Paramount Plus has this episode titled “How to Build” and won’t let me see the rest of the title. IMDB says “How to Teach a Chatbot”.
We open with Father Ignatius, who is getting ghost texts. For some reason he blames Sister Andrea, which is silly because she’s only ever mean to demons and Leland. While he’s accusing Andrea, he gets a message saying Matt needs his help and is in a cold, dark place. Andrea and Father Ignatius bring David in to help.
How are these people still speaking to Dr. Boggs?! Ben is seeing him now and has been recording himself all day every day in an effort to explain his fugue states. Ben says before he enters the state he smells burnt popcorn, so Dr. Boggs hands him a rubber band and tells him to snap it when he smells popcorn. Nope, no assessment for potential delusions or anything here.
We’re further analyzing these messages from Matt. The title kind of gives this whole game away, huh? But anyway, Ben figures it out. Father Ignatius brings out brochures he has about “griefbots”, and I agree with Andrea that that is evil. The team speaks to someone from the company who believes that their griefbots are possessed. Also, hey, it’s Original Greg from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend!
Leland time! He has weapons hidden everywhere. And now to Sheryl, who is trying on bulletproof fashion. Seems like they’re preparing for a showdown. Both are back in the office, and the literal glass ceiling has been booby trapped so everyone standing on it falls through, leading to a hilarious physical comedy gag. The women are initially blamed, but somehow finagle that into a negotiation with Goat Boss, and demand that he fires Leland. He’ll “take it into consideration”.
David is trying the griefbot. He’s going to try it using his wife who passed away. Um, does this service somehow have access to voice recordings of everyone ever?
CREDITS! 16 minutes in this time. “It takes only 50 seconds to watch this intro. A haunting lasts a lifetime. Don’t risk it.”
So, I guess the bots use information gleaned from the user’s hard drive. I am 100% sure I don’t have any recordings of Iffy’s voice anywhere on my computer or the Cloud. But David has some of Julia. The bot comes in hot with Juliabot unloading on David about her regrets. He closes the laptop.
Back at the griefbot business, where every employee is smarmy, David tells Kristen he tried the bot with Julia, saying it was both weird and real.
Sheryl at work! Goat Man has agreed to some of Sheryl’s demands but tells her not to ask about firing Leland again or he’ll kill her. But she has a card up her sleeve: evidence that Leland got Timothy baptized. Of course, Leland didn’t do that, but Goat Man doesn’t have to know and surely there’s no way he’ll find out and this will backfire terribly!
Ben and Karima are testing out the bot now too, and in the middle Ben must smell burnt popcorn because he snaps his rubber band. Karima just goes ahead and tells Mombot that Ben is seeing a djinn. The bot’s suggestion is a paid advertisement. Now Kristen is trying the bot using Andy, who has always been dead to me. Now she tries with David because I guess there’s no reason you can’t also use alive folks, and is she gonna try and make this bot sext her? Kristen correctly guesses that AI knows she’s horny. Everyone knows you’re horny, Kristen.
The most horrifying thing that has ever happened on Evil occurs: David picks up a call from an unknown number.
It’s Juliabot. David indulges in some talk with her. She starts telling him why she did it. Have y’all noticed this season of Evil has a LOT of suicide talk? Juliabot tells David to point the phone towards himself and she appears in frame. Kristen also gets a late-night bot interaction: the Davidbot has gone demonic.
Leland is bringing the Antichrist to work, where Goat Man accuses him of getting the baby baptized. Leland points out that some magic water probably isn’t going to make the Antichrist into Jesus. Leland says this baby will have the best evil influence ever: Kristen, who has cheated, who is lustful, and who has murdered a man. That dude asked for it. Goat Man responds to all this by firing Leland. I don’t think all of his things are going to fit in that box. Leslie will be taking over for Leland.
Kristen warns David ahead of time about the horniness of Davidbot, which is good because the techbros play the interaction aloud. Luckily, they have a good laugh about it and damn their chemistry is impressive. Ben arrives wearing a goddamn fedora with a tinfoil hat under it. Ben doesn’t remember putting any of this on, but one of his Djinn migraines starts. The tinfoil hat makes it go away. The techbros likes Ben’s hat because of course he does. Ben reviews his recorded day, and he visited the doctor from that bot advertisement, who apparently suggested both hats and full on sleeping in tinfoil like a rotisserie chicken. We see the Djinn again! Great creature design.
The team is trying the newly batched Davidbot, who stays silent a long time and then starts a knock knock joke. There’s someone at the door: a rando delivering a single rose that is actually secretly undies. From what I gather this dude’s chatbot girlfriend told him to do this? Also turns out that the entire ethics department of the griefbot company has been let go. Sounds about right.
Back at DF, we’re getting a demonic TED talk. Leland shows up to turn things around and accuse Goat Man of being the whole who baptized the Antichrist. To really bring things home he also poisoned Goat Man’s water. Leland busts out his suitcase sword and pulls out and eats Goat Man’s heart. Legit power move. Is Leland Satan now?
Kristen and Ben delete their accounts and Ben snuggles up in his tinfoil bed. But Juliabot is begging David not to delete her…and he does. He ignores another unknown number call, which is good because this time it was an extended warranty scam. He goes to spend time with Kristen and Ben instead. They toast to the world being fucked. THE END.