an account from a grad student, prove he’s misogynistic, at the least. He also then calls Ben and his voice changes to demonic … before the djinn grabs Ben’s head. But the professor denies all of that.
Ben realizes it’s his treatment for ALS—what he calls a “golden latte,” to slow the cellular damage—and Sister Andrea sees the secretary as a demon and attacks him, cutting his cheek. Then, when the physicist ends up in the hospital, it’s discovered that he has an experimental microchip in his brain that generates his voice instantaneously; an infection from that could be causing everything. But since the professor sees it as being about expanding human thought, he refuses to have it removed. When he’s dead, it will be removed and uploaded to the cloud so he can “live forever.” He even urges Ben to “join” him in the cloud. So with no objections the church sees as reason to keep him off the council, the assessors’ job is done.
Elizabeth Fisher / Paramount+
David’s Future Revealed
With the church being deconsecrated and the building sold, David and Sister Andrea await their reassignments. And while doing so, David receives a note from a friend with a meeting time and location. There, he meets Father Giovanni De Vita (Denis O’Hare), from Vatican Security. He’s now David’s point of contact. But first, David faces questions about being angry with the church and must take a version of a polygraph. If he leaves, he’ll be gone—from their sight, God’s protection. He’s questioned about meeting with Leland through remote viewing, what he knows about the 60 (demonic families), if he stole the codex, and if he’d lie for Kristen. The answer to that last one is obviously yes.
After that, David goes to Leland’s and sees a painting of the end of the world. He asks Leland why he left the Entity, and Leland explains he learned how to remote view, he stepped into the worst of the worst, and he left because it seemed the church was no better than the monsters he was stepping into. As he sees it, there’s no evil but rather free will, and so why not stir up strife, discontent, and misery if he wants? Furthermore, he tells David, when they remote view into each other, they left seeds of themselves behind, some of Leland’s wickedness and David’s virtue. (Later, Leland is shown to be watching a video of a dog bringing flowers to another dog and hugging it and getting emotional. He quickly turns it off and puts on a street fight compilation video.) David refuses to believe it, but Leland argues his handlers didn’t want him to peer into his mind so he wouldn’t learn he has free will. Now that he has, he says the Entity will give David that lie detector test, which means he’s marked, and if they find they can’t trust him, they’ll get rid of him.
After, David returns to Giovanni and describes the painting of the apocalypse. He doesn’t know when the 60 families are meeting. He also says he convinced Leland that he shared his distrust of the Entity. Gaining his trust is their best shot at finding out when that meeting will be. David wonders if that means he trusts him now, and Giovanni says he always did. But no, David won’t be assigned to Dominic or LeConte when this is over; the latter died recently, of a heart attack, and the former is unavailable. And no, Giovanni says, they didn’t get rid of them, because they’re not killers.
David then admits to Sister Andrea that he thinks part of Leland may be in him, and she tells him faith is the only cure. She cuts this wormy demon thing off his back (and steps on it), calling it his sin and suggesting he needs to go to confession more.
David goes back to (and kicks the door in of) Leland, who knows that his handlers are disappearing. He also knows who Giovanni is. He tells David he’s going to need protection from them and offers a trade. David wants Kristen safe from Leland, forever. But Leland argues that he loves Kristen—not as much as David—and just wants her to curse God, but what does he get for leaving her alone? David will leave him alone. That’s not enough—Leland wants David to leave the priesthood and stop worrying about saving other people’s souls since none of them care about his.
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This visit results in David cloning Leland’s phone for Giovanni. But he’s done for good after that, he insists. Unfortunately, that’s not up to him: Giovanni says he’s been reassigned to him, in Rome. Welcome to Vatican Security.
When he tells Kristen and Ben a few hours later, he reveals he’s leaving in four days. Kristen tries to play it off like it’s not a big deal, but it obviously is.
By the end of the episode, Sister Andrea also knows her future: She’s being retired to the silent retreat upstate. She advises David to not let the church pervert his talents and knows he has yet to go to confession. Every time he helps the Entity, he should go. She again cuts a demonic thing off his back. The sin will grow with each infraction, she warns him.
Sister Andrea vs. a Demon
We have to say how glad we are that Evil pairs Sister Andrea and Father Ignatius for part of this episode because Martin and Shawn have been among the best additions to the series and so great together when previously sharing scenes. Sister Andrea takes it upon herself to go looking for a relic that needs to be collected since the church has been deconsecrated. (Poor Sister Andrea, with what she sees of the ghostly entities around the church after that deconsecration.)
Ignatius is woken by loud noises and finds Sister Andrea taking down a wall to find the relic. He reaches into the hole she makes and gets bit (by what he assumes is a rat), but there’s a piece missing. Later, he finds her searching again, only she’s not the source of the noise. It’s demons, she says and has him move a dresser to reveal a large hole in the wall. She has him sit as bait with sweets to lure the demon out, and while they wait, he asks if she really believes she sees demons and devils. Yes. But she’s never seen God? No. So how does she know good is there? As he points out, from polls, the largest religious affiliation is Nones, though who believe in nothing. The parish is gone because no one was coming. (Sister Andrea points out that nuns weren’t the ones molesting children.)
Elizabeth Fisher / Paramount+
Then a demon comes crawling out of the hole, and Sister Andrea stabs a knife through its hand. Father Ignatius sees nothing there, of course, as Sister Andrea threatens the demon (who has a dirty mouth) with cleaning products, causing its skin to sizzle. The demon claims another took the relic, and he was in Kristen’s basement because the Antichrist was there. The Antichrist is no more, he was baptized, Sister Andrea says, telling him to spread the word. She then slices the demon open and retrieves the relic.
What did you think of the penultimate episode? How do you think Evil will end? Let us know in the comments section, below.
Evil, Series Finale, Thursday, August 22, Paramount+
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