Evil Review: The Demon of Memes (Season 3 Episode 2)
Evil Season 3 Episode 2, “The Demon of Memes,” delivers a creepy but underwhelming look at teenagers and how they’re affected by online urban legends.
Evil would hardly be the first show to contemplate the corrupt and negative aspects of the internet. It’s a concept that, as a society, we have been fascinated with since its conception. How much of this good that we are receiving counterbalances the ill?
The creators Robert and Michelle King certainly aren’t strangers to exploring this with their other series The Good Wife and The Good Fight. In those shows, however, they looked at the legal ramifications that could come about. By its very nature, Evil is more an examination of religion and philosophy.
This is true as a whole but the difference allows for the Kings to have a wider sandbox to play around in. That’s partly why “The Demon of Memes” is such a disappointing installment of the series. There’s a lot of interesting space to explore with these internet-based urban legends, in the style of Slender Man.
There’s a great conversation to be had about the way that teenagers interact with the internet and sometimes allow themselves to be taken on this heightened ride that it allows them. The Slender Man case is a great example of that. There you had teenagers making human sacrifices to a figure from internet lore that doesn’t actually exist.
On this episode, that figure is instead Wandering Jack, who is said to operate under The Ring-adjacent rules where once you see him, you have seven days to complete a series of tasks or he’ll kill you. It’s a perfectly terrifying device for the episode to employ but there’s no greater discussion about this.
By the end of it, Evil doesn’t really have anything to say about this. There’s no commentary to be given on this and no real stance. It’s just a cruel prank, which is fine and accurate but is completely predictable. It’s so ordinary and pedestrian, something that this show isn’t well known for.
The only thing that gives it any real kind of bite is the discussion between Leland and Sheryl; that the internet keeps us in this perpetual state of fear that the more demonic parts of our world take advantage of. The problem is that is only the start of an interesting conversation. There is no counterpoint there.
The episode lacks any real depth to it where it desperately needs to have some, especially when that has to do with the motivations, indirect or otherwise, of teenagers killing themselves or going into a depressive spiral.
To “The Demon of Memes” credit, though, Wandering Jack is very creepy and unsettling.
What did you think of this episode of Evil? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Evil airs Sundays on Paramount+.
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Drew Koenig
Drew has an ongoing, borderline unhealthy obsession with pop culture, but with television in particular. When he's not aggressively trying to get out of a perpetual state of catching up, he can be found passionately defending the ending of Lost. More of his online work can be found at The Lost Cause and he also co-hosts The Lost Cause Pod.