CBS’s Evil seems to be kicking off the new year with a new racist conspiracy theory. Namely, it claims that nurses literally kill black people for fun. Between this and the show’s warning about “implicit racism,” the show looks determined to make black people fear hospitals. What could possibly go wrong there?
The January 9 episode “Room 320” follows directly after the winter finale where David (Mike Colter) was stabbed by a mysterious assailant. Unfortunately, his troubles only get worse as he goes to a hospital to get treatment. Although his surgery goes well, David suffers from various hallucinations from overmedication.
Fortunately for him, he’s not alone in this scenario. His roommate Harlan (Marcus Callender) also suffers from hallucinations, but he knows the real cause. And that cause is…racism. Harlan literally says as much as he gives David the scoop on what really happens in hospitals.
Harlan: Help! God! God! God! God! God! God! No. No. No. No, no, no, no, no. No, no. I'm fine. I'm fine. See, I... I-I... I stopped. Don't call her. It's her shift. The one with the squeaky shoes. Squeak, squeak, squeak. We call her "Nurse Plague." You're the guy who was mugged, right?
David: Yes.
Harlan: Watch out for her. Crazy bitch. The squeaky shoes. You can hear them down the hallway. I'm Harlan.
David: David.
Harlan: We got to stick together, David. Most black patients die in hospitals from... accidents. Bleeding out internally, complications after surgery, infections. But it's not random. It's because of nurses like Plague. They torture and kill us. And then she collects our hospital wristbands as trophies.
While we hope Harlan’s only exaggerating or David’s only hallucinating, the episode only proves Harlan’s raving right as it continues. “Nurse Plague,” or Nurse Bloch (Tara Summers) as she’s really called, continuously drugs David, falsifies his medical records to cover her tracks, and apparently kills Harlan. All that remains of him by the end is his hospital wristband in her locker, along with several other wristband “trophies.”
David’s friends luckily discover this plot and manage to rescue him just in time, but the sentiment remains. This nurse managed to torture and kill various black people right under their noses, and from Harlan’s words, this isn’t an extraordinary circumstance. Apparently, 2020 America might be worse for black people than the 1950s.
Honestly, that must be the thought process behind these writers if they want us to take this seriously. This episode literally tells us that hospitals have people who will either let black people die or kill black people themselves because of racism. At least the previous episode only claimed that it was “implicit” bias that’s rampant in doctors. Paranoid doesn’t even begin to cover this new claim.
With all the bogus and overplayed claims of “racism” out there, it wouldn’t kill shows like Evil to stick to something less deranged.
