Horror has finally grown up. No more zombie knockoffs, with shock shots and gross-out things to cause viewers to scream. Some of the episodes were more disturbing than anything I've seen in a long time - the virtual reality goggles segment, the multiple personalities woman in Vatican III, the mother-babysitter's irresponsibility, the masked little girl persuading the kids to play "Funeral", etc.
It's still not clear what the show's attitude on the supernatural, religion, the Catholic Church, and psychology is: is it trying to present little slivers of unexplainable occurrences without really committing to "yes, there are indeed demons and all the stuff the exorcists believe"? Or is it debunking them? That tension, and how it keeps seesawing between those points of view, keeps the show going - that and the recurring evil characters, especially Leland, who (to me) is scary in his utter lack of scariness. He's terrific in embodying evil in a soft-spoken and likeable man, and then he starts talking and you realize that he's effortlessly one of the worst people on TV.
One of the underlying themes of the show seems to be that with or without a supernatural element, there are people in the world who want to do evil things. So this means that it isn't necessary to have a supernatural connection or demon connected to every character or plot line, which makes this, as the title says, a show not about ghosties or beasties but about evil itself - what does it look like and how does it act?
