Hawk Ripjaw
The following recap contains spoilers for Evil S4E10 “How to Survive a Storm” (directed by John Dahl and written by Rockne S. O’Bannon & Anju Andre-Bergmann).
Evil S4E10 opens with the Bouchard girls (Brooklyn Shuck, Skylar Gray, Maddy Crocco and Dalya Knapp) watching a video on hurricanes as a TV news report announces that Hurricane Lucy, the storm teased at the end of last week’s episode, has been upgraded to Category 3. The video they’re watching is what happens during a Category 5 hurricane, the most destructive form. Lexis is watching a video from an influencer who claims that the veil between our world and the spirit world thins during a storm, allowing demons to enter the real world.
Kristen (Katja Herbers) receives a call from her daughters while she’s at the supermarket, which is getting feverishly cleaned out by a panicking population. While telling her daughters to stop worrying, she spots Sheryl (Christine Lahti) in disguise ahead of her in the aisle. She tells Kristen that Leland (Michael Emerson) has tapped her phones and is coming after her, and will come after Kristen and the girls too, and hands her a bag of stun guns. “You’re the most important people in the world to me,” Sheryl says, “Even if I haven’t always shown that.” She also informs Kristen that Leland has taken over DF, and the businessmen that work there are demons wearing human skin.
Kristen arrives home with her groceries to find that the her daughters have ordered multiple boxes of toilet paper. And in another surprise, Timothy and Leslie (Molly Brown) are there. Leslie pulls Kristen into the kitchen to tell her that Leland is attempting to sever the connection between Leslie and Timothy, and that if they work together, they can co-parent Timothy without Leland’s involvement. After Kristen refuses, we learn that Leslie is now allied with Leland, and went to Kristen at his instruction.
David (Mike Colter) sits in his remote viewing box and uses a new set of coordinates to look into a new location, with nothing familiar until he hears and sees Leland’s singing Feliz Navidad doll, which was used to hypnotize Andy. When he tells Father Dominic (Chukwudi Iwudi) this, Father Dominic tells him that the coordinates belong to the leader of a conglomerate controlled by the 60, and Leland is an organizer of the evil coming to New York. He warns David not to step into Leland during his remote viewing, citing the danger.
The storm gets upgraded to Category 4, with landfall in 24 hours. Laura and Lexis hear a voice coming through the vent of the adjoining unit in the duplex, of a boy calling for help. The four girls decide to venture next door, and find that the boy’s voice is a recording being sent through a Bluetooth speaker next to the vent. It’s a trap, and whoever set it is coming up the stairs. The girls all hide. Lexis sees the silhouette of a humanoid figure behind the shower curtain in the bathroom, which we see is a demon. This appears to mean that Lexis can see demons. The girls manage to escape when Lynn throws the speaker out the window and blasts Caroline Rose’s “Bikini,” which draws their assailant away.
Kristen is furious at the girls for disturbing their new neighbors, and goes next door with an apology cake. But who answers the door as their new neighbor than Leland himself, whose sinisterly warm greeting to Kristen is met with three slaps and a cake to the face. Kristen is now fully on board with her and the girls being armed with the stun guns Sheryl gave her. David, having witnessed the interaction via remote viewing, shows up at the Bouchard home with Ben (Aasif Mandvi), and they begin a battle plan: David can keep an eye on Leland through remote viewing and “maybe something more” (which he declines to elaborate on), and Ben can back up the sewage line on Leland’s side of the duplex.
The storm gets upgraded to Category 5, with landfall in 12 hours. David seeks counsel with Father Ignatius (Wallace Shawn), asking him about preventing the death of someone close to him by stopping the perpetrator by any means. Father Ignatius cites the Catechism of the Catholic Church, stating that God could not forgive murder in the name of preventing murder. However, he tells David that one thing he does believe is John 15:13: “Greater love hath no man than laying down his life for his friends.” He says that if he could have prevented the death of the Monsignor, even if it meant killing who did it, it would, in his mind, be serving God.
David draws the chalk line on the floor and we see what that “maybe something more” that he was alluding to is. Defying Father Dominic’s instructions, David steps into Leland and takes control, directing Leland to pick up a fireplace poker. But before the killing blow can be struck, Leland smiles and looks to the side. “Hello, David.”
Oh, crap.
Leland turns the tables and takes control of David, forcing him to walk to the church kitchen and take out a knife. Though David resists, Leland proves to be stronger, forcing David to begin to drive the knife into his own chest, drawing blood as David reacts in horror. In the nick of time, Ben the Magnificent backs up Leland’s sewer line, blasting liquid sh*t out of every opening in his bathroom and distracting Leland enough to break the connection.
Sheryl is determined to sink Leland. Breaking into DF’s offices, she gets to work, posting to DF’s social media that Leland has passed and attempting to tank DF’s stock. Leland sees the post and makes a phone call sending someone to DF to intervene. I was initially shocked to see Dr. Kurt (Kurt Fuller) show up outside Sheryl’s office, but it turns out that he was there to check in on Sheryl after he failed to find her at her house. Sheryl forcibly checks the back of Dr. Kurt’s neck for a seam, and doesn’t find one. Dr. Kurt is concerned that Sheryl is experiencing hallucinations as a result of painkiller abuse, not being a believer in demons.
The elevator outside the office dings, and Sheryl locks the door before the DF executive can enter. His request to be let in is denied, and we finally see that Sheryl is not in fact crazy: the executive reaches to the back of his neck and slowly unzips his skin, revealing the demon underneath. This was an awesome moment, made even better by Dr. Kurt’s reaction. He and Sheryl escape the room just as the demon smashes through the glass door, impeded by his skin suit wrapped around his feet like a pair of pants. Later, while hanging out with Dr. Kurt at his office, Sheryl covertly steals some Rohypnol from his medicine cabinet. Before she leaves, she gives Dr. Kurt two envelopes: one for Kristen, and one for Andy.
Father Dominic bursts into David’s room as he’s being tended to by Sister Andrea (Andrea Martin), and after a prodding from David, drops a huge bomb: Leland Townsend trained for a decade to be a priest by Father Dominic personally, wanting to be a friend of the Vatican, and he was extremely talented. And with David attempting to step into him, it unlocked a pathway that Leland can now use whenever he pleases. Surprisingly, it is Sister Andrea that suggests that killing Leland is the only way to stop him.
At the house, Kristen pulls a file she’s got on Leland with information from his high school days. His real name is Jake Perry, and he was in the marching band with the cruel moniker “Jake the Flake” and bullied by his teacher and classmates. Tied to a chair so he can’t hurt himself, David lets Leland in again, painfully squeezing Kristen’s hand. Ben interrupts the connection by blasting marching band music on his phone and bringing back painful memories for Leland.
The storm has made landfall, and brought with it a massive tornado. Sister Andrea stands in the Bouchard backyard, facing a man in a suit with a completely blacked out face. She tells the demon that they will not harm this family, and that God controls the weather. The demon approaches her and says, “God doesn’t control this.” Demons run past Sister Andrea, slashing at her arms and shredding her sweater. She collapses, but is brought safely inside by David and they all take refuge in the upstairs bathroom so the Sister can be patched up.
Sister Andrea is back in fighting form in no time. She suggests a prayer, pulls out her trusty rosary, and kneels at the edge of the bathtub. Lynn enthusiastically joins her and they begin to recite the Lord’s Prayer. Laura shrugs and kneels next to her sister, and is joined by Lila. Lexis notably abstains from joining them. The next morning, with the storm finally passed, Kristen and David awake in the bathroom. David confesses that he wishes that he had two lives: one for God, and one for Kristen. Kristen responds that she wishes she had two lives, both of them for David. Is this a romance that’s about to start heating up again?
Sheryl goes to Leland’s apartment and spikes one of his People Juice jars with the Rohypnol. When Leland attempts an infusion, he begins foaming at the mouth before staggering to his living room and collapsing. Sheryl shows up and puts a knife to his throat, but before she can slice him open, she’s hit on the back of the head and knocked out by a demon, who tells Leland “You clean up this one.” Next thing we know, Sheryl is in the ER after taking a fall from a fourth-story balcony.
Sheryl’s final moments are beautifully executed. The Bouchard daughters exit the room for Kristen to visit her mother. Sheryl painfully whispers, “Forgive me.” After a moment, Kristen tells Sheryl that she loves her, and offers for David to perform the last rites. This is where the waterworks started to kick in for me. The bloodied Sheryl is silent as David performs the last rites, and the camera cuts to Kristen as we hear Sheryl flatline and Kristen reacts with anguish, breaking down in tears and the audio fades out entirely save for the score. Sheryl was a character we loved to hate, but the writing and Christine Lahti’s performance made her such a great presence on the show. She will be sorely missed.
While it seems that Leland has won against Sheryl, Sheryl gets the last laugh for now, even in death. Dr. Kurt delivers the envelope as instructed to Kristen, which contains a USB drive with a video in which Sheryl has recorded herself in Leland’s apartment revealing the People Juice room, leading the police to arrest Leland. The cops also show up at Kristen’s house with Timothy in tow. As the biological mother, Kristen now has to make a choice as to whether she will raise Timothy herself, or for him to go into foster care. Before Kristen makes her decision, the episode cuts to black.
As I understand it, “How to Survive a Storm” was completed as a season finale before the news of the series’ cancellation came through. As a supposed season finale, it is an absolute banger. There is not an ounce of fat on this episode, and there are a number of very tense scenes as the storm builds and makes landfall. The death of Sheryl was also incredibly impactful, and I definitely shed a tear or two with how well it was handled. We are officially four episodes away from the end of Evil, and I cannot wait to see how things get wrapped up.
Evil streams Thursdays on Paramount+.
