A possession that goes on for a convenient length of time alerts the team to a new peril…

A lot of theories gain confirmation this week in the sideplots for the season, but we’ve got a particularly insidious demon to deal with in the main story – and I wonder just how many people watching caught themselves, like I did, checking their phone during the episode and giving a guilty start when they realised what they’d done.

If you were putting together a list of modern plagues, the overuse and reliance on phones would come high on many people’s lists – particularly those who are perhaps above the target age of some of the aspects of phones’ benefits. It does sometimes come across as if you can’t say anything without it being deemed wrong in someone’s eyes and Ben finds himself on the receiving end of such abuse, as all of the team are targeted (and the use of that word again is deliberate) with little videos. It’s not Tiktok – this app is the one in Evil-land that succeeded it – and there are certain things that I’m sure the pillars of moral rectitiude that run such things in our world wouldn’t dream of doing… (I have a bridge available in Brooklyn on easy terms if you do believe that!)

The nature of the evil at the heart of the case the team gets involved with though, is much older, and nastier, and is simply using this mode of communication…

There’s a more obvious evil attacking David as we get the return of Demon Kristen (as the subtitles call her), dressed to kill… but losing her guise when Sister Andrea arrives. Is David starting to doubt the sister though? Is the demon getting through to him in a way that we’d hope he’d be immune to?

The subplot involving the kids and Leland is simply brilliant – a chef’s kiss to whoever came up with the revenge that they take, basically on their mother’s behalf, and Michael Emerson delivers a terrific performance both in the scenes as he realises things are going pear-shaped, and in the confrontation with the church. But then things get worse for him as one of his other plots starts to develop problems.

I’ve been increasingly sure that there’s something very wrong with the calls between Kristen, the girls and Andy – and now we see exactly how bad things are. Leland is at his devilish worst in the scenes with Andy, and the final shot of the episode is actually one of the nastiest things the show has ever done.

Verdict: A real-world menace, an ancient evil and movement forward on the show’s own plotlines make for one of this season’s best. 9/10

Paul Simpson