‘Evil’ Season 2 Episode 2 Recap: “A Is For Angel”

What are the consequences of carrying out God’s will? Doing what the Lord commands is considered sacred in all forms of Christianity, and is so ingrained in the fabric of American culture that “one Nation under God” is written into the Pledge of Allegiance. But doing so can at times produce dangerous and even violent results, from the Old Testament-era obliteration of Sodom and Gomorrah to Christians throughout history supposedly invoking religion to excuse everything from colonialism to homophobia.

Faith is a deeply personal and vital cornerstone of many people’s identities, yes, but the question of how to correctly and responsibly implement it into our everyday lives is much thornier than many people are willing to acknowledge. This conflict is at the center of Evil Season 2, Episode 2 (titled “A is For Angel”) as David grapples with his own beliefs and the show foreshadows a real-world tragedy in a major way.

We open with a peek into David’s training, as he and other prospective priests practice giving penance. His character admits to beating his wife, but when his stand-in priest only asks if he promises not to repeat the offense before offering penance, it prompts a debate among the class. David and another trainee suggest counseling, because his behavior won’t change without the proper tools. But as their teacher Father Kay (Dylan Baker) points out, a priest can only provide penance and absolution on God’s behalf. He adds that the sacrament isn’t an act of “social justice,” and true forgiveness can’t be given by human beings alone. Given the Catholic Church’s ongoing scandals, it’s a charged scene to say the least.

Afterward, Kay informs David he won’t be able to keep him on as an assessor if he can’t balance his work with his training, but lo and behold, a new case has popped up. Local parishioner Ashley’s (Joniece Abbott-Pratt) husband Raymond (Brandon J. Dirden) is convinced he’s been hearing the Archangel Michael, who’s been convincing him to make drastic life changes like leaving his job and giving away all the couple’s possessions just a few months before the birth of their first child. Still bristling against her Catholic upbringing, Kristen points out, “Well, didn’t Jesus say to sell everything?” And as she points out, angels aren’t cherubs — they may be nice to look at today, but Biblical ones sound horrifying. Seems like she and David are struggling with faith in more similar ways than they’d care to admit.

Still, they need to check Raymond for psychological issues, but not before David makes a call to Leland informing him his exorcism has been pushed back a month. David truly isn’t here for anyone’s shit this episode, and watching him tell Leland he can’t wait to watch him roll around foaming at the mouth has to be an early series highlight. But Leland has lost his surefire way to Kristen’s soul, and an overeager wedding planner isn’t helping, so he decides to abruptly cut things off with her mother Cheryl and admit their relationship was a farce once and for all. In his very eloquent words, “Take your dried-up little ovaries and drag them back under the rock you came from.”

Meanwhile, the trio come face-to-face with Raymond, who’s taken to painting feathered, skeletal, generally terrifying images of angels on the living room walls. When David asks what work Michael has tasked Raymond with, he simply leans in and mentions a mysterious “second bowl” before begging for help. David already can’t shake the feeling that something is up with Kristen following his wheat field vision, and Raymond’s cryptic words aren’t helping. So he attempts to revive his vision again, only to summon the exact angel

Raymond was painting — only this time, it offers him a glowing orb. David’s woken up gasping by Sister Andrea (Andrea Martin), who’s been tasked with mopping the floors and would appreciate it if David gave up his pain-driven visions and saved her the work. Instead, she suggests syncing up his heartbeat with a metronome app and hoping for the best. So far, Evil Season 2 has doven deeper into theology in comparison to the tech-driven horrors that populated Season 1. But its ways of inserting modern life into these strange demonic cases remains fascinating.

Speaking of demons, Leland’s cold rejection of Cheryl turns to panic after he discovers that the Vatican map of evil the gang stole from his apartment last episode is missing. So he calls his ex to a diner to threaten her, only to be on the receiving end of two hard slaps. “Do you know how many demons I dated before you?” Cheryl spits. Later, he enters his favorite demon therapy room to find the words “Die you stupid pig fuck” written in what looks suspiciously like blood. You know what they say: A family who makes blood sacrifices together stays together.

David is trying to keep it together during another stuffy training session when he and the others receive an urgent call to the hospital, where Raymond is lying unharmed after abandoning his wife to save four strangers from a burning car on the highway. Also present is her old police buddy Anya (Jessie Mueller), who stops by to ask Kristen for some help on the LeRoux case before a suspicious Ben asks if she’s in trouble. “My middle name is trouble,” she says with a smirk.

That night, David’s metronome trick works a little too perfectly, as the angel returns and reveals that the “second bowl” is “a weapon more powerful than 10,000 swords,” which will wipe out half the world and bring about rebirth. But what about all the innocent people in the world? It shrieks that God is the measure of the just, as David awakes to a news report about the first cases of a mysterious illness in Wuhan, China. This show has always been interested in modern-day evils, but I can’t say I expected it to incorporate the pandemic as part of a potential doomsday. It’s too soon to tell whether the show will tastefully handle such a fresh, global tragedy in this fashion, but knowing what’s to come left a viscerally sour taste in my mouth.

While our characters unknowingly enjoy their last few months in a COVID-free New York, Michael-as-Raymond tells David about the ravaged world that is to come before Ben notices a square patch behind his ear. As he points out to Kristen and David, Raymond is a crane operator on skyscrapers, and people in his line of work often use scopolamine patches to overcome vertigo. But if one is left on too long, it can lead to memory loss and hallucinations.

The trio are satisfied with this answer, but the feeling doesn’t last long. Anya tells Kristen footage of the accident reveals Raymond waited a full minute before saving the fourth passenger, leaving him with severe injuries. He has a simple explanation: Michael told him that the fourth passenger violated his young niece, and through injuring him with this “taste of hell fire,” he’ll never be able to do it again. Group consensus is split — Kristen thinks he’s experiencing a dangerous level of psychosis, but David points out that St. Augustine advocated for a  just war. In his mind, there are certain situations where violence can stop a dire wrong, and peacefulness is a sin. David isn’t defending what Raymond did, only mentioning that God’s logic isn’t ours.

Kristen takes things a step further — does David believe killing can be a necessary evil if someone is threatening you or your family? David tells her it’s only proportional if it’s the only way to stop a killer, as a visibly shaken Kristen flashes back to her murder of LeRoux for the first time. David and Kristen’s darker impulses only seem to be bringing them closer together, and I’m intrigued to see how their will-they/won’t-they tension will pan out after he finds out she’s a murderer.

Luckily for her, she’s called by Ashley before he can piece things together. She’s ready to leave a marriage where she has no say, and Kristen offers her a number for a women’s shelter. Meanwhile, Bishop Thomas (Peter Scolari) and Kay tell David he needs to learn theology to properly apply it in the real world, even though he’s been doing that as an assessor for ages. That logic is immediately put to the test when the bishop and the trio pay a visit to Raymond, only to find an enormous pile of salt eerily similar to the Bible story of Lot’s doubtful wife turning to salt.

That night, David’s teachers allow him to pass his class if he aces a practicum in which he grants unofficial reconciliation to an eager parishioner — Leland, of course. He’s pulled plenty of devilish tricks to worm his way into the main characters’ lives, but when he gives a confession claiming he convinced a woman who sounds an awful lot like David’s ex-partner to commit suicide, it’s easily his lowest moment yet. David manages to get through it, only to meet Andrea with a bloody fist where his rosary had been. The will of God is a vicious one.

Abby Monteil is a New York-based writer. Her work has also appeared in The Daily Beast, Insider, Elite Daily, Thrillist, and others.

Stream Evil Season 2 Episode 2 on Paramount+