Recap / Evil S 2 E 6 C Is For Cop

C is for Cop

The assessors are tasked with investigating the case of Officer Turley, a white beat cop of the NYPD, who recently shot and killed an unarmed black woman during a routine traffic stop. Turley, with the assistance of the police union, is claiming to have briefly been possessed at the time of the shooting, which caused him to mistakenly see a gun in the victim's hand.

Kristen becomes increasingly plagued with guilt from killing LeRoux, after Detective Byrd continually presses her on the issue.

Ben decides to take aggressive steps in dealing with Abbey.

Tropes in this episode include:

• Armor-Piercing Question: David grills Turley about his racial prejudices when Turley insists he saw the victim holding a gun, comparing the situation to if he had pulled over Kristen instead.
  David: (Hypothetically) If you knew the driver was Kristen's race, would you have fired?
  Turley: ... I don't know
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Ben's confrontation with Abbey becomes a low-key version. He's able to use Kristen's lucid dreaming technique to fight off the sleep paralysis and attack Abbey with a knife. When she proves too fast for him to kill, he summons a projection of David, and together they fight her off.
• Believing Their Own Lies: Mira tells Kristen that the NYPD's habit of pulling their guns on people of color is categorically not based on racial prejudices, but rather a "street sense" of who is dangerous, and that just happens to be non-white people. She seems to honestly believe that there are no logical fallacies in this line of thinking, but Kristen does not buy it.
• Cliffhanger: The team is assigned to an isolated monastery where everyone, including them, must be silent within the grounds. They reach the monastery, and the episode ends with them being greeted by a monk, who ominously puts a finger to his lips.
• Corrupt Cop: This episode makes the case that the entire NYPD, and the American system of policing, is in some respects, rotten to the core. Even a "good cop" like Mira and her partner will still cover up a murder if they decide the victim deserved it.
• Crazy-Prepared: David and Ben independently have a smartphone app that automatically takes video recordings if/when they are pulled over by the police. As minorities in NYC, they see this as a given.
• Expy: David and Ben's iPhone app, Cop Buster, is one for the real life Siri add-on "I'm Getting Pulled Over". They both automatically record police traffic stops and send the owner's gps location to selected phone contacts.
• Flash Step: Abbey can do this, and consequently gives Ben a harder time than George did with Kristen.
• Flynning: Ben practices some flashy knife moves in a VR game before trying to pull them on Abbey in his dreams. They turn out to be pretty much useless because she is smart enough to stay out of reach.
• Internal Reveal: Lexis, Sheryl, Mira and her partner all learn the identity of LeRoux's murderer, but for different reasons decide to keep it to themselves.
• It Gets Easier: LeRoux suggests this to Kristen, comparing her killing of him to his first hesitant murder.
• Jacob Marley Apparel: LeRoux's ghost appears like this to Kristen.
• Just Following Orders: Or in this case, just following their training. Both Turley and Byrd independently use this excuse to justify why they have used excessive force in the past. They have been trained to shoot to kill anyone who might seem to be threatening them with a gun, and that's what they are going to do.
• Lying Heroes, Honest Villains: Kristen tries to coax Lexis to lie to Mira and give Kristen an alibi for the night of the murder, while subtly gaslighting Lexis to believe said lie. Lexis confesses this to Sheryl, who, for reasons unknown except seeming malice, convinces Lexis to actually tell the truth.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Mick Carr is a pretty transparent expy of Dick Wolf, the creative mind behind the Law & Order franchise, with his Justice Served series, and its many spinoffs, acting as a stand in.
• Redemption Failure: After spending all episode dancing around Mira's investigation and trying to cover up the murder, Kristen becomes haunted by the ghost of LeRoux and finally breaks down and comes clean to Mira, seeking some sort of punishment. Mira immediately moves to cover up the crime and denies Kristen any sort of catharsis, forcing her to continually lie about the murder.
• Secret-Keeper: Mira and her partner both hear Kristen's confession to killing LeRoux, but cover up the crime because he "deserved it".
• Sigil Spam: The assessors discover that many cops have the symbol of one of the Demonic Houses from the Sigil map tattooed on their inner forearms. They first assume this is a symbol for a racist gang within the NYPD, but Carr reveals it's because they are fanboys of his Justice Served shows, and that the symbol is actually sigil spam within the shows themselves, and doesn't have a specific meaning within the narratives of the shows, just being Easter Eggs for fans. According to Carr, the tradition of placing the symbol within various cop shows has been around since the 1950s, and he is just continuing the tradition.
• Shame If Something Happened: the NYPD officers who harass David and Ben both give off this vibe, warning them off of investigating Carr.
• Shown Their Work: Mixed with a bit of Viewers Are Geniuses: Ben makes reference to a racist gang that was recently uncovered within the LAPD. This is a reference to the Compton Executioners, a real-life white supremacist gang that still exists within the LAPD, whose members are identified by a distinct thigh tattoo, with members chosen from officers who have committed acts of violence against members of the Compton community. For added horror, it's only one of many similar police gangs that exist in the US.
• Take That!: The episode pulls no punches with it's criticism of Cop-Aganda, and the American system of policing in general.
• Walk and Talk: Mick Carr actually insists the assessors interview him like this while on set, as he refuses to take time to actually sit down with them.
• Wham Line: Mira and her partner, after getting a frantic 911 from Kristen, find breaking down with guilt in her backyard (having just been taunted by LeRoux's ghost), ranting about how she killed LeRoux. Mira tells Kristen that they will cover it up because LeRoux deserved it, gives her back the murder weapon, telling her to put it somewhere safe. Then, so as to give an excuse for why Kristen needed the police in her backyard, matter of factly says
  Mira: I'll say we saw a black man back here. You came out and scared him off.

If there was any doubt that the NYPD is racist and corrupt the the core, it's shattered.