Time for more ominousness! Including weird stuff in
demonic bathtubs and Damian contemplating suicide with his ominous razor.
John hasn’t completely given up his battle against Ann
for control over Damien – playing the happy, kind paternal father figure to Damien,
reassuring him that all this antichrist nonsense is totally silly and Ann is a
scary weird lady he should stay well away from. At the same time he tries to
aim for a truce with Ann with them both playing nice and united in front of
their fellow corporate types/possible devil worshippers, saying nice things
about unity and working together while clearly sharpening those knives for when
the backs are turned.
Suspicious Detective Shay continues to be suspicious –
really he would be completely bored and move on if the supernatural didn’t keep
flashing up around him. Honestly it’s like the various infernal forces are
taunting the man and encouraging to persecute Damien
Which he tries to do, it’s almost laughable. I mean there’s
a whole scene where Shay says how suspicious it is that a man died in a freak
accident while Damien was busy saving a child’s life – he’s literally just
described Damien’s perfect alibi! Far less funny is his rather ridiculous threat
to persecute Damien, stalk him and even outright murder him
No. Bullshit. Ok, yes this kind of police abuse bullshit
happens. It does NOT happen to extremely wealthy well connected White guys who
spent part of their childhood in the White House. John Lyons, his father
figure, is a former White House chief of staff for crying out loud! Ye gods,
with Damien’s connections he could have been found with blood up to the elbows cackling
confessions in 8 languages and he could still walk!
Damien instead tries to cast suspicion on Ann which
really doesn’t work because Ann is Ann and is good at this game, happily
casting suspicion back at Damien along with aspersions regarding his mental
illness.
Proving my point, Shay’s boss also tells him to back off,
accusing him of being obsessed and making a homophobic crack about Damien being
Shay’s type
And this does seem to be a direct crack – because Shay is
living with another man and their son: we have a gay couple and their son. I
think this is actually the very first gay family I’ve seen on any of the shows
we’ve reviewed at Fangs. I don’t know whether to be really happy to finally see
this or really depressed that this is the first one… c’mon it can’t be the first
one? And they seem to be happy!
Of course their son Jacob is nearly drown by a demon dog
and possessed tarpaulin so theuy may not stay happy and there’s a reasonable
chance one or both of them are going to die, but I’m going to cling to this,
let me have it for a little while!
Now we have some other issues: Amani. Amani happily
brings out his backstory to an attractive blonde lady who is Most Certainly Not
Evil Honest – his backstory is that he was a translator in Libya who Damien
saved. No, I’m not amused – this isn’t a backstory, this is a belated
justification for Amani playing eternal nursemaid to Damien. This isn’t about
developing his character at all, it’s all about creating a reason for him being
in service – which is exactly what he’s doing again in this episode.
While we have Selene who is continuing to be scared of
the religious notes Kelley left and her mother had happily hired a Yoruba
priest to sacrifice a chicken all over her dead sister’s things. And there’s
enough to unpack in this scene – here we have a West African religion being
introduced and presented in a way that is expected to freak out the audience;
this isn’t an attempt to include a non-Christian faith, this is meant to make
us cringe at the “exotic” (and possibly even “savage” other). Then we have
Selene’s reaction – how can her mother follow such old world superstition? Um,
Selene has shown herself to be a devout Christian – don’t throw rocks at other
people’s “superstitions” if you’re saying your own prayers. It’s only societal
power that makes one a religion and the other a “superstition”.
If they’re going to include Yoruba, I would want it to be
in more depth and more respect than a brief let’s kill a chicken – devil sign!”
scene. This is a problem we see so often in portrayals of Yoruba and Yoruba
derived religions (like Santeria or Voudou), they’re always there to be “exotic”,
strange, dark and a little sinister with huge amounts of othering with very little
attempt to treat them with respect due devoutly held religion.
Of course Damian dismisses all this and the dramatic “666”
formed at the end of the ritual.
