The Evil Season 1 Finale Will Straight Up Change You as a Person

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the Season 1 finale of Evil. Read at your own risk!]

There are some things in life you just can’t unsee, and one of those things is a woman pregnant with a possessed fetus receiving Communion and then promptly gushing blood out of her vagina all over a church floor. So, thanks for that parting gift, Evil Season 1! Being forever changed by the idea of possessed fetuses aside, the finale of Evil is everything you could want to close out the season: It is freaky as hell, it cleverly ties together so many elements of the entire season, it has Mike Colter quoting Shakespeare in it, and it opens up some truly insane avenues for Season 2 to head down. Seriously, that final moment is shocking and a game-changer and I am unwell. I’m also already counting down to Evil‘s return. That’s as pretty close to perfect as a season finale can get.

You know you’re really in for it when “Book 27” starts out with a wild dream-within-a-dream sequence in which we revisit Kristen’s (Katja Herbers) first encounter with Orson LeRoux (Darren Pettie) — this time with 100 percent more chair slamming — Kristen gets to go to stab town on George (Marti Matulis), she learns that the horned beast knows about her offer to go to Mount Everest, and then she watches as Lexis (Maddy Crocco) acts creepy as hell and blood comes pouring out of her mouth. It is your Evil amuse bouche, if you will. It tastes both terrifying and amazing. Sort of like squid ink pasta.

Evil Bosses Break Down the Season 1 Finale’s ‘Holy Sh–‘ Ending

What this sequence really does, though, is push Kristen to second-guess Lexis, and also realize that the only way for the horned beast to know about the Everest stuff is through Leland (Michael Emerson)… and the only way he could know about it is through Sheryl (Christine Lahti). Now Kristen knows her mother lied about breaking things off with Leland. Kristen gives her mother an ultimatum — her granddaughters or Leland — and Sheryl picks Leland. Excuse me, she picks “her lover.” Fun side note: My literal hell is being stuck in a room where people only refer to their romantic partner as their lover. It’s probably a baby shower.

It’s not that Sheryl doesn’t want to have anything to do with the Bouchard girls; she just loves Leland. And she doubles down on that by accepting his marriage proposal.

Christine Lahti and Michael Emerson, EvilPhoto: Elizabeth Fisher, CBS

There is another psychopath really messing with Kristen’s life these days: Orson. He’s hanging around outside of her house under the pretense that he has “found God” and wants to atone for his sins, but no one’s buying that. Not after seeing him running errands for Leland, and especially not after he calls Kristen to “apologize” for things like “imagining snapping the necks of your girls.” Call me crazy, but that just doesn’t sound like he really means it.

Understandably, Kristen is becoming more and more undone by Orson’s threatening presence — she even has Ben (Aasif Mandvi) fortify her home with new locks and an updated security system (Judy James doesn’t seem so paranoid now, huh?). Yet still, Kristen heads off to work, leaving Lynn (Brooklyn Shuck) in charge until some neighbor named Matilda gets there. I just feel like we all should’ve learned a much bigger lesson from that whole Not Brenda situation. Who in the actual hell is Matilda?!

Alas, duty calls Kristen away from her daughters. In all fairness, this is really a can’t-miss Case of the Week, and it’s brought to us by everyone’s favorite skeptic Kurt Boggs (Kurt Fuller). Like, how can you pass up a possibly possessed fetus? You can’t. You just can’t. So of course Kristen joins the gang as they assist Eleanor (Laura Heisler), a woman who is eight-plus months pregnant with twins and is sure that the boy fetus is possessed. She is sure of this because of things like: the fact that she can hear the girl fetus screaming for help (that phrase will haunt my dreams) and can feel the fetus literally eating her from the inside out. David (Colter) performs a test: He gives Eleanor a rosary to hold. If she’s possessed, the cross will burn her hand. It does not. But when they put the cross on her stomach, the fetus jumps, and when David starts reciting prayers, well, Eleanor’s womb becomes a punching bag.

And yet, the Church is still not convinced. Don’t even get me started on what the Church will and won’t believe. Anyway, they have another test for Eleanor — she’s going to receive the Eucharist. So just as I’m enjoying the fun banter between BFFs and non-believers Kristen and Ben, we are interrupted by Eleanor eating the host and then screaming out in pain until like, honestly, a truly insane amount of blood comes pouring out of her body.

The bad news is that we’ll never be able to scrub that image from our brains. The good news is that now the Church is finally on board with a womb exorcism. You take the wins where you can get them on this show, guys.

Mike Colter and Katja Herbers, EvilPhoto: Elizabeth Fisher, CBS

Speaking of, it is with great pleasure that I get to report to you that while that womb exorcism stuff is going on in one room, something infinitely more interesting is happening on the stairwell. I mean that wholeheartedly. After a true dearth of those Kristen-David moments lately, we are blessed with a scene that makes me feel things. Like, even more than that fakeout kiss scene. And maybe even more than that time David gave Kristen his sweatshirt because he didn’t want her to be cold on her walk from the car to her front door. OK, just kidding, that sweatshirt moment is one I will treasure for all of time. But this comes pretty close. Finally, David and Kristen are back to having their intimate chats.

Kristen was watching David during mass (Mike Colter’s cutesy little point to himself has changed me) and she wants to understand what he gets out of it. David opens up to her: It all comes down to fear of death. He just doesn’t understand “how we die and our lives just disappear with us” and why “people aren’t unnerved” by that. He also goes on to quote a line from Henry IV, Part 1 and it is the moment I know for sure that this hot priest is the hot priest for me. Anyway, I don’t know how Kristen just gets up and leaves after David’s story about his Navy SEAL friend who contained multitudes and in an instant was just gone, but at least they hold hands for a moment before she does. AT LEAST.

It turns out to be a wise choice for Kristen to head out, because some truly evil things are going down at her house. While the girls are asleep, someone comes to the door. When he can’t get in, he rings the doorbell repeatedly, and it’s Lexis (OF COURSE) who wakes up and goes downstairs to see who it is. Well, guys, it’s the hairy, horned Beast Therapist here to take Lexis “to the next level.” This is the part in the recap when I can be silent no longer: WHAT THE F— MATILDA YOU HAD ONE JOB. Of course we never actually see Matilda; how could she ever show her face here? Just never trust a Matilda to protect your kids from demons. That’s the lesson here.

When Kristen gets home, she finds the door open, Lexis asleep on the floor, and, in case you haven’t been creeped out enough, a gift basket from Orson LeRoux. Oh, now Kristen’s had it. It’s time for her to protect her family. She runs into the closet and grabs an ice pick. And… guys… I think she’s going to use it on LeRoux? Our Kristen!

Katja Herbers, EvilPhoto: Elizabeth Fisher, CBS

While Kristen is out possibly cracking skulls, the boys are out there cracking the case. THANK YOU, PLEASE TIP YOUR WAITRESS. While waiting for the exorcism to wrap up, Ben’s in the kitchen (Aasif Mandvi taking a sip of water in this scene should be taught in acting school) and hears a familiar tune. It’s “Pudsy’s Christmas,” and it is coming from a teddy bear sitting on the counter. David joins the investigation, and they see that the bear was a gift from the fertility clinic Eleanor used, RSM Fertility. They look up the clinic online and find that the logo! Is! A! Euler! Triangle! When the guys head over to RSM, David sees that they have offices in just three cities: New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. Um, guys, those are the three cities that line up with the three stars in David’s hallucination. And when they look on the wall of success stories, guess whose picture they find there? Eric (Luke Judy). The kid who tried to drown his sister. You know who else are clients there? Bridget (Annaleigh Ashford) and Dwight Ferrell (Dan Bittner). It all comes back to RSM Fertility. That whole Matthew 13 thing about the enemy sowing weeds in the wheatfields? Yeah, the bad guys are corrupting an entire generation before they are even born through fertilized eggs. Well, that’s cool and I’m not terrified at all.

There’s one more connection to RSM Fertility to make, and guys, it is the least fun. The gang all reconvenes at the hospital after Eleanor’s water breaks before the exorcism is complete. Two disconcerting things happen, I mean, aside from the birth of a devil. First, Ben notices blood on Kristen’s leg and she is very cagey about the whole thing. Second, when the guys tell Kristen about what they discovered about RSM Fertility, she might vomit. She used RSM Fertility for one of her pregnancies — that’s how she had Lexis. OK, Recap Welfare Check: Is everyone OK or did your brain explode? Because, I hate to say it but, there’s one more piece of information you need to know before we close out the season. Ready?

Now that the team knows what the demons are up to, David prays to God for answers as to how to stop them. God answers with a vision — not a drug-induced hallucination, a true vision. David’s in a wheat field where the Beast Therapist is toiling away, and then he watches as Kristen, in a white dress, starts walking toward the Beast.

It’s all very confusing… until we return to the Bouchard house. Kristen gets a call from Mira (Kristen Connolly), who tells her that Orson was bludgeoned to death. Kristen acts surprised, but then goes into the bathroom, clearly upset. She takes her rosary out from a drawer and places it on her hand. The cross burns her. Um, friends, I think Kristen Bouchard has a demon inside her. And now you get to hold that revelation in your heart until Evil returns next season.

Evil Season 1 is available to stream on CBS All Access.

Aasif Mandvi, Katja Herbers, and Mike Colter, EvilPhoto: Elizabeth Fisher, CBS