‘Evil’ Season 2 Episode 5 Recap: “Z Is For Zombies”

Kristen Bouchard’s four daughters have always been a delightfully chattery Greek chorus grounding her Evil escapades. Yet as the series has progressed, they’ve begun to play a larger role in the show’s mythology, from Laura’s miraculously cured heart condition and Lexis’ potential demonic predispositions to Kristen literally killing a dude to protect them… just single mom things! But getting to know the kids on a one-on-one basis makes the show even richer, and one of the latest monster-of-the-week cases centers on none other than second-oldest daughter Lila Bouchard (Skylar Gray).

She and her friend next-door, Alex (Gloria Manning), are on a serious zombie kick (and yes, the Walking Dead zombies ARE the worst). But their tween conviction that they could survive the apocalypse are tested when they become convinced a member of the undead is haunting their very own street. More specifically Alex’s dad Brandon, who comes home from work with bloody footprints and open wounds on his hand, staring dead-eyed at the wall.

After Lila realizes he works for the Amazon-esque company CongoRun, the girls find a YouTube video about how the company turns its warehouse employees into zombies themselves. They’re not allowed to unionize or take regular bathroom breaks, and even get regularly injured on machinery (see: Brandon). So they track down a local “zombie expert” who regales the girls with tales about how Haitian slave traders telling slaves they’d be turned into zombified workers forever if they committed suicide. To free Brandon from this form of “slavery,” she gives them two bottled concoctions: a blue one for him, and a green one for the “slave driver,” who will reveal himself in due time. “They always do,” she adds drily.

Evil has never been afraid to use its supernatural cases as explicit allegories for modern atrocities. But identifying a capitalist corporation like Amazon’s oppression of workers (particularly Black employees) as a modern-day form of slavery is certainly its most pointed commentary since David was forced to contend with anti-Black medical racism in Season 1.

While the girls tackle zombies, the Evil adults are once again forced to deal with the rot within their own workplace. After resident exorcist Father Mulvehill’s (Brian Stokes Mitchell) back begins bleeding during seminary classes, he admits to David that he hasn’t been himself lately, and ultimately agrees to partake in an assessment and figure out whether so much “demonic exposure” has taken a toll on him. But it turns out Mulvehill isn’t riddled by possession at all: He’s back-slided into an old gambling addiction, which resurfaced after he downloaded a gambling app a month ago.

Kristen thinks it’s a vicarious trauma issue, but Ben — who refuses to take time off after, you know, nearly dying last week — insists he was the victim of targeted social media ads. When Ben dredges up Mulvehill’s hastily deleted emails, he figures out the priest has already lost $40,000… and Leland helped encourage him. Back home, Kristen is perturbed when she starts getting ads about anonymously cheating on your husband (there’s the jinn again!), before Lila comes in for some advice from her “vampire stalker” mom. When people become monsters, can they ever become the person they were again? It’s a tough question to ask your secret murderer mom, especially when you mention you’ve started giving up on your absent father. I need a Bouchard family intervention immediately!

In the meantime, though, Lila’s zombie operation is fully in motion. After the girls slip some of the blue elixir to Brandon, he coincidentally oversleeps and becomes the only warehouse employee not severely injured in a gas leak. Soon, a de-zombified Brandon has invited his remaining coworkers to talk unionization, before the “slave driver” (aka his boss Mr. Hamlin) shows up to dole out threats while the girls spike his gum. Yikes!

Given the trio’s recent revelation about Mulvehill and Leland, the latter’s upcoming exorcism looks particularly suspicious. David wants Mulvehill to check into a six-month treatment program, but as Sister Andrea reminds him, he loves doing exorcism too much. “He loves the drama. He thinks he’s in a movie,” she scoffs. Although she’s mostly relegated to praying and scrubbing floors as a nun, David convinces her to come to the exorcism to sniff out Mulevhill once and for all. And when Mulevhill is overcome by Leland’s presence, it’s Andrea whose Holy Water burns Leland’s skin and makes him truly scared of the church for the first time.

After that, Andrea is spent. David asks why he won’t join her in investigating Leland further, to which she replies, “Because I’m a woman, and this is the Catholic Church.” Between David’s experiences with church racism and Andrea being held back by an institution where women hold no formal power, Evil is only getting bolder in its critiques of the church. Place your bets now on if David makes it to ordination day.

Back home, another CongoRun boss shows up at Alex’s house not to fire Brandon, but to promote him to the now-fired Hamlin’s position…if he agrees to stop unionizing. Cut to a new day, and everyone but Lila seems thrilled that Brandon has a better job and can work from home. But although he’s escaped the physical wounds of warehouse work, putting him in Hamlin’s seat of power hasn’t made the company he works for any better — now he’s graduated to telling workers they can’t have bathroom breaks. Alex may be done with zombie movies, but it’s heartening to see Evil find firmer footing between its mythology and the modern monster tales it does so well.

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

Watch Evil Season 2 Episode 5 on Paramount+