Christmas Song: "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"

After the break, Devil Eunice is in her office, enjoying a smoke by firelight. Dr. Arden comes by and they start reminiscing about Christmas. Like how Eunice had so many family members, she had to be happy with a tangerine and some socks for Christmas. We've seen this before, but these are Mary Eunice's she's referencing, not the demon's. Which means there's a little part of Mary Eunice that's in these demonic doings. I like that complexity.

"Did you celebrate Christmas in your Nazi household?" she asks Arden, nearly knocking me out of my chair as she does so. He absorbs the body blow and says some of his fondest childhood memories were from the holidays. He then presents Eunice with a present. She's excited at first, hoping it might be Taboo perfume, though her curdled soul doesn't let her linger on the bright side for long. "Knowing you it's probably some toilet water from Woolworth's," she sneers. "Yeardley's Lavendar. Christ, why did I get my hopes up." Can Devil Eunice guest judge on RuPaul's Drag Race or something? I'd hate to lose her when the season's over.

She opens the box to find a pair of ruby earrings, and she's ecstatic ("Mother of God, are they real?"). Arden tells her the story of how he came by them: they belonged to a Jewess in the camp, a rich woman who didn't want to give up the dream that one day she'd return to her former grandeur. She suffered from stomach problems, so one day Arden followed her to the latrine to seek out a stool sample. What he found was the woman on her hands and kneed, picking through her feces to fish out the earrings. Turns out, she swallowed them anew every day, to keep them in her possession. Arden says he was repulsed by the woman, who died from internal injuries soon thereafter, and he took possession of the earrings. He said he's hoped someday he'd meet someone who was worthy of their exceptional beauty. Devil Eunice is so happy! "They bring out the rose in my cheeks!" she enthuses. Arden looks abashed, which Eunice interprets as him being a sap. He says he is, but not how she thinks. Angering, he tells her he'd hoped she'd throw those shit-stained earrings back in his face. Hoping for a glimmer of horror from that precious girl who was once too afraid to bite his candy apple. Devil Eunice doesn't show a bit of shame, calling him pathetic. She also tells him he's either with her or against her. "And if you're against me? Even God can't help you."