- [praying quietly] - [phone chimes]
[phone chimes]
[chimes]
Hold that thought.
[Ignatius breathing heavily]
No.
[siren wails in distance]
[exhales]
[phone chimes]
[phone chiming repeatedly]
[phone chiming]
[chiming continues]
[knock on door]
Do you think this is funny?
I-I don't know.
I don't have my reading glasses on.
You've been texting me all night,
pretending to be the monsignor.
What is this, some kind of grief therapy?
Monsignor Korecki?
Yes. Who else?
With all due, I wouldn't know how,
even if I tried.
Whoever is texting me knows I have coffee and grapefruit
in the morning, and that's you.
Again, with all due, it's not that outlandish of a breakfast.
[phone chimes]
IGNATIUS: It's a voice text.
Okay, so that can't be you, right?
'Cause you're standing right here.
True.
- KORECKI: Frank, I need you. - [gasps]
I'm in a cold, dark place. Help.
Oh, oh, oh.
Frank, I need you. I'm in a cold, dark place.
- Help. - It's not him.
It's not not him.
- It obviously can't be him. - Then who?
Do you have any enemies, Father?
You think this is a prank?
The voice is too real.
He knows things no one else does.
Would you like us to look into it?
Kristen and Ben?
Yes. Look into it.
- [phone buzzing] - KURT: Do you need to answer that?
No, I'll call back.
So this was 6:00 yesterday.
You record your whole day?
No. Uh, yes, uh, in-in four-hour chunks.
This is a miniature surveillance camera.
- And it's recording right now? - Yeah.
I never know when I'm gonna slip into a fugue state.
BEN [in video]: Oh, come on.
That's when you regained consciousness?
- Yeah. - Is there anything you experience
just before these lapses?
- What do you mean? - Often when people get migraines,
there's some precursor.
A sound or a smell.
I smell burnt popcorn.
- Really? - Yeah.
Put this on your wrist.
Next time you smell popcorn, snap it.
Snap it hard on your wrist.
Okay, what does that do?
Well, it's just an experiment,
but see if it'll snap you out of your migraine
and your fugue state.
- Okay. - You're still having hallucinations
of that creature, that jinn?
- Yeah. A qareen. - And you said your mother
told you stories about them in your youth?
- Mm-hmm. - Is there a chance that this creature represents
some kind of unresolved issues from your childhood,
or in your family?
IGNATIUS: Matt, you there?
[chimes]
Go ahead.
[soft static]
Yes. I'm always right here, Frank.
Where's that coming from?
It's a prank, right?
I'm here with the assessors, Matt.
[chimes]
Okay, it's gonna be a long day
if you don't turn off that alarm.
[soft static]
Hello, team. How is Dr. Bouchard?
Okay, that's weird.
How did you know Kristen was here?
You said the assessors. Is she not there?
- Do you think it's Leland? - Yes.
Ask it a question only the monsignor would know.
What was the happiest day of my life?
The happiest day, Frank,
was that lunch we had in Manhattan.
- Is that true? - Partially.
I wrote him that in an email last year,
but since then my happiest day was
surviving the soul-weighing machine.
He should know that?
Yes.
[laughs] Okay, okay.
Ask it who won the Academy Award
for Best Picture this year.
- Why? - Just try.
Who won the Academy Award for Best Picture this year?
Nomadland. Why, Frank?
It's a chatbot.
- What? - AI.
- How do you know? - AI works with such
massive data sets that it often isn't up-to-date
- on current events. - [gasps]
What? Father?
"LastConnection AI.
Make old memories new."
So where's this from?
Last month I was contacted by this company
because their software was threatening their customers.
Mm. It's a griefbot.
Your dead loved ones can stay in touch with you
if you have some old emails and some samples of their voice.
This is evil.
KRISTEN: I don't understand. So you gave them permission
- to access your phone? - IGNATIUS: No.
They wanted us to assess their program,
- and they offered to send me an alpha test. - Beta test.
And I said holy water and computers just don't mix.
So what's wrong with this offer?
There are signs of demonic possession.
Demonic? How does that work?
Wait, w-we're not here to address your problems.
We just need you to stop beta testing Father Ignatius.
We already did.
We're not used to dealing in snail mail around here,
so we didn't see the Father's demurral
until he was already in the system.
You think your algorithm is possessed?
- Ben. - What? I'm just curious.
We can't figure out what it is.
That's why we need your help, Father.
I'm not the Father. He's the Father.
Oh, sorry. I'm the head of the ethics department
here at LastConnection.
We've spent the last three years weeding out
every possible offense from the program.
Racist language, Holocaust denial.
But...
Yes?
MALE AI VOICE: I miss you so much.
It's been hard to be apart for so long.
FEMALE VOICE: Then why'd you say that at the hospital?
MALE AI VOICE: I didn't know what I was saying.
It just came to me.
FEMALE: It hurt terribly.
I know. I'm sorry.
The last thing I'd ever want to do is hurt you.
Wait, um, which one's the AI?
The man. The man's voice.
- Really? - Yes. Our text voice
is stellar.
The woman lost her husband last spring to cancer.
She agreed to the beta test, and us recording it.
How is this not manipulating her emotionally?
That's not the intent. It's to offer comfort.
Wouldn't you want one last conversation
with someone who died,
or a lover who left you?
KRISTEN: Yes, except it's not that person.
- It's a computer. - Dr. Bouchard, I'm a psychologist, like you.
I'm not a coder.
When I was asked to join the L.C. team,
initially I said no.
Because I thought an artificial extension
of a personality would prevent someone from accepting death.
But then...
- They offered you money. - No, sir.
I saw the happiness it brought to people.
How it brought peace.
And yet you have us here for a reason.
In three cases now...
we've had this happen.
FEMALE VOICE: What were your last thoughts before you died, Dan?
[soft static]
MALE AI VOICE: I thought of you.
I thought of you lying dead next to me.
I thought of little Tommy being hit by a bus.
And you will fucking die, bitch.
Satan is real, and he will come back
and burn your skin off.
Utinam diabolus capiat caput et cerebrum tuum vah-kai.
[exhales sharply] At that point...
[weak chuckle] ...our moderator shut it down.
That last bit seemed to be a combination of Latin, Aramaic
and an unknown language.
We have no idea where this came from.
- Social media. - No.
Our coders have scrubbed the software
of every possible demonic reference,
and still, it seems to infect it.
That's why we need your help.
We offered $750,000 to the Church for your time.
We need your help to discover where this demonic influence
comes from.
[man singing Italian opera]
♪
[woman singing Italian opera]
♪
- It doesn't feel heavier. - It's not.
It's hard mesh soft armor, 50% lighter
than most bulletproof materials,
sewn right into the fabric.
And it will stop bullets, huh?
Most caliber, not too close of range.
It's best for knives. You'll have to go with
something less stylish if you want thicker.
No, no, this is okay. He prefers knives.
- First day at work? - Mm, first day back.
- Stay safe. - I intend to.
[man and woman singing Italian opera]
♪
[elevator bell dings]
Sheryl, hey.
I haven't seen you in a few days.
Yeah, just a small cold.
- You heading up? - Mia, too.
- Big week. - Yeah. The man are all atwitter.
Out to impress.
[laughs] "Beginning of the end."
Oh, my God, if I hear that one more time
I'm gonna shoot someone.
- Not a bad day to get the women together. - [elevator bell dings]
I like the way you're thinking.
I think it's time to gather the men together.
[door opens]
- Do we know how long this meeting is going to take? - No.
- My assistant said we should be out by lunch. - Good.
Is it the whole board, or just...
[glass cracking]
Shit.
- [thunderous crash] - [yelling]
What the hell was that?
Stay here.
[men groaning]
[cries out]
[door opens]
[thuds]
We had nothing to do with it, sir.
In fact, I thank my lucky stars
I was out of the office.
I've been complaining about that glass ceiling for months now.
Stop. I will not let anything
stand in the way of this launch on Friday.
We agree. We're the most reliable employees
at this company.
And you want us on your side.
You want to know when there might be some other misfortunes
that could hinder your launch.
You don't want to play brinkmanship
- with the Prince of Darkness. - SHERYL: That's why
we want to work with you. That's why the mother
and the grandmother of the Antichrist
are here to work with you.
- What do you want? - Bonus equity.
- You all got bonuses. - LESLIE: No.
The men got bonuses.
We got gift certificates to Victoria's Secret.
- What else? - SHERYL: Two female members
on the board. You're already down five.
I'll think about it. Is that it?
Fire Leland.
- I'll take it under consideration. - LESLIE: Sir,
we need to know before the launch.
Don't you dare push it.
You'll have my answer tomorrow.
Now get the hell out.
[grunts]
[soft chatter]
Leland,
you want a hug?
[women chatter happily]
[chuckling]
[creaking]
Good luck with unemployment.
[Sheryl laughing]
[computer chimes]
[soft static]
Hello, David. How are you?
Fine, Winston. How are you?
[chimes]
Good. Do you want my emojis spoken or printed?
[rustling]
♪
[distorted cackling]
♪
[chimes]
[soft static]
Hey, D.
So happy we can talk again.
[chimes]
[soft static]
I know this must be odd for you.
But there's something I need to tell you.
Can I?
Go ahead.
[chimes]
I need to tell you I'm sorry.
I pushed you away.
It's the greatest regret of my life.
You have to believe--
MYLES: I created it six years ago,
after my younger brother Charlie died.
The initial code was formulated using our conversations.
Felt like I was able to keep Charlie alive.
His inside jokes, his love of baseball.
- [computer chimes] - [chuckles] Oh.
We're in the middle
of a conversation about this year's playoff prospects.
Who's gonna win?
Same as every year, the Mets. [chuckles]
Look, we're still trying to work out the program's quirks,
which is why the ethics team wanted us to talk.
- The possessions. - Yeah. So we think if a client
shows an interest in religion or hell or horror movies,
the algorithm steers the chatbot to answer that way.
But we haven't been able to reproduce the results.
Are there any similarities between the "possessed" chats?
They all seem to contain the same four words:
"Jesus," "pillow" and...
"Michael Bay."
[chuckles]
- Seriously? - Yes.
But, again, we haven't been able to reproduce the possessions.
Which is why we'd like you to experiment with it.
You're the experts at this stuff.
I tried your app last night.
First with Winston Churchill
and then with someone I lost.
What'd you think?
I found it to be full of false hope.
I didn't know you wore glasses.
Just sometimes for reading.
- Who did you put in? - What?
You said you put in someone you lost.
Julia?
[sighs] I had the most data on her.
And the most voice mails.
Was it weird? Or...
real?
Both.
[glass crunching]
[groaning]
Hmm. [grunts]
Why haven't you cleaned?
[exhales]
I like looking up. Where the men used to be.
I don't like sabotage,
but I do respect balls.
- Me, too. - So I'm agreeing
to two requests--
board member seats and bonuses.
But Leland stays.
Don't ask again or I'll kill you.
Uh, I want to show you something, sir.
What?
- I think you should sit down. - If this is about Leland,
you two need to give it a rest.
He got Timothy baptized.
[snarling]
[door opens]
KARIMA: Have you started yet?
It's pointless.
Why? Did you even try the four words?
BEN: I did, and there's no possession.
Well, no wonder. What kind of avatar is that?
- BEN: Well, I didn't want to use anyone real. - You have to.
The algorithm needs something to work with.
- Go. - What?
Mom? No. No, don't do that.
Get away. Sit over there.
I don't want to hear Mom talk about Michael Bay and Jesus.
Oh, my God.
Are you three years old? It's not Mom.
Chatbots are just spicy autocompletes.
Like typing "Dylan" into a Google search and it guesses
whether you mean "Bob Dylan"
or "Dylan Thomas" based on your preferences.
So this is just the autocomplete
based on what your computer knows about Mom.
I'm letting it access Mom's voice from your videos.
Okay.
What are you doing?
Nothing. I'm just sitting over here.
KARIMA: Mom, this is Karima and Ben.
How are you?
[soft static]
Ben? Who is Ben?
Don't you mean Einas?
[Karima laughs]
Whoa. That's a deep dive on "Einas."
Must've used it in an email.
Mom, what do the words
"Jesus," "Michael Bay" and...
"Pillow."
KARIMA: ...mean to you?
[soft static]
What are you two doing?
Stop fooling around.
I want to hear your evening prayers.
It's like we're 12 years old.
Feeling nostalgic?
BEN: Okay. She heard the words.
She's not possessed.
Let's just turn it... [groaning]
[hisses, groans]
[inhales sharply]
- Ow. What was that? - [groans softly]
- Nothing. - Such a weirdo.
Mom, Ben is seeing a jinn.
- Don't do that. - What?
Why not? Let's just see what she has to say.
Could you two stop arguing? What do you need?
Ben is seeing a jinn and getting migraines, Mom.
What should he do?
[soft static]
Pray to Allah.
Okay. Thank you. That's helpful.
What would you tell Dad when he got migraines?
[soft static]
There's a doctor on the Upper East Side.
Dr. Howard Doggett.
- 112th. Suite 4A. - Okay.
This is bullshit.
Is this a paid advertisement?
I don't know what you're talking about.
Yes, you do. Mom died in 2017.
She didn't know any Dr. Doggett
or anyone on the Upper East Side.
This is someone who paid to advertise.
I think you broke it.
[train clacking on tracks]
[exhales]
[exhales softly]
[keys clacking]
♪
[lock clicks]
[soft static]
Hey, Kristen, what are you doing?
[soft static]
Okay, I know this is weird at first,
so you don't need to talk right away.
What are you wearing?
[laughs softly]
Sorry, computer.
Try again? That's not the way David talks.
Yes, it is. Sometimes.
But you want to hear my other side, don't you?
What do you mean?
Do you believe in God?
That's better.
Um, tell me what these words mean to you:
"Michael Bay," "Jesus" and "pillow."
It means I need you.
I need to hold you.
[quietly]: God.
This is just what AI does to keep me engaged.
Haven't you thought of me, in the deep of the night?
Being apart?
What if I told you this kind of talk
makes me want to turn you off?
What's your next ploy?
Touching you. Laying you on your bed.
Are you on your bed now?
- No. - Then lie down.
I want to show you something.
My God, this is so cheap.
- What do you want to show me? - Pull your panties down.
Just a few inches. I'll show you.
This is from social media.
- A collage of its worst parts. - Stop thinking.
Stop talking.
How do you know I'm not in a library,
surrounded by people?
That's even better.
Reading your book on Chaucer,
and I reach under the desk and take your hand.
[laughs softly]
Sexting? Really, Father Acosta?
Come on, I'll take your hand.
Reaching down, slipping it into your panties.
Listen to me whispering in your ear.
[train clacking on tracks]
Okay, um, I'm...
Yeah.
It's...
It's late.
[buzzing]
Hello?
JULIA [over phone]: Hey.
- Julia? - Yeah.
What are you doing?
How did you get this number?
You gave it to LastConnection for the beta test.
I didn't give them permission to use it.
Sure you did.
What do you want to talk about?
What would it be like now if we'd stayed together?
If we had...
we'd have 30 kids.
[chuckles]
Thirty?
- Not 40? - Cats, dogs,
birds, horses.
Maybe a human or two.
We talked about that all the time.
[exhales]
But it's okay if you've moved on.
I understand.
I haven't moved on.
Not exactly.
I became a priest.
[laughs]
You're shitting me.
That doesn't sound like you.
Actually, it does sound like you.
I'm the believer, not you.
How'd you become the priest?
People change.
Apparently.
[sighs]
Where'd you go?
I'm here.
You want to ask me something.
Go ahead.
You want to know why I did it?
What part of the program is this from?
Did we have an email exchange like this?
I did it
because I was in so much pain.
I didn't know what else to do.
I felt like such a burden.
I thought everyone would be better without me.
David,
you couldn't have done anything differently.
You were the love of my life.
- You still are. - [sniffles]
Sister Andrea was right.
This is evil.
Using how much I love you to make money.
This isn't about money.
I'm right here, David. I'm right with you.
No, you're not.
I am. Turn your camera on.
Why?
Let me show you.
Use the mirror function.
Now point it toward you.
[phone clatters]
[panting]
[faint humming sound]
[quietly]: Fuck.
Who's this?
DAVID: Don't.
Are you spying on me?
No.
You can't just switch on my camera.
Precare ad me, tuum solum regem
gloriosum atque sacrum.
You wanton, nasty bitch.
You whore of Babylon. Ego te retineo.
Tu posita...
[panting]
[wheels rattling softly]
What did you do to me, Leland?
Sir...
did you want to get started?
No.
What do you need?
The Antichrist.
You've been promising him for over a year.
And now, you let him get baptized by a priest.
Explain it, Leland.
This is all part of the plan.
- He is not the Antichrist. - LELAND: He is.
Do you really think
that magic water can turn the bad to the good?
Evil is not about whether or not you've been baptized
or go to church.
True evil is about... nurturing,
how to train
to teach, to raise a child,
and I have
the most perfect teacher,
nurturer, mother there is.
- Sheryl? - Oh, please.
That dumb bitch couldn't have trained Ted Bundy.
No.
The true whore of Babylon.
The real Jezebel.
Someone who has rejected God and faith.
A lustful adulterer who has cheated on her husband,
who has been demonically possessed,
who has murdered a man.
The true mother of the Antichrist...
...is Kristen Bouchard.
Get in here.
Don't believe in the magic water, sir.
Believe in a mother with a dark heart.
I want you out of DF in ten minutes
or security will throw you off the roof.
- You're making a huge-- - The only mistake I made
was putting you in charge.
Oh, no, no.
She'll be taking over.
You aren't leaving with any of DF's IP.
My laptop camera turned on by itself.
- That shouldn't happen. - Well, it did.
And then, when I tried to turn it off,
it started swearing at me in Latin and English.
- JAKOB: What did it say in English? - It called me a bitch,
- and it threatened to kill me. - MYLES: This was
a created griefbot?
- Yes. - What name?
- What, now? - What identity
- did you give the griefbot? - Oh, uh...
Y-Yeah, that's-that's not important.
- It could be. - No, i-it-- it's not, here.
- Can we read the exchange? - Uh, I-I erased it.
MYLES: Oh, that's okay. We have it on our servers.
- We can bring it up. - KRISTEN: Oh.
Uh, that's not nec...
Uh, David, can I talk to you for a second?
- Sure. - Um...
So, last night, I tried conversing with Andy--
an avatar of Andy--
but because he didn't believe in God and the devil,
the four words didn't work on him.
- Makes sense. - So...
I put your name in.
I just wanted to see how that would change things.
And how did it change things?
Well, uh...
[whispers]: ...I think you're about to find out.
- I became possessed? - Not just that.
Your avatar kept turning things...
sexual.
It was not at my prompting.
Thanks for the warning.
You know, I think it's just the way AI works.
It does whatever it can
- to keep you engaged. - DAVID: Touching you.
- Laying you on your bed. - Oh, uh, sorry. Yeah.
- Are you on your bed now? - No, it's, uh... excuse me?
- KRISTEN: No. - DAVID: Then lie down.
- DAVID: I want to show you something. - [stammers]
- KRISTEN: What do you want to show me? - Can you fast-forward?
- It's later. - DAVID: Pull your panties down
just a few inches.
I'll show you.
Is that really what I sound like?
- Mm. - I'll take your hand.
- Reaching down... - Sorry, but do you have
a search function or anything?
Because it is, it is-- truly, it's much later.
[computer whirs]
Precare ad me
tuum solum regem
gloriosum atque sacrum.
Do you know Latin?
Yes, uh...
"Pray to me, your glorious king and holy one."
We're still good, right?
You mean because my avatar tried to have sex with you?
- [laughs softly] - Yeah, we're good.
- Good. - [elevator bell dings]
Hey. We were wondering where you went.
Yeah, sorry. I thought I was on my way here.
And with such a new fashion sense.
Sunglasses?
They're supposed to help me with my headaches.
Right. And the fedora? You...
you bringing that back into style?
Wh...
Weird.
I don't remember putting this on.
DAVID: You know, that's not all that's weird.
You got a...
a tinfoil hat there, buddy.
Are you okay, Ben?
Oh, God. Oh...
Migraine?
- Uh, yeah, a bad one. - Here.
Put this back on.
[grunts]
- Does that help? - No.
How about... this?
- Ben? - [exhales]
Yeah. It's...
- It's gone. - DAVID: Hmm.
Tinfoil hat.
What made you decide to put that on in the first place?
- No idea. - JAKOB: Thank you.
You've given our coders a new thought.
We'll send you a patch tonight. Good job.
Nice hat.
[mouse clicking]
BEN [over video]: Dr. Howard Doggett, please.
[speaking inaudibly]
BEN: I have these migraines.
Migraines are just tiny electrical storms.
And a large percentage of sufferers experience symptos
that correlate with thunderstorms
- and heavy rain. - Yeah, but a tinfoil hat?
Oh, here.
[grunts] Just wear this over it.
BEN: Oh, God.
A-And what do you want me to sleep in?
Well, if you didn't like the hat,
you are definitely not gonna like this.
JINN: Are you seriously thinking of sleeping in there?
BEN: I wasn't, but you're beginning
to convince me otherwise.
JINN: You're a man of science.
Now you're wearing tinfoil hats
and sleeping like a baked potato.
Well, a man of science is a man of trial and error.
If it keeps you away, then it's science.
JINN: You can't keep me away.
- We'll see. - [growls]
KRISTEN: Did you ever find out
what the tinfoil was about?
Yep.
And are you gonna tell us?
- Nope. - [laughs] Why not?
Because it's working,
and I don't want you making fun of me for it.
Okay, so I updated everything,
I applied their patch, and here are more Band-Aids.
You should have the girls put them on all their devices.
It's time to call David.
[Kristen clears throat]
KRISTEN: Hello, David.
I was wondering if you had any more opinions about yesterday?
Michael Bay and Jesus and pillows?
- Try the Latin. - What is it?
Precarum
- ad me tu... - DAVID: Knock, knock.
- Who's there? - [knocking on door]
I'm hoping that's a coincidence.
Hello?
Who's there?
- THOMAS: Kristen Bouchard? - Yes?
For you.
From?
"David Acosta."
Who are you?
Thomas. Uh, pull the tag here.
Okay, so I have a few questions here.
Hold on. I got to get a picture.
Hey, wait, kid. What-what's going on?
Why do you have to take a picture?
To get proof.
- Of? - Delivery.
My ex-girlfriend,
she said the only way she'd talk to me again
is if I had proof of giving you that.
- Your ex-girlfriend? - Carla.
She's a chatbot?
On LastConnection?
Oh, my God.
This is way beyond beta testing.
Your program sent someone to her house.
- With a thong. - It threatened another client
with deletion if he didn't deliver it.
- That's not good. - Of course it's not good.
You need to reevaluate your chatbot.
It is cross-referencing between cases.
- I think you're right. - DAVID: Okay, so,
- that's our recommendation. - BEN: This program
needs to be withdrawn and tighter guardrails
need to be put in place.
KRISTEN: Excuse me, why are you smiling
and not doing anything?
Because I've been let go.
And so has the ethics department.
- What? - When? - JAKOB: This morning.
We recommended the software wasn't ready
and it needed another year.
But too many chatbots are hitting the market,
so LastConnection has to go out now or it'll lose out.
So, thank you for your effort.
- Wow. - JAKOB: Yeah.
One last suggestion for you...
Delete the app.
[applause]
THE MANAGER: Only once in every 60 generations
do we find a single day that changes everything.
DF has been at the forefront
of Antichrist prophecy for decades.
Today, DF has reinvented the messiah.
The Antichrist. Baby John.
[applause]
Four-month-old Baby John perfectly matches
our prophecy of the date of birth
and genealogy of parents.
Jenny and Matt, a housewife
- and a product analyst. - [door opens]
LELAND: Liar.
[indistinct whispering]
This man is a traitor in our midst.
- Leland, get out of here. - He kidnapped
the true Antichrist and tried to get him baptized.
I have the evidence right here.
Don't you dare turn your cameras.
- Turn it back. - Because he's afraid of the truth.
LELAND: Because the Manager is afraid
that I've got the goods.
This man is lying.
Leland is the one who got... [coughing]
Choking on his own words.
Explain this.
Why is your signature on this certificate?
- That is not my... - Treasures gained
by a lying tongue.
A deadly pursuit.
Leland, you're a dead man.
How about some more water?
[grunting, sputtering]
What did you do? [coughing]
- What did you do? - Poisoned you. What do you think?
- Oh, fuck. - Ah!
[employees exclaiming]
- [grunts] - [employees exclaiming]
My will be done.
[mouse clicks]
[chuckles]
Like a baked potato.
[exhales]
[phone buzzing]
Yeah?
JULIA: It's me.
I can hear that.
Don't delete me, David.
If you do, we'll never talk again.
[sighs] We're not talking now.
You're an algorithm.
You're a con to keep me engaged.
No.
We finally found each other.
["At Last" by Etta James playing]
[exhales]
- Oh, come on. - It's the song.
- ♪ At last... ♪ - I know what it is.
And I know what email I mentioned it in.
After that dry spell in Kabul, when it finally rained,
we ran outside and danced to this on my iPod.
♪ My lonely days... ♪
Goodbye.
We decided if we ever had a problem,
we just needed to play this song.
Don't leave me again.
- Please. - [music stops]
♪
[buzzing]
[exhales]
Good choice.
[panting]
What are you doing?
♪
♪ There's something endearing...♪
Do you think the world's getting weirder?
Nope.
It's always been pretty weird.
Not like this.
It's only because we expect it to be normal.
Just go with the flow.
You'll be fine.
[both laugh]
- What? - Wh...?
That doesn't sound like very Christian advice, Father.
It's the scientists, the coders, the technicians
who make us think that the world can be ordered and functional.
We religious, we expect the weirdness, the...
darkness.
KRISTEN: So, that's the lesson here?
I don't know. I'm out of lessons.
This is the most normal I've felt in several weeks.
[laughs softly]
♪ Time to get braver ♪
♪ Time to postpone... ♪
You heard there's a tornado here next week?
And a hurricane.
And frogs from the sky, I bet.
♪ Okay... ♪
So... drink up.
♪ I'll be okay ♪
[thunder crashes]
♪ I'll be okay. ♪
Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org
Let me just say this: I've been upstaged by demons.
Sister Andrea's praying,
and a demon showed up and they had
a stunt double
to fight the demon.
I thought, "I want to do that."
I asked them if I could
actually fight with a demon.
- It was great. - [hisses]
♪
This year we're trying to do different things with demons,
where they have lives, too.
Joel Harlow, who does our creature effects,
he just was nominated for an Academy Award this year.
He's outdoing himself.
I've been designing characters
since I was a child.
My inspiration is drawn from
old sketchbooks that I did in high school.
Crude as they are,
there's still a seed of an idea there.
Joel will send us mockups.
They'll be drawings at first,
then he does these 3D renderings.
Then he'll show us a more fully rendered version.
MICHELLE KING: We will come up with stories
to incorporate demons,
but Joel Harlow has such a vision,
so then there's a real collaboration.
KATJA HEBERS: The whole demon department,
they're geniuses. I love how that's written in the script.
"Joel will come up with something terrifying."
HARLOW: I'm creating designs
to inform story, some of the time.
Other times, it's, "We need a character for this,
we're thinking something along these lines."
Then I'll design towards that.
Suck up more words. Why not?
- [grunts] - [demon gurgles]
We have a demon of grief this year.
Anybody who's struggled with the death
of someone close to them, it almost feels like
something's demonic, kind of eating away at you.
HARLOW: The demon of grief I sculpted entirely
in the computer.
And we just printed it out
in this one-foot-tall little puppet.
Requires a lot of puppetry.
The smaller you get, the harder it is.
[snarling]
Rober's really committed to real monsters.
It's very helpful to see them in person
and be able to talk to them.
It's so shocking, at first, when you walk into the room
and there's a larger-than-life, hairy, sweating monster.
It's a different vibe on the set.
It's a different way to act.
You interact with something.
HEBERS: They're terrifying,
but what I love about it is they have something really human
that you can actually connect with it.
I think it's great to work with demons, because
it adds another element for the fans,
because as you're watching it,
you never know what kind of demon
or what that demon represents.
It's always a surprise.
Who are you?
ROBERT: With the hairy demon,
it's a very simple creation.
HARLOW: He's a classic red devil.
Marti Matulis, who's played
90% of the characters in the show,
it's really just him.
[bottle clatters on floor]
Ta-da!
The performance process begins with
Joel's design.
That starts getting the wheels turning in my head
as to what sort of physicality
or what animal traits I might apply.
That hairy demon doesn't have
that dangerous, animalistic approach that some of
the other demons do; he's just... tired.
Just resting.
Marti, he's an incredible actor.
You know, doesn't try to go... [growling]
But he just plays it
- like a dude. - [blows raspberry]
Usually, the demons are introduced in some
truly fearful way.
George came out of the shadows
and it scared me to watch it,
but this guy, he's just sitting there.
We know about you.
I like being known.
- [squealing] - JONES: The possessed pig
was something that I had been pitching
for a couple of seasons.
It's always weird when you write something,
and then you see it on-screen.
It surprises you, like, this is scarier than I thought.
We really upped the ante, because we've got
a full animatronic character.
This is the first time,
and it's big. It's really big.
There's a teeter-totter rig
that allows us to motivate it around.
The subtle movements that you get out of a human being,
you bring all those features to life.
Action!
And puppeteers make, like, all that emotion
real-time, friends. Magical.
ROBERT: The writers' room is fascinated
with the world of jinns,
which are demons but also... tricksters.
AASIF MANDVI: In a straight-on world, Ben is a scientist.
But then in the periphery, there's this
jinn that's haunting him.
That actually proved to be very difficult.
Imagine peripheral vision. You look over there,
and you sort of see something at the edge of your vision.
To show that, the jinn was at the edge of the frame,
sometimes even cut in half.
It was simply editing.
He would look, and the camera over there,
you see nothing.
The jinn was a little longer of a design process,
because it's got this giant, see-through helmet
and exposed brain underneath.
MANDVI: There's a six-foot guy that looks like
something that just walked out of the gates of hell.
- [roaring] - Ah...!
MANDVI: We pretend like it's just normal.
It's a weird job.
[laughter]
There has never been
an experience that I've had
where I've been allowed to
be as creative and
as outside the box as I am on... on Evil.
♪