Evil – E is for Elevator Review

The fear of taking an elevator ride is apparently one of the most common fears among Americans and yet there’s no official phobia attached to it. While some call it a “form of claustrophobia,” there are people who aren’t claustrophobic that still fear elevators. So I am going to call it Elevatorphobia.

When I heard that this season’s fourth episode of Evil (“E is for Elevator”) was set in an elevator and supposedly terrifying, I was all set to take the ride or plummet to the netherworld. Sadly, neither of these happened. Despite the fact they “don’t do” missing persons cases, the investigative team finds themselves too intrigued to pass up a case where video evidence shows a man going into an elevator and never leaving. That event, coupled with his girlfriend also going into the elevator and going missing weeks later when she was searching for him was the basis for the discovery of the “elevator game.” Because David (Mike Colter) is prepping a Homily for an upcoming Mass, Kristen (Katja Herbers) and Ben (Aasif Mandvi) take the lead on the investigation.

The writers finally made Kristen’s daughters interesting again. For weeks I’ve complained the kids are often the weakest aspect of the show, but in this case Kristen’s children are the ones who know all about the game and happily instruct Mom on the superstition, even accompanying her to the building and gleefully pressing the buttons to enter a hellish future. Luckily, they get stuck by the fact the elevator button they need is missing, thus sparing the family a creepy fate. For now. Still, Kristen and Ben seem drawn to the elevator, both going on their own afterwards to try to figure out if the superstition could indeed yield some answers in the missing persons case.

Here’s where the apparently creepiest moments of the show occur: First, Kristen makes it to the secret sub-basement where she encounters the creepy ghost woman who drags herself across the floor (because she was caught in an elevator accident years ago) and almost gets Kristen. Yes, it’s about as much as a “chase scene” we get in Evil but it still didn’t seem creepy and I’m not sure Kristen would be so terrified. She later writes the experience off as a side-effect of her new anti-hallucinogenic drugs.

However, the real focus in the episode is Ben, who returns multiple times to the elevator but eventually “loses his sanity” as he seems trapped on the elevator level after not keeping the elevator door open, which apparently is what you are supposed to do. Unable to call for the elevator or pry the doors open with his bare hands, he succumbs to the fact he thinks he will die alone there and suddenly Abby (the demon who visits him at night) appears, even chanting in Urdu a phrase Ben’s grandmother used to tell him. The fact that Ben, who always thinks so scientifically, is spooked enough to believe what he is seeing is real and believe he’s going to die alone seems a bit unbelievable. Still, it is enjoyable seeing him vulnerable. On a side note, the demons George and Abby could co-star in a new genre TV show: the horror sitcom. I’d watch. As a whole, I wanted to be more scared.

In fact, a bit of research (apparently “the elevator game” is googled 33,000 times a month) on the game itself was far more scary than the episode. And that’s a problem.

What worked: I’ve had problems with the secondary plots of the show, but this week’s subplot seemed both interesting and important: Racism within the Catholic church itself. As David prepares to give a sample Homily that starts with, “America’s original sin is race,” he’s told to, “try to couch the racial language” by Bishop Marx (Peter Scolari). Of course, David pushes back, saying racial justice is critical because he is going to talk about race in order to get to the message of “God’s love.” I hope we see more about race, religion, and society.

What didn’t: For multiple weeks now, Evil makes a mess and then doesn’t clean it up. Here, we see a grieving family asking for help to find a missing person. The bodies of the missing were indeed found by the team but in a supernatural “level” of the building that doesn’t actually exist. It’s hard to reconcile the practical and impractical. Are they just leaving the dead bones there? Was finding those bodies just part of a nightmare? Yes, the show’s writers are trying to always give the show a Hawthorne or Poe-esque “did it really happen?” feel, but Poe and Hawthorne used that to create reality. This show becomes less realistic by never offering an official “resolution” even in these standalone episodes.

Quote of the Day: Kristen to Ben: Do you feel like an idiot? (being afraid of the elevator game) Ben: I’ve never stopped feeling like an idiot on this job.

Next week, Sister Andrea! And more Sister Andrea! And some typical exorcism stuff. Let’s hope it’s scarier than playing a game in an elevator. And let’s get “Elevatorphobia” added to the dictionary. 

Evil drops a new episode each Friday on Paramount+ and can be streamed online https://www.paramountplus.com/shows/evil/