Hawk Ripjaw
The following recap contains spoilers for Evil S4E11 “Fear of the Future” (directed by Robert King and written by Michelle King, Robert King & Anju Andre-Bergmann).
At the end of last week, the police came to Kristen’s house with Timothy, and we cut to black just before Kristen (Katja Herbers) could decide whether to take him in or send him to foster care. At the beginning of Evil S4E11, “Fear of the Future,” we learn that she has chosen to care for him.
Set to a choral arrangement, we get a fade-in to Leland (Michael Emerson)’s face as he sits in jail. He is not having a good time, and we love to see it. In the holding cell with multiple other inmates, Leland spots a horizontal line on the ground. He steps over the line, attempting to use it to step into David, but is immediately overwhelmed by marching band music and staggers back into another inmate, who delivers a robust punch to the villain and knocks him to the ground.
Next, we fade into Dr. Kurt (Kurt Fuller)’s face as he attempts to deliver Sheryl’s envelope to Andy at his rehab facility. Sliding the envelope under the door accidentally pushes the door open, revealing a nude woman wearing a tiger mask in the bed, while another figure wearing a gorilla mask pops up behind her. Dr. Kurt apologizes and drops the envelope on the ground. An ashamed-looking Andy (Patrick Brammall) removes his gorilla mask as the shot fades back to black.
We fade next into the face of David (Mike Colter), who is being promoted to Pastor after Father Ignatius (Wallace Shawn) has chosen to retire. David isn’t entirely enthusiastic about this decision, calling it a “Black Bluff:” When a parish is going under, they assign a Black person to a position of power to keep up appearances.
At the post-funeral party for Sheryl, attendees are celebrating Sheryl’s life with drinks and stories. Kristen has made a new friend in Ellie (Anna Chlumsky), who remembers Sheryl from when she used to babysit her, and they’ve retreated to the kitchen away from everyone else. Going upstairs to use the bathroom, Ellie stops to greet Laura (Dalya Knapp) in her bedroom and notes the artwork on the wall over Laura’s bed. She tells her to pursue art school, and tells Laura that she wanted to do the same, but her mother wanted her to do something more serious.
Down in the kitchen, Kristen asks David if he actually believed his eulogy, that Sheryl was in heaven. David responds that he does. Kristen presses him further: that if you’ve committed murder, hurt those close to you, that all that it takes to get a free pass into heaven is to say that you believe in Jesus. David responds that it’s a little more complicated than that. Kristen says that she likes sometimes that David believes in something that she doesn’t, but other times David seems like a mystery out of the Middle Ages.
Sitting in the courtroom, Leland gets to meet his lawyer: Henry Stick (John Carroll Lynch), a clumsy , awkward man with a dreadful combover who can’t even open his briefcase on the first try. The judge (Richard Kind), presented with evidence that the prisoners in the People Juice room have since died, denies pretrial release. Leland snarls to Stick that he wants a real lawyer, and that the 60 are coming to town—“They need me.”
Following the gathering at the Bouchard house, Ellie helps Kristen with cleaning up and invites Kristen to a last drink. This is where things get real. Ellie tells Kristen that she can tell that David is in love with Kristen. Kristen asks to change the subject, and they bring up the particle accelerator from the season premiere. Kristen responds that she didn’t think it made the news, and Ellie says that it would “a few years from now.” Weird. She talks about how the particle accelerator’s mini black holes could create a wormhole, and refers to Ben as “Ben the Magnificent,” which isn’t a common nickname for Kristen’s friend, but states that she’s known Ben for a long time. She also tells Kristen that in six months, David will leave the priesthood and move in with Kristen, and tomorrow, Kristen will learn that Andy has been cheating on her.
Here’s where the real bombshell drops: Ellie says that her real name is Laura. Yes, that Laura, Kristen’s daughter, from 30 years in the future, and she’s traveled through the particle accelerator’s wormhole to visit Kristen. At this point, Kristen asks “Future Laura” to leave, but her new friend insists that Lynn will go on to be a nun, Lila will trade in crypto with her wife, and that she herself will attempt to go into art school against Kristen’s wishes. She insists that she is Kristen’s daughter, and cites her heart surgery and Andy’s attempt to kill her before going to rehab as proof—something that only she would know. Kristen insists that she’s crazy, and throws her out.
Kristen, overwhelmed and angry, sits down and a ’70s-style bloody title card flashes across the screen with a thunderclap, with no pop-up book. This week’s opening credits gag reads “Skip the intro and the show will be cancelled…Oops.” Still hurts, man.
Kristen wakes up in the middle of the night to see Sheryl standing in the corner of the room. When her mother turns around, however, it turns out to be George (Fedor Steer) in a wig and nightgown. George taunts her about Future Laura, and references Andy’s cheating. As Kristen desperately tries to wiggle her toes to wake up, George starts violently rocking Timothy’s cradle and singing “Rock-a-Bye Baby.” Kristen finally manages to wake up, and calls Andy’s rehab facility. Andy confesses that he met someone. Arriving at the facility, Kristen is calm, but only briefly. Before Andy can explain anything about the woman across the hall that he met, Kristen sweeps everything off of his table. When Andy tries to retort that Kristen has been with David, Kristen smashes his laptop, gathers the family photos from around the room, and tells Andy that she will no longer pay for his stay at the facility before exiting.
Stick, visiting Leland in jail, presents Leland with the evidence from Sheryl that he was draining blood and brain matter from his prisoners, and suggests to Leland that they pursue the insanity defense: with this, they can get Leland prescribed meds and he’ll be out sooner. However, Dr. Kurt isn’t convinced, and refuses to sign off on this—until Leland threatens Dr. Kurt with the loss of book sales, his practice, and even his life. The scene ends before this can be elaborated on, but given how malleable the doctor is, I’m not optimistic Leland is going to be behind bars for long.
Kristen arrives home distraught. Ben is there repairing windows from last week’s apocalyptic storm, and comforts her. While Ben holds her, Kristen tells him about Future Laura revealing the tryst, while the girls discreetly listen upstairs. Kristen composes herself and goes upstairs to check on the girls, who are waiting for her in her room and immediately confront Kristen about Future Laura and the prospect of Kristen divorcing Andy. Kristen maintains that the woman was nuts, but the girls still wonder how she knew everything she did, particularly about Laura’s surgery. Kristen comforts her daughters, but once they’re gone she furiously starts gathering all of Andy’s belongings and throwing them in a box labeled “Andy’s Sh*t.”
Ben tries to get David to go see Kristen, but he’s hesitant. An irritated Ben leaves, and David sees Demon Kristen in a schoolgirl outfit sitting at his desk, once again making sexually-charged comments about David’s feelings towards Kristen. He does go see her, and go to her office. And man, the sexual tension in this scene is thicker than Sheryl’s bulletproof dress. It’s also masterfully filmed, as the two move towards each other, embracing, and slowly embracing and squeezing harder in shot-reverse shots. Before anything can happen, however, Kristen suggests that he leave. But they were definitely this close to allowing something to happen.
Later, church lawyer Mr. Flowers (Reg Rogers) visits David to inform him that the Archdiocese has chosen to end the assessor program, meaning that Ben and Kristen are out of a job. The parish is not doing well financially, and would rather establish a call center for spiritual questions than continue with assessments. David breaks the news to Ben, but opts not to tell Kristen just yet, so the two crack open a couple of beers.
Ben asks David why he’s even a priest, and insists that David and Kristen are meant to be together—that he loves her. This is such a fantastic scene, not only because we have a man of faith and a faith-rejecting man of science debating, but because of the rawness of David’s monologue about being a priest. He heatedly admits that he thinks about this every day, but that he is pledged to God. He emotionally says that he’s sick of “the broken promises in this world, and all the other sh*t…evil,” and says he will not break his promise, even if it breaks him…and even if he needs Kristen. Mike Colter really pulls out all of the stops in this scene, and it might be the best performance he’s given in the show so far.
Laura answers a knock at the door—it’s Future Laura, asking to speak to Kristen or Lexis, neither of whom are home. She has a gift for Timothy, and Laura lets her in, but not without grilling her a bit about being her future self. Future Laura is able to successfully answer the question about a grade she received in school. Future Laura asks to use the bathroom, and while she’s in there, Laura runs outside and takes a picture of the license plate on Future Laura’s car.
Stick is called into the courtroom. Leland, exasperated, turns to see his lawyer, and instead sees a massive demon. This is my favorite demon design in the show so far. Massive, hulking, dragging chained corpses behind him, and with a face that seems assembled from the silently screaming eyes and mouths of multiple dead—the design is terrifyingly inspired. The demon threatens Leland to not request alternate counsel, else he’ll drink Leland’s brains like a soup. Leland realizes that Demon Stick is the evil coming to New York, before hastily retracting his request for a new lawyer.
It turns out that the onesie Future Laura brought for Timothy was tainted with poison, and the car she was driving was stolen. Future Laura shows up again late at night, as Lynn is outside using her demon detecting app. Future Laura once again insists on speaking to Lexis, and, pulling a box cutter on the girl, tells her that in in the future, Lexis and Timothy will together start a war that will decimate the Earth. Lynn manages to hide before Future Laura can harm her with the box cutter, and Future Laura enters the house, going upstairs to Kristen’s room, where Kristen is being taunted in sleep paralysis by George. As George watches with popcorn, Future Laura slowly prepares to smother Timothy with a pillow. She’s stopped at the last second by Present Laura, who blasts her in the face with an air horn, jolting Kristen awake and allowing Kristen to hit her with the stun gun. This whole sequence was incredible suspenseful, bolstered by an awesome choral chanting in the soundtrack. As David and Ben arrive, having been unsuccessful in warning Kristen about the onesie, Future Laura makes her escape through the bedroom window.
Kristen and David return to the rehab facility to find Andy’s room empty. The nurse informs them that Andy and Ellie—his new lover from across the hall, and the person responsible for stealing the car—left earlier together, and hands David a USB drive that she says Ellie watched “constantly.” Ellie is just Ellie, not Future Laura, and the video on the USB is Sheryl explaining to Andy everything about the supposed apocalypse involving Lexis and Timothy. Everything else about Laura, presumably, was Andy telling her details about the lives of his daughters. Outside, David finally breaks the news of the assessor program being terminated, and all Kristen can do is let out an exasperated scoff.
I think I knew in my heart of hearts that there was no way there was a wormhole that would allow “Future Laura” to come visit Kristen and that she was intending to stop Lexis and Timothy from kickstarting the apocalypse, but the writing sells it so well that I was absolutely hooked on “Fear of the Future.” This is the first of the four final episodes of Evil and there is still a lot to wrap up the series, so it will be interesting to see where things go while also leaving them open for a potential pickup from another streaming service. The series has been doing extremely well on streaming, so there is a sliver of hope, but for now, we have to accept that we have three chapters remaining in the conclusion of the story.
Evil streams Thursdays on Paramount+.
