Category: Evil
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“Evil” leans heavily on this season finale being a transitory one, making efforts to close off some strangling story arcs. There’s some more complicated Katja Herbers and Mike Colter making eyes at each other; she, of course, doesn’t know his demon is just her in a schoolgirl outfit, which gets touched on this episode. Nun…
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For a show about literally Satanic demons and humans cannibalizing each other to serve their dark lords, “Evil” hasn’t had any significant cast deaths. Certainly not any of the leads, none of the supporting regulars; I don’t even think they’ve had a repeat guest star die off. Well, unless you’re killed by one of the…
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As the end of season three approaches, “Evil” seemingly does a soft reset and closes off two big outstanding story arcs. The mysterious, demonic fertility clinic–which the gang discovered, I think, in the first season and have been waiting seasons to resolve–might finally be done. And then Li Jun Li’s maybe reincarnated Jesus, a Chinese…
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In addition to “Evil”'s most acute religion observation in the entire series, this episode is also an Aasif Mandvi episode, which gets it all sorts of goodwill. It’s also got a handful of concerning developments, principally Kurt Fuller falling in with Michael Emerson. Fuller decides he’s going to write a book about seeing the demon…
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It seems like it’s been a while since “Evil” has done a “modern technology will ruin our lives” fear-mongering episode. Or maybe it’s just Algorithms fully integrates “Evil”’s streaming status (f-bombs galore) with the format, making it feel like the epitome of the sub-genre. This episode’s about TikTok and how it ruins everyone’s life. The…
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The sad thing about this episode is Matthew Kregor’s direction is good. The episode starts with Mike Colter getting called to his first emergency crisis intervention; a building collapses, and he’s there to talk to the Catholics. He doesn’t remember his collar; everyone thinks he’s a cop; it’s fairly amusing despite the grim circumstances; it’s…
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“Evil”’s original conceit was a supernatural procedural. Hot priest-to-be Mike Colter, hot-but-appropriately-aged psychiatrist Katja Herbers, and funny and cute tech guy Aasif Mandvi investigate cases and prove they’re either not supernatural, or their solution gets left up in the air, but the danger abates. It’s changed over the seasons, though this episode leans in heavy…
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This episode ends with an odd, incomplete feeling. There’s no oomph to any of the storylines, and the resolutions are all put off until next time. There’s not even a cliffhanger, just Katja Herbers and Andrea Martin not being shitty to each other. It feels like a long episode cut up, but it also feels…
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Usually, when “Evil” veers too far into Catholic Church propaganda, Katja Herbers remarks about them all being a bunch of pedophiles or pedophile enablers. I can’t remember if she mentioned they killed hundreds of indigenous Canadians and buried them in holes. She’s not in the scenes she needs to be this episode to make such…
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The opening titles for this episode show up about halfway through the forty-five-minute episode. They’re full “movie” credits, getting all the guest stars, going through the entire crew; big stylistic flex because “Evil” knows it’s earned it, at least for this episode. The action starts right where we left off, Katja Herbers and Mike Colter…
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I desperately want to read the market research on “Evil.” While the show cops out on the Catholic Church being an international rape cabal, its relationship with Catholicism is complicated. Intentionally complicated, like there’s one team in the writers’ room who goes anti-Catholic and then the other team who goes pro. I wonder if they’re…
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I’m getting more and more curious about what happened to “Evil: Season Two.” Something clearly happened. Because Mike Colter all of a sudden gets his becoming-a-priest arc back, complete with Leon Addison Brown returning (from eight or so episodes ago) as the Black reverend who’s trying to convince Colter to give up on the Catholics.…
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There are a few enormous, series-changing swings in this episode. It starts right at the beginning, a montage set to Andrew Bird’s song, Fake Palindromes (I Shazamed it to see if it was an original song since the action fits so closely); the montage ends with one of the regular cast apparently murdering someone. Doesn’t…
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All right, seriously, is Mike Colter okay? He’s literally only the episode as a sidekick. He’s in an interview montage, he and Aasif Mandvi follow someone, he goes into the fertility clinic for a non-scene with Mandvi and Herbers, and he’s there for the initial team meeting. Otherwise, he’s not in the episode. Wait, he…
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Remember last season when the “Evil” team discovered a fertility clinic in Manhattan infusing babies with concentrated evil—no doubt imported from the Prince of Darkness church—including one of star Katja Herbers’s daughters? It was a big deal plot then. This season it’s been barely acknowledged, then this whole episode is about getting the show back…
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“Evil” has definitely hit the part of the production run when they knew they were streaming only. The F-bombs come in dialogue and not in voiceover or inserts. And Katja Herbers’s journey to wherever gets to be a lot more intense. Well, maybe. I don’t know; would CBS have let them do cross-shaped burns on…
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Silence is a humdinger of a concept episode. It’s so good it doesn’t even matter at least two plot questions never get resolved or even seriously addressed. However, one of them presumably will come up later in the season, involving an unexpected character. The team is investigating a possible sainthood at a monastery. It’s a…
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Is Mike Colter okay? As in, not injured? Six episodes into the season, and Colter’s still got nothing to do—and even less than usual as he’s not bickering with Michael Emerson (who doesn’t show up this episode). Then in the scene where he’s supporting Aasif Mandvi’s subplot, Colter looks pretty uncomfortable in his chair. Though…
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I’m surprised to see Nelson McCormick is this episode’s director. I don’t remember his previous directorial efforts on “Evil” being… well, being any good. And this episode’s pretty well-directed. It’s all over the place, and McCormick keeps up the pace. The episode opens on series regular Skylar Gray and her friend Gloria Manning watching scary…
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This episode has plot holes you can drive a truck through, but it also fully embraces Michael Emerson’s villain as comic relief. He’s no longer dangerous, no longer trying to get the heroes killed or kill little kids; he’s just a troll who inserts himself in the heroes’ lives and pesters them. It’s kind of…
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This episode opens with an added for Paramount+ (presumably) bit of nudity as Katja Herbers has a sexy dream out of a “Red Shoe Diaries” commercial. That superfluous nudity, plus Herbers dropping an f-bomb in what seems again to be ADR, is how “Evil” is upping its game from broadcast to streaming. And while those…
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I don’t have this feeling often with “Evil.” Maybe ever. I can’t remember what kind of potential the show had at the start; but what if it’s good. Like what if “Evil” can get actually good. What if it can not waste its lead actors. Because after a somewhat rocky beginning where Mike Colter is…
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“Evil” is back and it hasn’t been gone anywhere near as long as I thought. The last episode of the first season aired in February 2020, pre-Rona lockdown, pre-Catholics killing babies and dumping them in mass graves (well, pre-discovery of it, but “Evil” won’t care). But it’s only felt like a while. The episode picks…
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Thank you, “Evil,” for forcing me to realize I don’t know how to spell Baphomet. Oh, wait, I do know how to spell Baphomet. Apple just doesn’t know how to spell Baphomet. Seems like something for the Satanic Temple to investigate, whether or not Apple has deity spellings for other religions. Anyway. “Evil”. The season…
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There’s a lot going on in this episode of “Evil” but the only important thing—the only truly important thing—is it guest stars Gbenga Akinnagbe. It utterly wastes him in a “let’s not examine this too hard” plot about him being a radio comic in nineties Rwanda who encouraged the genocide. Emayatzy Corinealdi plays a Tutsi…
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I resent how affecting this episode of “Evil” gets because it doesn’t deserve to be. The stuff about Katja Herbers and Aasif Mandvi discovering how the guy who attacked Mike Colter before hiatus is the same guy who posed as a creepy little girl in AR to stalk Herbers’s kid early on in the series……
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This episode of “Evil” has a particular creative pedigree. Nineties neo-noir wunderkind (albeit flash in the pan) director John Dahl. Eighties and nineties sci-fi guy Rockne S. O'Bannon scripts. Seeing either of their names in the credits for “Evil” just tells of careers gone wrong; seeing both of them in the same episode, well… it…
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This episode actually surprised me, which I didn’t realize “Evil” could do, but I was wrong. I really didn’t expect the show to head-on confront the Catholic Church enabling, supporting, and facilitating child rape with it being a-okay and turning their number one “defending child rapists” lawyer Renée Elise Goldsberry (from the show creators’ previous…
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So this episode has—you guessed it—two dads in it. Well, it’s probably got more than two dads in it, but only two where it’s important they’re dads. The first dad is Vondie Curtis-Hall as Mike Colter’s dad. They estranged because it’s TV and there’s no way a guy’s not estranged with his dad if he’s…
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This week’s “Evil” is a sixty-forty split between “why Catholics don’t get the mental health care they need” and “how to make an incel.” There’s more to both, obviously. The main plot is about possessed Annaleigh Ashford (who should sue her agent for malpractice) confessing to a triple homicide of Hispanic tween boys. She gives…
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