S01.E03: Chapter Three: Let 'Em In

[Lisin]

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Kat struggles to confront the realization that her friend, Julia, is dead. Shopping for a dress to wear to Julia’s memorial service, Casey is given a sexy, expensive and slightly inappropriate dress by a salesman at the store. Seeking permission to conduct an exorcism, Marcus and Tomas take footage from the Rance home to papal emissaries, only to be met with shocking news that will change Marcus' life forever

[janeta]

I can't say i was too upset about the demon taking out the sleazeballs on the subway....

[SimoneS]

So Benett is a not a fool and believes that the Pope is in danger. I fear for Tomas. I hated the sexual stuff with Casey. It grossed me out. 

I wonder if that woman who gave the check is compromised and has made a deal with the demon to save her husband. She is around so much for a reason.

Too bad the ratings have been so bad. I don't know how many episodes we will get.

[Enero]

This show has definitely gotten more tolerable, meaning I can watch it at night in the dark. It's not as scary as the first episode. In fact, tonight's episode wasn't scary at all.

Glad to see Bennett is well aware of what's going on and trying to stop the Pope's visit. However, I fear he won't be long for this world in trying to investigate if the church has be infiltrated.

I too hated the sexual stuff with Casey. Why did they  have to go there? At any rate, I'm glad they're moving things along with her possession and don't appear to be dragging things out.

I like how we got back story on the sisters.  So Kat is gay and is the favorite. Does her parents know that she's gay? Anyway, this sort of explains why Casey was susceptible to the possession, but not why she was chosen.

Is anyone else suspicious of the rich parishioner that gave Tomas the check for $100K. She may genuinely be good, but there seems to be something off about her. 

@SimoneS - I had no idea the ratings for this show were bad. I thought they were doing ok, not that it matters being that it's on FOX. Do they have any show besides Empire that's doing well? If not, that may mean this show has a chance of staying on at least for a little while. 

I hope this show does somehow continue on. It's a refreshing break from the typical procedural shows, and though at times I enjoy shipping, it's nice to watch a show that has no potential pairings unless you're rooting for Tomas and Marcus to hook up or Casey and the devil. LOL

Edited October 8, 2016 by Enero

[SimoneS]

24 minutes ago, Enero said:

@SimoneS - I had no idea the ratings for this show were bad. I thought they were doing ok, not that it matters being that it's on FOX. Do they have any show besides Empire that's doing well? If not, that may mean this show has a chance of staying on at least for a little while. 

Unfortunately, last week's ratings in the key demo was .6 which is low even for FOX on a Friday night. If we are lucky, FOX has nothing to replace the Exorcist and it airs all the episodes that were filmed, how many that is

I might be deluding myself, but I feel like Bennett is safe for now. He is obviously very highly connected and believes in the presence of the demons. It is annoying that he warned the Pope, but he is still coming. I am surprised that Marcus has not figured out why Casey was possessed.

Edited October 8, 2016 by SimoneS

[Mu Shu]

Oh man.  They can't cancel this show.  It's so beautiful to look at.  And I am not done with that insouciant, uncompelled demon.   Needs to come back for comic relief.

Did Casey kill the guy in the train? It looked like she was cracking his chest open.  Not that I didn't cheer when she did that.    

[Gin and Tonic]

This show is a hot goddamn mess.

I feel like there are the bones of a good show in here somewhere, and there are parts that make the show worth watching. But also lots of it is ridiculous in a bad way. After the first episode they should've hit the brakes a little bit and focused less on the gruesome set pieces at the ends of the episodes and more on atmosphere and setting the mood. And characterization.

I have a hard time believing that after Father Marcus's monologue about his beatific vision (and lovely performance by Ben Daniels) that his reaction to excommunication is drunken moroseness. That should've been way more devastating for someone with the depth of belief that Fauxther Marcus displayed. I'm not sure the show really appreciates the weight of excommunication by the church.

Likewise conflicted by his blithe implication that he broke his vows of celibacy. I know in real life priests break those vows all the time, but Marcus struck me as committed, with a great deal of focus and surety. It also unnecessarily parallels Fr. Tomas, IMO, who had/has/will have issues on that front.

Speaking of Tomas, why the hell is he a priest? I know his grandmother wanted it for him but usually pushy parenting figures just convince their kids to major in accounting or something sensible instead of pursing dreams of being a starving artist. Pushing someone into the priesthood who doesn't want it is a much taller order. So why did he take his vows? Did he have no motivation beyond his grandmother?

Even the other characters have trouble believing he's a priest; people keep asking him if he believes in god or the devil. He's a priest. That's part of the deal.

Cosign those who said the sexual stuff with Casey was not appreciated. I think sex (both overtly and subtextually) has a place in body horror/possession stories, but whoa boy was that not subtle.

ETA:

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it's nice to watch a show that has no potential pairings unless you're rooting for Tomas and Marcus

Oh, people in fandom are totally rooting for Tomas and Marcus. LOL. That ship sailed the second Marcus pushed Tomas up against the wall and they recited the poem in Spanish.

Edited October 8, 2016 by Gin and Tonic

[TobinAlbers]

One of the actresses tweeted they are filming ep 7 now. There are 10 eps for the season total. 

I think they'll let them finish; just wrap it up so it's got some level of closure. Networks scaled back on pulling shows after 3 or 4 eps last season and instead let them run longer since they had nothing ready to launch from their benches and in many cases (The Player, Blood and Oil, Minority Report) gave them enough lead time to wrap the show even if the episode number was trimmed. Most got at least 9 episodes so I can see FOX letting them do 10 and complete the season.

Real shame because this is a pretty good show.

So was that a/the demon in the road that caused Kat's accident? The demon said Casey was the chosen one and not Kat.

Marcus getting dissed by the kids when they thought he was a cop only for them to show a little respect was hilarious. Kids will mouth off to almost anyone, but not a Man of God. Hope Marcus bought his own elote and didn't just take the kid's, LOL.

Seriously, Marcus you can't poke the demon and tell it to show itself and then force the genie back in the bottle when it begins calling YOU out. Tomas was already showing his weakness when he tried to intervene with Marcus' 'mean' interrogation. He really is ripe for being turned inside out.

I did chuckle at Marcus' 'more or less' addendum to all the vows he had held for 41 years. And affair having Tomas had some nerve clucking his tongue at Marcus drinking.

On one hand, yes, Henry's got an unpredictable head injury so he's got good spells and bad ones, but it was convenient for him to space out like he did for Casey's demon to show itself like that. For a second I thought the entity from ep 1 was taking control and was going to confront the demon. However Marcus confirmed this episode that the demons were communicating in that they knew about him so maybe whatever it was that was in Henry wasn't a good force but another demon using the 'innocent' guise of Henry to direct Tomas to Marcus. In which case Marcus and Tomas are being played as puppets and set up for some very bad things. 

[pezgirl7]

I also didn't like the sexual stuff with Casey. That kiss lasted way too long. I'm tired of the media sexualizing teenage girls. But I'm wondering how her parents let her out of the house in that dress! I know teenagers dress differently now, but if I had a daughter, I would not let her wear that.

30 minutes ago, Mu Shu said:

Did Casey kill the guy in the train? It looked like she was cracking his chest open.  Not that I didn't cheer when she did that.    

He seemed to still be alive. She scratched and gouged his chest, and then dislocated his jaw. Having lived in Chicago, I know there can be assholes on the trains, but there are also good people who I feel would have come to her defense. I guess it was needed for plot reasons.

Marcus' quip about 41 years of "chastity" could refer to a few things, not necessarily having sex while he was a priest. I didn't mind it, and I like how he seems to enjoy pushing Tomas' buttons.

[SimoneS]

27 minutes ago, TobinAlbers said:

One of the actresses tweeted they are filming ep 7 now. There are 10 eps for the season total...

So was that a/the demon in the road that caused Kat's accident? The demon said Casey was the chosen one and not Kat.

I would be happy if we got 10 episodes. I wonder if a demon caused the father's head injury as well. The accidents could have been done to destabilize the family and make Casey vulnerable to being possessed. 

I felt sorry for that young actress having to kiss that old man. Yeah, it is acting, but still, ick!

[ZoloftBlob]

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I like how we got back story on the sisters.  So Kat is gay and is the favorite. Does her parents know that she's gay? Anyway, this sort of explains why Casey was susceptible to the possession, but not why she was chosen.

Then help me out - what is the backstory on the sisters? I missed the first ten minutes. I got that Kat is the favored one, and that some accident blew out her knee for ballet, but previously I thought something had happened to Casey that had brought her home for some reason....

[janeta]

And since i can't really tell them apart, didn't the one sister cause some other blonde girl to break her leg in a lacrosse game? Was that the other sister or some other random blonde?

[mrsh]

I'm really enjoying this show, it's entertaining and that's all we can ask of it. I liked how the kids were watching the police clear the crime scene while eating an elote. Then to have them mouth off to Marcus until they found out he was a priest and suddenly they were respectful. Seeing Marcus return to the church with his own elote made me LOL. It was a nice touch. 

I might have missed it, but was the demon making Casey burn herself on the arm with the hair curler? Wouldn't people see the burn with her skimpy dress? Poor Casey having to kiss that old guy, it was uncomfortable to watch. Hopefully they will finish out the season and we get some closure.

[ZoloftBlob]

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I might have missed it, but was the demon making Casey burn herself on the arm with the hair curler?

I y have watched way too much horror stuff because I assumed Casey was burning that area of the body we're not supposed to touch or talk about lest we go blind :(

[TobinAlbers]

12 hours ago, SimoneS said:

I felt sorry for that young actress having to kiss that old man. Yeah, it is acting, but still, ick!

The actress was hilarious about it on Twitter. Someone tweeted 'Couldn't it have been a peck on the cheek?!' And she replied that the kiss seemed way shorter when they filmed it. Magic of multiple takes extending the final product.

Wherever Casey burned herself, I can't buy no one noticing the smell of burned skin. I've burned myself briefly on the neck with a curling iron and it was a noticeable scent. The length of time she was in contact with the hot iron would've burned a lot of skin down to the bone and she would've reeked of a cooked meat smell even with the wound cauterized.

And now that you mention it, Dad's head wound being caused by the demon to weaken the family as well does make sense. 

The other thing I noticed was when the homeless person self combusted, they lingered on the black smoke billowing up from the body. I know it was probably meant to imply the demons smoking away from the body but it also reminded me of the whole white smoke/black smoke thing when choosing popes. 

[pezgirl7]

8 hours ago, mrsh said:

I might have missed it, but was the demon making Casey burn herself on the arm with the hair curler? Wouldn't people see the burn with her skimpy dress? 

She was burning her right arm. The burn was pretty noticeable in the scenes at the dance memorial thing, so I also thought it was strange that no one mentioned it. It's almost like they cut out a scene between the bathroom and the memorial. The demon is also burned, so apparently he likes seeing people get burned. Not sure what that is about.

[SimoneS]

On 10/8/2016 at 0:14 PM, TobinAlbers said:

The other thing I noticed was when the homeless person self combusted, they lingered on the black smoke billowing up from the body. I know it was probably meant to imply the demons smoking away from the body but it also reminded me of the whole white smoke/black smoke thing when choosing popes. 

Me too. I didn't mention it because I thought I was reading too much into it, but I wondered if was a sign that the demons were planning to raise a demon who would possess the pope, thereby becoming "their pope."

The key demo was .7 this week. At least, it didn't decline further.

Edited October 12, 2016 by SimoneS

[starri]

I'm a bit bothered....actually, I'm more than a bit bothered that Kat's girlfriend was a totally faceless, dead lesbian.  TV really needs to take a break from that for a while.

[pezgirl7]

2 hours ago, starri said:

I'm a bit bothered....actually, I'm more than a bit bothered that Kat's girlfriend was a totally faceless, dead lesbian.  TV really needs to take a break from that for a while.

Sorry, not sure quite what you mean, but I found the choice of them not showing her entire face, until she was disfigured, super creepy. This show makes some pretty cool stylistic choices. I'll be sad if it gets axed.

[Frozendiva]

Wouldn't Casey notice that the older man's hands were a bit large and unusually shaped? And dirty? The scene went on a little too long though. Good for her for ridding the subway of one creep. I did find it odd that no one else on the train helped out. They all just... stood there.  Surely there are at least a few people who would have clocked the creep. It is tough these days, as you don't know who carries a weapon. And most subway trains have an emergency button/strip to alert the driver and security of problems. Someone could have pressed it.

I did like that Father Tomas recorded the demon showing itself. I would doubt that demons are respectful visitors. You summon it and it isn't likely to go away or find a lot of priests threatening.

Father Marcus has probably been around much longer and knows all about Church politics.

[starri]

7 hours ago, pezgirl7 said:

Sorry, not sure quite what you mean, but I found the choice of them not showing her entire face, until she was disfigured, super creepy.

After The 100 and The Walking Dead just haphazardly killed off two lesbian characters--in the case of the latter, substituted a lesbian for a straight guy as in the comics--someone did the numbers, and found that in 40 years, 11% of shows had a lesbian or bisexual woman as characters, and 162 of them, or almost two thirds, were killed off.  And so we get that here, without even bothering to give her a face.

I get that they were making it creepy and implying demonic influence there, and I honestly don't know if that makes it worse or not.

[SimoneS]

18 minutes ago, starri said:

After The 100 and The Walking Dead just haphazardly killed off two lesbian characters--in the case of the latter, substituted a lesbian for a straight guy as in the comics--someone did the numbers, and found that in 40 years, 11% of shows had a lesbian or bisexual woman as characters, and 162 of them, or almost two thirds, were killed off.  And so we get that here, without even bothering to give her a face.

I get that they were making it creepy and implying demonic influence there, and I honestly don't know if that makes it worse or not.

Usually I would agree, but those are not the circumstances here. Kat is the lesbian or bisexual character on the show. Kat's pain over the loss of her love is a key component of the tragedy impacting this family.  Now if Kat is killed off then I would agree that there is a problem there. 

[pezgirl7]

11 hours ago, starri said:

After The 100 and The Walking Dead just haphazardly killed off two lesbian characters--in the case of the latter, substituted a lesbian for a straight guy as in the comics--someone did the numbers, and found that in 40 years, 11% of shows had a lesbian or bisexual woman as characters, and 162 of them, or almost two thirds, were killed off.  And so we get that here, without even bothering to give her a face.

I get that they were making it creepy and implying demonic influence there, and I honestly don't know if that makes it worse or not.

Thanks for explaining. I had no idea about those numbers.

I think the reason they didn't show her whole face was because Kat was talking about how she liked her amazing eyes and cheekbones, so the audience kind of is imagining what this girl looks like. And then when we finally see her whole face, she's horribly disfigured, which makes it more shocking in a way.

[Tarasme]

This show has such great atmosphere. To content, I've read more about than watched the book and film, but this strikes me as almost more of an Omen redux than the Exorcist.

Though it wasn't hard to figure out, I kinda wish they'd have prolonged the reveal that the middle aged man Casey was interacting with was her demon passenger. And damn. They really pounded in the anvil that she needed it- that she sees it- as her rescuer. Savior. :::shivers:::

I'm not sure how I feel about the B plot Catholic leadership conspiracy. Everything in the show is moving at a breakneck pace- I think I would have liked to learn more about Tomas, Marcus, Casey, Kat, etc. before plunging the plot headfirst into global institution bending cabals.

Bravo to Ben Daniels. He has tremendous chemistry with everyone with which he shares the screen. There's so much jam packed into these episodes, I just want to see more Ben.

[iMonrey]

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So was that a/the demon in the road that caused Kat's accident?

I thought it was her father, actually, which would explain his head injury. But then later he said something about scaffolding falling on his head. I can't figure out if the two accidents are unrelated or if maybe Kat's mother lied to her so she wouldn't know she caused her father's accident.

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I did find it odd that no one else on the train helped out.

I found that scene highly unrealistic. Yeah, maybe there are guys obnoxious enough to actually assault a girl on a train like that (he had his hands all over her) and maybe some people would just look in the other direction and not get involved, but someone would have stepped forward and intervened. (Besides a demon, I mean.) That was a blatant sexual assault going on right in front of a trainload of passengers, not just some kids fooling around.

[LocimusPrime]

• I hate it when they showed video of the girl speaking in an ancient language which she had no reason to know or speak fluently, and the other priests just dismissed it. 
• So the priests see someone running to the window, holding a bible and burning to death with weird black smoke ( huge plumes) coming from his body but refuse to accept the fact that Casey might be possessed 
• why didn't the Latino priest explain what he saw in the attic? 
• Balls of centipedes don't just swarm around in a circle in the bed. Just doesn't happen in nature. Sorry, you gotta demon here. 
• The family is wealthy, get some more help. There are others who are experienced in the rites of exorcism. Other religions
• when you throw up centipedes, you gotta know something is wrong. Right Casey? 

[BigBlueMastiff]

Agree with other posters on the over-sexualization of Casey's character, it is so unnecessary and gross. Possession is scary enough, do we have to add to it with a creepy old man molesting/assaulting a young woman, gag? Otherwise, loving this show, and bummed about the low numbers. Hope we get some resolution one way or another.

[pezgirl7]

On 10/10/2016 at 2:08 PM, iMonrey said:

I thought it was her father, actually, which would explain his head injury. But then later he said something about scaffolding falling on his head. I can't figure out if the two accidents are unrelated or if maybe Kat's mother lied to her so she wouldn't know she caused her father's accident.

I watched the car crash scene back and freeze framed it, and the man standing in the road isn't her father. It looked like Casey's demon. Maybe we'll find out that the same demon caused the scaffolding to fall.