"BA'AL"
Directed by: Sanaa Hamri
Written by: Ali Adler & Manny Coto
When Liv (Billie Lourd) struggles to conceive with her husband Matt (Ronen Rubinstein), desperation leads her to a mysterious fertility totem that finally leads to a successful pregnancy. But when Liv starts to experience strange happenings in their home, she starts to suspect that something is very wrong with the baby...
"Ba'al" contains examples of:
- Asshole Victim: Matt and his friends gaslit Liv for weeks in order to get Matt and Bernadette, the woman who gave Liv her fertility totem to begin with, together and steal Liv's money in retribution for her having Aaron. The friends and Bernadette are brutally murdered by the very being they were invoking for their scheme shortly after this plan is revealed, while Matt is framed for the killings. Given the pride they take in what they did on top of everything else, it is a rather well-deserved demise for them.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: All four of Matt and Liv's seemingly good-natured friends are in on Matt's plot to drive Liv insane.
- Chekhov's Skill: Matt being an actor by trade is eventually revealed to be what helps him to pull off his ruse... until it doesn't.
- Cruel Mercy: What Liv does to Matt as killing him would be too easy. Having him live the rest of his life in prison for "murdering" his mistress and friends and never knowing Liv turned the tables on him is far better.
- Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?: The episode ends with Liv apparently seeking to have a child with Ba'al for real this time.
- Domestic Abuse: Matt, with the aid of his friends, essentially torture Liv into near-insanity for her crime of wanting a baby when Matt didn't (a fact that he kept secret, mind you).
- Even Evil Has Standards: Matt tries to warn Liv not to go back to their home, believing Ba'al would kill her like he did his friends. Of course, he's unaware Liv is the one who summoned Ba'al.
- Failed a Spot Check: Liv lampshades how it never occurred to Bernadette to actually read the ritual she gave Liv or consider why that shop seemed eager for her to have it.
- Foreshadowing:
- Early in the episode, Matt scares Liv while in monster makeup for a role of his.
- It seems strange Ba'al would slaughter everyone else but leave Matt alive. It turns out it's because Liv thinks it's better he live in jail believed to be a murderer.
- Gaslighting: Liv starts to think she's crazy for thinking her child is haunted by a demon, which Matt repeatedly insists her not to be the case. It's later revealed that it was all a plot by Matt and his friends to get her institutionalized and steal her money in revenge for having a child that he never really wanted.
- Gone Horribly Right: The "fake" banishing ritual Bernadette instructed Liv to perform turned out to be a real spell that summoned Ba'al, allowing her to frame Matt for murder and escape institutionalization.
- Irony: Bernadette's fake ritual for expelling the fake Ba'al ends up being what Liv uses to summon the actual Ba'al as part of her vengeance. Liv lampshades that if Matt and Bernadette hadn't done such a good job making her think the demon existed and given her a real spell, she'd still be locked up.
- Law of Inverse Fertility: Liv desperately wants to be pregnant, but she is unable to conceive... until she she's given the totem. However, it turns out that Matt was trying to invoke this trope by pretending that he wanted a baby alongside Liv, but was secretly finding ways to lower his sperm count instead. Nevertheless, the trope is played straight since Aaron is born anyway — something Liv wanted, but Matt did not.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Matt did this entire wild scheme to make Liv think she was crazy and be locked up for her claims of haunted by a god. He ends up locked in jail, framed for slaughtering his cohorts and no one believing his claims Ba'al did it.
- Mystical Pregnancy: Liv and Matt are finally able to conceive with the help of the fertility totem. It's later revealed that there was nothing mystical about her pregnancy... But, by the end, she wants a real child from Ba'al.
- Mythology Gag: Liv clapping headphones over her ears is a visual Call-Back to Billie Lourd's character in Scream Queens always wearing earmuffs (which in itself was a Shout-Out to Lourd's mother Carrie Fisher and her iconic braided bun hairstyle in Star Wars).
- Neck Snap: How Bernadette is killed by Ba'al. Compared to the others, she got off lucky.
- Ouija Board: Liv and Matt are talked into using one of these with their friends. Their first message is an innocuous joke, but the second one is more ominous: "He is mine".
- Parental Neglect: Matt was already showing this as his son is barely months old and he's already looking at boarding schools to drop him off at while he lives off Liv's money.
- Real After All: For much of the episode, Liv believes that a demon is after her son, but it turns out that Matt, his friends, and mistress were gaslighting her in order to get her institutionalized. Then, it turns out that Ba'al is real when he suddenly breaks up their party and murders them, framing Matt in the process.
- Ritual Magic: Liv is instructed by Bernadette to perform a ritual to remove the presence of Ba'al from her home. The "fake" ritual ends up being real and having the opposite effect, actually summoning Ba'al and thusly allowing Liv to get her revenge.
- Supernatural-Proof Father: Matt doesn't buy into Liv's belief that she's being haunted by a demon. It's because he's gaslighting her into thinking she is.
- Villain Baal: Played straight when the summoned demon, whose name is the same as Canaanite god Baal, murders the friends that were part of the plot.
- Wham Shot:
- Matt sees Liv in the mental asylum, seemingly caring for her. He then heads to his car, where he and Bernadette kiss.
- At the end, Liv finds Ba'al in her home...begging to be released from the binding spell she used to summon him with Liv agreeing.
- Whole-Plot Reference: One to Rosemary's Baby — a young mother is gaslit by her husband and his pals into thinking she's crazy for suspecting an evil presence around their baby. The caveats are that they're gaslighting her into think there is a supernatural threat all the while, that Aaron is a perfectly normal infant born of natural means, and that when Ba'al turns out to be real, he's not on the side of the husband and his friends, but on Liv's. Essentially, it takes inspiration from Rosemary's Baby, but inverts a lot of the details in the end.
- You Have to Believe Me!: Matt invokes this at the end, telling Liv that Ba'al murdered everyone and framed him for it. She appears to not believe him and leave him to rot in jail but it turns out she knows full well Ba'al is real and ready to be with him.
