Anyone who thought that Kristen might just forget what she did to LaRoux now knows she’s wracked with guilt.
She’s moved past self-flagellation on to burning her torso with a rosary, and on EVIL Season 2 Episode 8, when Andy returned, he sensed something was wrong immediately.
What was interesting was that her turn in the God Helmet had her facing David, not Andy. This is one crazy, tangled web.
You know things are bad when you’re taking a relaxing bath and sipping bourbon moments before your husband returns after a ridiculously long time away from the family.
Even after that self-care, Kristen had to psych herself up in the mirror before joining the family for their welcome home party.
With Andy on the other side of the planet, he’s been out of the loop entirely and has missed the full scope of Kristen’s situation with LaRoux.
Seeing Andy and Kristen interact now, being on the outside might be good for Kristen and for Sheryl, who’ve both lost themselves to, for lack of a better word, evil.
Getting a fresh pair of eyes on the two of them can’t be a bad thing. Who would know Kristen better than her husband? He sensed right away that things were off.
What is going on with the burns? It’s obviously a way to atone for what she’s done, but wasn’t she orgasmic when Andy put his hand to her abdomen? It wasn’t howls of agony, which is what it sounded like when she pressed the molten cross there.
Andy described her as aggressive, dismissive, and angry. That’s very on point. The incident in the grocery store shows that she’s lashing out, possibly with the hope that she’ll be punished since she escaped consequences for LaRoux’s murder.
If she had killed him while he was in her home, that would have been different. She might have had lingering feelings and nightmares, but in the line of work they’re in, she’s questioning a much different judgment day, and she doesn’t think she’ll pass muster.
They had me going with the God Helmet bait and switch for a while; sometime midway through her vision, I realized it wasn’t David. But what, exactly, does it mean?
Kurt tossed out the idea that she wants David more than Andy, but it’s not that simple. When Kristen thought the god Helmet wasn’t going to work on her, she laughed about her missing soul.
She doesn’t believe in God, but after what she did, she’s struggling with that.
I think everyone, at some point, wonders if what they believe is really how it is or if they’ll miss the boat on this judgment day Christians talk about. We might tell ourselves that our God wouldn’t be vengeful, but is he really all-forgiving?
We don’t have proof of what happens when we die, and for some of us, our egos refuse to believe that this is all there is to life. There aren’t any easy answers for the pragmatic.
Was Kristen’s vision of David discovering her secret her way of suggesting that she needs God’s forgiveness? Surely, as he’s one step away from the priesthood, she equates David with God, even if she also finds him very alluring.
It’s like the worst of two worlds to be attracted to a man of God and be hiding a secret that would repulse him.
At least Ben and Kristen had a reaction to the helmet; David didn’t, and Sister Andrea thinks that it wiped his brain of all the mapping he’d been working so hard to achieve. In other words, he’s eliminated his visions by trying to manipulate his brain into having them.
With as hard as he has struggled to tune into God again, it’s not surprising that he wanted to get a part of that helmet action. Later, he realized it was a mistake.
It’s not a mistake he had the time to make, either. Who the heck let Leland into the rectory to accost Sister Andrea, anyway?
He’s figured out that she used ammonia, and their combative chatter, quoting words like exorcism, was scary. I thought he’d just toss it on her face after the decapitated nun joke, but Leland merely asked for Sister Andrea’s hand. She offered it willingly because in it was a large knife.
That sister’s got tricks left and right. She never flinched, and her composure rocked Leland’s. It’s relatively easy to get under his skin, considering he thinks he’s got Satan riding along on his shoulder.
At this point, it’s like poking a bear, though, and the more Sister Andrea and David poke, the more ready he’ll have to be to fight off Leland when he makes his move.
Is that what the end of the season is going to come to? Will David and Sister Andrea go toe-to-toe with Leland? Will Bishop Marx even believe that Leland is worth the effort?
It feels like this season has a lot more to uncover with respect to David’s visions and Kristen’s secret, but it’s hard to picture where it’s going.
And what about Ben? He’s feeling the pressure of God, too. His mother razzed him about turning his back on Allah, and as much as he wanted to push it back on Allah, turning his back on Ben, he couldn’t shake it.
Probably the best thing about the God Helmet is that for the first time, David, Ben, and Kristen didn’t have a quorum on their recommendation to use or not to use it.
Bishop Marx was perturbed and wanted the go-ahead to use it, and he had to be shocked that Kristen was the one pushing for it.
As usual, EVIL offers so much to think about with respect to guilt, belief, faith, and family.
I hope you’ll share your thoughts on the hour below. “B Is for Brain,” but C Is for Comments!!
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Carissa Pavlica is the managing editor and a staff writer and critic for TV Fanatic. She’s a member of the Critic’s Choice Association, enjoys mentoring writers, conversing with cats, and passionately discussing the nuances of television and film with anyone who will listen. Follow her on Twitter and email her here at TV Fanatic.
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