The Big Picture

The shift to Paramount+ has made
Evil
scarier and more emotional, enhancing its final season.
Season 4 explores deeper emotional arcs for characters, like Kristen’s crisis of faith.
The fourth season also features intense plotlines, strengthens relationships, and hints at the show’s potential conclusion.

At the beginning of Evil Season 4, when psychologist Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) is confronted with seemingly undeniable proof that her once-missing frozen ovum has been used to make the Antichrist, whose birth is now only a matter of days away, all she can do is laugh. It’s a moment in the series’ final installment that feels like the best way to illustrate the myriad of feelings one experiences while watching this show. Although Evil first started out airing on CBS, it made the jump to Paramount+ in its second season — which enabled the show to get even scarier, nastier, and in some cases, hornier, courtesy of co-creators Robert and Michelle King’s willingness to take advantage of the freedoms of streaming for a more sinful final edit.

That shift in platforms also, dare I say it, made the series even better than what it would have been had it needed to conform to network censorship rules — but while previous seasons of Evil could certainly be described as deliciously unhinged, the show’s swan song leans into surprisingly emotional territory, as if sensing we’re all about to say farewell to its characters (provided another streamer doesn’t swoop in and snatch this show up for themselves).

Evil “Evil,” the 2019 TV series from creators Robert and Michelle King, is a gripping exploration of the intersection between science and the supernatural. The series stars Katja Herbers as Dr. Kristen Bouchard, a forensic psychologist drawn into a world of dark mysteries and unexplained phenomena. Alongside priest-in-training David Acosta (Mike Colter) and tech expert Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi), Kristen is tasked with investigating a series of bizarre cases for the Catholic Church, including demonic possessions, hauntings, and miracles.Release Date September 26, 2019 Cast Mike Colter , Brooklyn Shuck , Katja Herbers , Dalya Knapp , Marti Matulis , Maddy Crocco , Kurt Fuller , Michael Emerson , Skylar Gray , Aasif Mandvi , Christine Lahti Seasons 4 Creator(s) Michelle King , Robert King Story By Michelle King Writers Michelle King Network CBS , Paramount Streaming Service(s) Paramount+ , Netflix , Prime Video Directors Michelle King Showrunner Michelle King

What Is ‘Evil’ Season 4 About?

Although Evil has been hinting at the show building to a bigger clash between heaven and hell, Season 4 sets the drama a little closer to home for our intrepid trio of supernatural investigators. For Kristen, this manifests through something akin to a crisis of faith, as she decides that she’s much better off abandoning those touchstones of religion she’d formerly relied on and living from a much safer scientific perspective. It’s clearly a defense mechanism, but where newly-minted priest David Acosta (Mike Colter) might have more pointedly challenged Kristen before, now he’s got his own problems to deal with as a secret agent of The Entity, performing tasks at the request of the Vatican — and a new handler — that seem increasingly linked to the intense visions he’s been having.

Where those visions will lead, time will likely tell, but Kristen and David aren’t the only ones who find themselves wrestling with supernatural dilemmas. After a minor accident during an investigation into their first spooky case of the new season, resident tech expert Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi) starts… seeing things. More specifically, he starts seeing what appears to be a djinn, although his first impulse is to rationalize it away with a combination of medicine and cognitive tests. But what happens when even the biggest skeptic on the team can’t explain away the inexplicable?

Meanwhile, our favorite demonic devotee, Dr. Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson), is hard at work to ensure that the Antichrist — you know, the one conceived with Kristen’s stolen egg — arrives on his predestined due date. That doesn’t mean he’s too busy to mess with former girlfriend and Kristen’s estranged mother, Sheryl (Christine Lahti), now that the two of them are sharing an office setting. Given that Leland is still in a slight position of authority over Sheryl, he clearly delights in sending her off on menial, thankless tasks — like handling a chauvinist pig of a demon who needs to be reeled in — and dangling the promise of promotion in front of her, only to deliver it in the most demeaning way possible. (The fact that she ends up in a corner office with a literal glass ceiling is a perfect example of how exquisitely sharp Evil’s sense of humor can be.)

Related ’Evil’s Final Season Adds Two Hollywood Icons for Leland’s Trial The horror series returns for one final supersized scare later this month.

‘Evil’s Final Season Hits Harder Thanks To Heavier Plotlines

Evil’s ability to gleefully skewer its characters is outweighed by its more dramatic moments this season — and no one seems to be getting put more through the wringer than Kristen herself. Although her initial reaction to the Antichrist news is that aforementioned hysterical laughter, we see her wrestling with what the loss of her ovum really means to her in the background of the series’ typical monster-of-the-week cases. Even if she and mountain-climbing husband Andy (Patrick Brammall) have no real intention of getting pregnant again — not when their four delightful daughters are as chaotic as ever — there’s still a sadness that permeates through Kristen’s arc this season, especially when she unexpectedly finds herself bonding with the woman tasked with birthing this supposed Antichrist. While previous seasons of Evil have definitely seen Kristen unraveling to seemingly a point of no return, Season 4 finds the character running a gamut of complex emotions, which Herbers navigates as deftly as she always has.

While Evil has built up the success of its story around its cast, there are only so many moments the season delivers that feature its main trio all together — moments which succeed in reminding you just how good Herbers, Colter, and Mandvi’s chemistry is when they get to bounce off each other on-screen. The show also seems to want to split them up to navigate their own problems individually, rather than conquering them together as a team, but maybe that’s the point. (In fairness, the characters also seem to realize this themselves once they all start being more honest with each other in one small but important scene in the car, leading Kristen to demand that David pull over so they can all hug it out as a group.) Rounding out the ensemble is also the welcome return of Andrea Martin’s Sister Andrea, who continues to be a front-seat witness to some of the season’s vilest demons, as well as Wallace Shawn’s Father Ignatius, who takes over the responsibility of assigning parish cases in the wake of Monsignor Korecki’s (Boris McGiver) death.

The fact that Evil might be gearing up to air its closing chapter conjures mixed feelings. The show’s debut over on Netflix does prompt hope that renewed interest in the show, alongside an influx of new viewers, might be enough to successfully resurrect Evil for more beyond its planned conclusion — or it might not. If this is truly the end, it’s time to celebrate one of the best and boldest TV shows out there, and, based on the four episodes provided for review, Season 4 is already shaping up to be quite the victory lap. Whatever happens next for Evil, it’s been a hell of a ride.

Evil Evil returns for a fourth season that leans into just as much poignant drama as it does its trademark dark comedy.ProsKatja Herbers runs the emotional gamut this season, but continues to be so damn good at capturing Kristen’s intricacies.The chemistry between Herbers, Mike Colter, and Aasif Mandvi is still the best part of the show.Andrea Martin makes a very welcome return as Sister Andrea. ConsThe season often splits up its best characters right when they need each other the most.

Evil Season 4 premieres May 23 on Paramount+ in the U.S.

Watch on Paramount+