Evil – Two Fathers Review

Now that I’m convinced it’s keeping its quality (and since it has already been renewed for a second season next year), the CBS series Evil has earned an episode-by-episode review, so I’ll be writing episodic summary-reviews beginning this week…

Can the previously-found map of evil (The Poveglia Codex) with more than 60 sigils help lead Kristen (Katja Herbers) and David (Mike Colter) anywhere closer to solving or stopping a pattern of evil events? That was the basic premise for Evil this week, and it took our main characters a bit closer to home than expected.

In the episode, entitled “Two Fathers,” viewers saw their first real glimpses of Kristen’s husband (who has been away climbing mountains) and David’s father, an artist who resides in a remote art commune. David’s been estranged from his father for 5 years but after recently being gifted with a book of art, he’s noticed his father’s artwork contains a symbol that matches one of the evil “sigils” on the map. With the archbishop’s permission, David and Kristen head to the art commune to talk with his father about why he’s painting that symbol and what it might mean.

Once there, David finds that his father is not only remarried, but in a polygamous marriage with two women. One of these women (Esther) seems to inscribe this symbol on her own pottery, including the pottery from which David and Kristen drink a few glasses of sangria spiked with a hallucinogenic drug. This causes them to lose their inhibitions and dance very close to each other (even though David, of course, is studying to be a priest) while Kristen says,  “Do you know why this moment is special? Because it will never happen again.” 

But then they break apart and see other odd, inexplicable things. In Kristen’s case, it’s seeing Esther in a corn field outside giving birth but to a monster or alien-type thing instead of a human baby; in David’s case he dances with an attractive young woman he later finds out from his father was an enslaved woman who died in 1859 and is one of the “ancestors.” His father takes a photo out to prove it.  

David’s father then produces some documents including the slavemaster’s seal–which is the same seal he has been drawing on his paintings. David becomes upset that his father is drawing a “symbol of slavery…of evil…of racists who owned humans.” But his father responds that his paintings are paintings born of pain. “And I’m in charge of how I shoulder that weight…so I reached out and reclaimed it…made it my property…made it (a symbol of) resilience.”

And this was indeed an interesting philosophical idea we see reflected in society today: owning one’s identity or story. David learns from his father you can’t change the past, but if you can take control of the narrative you can move from victim to storyteller. They both agree they’ll “each carry weight” in their own way and it seems that father and son are mending their relationship. So David and Kristen leave with few answers.

Meanwhile back at Kristen’s home, deadbeat dad Andy is winning back the children, who were a bit cold to him (at least the older one) when he returned. He does this by going into the VR-type game that the kids are afraid of, where they destroy some freakish-looking spiders, stand up to a ghost girl and hit a button (no, I’m not making this up). Then they all hug him and now they apparently don’t mind that deadbeat dad Andy was off climbing mountains and finding himself for several months. Hmmmmm…

Supporting characters are relatively non-existent in this episode. Ben is most notably relegated to a B-story. After filming his “reality TV show” on the previous episode, he goes back to see how the edits are going and rekindles his romance with his co-star. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know how close he can get to her when she tells him her own sister is grafted to her. Yes, this woman thinks her own sister is still somewhat alive and grafted to her own body and sometimes helps makes decisions. Not sure if she’s just crazy or if he should believe her, he calls David for advice, who has just gone through the “I’ve seen a slave woman ghost” experience, so he just  promptly tells him, “The world is weird.” 

The world is weird, indeed. 

So, we jump back to the end of the episode and David and Kristen are in a cab or car back to her house and they are jostled awfully close together (think The Sun Also Rises! At least I did) and Kristen arrives home and steps out to see … her husband! And roll the credits.

A bit of a soapy ending! 

The biggest weakness of the episode is it left us treading water a bit: While most episodes add some interesting depth to the show’s mythology of evil, this just left a lot of untied answers. True, we don’t know how much of this was real, especially since the two main characters were under the influence of a hallucinogenic drink at the seance. Was it the symbol that was creating the power? The seance? The artists themselves? And why did they just…leave without getting answers?

But more importantly, we learned a bit about David and his family, at least. We’ve gained some insight into how evil can be potentially used for good if you “own it” (like bringing back your own ancestors in the art commune through belief–or possibly tainted, drug-laced sangria) and it seems characters who have run to the real demons around town are now going to confront their personal demons: broken families and relationships. The show seems to be headed in an interesting direction.