Evil 1.5-6: Seeing Red

I've been remiss in watching and reviewing Evil because, how much evil can anyone take?  But I've resolved to start making up for that, so here's a review of Evils 1.5 and 1.6 (the last one I reviewed was 1.4), with reviews of the rest of to follow soon.

The two episodes have completely different but always related stories.  Episode 1.5 was about an exorcism and 1.6 about a prophetess.  The series continues to carefully balance supernatural which may be real, and pseudo-supernatural which turns out to explicable by science.  And due to Leland's continued presence, which escalates in these two episodes in a, well, romantic way, there's also a suitably unsettling psychopathic element throughout.

Kristen doesn't believe that Caroline's ills can't be helped or cured by exorcism in episode 1.5 - she and a psychiatrist are sure they're ills of the mind not the soul - and she substitutes tap water for holy water to prove it.  When the tap water has the same effect, when presumed to be holy water, it seems that she has proved her case.  But at the end of the episode, David's exorcism does the job.  Score one for religion.

But, in other matters, Ben demonstrates the very real-world tricks that a psychic-investigating TV show is up to, and Kristen's daughters are frightened by a girl with a really-burned burned face that they but we never see.   Score two for the non-supernatural.

In episode 1.6, our team investigates a woman whose prophecies are identical to a codex from 1550 that, according to the Church, very few people have seen.  ICE deports her before David's investigation is complete - another justified shot at the unacceptable state of our immigration policies in the Trump regime.  Ben's explanation that, for all we know, many more people saw the codex, seems as good as any.  But the woman also tells Kristen to beware of red and ....

Back to Leland and Kristen's mother Sheryl - she winds up sleeping with Leland even after Kristen tells her he's a psycho, and in the last scene, Sheryl gets up in the morning, looks at Leland asleep in her bed, and picks out something nice to wear in her closet - which is red.   (And, just for good measure in this Evil conundrum, she earlier foresaw a woman's house being destroyed.)

So there you have it, this continuing, razor-sharp balance of natural and supernatural.  And I'll be back soon with more reviews on the edge.

See also: Evil: Incubus Mystery ... Evil 1.2: Miracles and Racism ... Evil 1.3: Possessed Alexa ... Evil 1.4: Raising the Ante

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