Evil premiered on CBS in September 2019. It was the network’s best new show of the year, but unfortunately not one of its most watched. In fact, for the full 2019-20 season, it was one of CBS’s lowest rated series, and a prime candidate for cancellation. It was simply another good series that got lost in its linear network’s incompatible lineup. Another victim of the broadcast networks’ ridiculous policy of not cross-promoting one another’s shows as cable has done so successfully over the years.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, delaying production schedules for virtually all networks and platforms, and throwing the 2020-21 season into chaos. Netflix needed some fresh programming. Repeats of Evil’s first season were licensed to the streaming service (just in the U.S.), where it started airing in October 2020. It quickly rose to be Netflix’s 4th most watched series – and drew a much wider audience than it managed to get on the older-skewing linear CBS network.
Because of its successful run on Netflix, CBS decided to renew the show for a second season and shift it to its own streaming service, Paramount+. The advantages of airing on a streaming platform are fairly obvious.
- The series can now tackle darker themes.
- It no longer has to fit into a schedule filled with shows that appeal to a different viewer base, or concern itself with audience flow from one series to the next.
- No need to accommodate artificial fall- or mid-season deadlines (new episodes can premiere whenever the show is ready).
- No longer constricted by each episode having to be the exact same 42-minute length.
- It doesn’t have the same language and sexual content restrictions it had on an ad-supported broadcast network.
According to its star, Katja Herbers, they went back over season 1 episodes to record an appropriate amount of swearing.
Season 3 recently ended. Here is my review of all three seasons. It’s been renewed for a fourth.
Evil (CBS / Paramount+ 2019- ): Robert and Michelle King (The Good Fight) created this delightfully subversive supernatural / religious procedural horror mystery thriller. The show’s protagonists are three investigators with vastly different backgrounds who work for the Catholic Church to explore whether seemingly supernatural events have some rational explanation, or whether they might actually be miracles or demonic possessions.
This show is funny, creepy, dramatic, twisty, and often intense – everything you want from a supernatural mystery thriller. Once free of broadcast network restrictions, the show started to really find its footing and got even better. It’s become sort of a Criminal Minds meets The X-Files, with some Buffy the Vampire Slayer sprinkled in (I’m waiting for that special all musical episode).
Here are the main and some major recurring characters:
Katja Herbers gives an extraordinary performance as Dr. Kristen Bouchard, a retired forensic psychologist and former mountain climber, who is raising four daughters mostly by herself – her husband Andy (Patrick Brammall) is a mountain climbing guide, often away from home for long stretches at a time. Kristen is not religious and does not believe in God or the supernatural.
In the first episode, Kristen is employed by the Queens, NY DA’s office as an expert witness. When she is fired, which we discover was orchestrated by rival psychologist Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson), she reluctantly accepts an offer from David Acosta (Mike Colter), an assessor for the Catholic Church. He wants her to help him discern if claims of demonic possession are valid, or whether there is a rational, psychological explanation. Her skepticism is constantly tested as she’s confronted by numerous unexplained events.
The superb Katja Herbers is able to convey the gamut of emotions with just a nuanced shift in facial expression, and with just a glance redefines what sexy is all about.
Mike Colter, who you might remember from his roles in The Good Wife and Luke Cage , is David Acosta, a priest in training who recruits Kristen to work with him as he conducts assessments for the Catholic Church. He is a true believer. David once experienced a vision that he and the Church believe was a message from God. In the first two seasons he experiments with hallucinogens to try and replicate the experience. One of his roles for the Church is to determine whether an exorcism is in order. He constantly tries to synch his beliefs with Church politics, and what he sees as its institutional racism. He also struggles with his growing (and mutual) sexual attraction to Kristen.
Aasif Mandvi rounds out this investigative team as Ben Shakir, a contractor who works with David as a technical expert. He is always looking for a rational, scientific explanation for any unusual phenomena. He was raised a Muslim, but is now even more of a skeptic than Kristen. He relishes his ability to debunk claims of the supernatural or demonic, but there are more and more mysteries of late that even he can’t explain. Despite increasing evidence to the contrary, however, he steadfastly holds onto his belief that everything has a rational explanation – sometimes it just takes longer to find it.
Michael Emerson (best known for his roles in Person of Interest and Lost) is at his creepiest best as Dr. Leland Townsend, a forensic psychologist, who is either a psychopath or a demon (or just associates with demons) – but there’s no doubt that he is dangerous and can be deadly. He is obsessed with trying to get others to commit evil acts, and is the biggest threat to our heroes. Leland is constantly trying to undermine Kristen and get into her head, even to the point of courting her mom and stalking her daughters online. He despises David, and constantly taunts him while trying to get him to doubt the Church’s teachings.
Christine Lahti sizzles as Kristen’s hard-living and free-spirited mother, Sheryl, who is not nearly as gullible as she initially seems – and may have her own involvement with the supernatural. Much to Kristen’s chagrin, she is courted by Leland, which puts a wall between them. Their romance is short lived, but their association continues. As the series progresses, she becomes more and more drawn to the demonic forces. She eventually joins Leland in evildoing, but it remains unclear if she is under his spell or has her own agenda – although through three seasons, no one suspects her.
Brooklyn Schuck, Skylar Gray, Maddy Crocco, and Dayla Knapp are excellent as Kristen’s daughters, Lynn, Lila, Lexis, and Laura, one of whom may have a supernatural secret of her own. They see through Leland when he tries to stalk them online, and manage to interrupt his plans on more than one occasion. One ongoing comedic theme throughout the series is that all the girls tend to talk at once over one another so you can’t understand any of them until Kristen gets them to slow down.
Kurt Fuller is Dr. Kurt Boggs, Kristen’s psychiatrist and therapist. He is one of her links to the belief in more rational explanations for everything that is going on. Leland attempts to corrupt him, as he is continually trying to undermine anything that contributes to Kristen’s sanity. In season 3, as Leland uses demonic magic to help the Dr. Boggs write his book, the temptation to turn may be too great for him to resist.
Andrea Martin steals every scene she’s in as Sister Andrea, a powerful, no-nonsense nun who sometimes gives David advice. You never know when she is going to decide to help him. She sees herself and David as two of the few equipped to fight in the war against evil. She tells David that they are among a few million humans who are close enough to God that they can see demons, and therefore know the true existence of Hell. Her confrontations with Leland are delicious.
Boris McGiver is Monsignor Matthew Korecki, a priest who assigns cases to David, Kristen, and Ben. Peter Scolari is Bishop Thomas Marx (seasons 1 and 2) who assigns David his cases prior to his ordination (he passed away in 2021).
Brian d’Arcy James is Victor LeConte, an agent of The Entity, the Vatican’s ultra-secret service, who recruits David to take part in missions that no one – including Kristen, Ben, or anyone in his Church – can know about. These cloak-and-dagger missions are only partially explained to David, and he struggles with doing things that make no sense to him because he’s not given the full picture.
Li Jun Li is Grace Ling, whom the Catholic Church believes may be a prophet. She claims to be a prophet from God. David, Kristen, and Ben investigate her predictions to determine whether she can prophesize the future. David believes she can. One of David’s missions for the Entity is to provide information that helps them free her from a Chinese prison camp.
Marti Matulis is George, a demon who sometimes appears to Kristen in her dreams. He also plays other demons in various episodes, including Leland’s therapist.
Evil manages to do something that you seldom see on television, namely balance religious belief and skepticism without taking sides. Oftentimes, religious faith is presented on television dramas as antiquated or problematic, and is seldom shown in a positive light. Here, while some of the Church’s institutional problems and inequities are addressed, David’s religious beliefs, and those of Sister Andrea are given at least as much credence as Kristen and Ben’s doubts.
Season 1 provides enough logical explanations for seemingly supernatural or demonic occurrences, that Kristen, David, and Ben each find enough evidence (or lack thereof) to support their own world view. As the series progresses, however, all three have reasons to question what they are experiencing and seeing with their own eyes.
Much of the first season, which originally aired on CBS, is in the format of a typical broadcast procedural, with a mystery of the week.
Some of the mysterious events in the first season include: a girl miraculously reviving seconds after her autopsy begins (did a racist hospital pronounce her dead too soon, or did the ghostly image seen on security footage have something to do with it?); a woman believes her unborn son is a demon who kills his twin sister in utero; did a legendary Broadway producer really sell his soul to a demon named Joe in return for winning a Tony award?; is a 9-year-old boy possessed by a demon or is he a psychopath?; why are a Catholic girls school’s students singing a repetitive melody nonstop?
Leland spends much of the first season manipulating random people into committing evil acts. He continues to try and undermine Kristen at every turn, at one point courting her mother. His testimony gets a judge to overturn a serial killer’s conviction, which puts Kristen’s family in danger (she had helped put him away by debunking his insanity defense).
At the end of season 1, Kristen takes drastic and shocking action to protect her family, which has ramifications through much of season 2.
In season 2, the series shifts from a largely procedural drama with supernatural elements to a full-on horror series (episode four’s Elevator Game episode is genuinely creepy). Leland makes generous donations to the Church and wants to undergo an exorcism. The Church agrees, and puts David in charge of assessing him, which lead to numerous taunt-filled confrontations.
Our heroes are assigned several more mysteries to solve, including: a construction worker who claims the Archangel Michael acts through him; the adopted child of Catholic-Muslim parents is blamed for setting fires, but claims a demon is responsible; a boy disappears and left the mark of a pentagram in his room – Kristen’s daughters help them figure out he is a victim of the Elevator Game, a Japanese legend in which pressing elevator buttons in a certain way opens a direct passage to Hell; when a white cop shoots a Black driver, the police union asks the Church for an assessment to prove the officer was possessed; the team is assigned to determine the true nature of a mysterious flying object reported by an Air Force pilot and a college student.
While one of the central questions in the first season is whether Leland is actually a demon or simply a delusional psychopath, several new questions arise in the season 1 finale and throughout season 2
- Did Kristen really murder the serial killer who had threatened her daughters?
- Are demons in charge of a fertility clinic and spiritually corrupting the eggs of expectant mothers to create a generation of humans who are more susceptible to temptation and sin – and was Kristen’s oldest daughter affected (Kristen had received fertility treatments there)? Kristen discovers that the fertility clinic has secretly been making payments to keep her unused eggs frozen, instead of destroying them as they were supposed to.
- Why is Kristen suddenly burning crucifixes into her stomach? Is she becoming possessed herself, or trying to prevent herself from being possessed?
- What’s going on with Kristen’s mom Sheryl and the doll on an altar in her home? Leland and his equally sinister colleague (Tim Matheson) induct Sheryl into a secret society that represents the 60 demonic houses on Earth, but first she has to commit two sinful acts.
- While David was the one primarily having visions in season 1, now Kristen and Ben are having visions of demons as well (and they are not taking hallucinogens).
David is finally ordained into the priesthood at the end of the second season.
The first two seasons were very good but uneven, as it seemed as though they hadn’t decided whether Evil is a dark comedy, a CBS-type procedural drama, a supernatural thriller, or an Exorcist-style horror show.
The great season 3 leans into all of the above with equal relish, maintaining the high quality of the show while seamlessly shifting gears at the drop of a hat. You never know when an episode will jump from family comedy to horror to procedural drama, to just plain weirdness. The series has become less reliant on the mystery of the week in favor of more character development (a good thing). And Leland’s plans start to come more into focus.
There’s an awful lot lot happening this season. People die in gruesome ways, demons are everywhere – but only visible to a few, there are creepy online games and internet memes, macabre secret societies, a kidnaping, more exorcism, a newborn demon, and even a highway to Hell.
Although they were on the verge of escalating beyond the kiss they shared toward the end of season 2, now that he’s a full-fledged priest, any sexual attraction between David and Kristen seems destined to be unrequited. But a demon-version of Kristen (which Sister Andrea sees as a mosquito) starts appearing to David, trying to seduce him.
When Kristen becomes increasingly suspicious and annoyed that David is suddenly making weak excuses for leaving in the middle of various investigations, he finally tells her he works with the Vatican secret service, known as the Entity, and has been lying to her. It turns out that the Entity believes Leland and demons have malevolent intent toward Kristen’s daughter, Lexis, and are grooming her for something evil.
Ben’s nerdy tech-expert sister Karima (Sohina Sidhu) introduces him to the “Super Secret Science League,” a group of problem-solving fellow nerds. Karima promises to help him solve cases, and bring to the League anything they can’t handle on their own.
Leland gets Sheryl a position overseeing an online trolling operation. Her job is to keep people “doomscrolling.” Leland explains that keeping people nervous causes them to focus more on the evil in the world than the good. Sheryl’s immediate supervisor appears to Leland and her as a disgusting three-eyed demon, but to most others, he presents as a normal handsome human, described as a Liam Neeson or Ted Danson type.
Kristen’s daughter Lexis starts playing and online game called Bumblebee Valley (similar to Animal Crossing) and figures out that Leland is also there, trying to trick her into thinking he’s a little girl. Lexis and he sisters start harassing him in the game and driving him crazy.
There are still several mysterious events that our trio needs to solve.
- Driving down a haunted highway (a stretch of I-95) where truckers see visions, and hear demonic sounds. They’re driving along singing to the Turtles “So Happy Together,” when they suddenly hear loud static on their radio, they see something with red lights flying behind them, and their car shuts down. When Ben gets out of the car to investigate, Kristen tells him that this is how virtually every horror movie begins.
- 10:41 AMhe team examines a machine designed to determine the weight of the human soul by measuring how much weight the body loses at the moment of death – which requires the participation of a dying priest, Father Frank Ignatius (the wonderful Wallace Shawn). The difference in pre- and post-death weight (theoretically the soul) is verified at 24 grams. Then there’s a sudden power surge in the building, and he is somehow resurrected. But he’s still 24 grams lighter than before (is he now without a soul?).
- The pipes in Kristen’s house seem to be possessed – after her husband Andy comes home, has an immediate conflict with her mom, and finds Sheryl’s glass jar under his bed. He sees a shrunken head inside the jar and tries to flush it down the toilet. But when that doesn’t work he uses a plunger to force it down. Will it stay down?
- A building explodes, and there are only four survivors. All claim they were guided out of the wreckage by a mysterious woman in a white gown carrying a lamb.
David performs an exorcism in the house next to Kristen’s, and all the demons move into her house. Sister Andrea battles and destroys numerous demons with a shovel, as Kristen’s daughter Lynn looks on (she can’t see the demons).
There’s a bizarre plotline that has Leland and Sheryl kidnaping Kristen’s husband, planning to eventually kill him and blame it climbing accident during an avalanche.
Kristen discovers the fertility clinic sold her remaining egg to an anonymous recipient. The season finale ends with a Rosemary’s Baby vibe, and I’ll leave it at that for now. Season 4 will have a lot to live up to, and I’m hoping it will continue to avoid the typical supernatural-horror-religious tropes that it is all too easy to fall into.
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