Kyle takes a painful trip down memory lane this episode –
remembering a lot more of the abuse and horror but also the good times he had
with his mother – which is especially poignant since last week we had Joshua
fully restored to himself after his exorcism (if that’s what we’re going to
call it –more on that later).
So he looks at his comatose mother and thinks that he
could go back to his mother with whom he had a wonderful relationship with. He
visits her in her care home and promptly takes her out when he disapproves of
the way she’s been cared for. He takes her home to look after her himself,
desperately trying to care for her.
All through this desperate and completely inept but very earnest attempts to care for his mother we get flashbacks to both the good memories and the abuse interachanged. We can truly see the huge morass of Kyle’s issues here.
To add to that morass of pain, Kyle also begs his sister
Megan (who is taking her daughter to Kyle’s daughter’s birthday party) to take
a present for his daughter. It’s, again, painful especially when we remember
that at least part of the reason he is split from his family appears to be
further possession.
Even now there’s still ongoing ructions against Kyle
after last week – his brother in law particularly is furious that Kyle wasn’t
arrested for child abuse last episode after the brutal exorcism of Joshua. Even
the Nice Church Ladies who are such fans of Reverend Anderson are uncomfortable
with his friendship with Kyle. It looks like the deeply conflicted and damaged
Kyle is now facing every increasing ostracism
- I see a theme developing.
Rev Anderson, meanwhile, is doing a full fire and
brimstone recruitment drive for his church (honestly, I can think of better
ways to spend a Sunday morning than being shouted at by a preacher for other
people’s non-attendance. I had a university lecturer who did that). He’s
determined to get more asses on pews and not to eat one of his parishioner’s
beet salad (not that I blame him).
He does step in to help Kyle be more sensible and but his
mother back into the care home with actual professionals who can care for him.
First they do try another exorcism – including with sunlight and Kyle’s blood.
It does nothing... because she’s not possessed any more
I do wonder if Rev Anderson is actually right. I mean in
this kind of show we do tend to assume that the preacher is right since it’s a
show about possession and demons. But his exorcism didn’t actually work… maybe
Rev Anderson is taking events and forcing them through his own very narrow lens
of experience and belief without any question that his narrative may be wrong.
I wonder if they’d go there
Meanwhile someone is lurking in a caravan in the woods
and slaughtering wild life. I take it it’s another demon possession
We also have an ominous man following the cast around
before visiting
I do think this episode was an interesting change. Less
brutality, less relying on graphic gore and more focus on Kyle’s issues. I’m
not sure if I’ll be more interested in that but still I think it would be
better than graphic violence every episode (not that there wasn’t still a lot
of violence…) which does alay some fears I had.
