Evil (2019) s02e03 – F Is for Fire

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 additions aren’t helping the show—and just make it seems silly (though Herbers’s “I’m so horny I could die” subplot this episode is pretty silly)–“Evil” continues its strongest uptick maybe ever. Could “Evil” actually end up being something good?

It’s only got another ten episodes to figure it out (while I’m very hesitantly positive about the show’s creative potential, its renewal potential seems absurdly low—but no, they just renewed it for Season 3). But what if “Evil” just ends up being a bunch of people acting varying degrees of absurdly evil? Like Herbers. Herbers is showing some decidedly evil traits this episode. Ditto mom Christine Lahti, who uses a lot of manipulation and subterfuge to reinsert herself in Herbers’s life.

Of course, with everyone acting evil—or at least getting excited at the possibility of it (culturally Muslim Aasif Mandvi letting his sex demon, voiced by Ciara Renée, costume-acted by Ashley Edner, convince him his Christian friends are dissing his background while taking out her retainer for business time)—it gives poor Mike Colter even less to do. Last season was all about Herbers getting hot and bothered at the idea of Colter. Now Colter just disappears when not needed—after a good opening where he explains the show premise to new cast member Andrea Martin (playing a nun in his parish who he doesn’t think can know foreign languages because she’s a girl)—because he’s no longer the object of Herbers’s lust. It’s a bummer for Colter… but seems to be a plus for “Evil” overall.

Though the show could’ve gotten more milage out of dueling exorcisms. The case this episode is Matilda Lawler, a nine year-old fire starter. She lives with foster parents Ben Rappaport and Zuleikha Robinson. Rappaport’s Catholic, Robinson’s Muslim, so you know they didn’t get Lawler from Catholic Social Services because mixed marriages but—right after Mandvi and Renée’s tête-à-tête—the foster parents decide to exert their respective faiths and demand both a priest and imam for the exorcism.

You’re just waiting for someone to say the other one’s not real. Of course, since in “Evil,” religions are apparently all real (and Wyze Cams are not, because tech expert Mandvi can’t get a webcam to try to catch Renée, he instead hooks his phone up to something), Colter steps in to suggest the exorcism off.

Those scenes could be better, but thanks to Lahti’s arc, Kurt Fuller’s fun, steady turn as Herbers’s psychiatrist, and great direction from Frederick E.O. Toye—though truly terrible editing from Edward Chin—it all works out.

Maybe “Evil” really is finding its stride.

And also maybe not. But I’m more invested in the show than maybe ever before.

Evil (2019) s02e02 – A Is for Angel

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 in mock confession—his professor being Dylan Baker, who is either got to be very good as an evil priest or they’re doing a casting against type thing but it’s Dylan Baker so why wouldn’t you type-cast him since it’s a recurring guest spot—and the first of the episode’s Catholicism is super-sexist digs. The script’s credited to Davita Scarlett and it will blow up a lot, introduce a lot, and constantly remind the Catholic Church is garbage.

Watching Katja Herbers dispassionately smack bishop Peter Scolari with facts, which maybe last episode introduced but this episode it becomes a thing Colter comments on… it’s awesome. And it’s not even where “Evil” hints at potential achievement this episode. There’s very awkward team bonding for Colter, Herbers, and Aasif Mandvi—they’re all keeping secrets from each other, some more important than others–but they all still want to work together. But then there’s also Michael Emerson’s character taking it up a notch, particularly with fiancée Christine Lahti, and all sorts of reveals and promises for future action.

Engaging, interesting future action.

Maybe the move to Paramount+ and the freedom to CGI in the word “fuck” is what the show needed. Though—and it just occurred to me—they’re going to be able to get away with a lot more truthful presentation of the Catholic Church on streaming than they would on network.

But, no, can’t get too excited. There are still big problems—though John Dahl’s direction won me over by the end of the episode; I was very critical for the first act, but he finds a real rhythm with the actors. It hasn’t felt so much like Colter’s show since… probably ever.

It’ll take a lot to get the ship righted and unless there’s a big committed shift it’s not going to happen, but it’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed “Evil” this much. And if the character developments stick—particularly with Lahti and Emerson—the show’s going to get a lot more entertaining.

Real good supporting performances this episode too; Jessie Mueller as the new cop (the one from last season isn’t coming back apparently) who gives Herbers grief, then Joniece Abbott-Pratt and Hampton Fluker as the case for the episode—he thinks he’s possessed by an angel, she’s the concerned then endangered wife.

Also—Andrea Martin. She’s apparently joining the cast as an acerbic nun who counsels Colter and she’s a delight.

I mean, maybe it’s got a chance. Maybe’s very good for “Evil.”

Evil (2019) s02e01 – N is for Night Terrors

“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 up right where we left off, with lead Katja Herbers being very suspicious after serial killer nemesis Darren Pettie ends up dead. We get some very quick resolution on whether she did it or not, with Herbers more concerned about getting a rash from a rosary when talking to her sometimes boss and also therapist Kurt Fuller. I forgot how much I like Fuller on this show. He just has a good time. Effortlessly.

When Michael Emerson is having a good time camping it up, it’s not effortless. They try really hard to make Emerson a notable villain; the A plot this episode has Catholic boss Peter Scolari wanting Herbers, Mike Colter (who’s got zip to do this episode), and Aasif Mandvi (who gets more but not really) to evaluate Emerson for an exorcism. Seems Emerson has been donating big time to the Catholic Church—again, “Evil” has a problem with itself. Not to mention having now moved to Paramount+—sorry, CBS having decided to move it to Paramount+—it’s now a show for people who wish Rona doesn’t exist, the Catholic Church is the good guys, and who pay for Paramount+. Fragile white Democrats?

There’s even an f-bomb from Herbers at one point and I swear it was looped in because they can do it now (all of the season, presumably, filmed thinking they’d go on TV not streaming—the commercial fade outs are annoying now and are just going to get worse as it goes along).

So the team decides they’re going to play with Emerson to see what he’s going to lie about because they’ll still learn stuff about him. Or he’ll just get into their heads and infect Mandvi with a dream sex demon dominatrix (possibly played by “Legends of Tomorrow”’s Hawkgirl, Ciara Renée), which is kind of amusing until they do a “is Mandvi dreaming or not” with the subplot for the cliffhanger.

Herbers should have a tough episode and doesn’t because the show doesn’t want to really get too tough. Mandvi’s good. Colter’s present. Scolari’s a really shitty dude (not sure if it’s intentional, but the character’s definitely a shitty dude and Scolari’s definitely good at being a shitty dude). And Emerson’s… much better than his worst on the show.

It’s a somewhat easy start to the season—one of Herbers’s likable but interchangeable kids grows vampire molars and gives some decent Martin vibes—but it’s, you know, fine. Especially for “Evil.”

With all the standard “Evil” asterisks, of course.

Evil (2019) s01e13 – Book 27

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 finale.

There’s a lot but also not a lot. Christine Lahti is back for the first time in a while, not always wearing red and, when she is wearing red, it’s not particularly symbolic. (The first episode established red was the devil’s color or something). She’s Michael Emerson’s unwitting stooge, which is insult to injury given her entire romance with Emerson is absurd. Lahti could do infinitely better.

The mystery of the week this episode involves a pregnant woman convinced one of the twins she’s carrying is possessed. The show throws its blue voters a bone when Mike Colter wonders how the Church can oppose abortion when it also says the unborn can’t be possessed because, I don’t know, they don’t have souls yet or something. The show immediately walks it back—kind of double-timing it by having Muslim turned atheist Aasif Mandvi come up with the solution. It’s a stupid solution, but the show’s given up that conversation. Which is fine; once you normalize Baphomet—through CGI—anything goes.

There are also a couple reveals for the show’s mythology, setting the course for season two, which will have the Catholic Church versus fertility clinics; definitely seems like a conversation best suited for mainstream CBS fare. Here’s where I’d eye-roll emoji in a tweet.

There’s a good scene with Mike Colter and Katja Herbers for the first time since winter hiatus. He’s questioning his faith, she’s supportive, he’s hot, she’s holding his hand too long. She’s wearing her cool leather dress outfit—this episode brings it with some of the costuming choices, with Colter starting out dressed like Shaft.

The show’s got its frequent annoyances, like when someone at a New York City fertility clinic tells Colter and Mandvi they might recognize some of the babies in their promos because there are “many from the area.” Over eight million people in New York City, so of course they’re going to be recognizable. Again, “Evil” is eye-roll emoji levels of dumb.

But Herbers, Colter, Mandvi… are they worth coming back for? Insert shrug emoji here.

You know who doesn’t think it’s worth coming back for? Any of the guest-starring priests. The show’s gone through a revolving door of guest-starring priests; not sure if they’ve hit twelve yet (ProPublica discovered, statistically speaking, one in twelve Catholic priests in the United States has been credibly accused of sexual abuse or misconduct—by the Catholic Church, so you know it’s more, so ew). The guy this episode is stunningly bad. So bad I’m not even going to bother digging up his name.

With all the reveals and twists this episode… “Evil” has gotten to late seventies horror thriller levels of silly but never late seventies horror thriller levels of fun. “Evil” is silly and slight. I think I get to stop watching it now?

Evil (2019) s01e12 – Justice x 2

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 woman who tracks him down twenty-five years later to exact her revenge. It wouldn’t be so weird if the show didn’t turn it into a commentary on 2019 America, with phrases like “punching up” thrown around. There are optics to it. And to the way the episode does exposition about the Rwandan genocide. It’s not even a lukewarm take because the show’s not actually controversial (just manipulative) and it wastes Akinnagbe and Corinealdi in what ought to be an easy to do, albeit exploitative, tense talking heads standoff. She’s got him taped to a chair in a basement, after all; it’s not like there aren’t movies to guide the writers.

The show’s big addition? Mike Colter tied up in the room too; he went to see Corinealdi because she called the Catholic Church to report… her walls telling her to avenge herself upon Akinnagbe. It’s not a good main plot, but the episode doesn’t really have strong subplots either. Katja Herbers is standing off with Michael Emerson in court, with the bad guy from the pilot back. We get some big reveals on Emerson, but then the show’s got its biggest “reveal” at the end when—spoiler but because one must—Emerson’s having his therapy session with Baphomet. Not a bad Baphomet as far as network TV goes. But if Baphomet’s imaginary, it’s just stupid and if Baphomet’s not imaginary, it’s going to have to get stupider in a different way. Just because Baphomet can look good on TV in 2020 doesn’t mean he should.

Though Emerson fits the sad old posturing incel a lot better than the seventies Bond villain with kinks for religious symbolism and too many sweaters. Will he get less tiresome? Will the family get less tiresome as dad Patrick Brammall, now getting subplots instead of Aasif Mandvi, goes away for a bit then comes back, having now been the real parent when the sick kid needs an emergency procedure to add some child in danger drama and working mom Herbers isn’t taking the call. No. No, they’ll be even more tiresome.

Then there’s Brammall’s whole Buddhist subplot where the show equates him meditating to Herbers getting back with the child rapists at the Church. Religious pluralism, big shrug. He gets some ominous foreshadowing this episode too. Not just with the possibly dying child and Herbers not having told him any information about the possible medical procedures because she’s too hot for Colter to remember.

Also a religious judges are going to be the literal death of us all moment.

It’s amazing with all the stuff “Evil” has got and has had going on they’ve never actually delivered. I’m surprised they wasted Gbenga Akinnagbe, but I really shouldn’t have been.

Evil (2019) s01e11 – Room 320

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… not affecting. It’s all connected in “Evil” just gets an eye-roll because it’s so contrived. Terrorizing its viewers about technology and the possible demonic influence—blah.

But Colter trapped in a hospital bed where a racist nurse (Tara Summers) is apparently killing off all the Black patients? Effective. Affecting. Even though Peter Sollet’s horror direction is lousy and the episode’s never as scary as it ought to be. It’s always manipulating, which just happens to work out because Summers is so unstoppably evil (because her white colleagues don’t care about the Black patients enough to check on them) and Colter’s so sympathetic.

There’s also a reveal on the pre-history of the show, with Herbers just now finding out she’s not Colter’s first psychiatrist sidekick. Previously he had Megan Ketch, who has longer hair than Herbers and no kids (or husband) but otherwise looks the same. No explanation of why no one mentioned Ketch’s existence to Herbers before—it’s almost like Mandvi didn’t work as steadily with Colter before Herbers came along either. Ketch teams up with them to try to catch the bad guy. The one who put Colter in the hospital, not the bad guy in the hospital.

There are all sorts of question marks and plot holes due to Colter being constantly overprescribed painkillers and unable to discern what’s real and what’s not. It’s also not clear if he’s in a Catholic hospital… seems like… no. But then yes. But then no. I guess it doesn’t end up mattering given the conclusion, which is in the open-minded “Evil” so we can find out later on Summers was really inspired by Michael Emerson (blissfully not present this episode) to kill her Black patients and get away with it because the hospital doesn’t notice all of her Black patients dying on a daily basis when in the hospital for routine things.

Maybe the scariest thing about “Evil” is how reasonable it seems Summers could get away with it.

Is it a good forty-two minutes of television… no. But it’s an effective forty-two minutes of television, which is something given how silly it gets when it’s trying to be scary.

Evil (2019) s01e10 – 7 Swans a Singin’

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 feels like “Evil” is a pasture to be put out to. Though O’Bannon feels like he gets how to do an “Evil,” he knows just what contemporary middle class fears to exploit. Kids, obviously. The episode’s about a Catholic girls school where everyone spontaneously starts humming the same song from an inappropriately crude Christmas cartoon on YouTube.

But the actual fear is of YouTube influencers, particularly the make-up ones. Taylor Louderman plays the influencer, who ties into the Michael Emerson plot, natch, and she’s terrible. Also the show using Emerson as the occasional bad guy in his office sending out evil into the world isn’t working. It’s not like Emerson ever wasn’t silly, but he’s even more silly in his crappy little office engineering the downfall of western civilization. Or talking dirty with girlfriend Christine Lahti on the phone.

Lahti’s going to be all “Evil” at some point, as she starts manipulating her granddaughters this episode. While wearing red!

While Mike Colter, Katja Herbers, and Aasif Mandvi investigate the school and the humming, Colter has also got to deal with someone sending him pictures of his transgression with dead fiancée’s sister Renée Elise Goldsberry (who went from being featured guest star to third tier subplot) and Herbers has her home nonsense going on with the daughters and husband Patrick Brammall. Though Brammall’s growing on me. His performance isn’t getting worse. New Church boss Peter Scolari is just getting worse. And Lahti’s not fun anymore because she’s now just around to act as a constant threat to her granddaughters, who are obnoxious but still kids and the grandmother betrayal thing is really harsh.

Wait, forgot—the Christmas cartoon also tells kids to get stoned, because you should fear YouTube and counter it by… well, it’s unclear. “Evil” tries to terrify its audience with fear of tech but, other than calling the Catholic Church to investigate, has no opinion on alternatives.

There’s an okay cliffhanger? Or at least a surprise one. The episode woefully underuses Mandvi.

Evil (2019) s01e09 – Exorcism Part 2

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 success, “The Good Wife,” playing a character named Renée, and giving a terrible performance) as a super-sexy woman from Mike Colter’s past who’s going to coerce him into physical relations or die trying.

When Goldsberry showed up in the first few minutes, after the show established it’s a follow-up on the episode where Colter and Katja Herbers argued over an exorcism but also Michael Emerson’s incel shooter training camp (are all psychologists bad for incels, or just the white men?), I was happy to see her. Any good guest stars would help, especially since incel shooter-in-training Noah Robbins is so bad it’d make more sense if his character were an undercover cop trying to bust Emerson and also Herbers’s decidedly not sexy husband Patrick Brammall is back and, after briefly seeming like he and Herbers might be good together, decidedly is not good with Herbers or anyone else. So, Goldsberry, who’s been not bad in the past but I’m now wondering, was a welcome sight.

Then she started acting.

I mean, the deposition thing is really bad—who wrote all “Good Wife”’s realistic-y lawyer stuff because they ain’t working on “Evil”—where Goldsberry tries to out-lawyer Jennifer Ferrin (who probably ought to find a better agent, like, real talk) while trying to obscure Herbers and Aasif Mandvi being atheists who don’t think Colter should’ve tortured the plaintiff in her exorcism. The best part is how the case resolves because it’s so obviously how poorly thought-out the plotting.

Also Peter Scolari is Colter’s new boss at the Church and he’s terrible.

The big surprise, besides the Catholic Church propaganda (guess who the incel wants to shoot? Good Catholics who don’t abandon the Church because of child rape, isn’t it progressive) and Goldsberry being bad, is Emerson’s ostensible demon. He’s less an evil mastermind and more an incompetent jackass. He has a silly “break stuff in my room” scene like he thinks he’s Kylo Ren, he’s just in his late sixties or whatever. It’s buffoonish. Though I suppose at least it’s not as gross as if “Evil” really is about being Catholic Church propaganda.

Also, also. A correction from an earlier post. Black Catholics are a thing in urban areas and “Evil” supposedly takes place in New York, just a really poorly shot one. They still aren’t in that survey I mentioned and they still seem overrepresented on the show.

Evil (2019) s01e08 – 2 Fathers

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 on TV. The show doesn’t really get into the big stuff of the estrangement, but it appears to be over Colter’s religiosity. Not about Curtis-Hall running a hippie commune with his two wives (I was going to name the actors but there’s no point, they’re immaterial to the episode—the actors’ performances, not the characters… though sort of the characters).

Curtis-Hall is… sort of a guest star. Sort of. I mean, I like Vondie Curtis-Hall but it’s a nothing part; he looks great for seventy too, like they had to make him up to appear older. Colter and Katja Herbers head to the farm to see him because Colter sees Curtis-Hall is using the “Evil” demon sigils in his art. They drop acid, it’s a whole thing. Colter and Curtis-Hall bond over being Black men (sort of); what’s most interesting about that part is it’s more important they bond over being Black men in America than actual demons overrunning the planet.

Herbers just gets messed up and horny for Colter, which is particularly bad because her husband—the other dad in the title—is back.

Patrick Brammall plays the dad. It’s good the show found someone who sucks as bad as the kids to play the father. They really choked on the casting. Also Christine Lahti is tripled down on being the devil’s willing concubine. Kind of hoping she just goes all in on the bad by the end of the season, maybe kill one of the grandkids, who knows. It’d be something.

No Michael Emerson, which is fine. Aasif Mandvi has a romance subplot with returning guest star Nicole Shalhoub, where she reveals she has a really silly woo secret. Kind of hope she’s never back again because “Evil” will just waste her.

“Evil” wastes everyone.

Evil (2019) s01e07 – Vatican III

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 the Scooby Gang (clinical psychiatrist and lapsed Catholic Katja Herbers, true believer, priest-in-training, and hallucinogen abuser Mike Colter, and lapsed Muslim professional skeptic Aasif Mandvi) the location of the bodies and so they sit on that information instead of investigating for themselves, despite having the full power of the Catholic Church at their disposal.

I mean, they can hack into ICE and get surveillance camera footage, which might be international espionage given Vatican City and all, but they can’t take the time to go see if maybe Ashford buried the bodies where she said.

Meanwhile, nebbish Kevin Spacey impersonator and apparent sex god Michael Emerson recruits another disillusioned young white man, this time—through implication—a young white Jewish man—to the incel lifestyle. Noah Robbins goes from getting turned down by his barista to giving her a dead animal to plotting to mass murder women in the span of forty minutes, with a couple “therapy” sessions from Emerson to egg him on.

Now, we’re also finding out Emerson thinks he’s a demon and it’s his job to inspire… incels, basically. And to be a sex god who—unbeknownst to Herbers because, thankfully, her family is off-screen this episode—can make women do whatever he wants. I really hope Christine Lahti gets to play the sex-positive grandma with an appropriately attractive partner after this show. She deserves it. She’s not even in the episode and she’s one of the show’s biggest regrets. Though most of the show is just wishing Herbers, Colter, and Mandvi were on an actually good show and not this “deplorable Catholic men are in the control of wannabe demons” thing.

The politics of the show are still a little hard to discern—the Catholic Church isn’t portrayed bad, just behind the times. Also grossly incompetent (their secret manuscript from 500 years ago somehow has had all its iconography scanned and added to a wikipedia Demonology page. Yet they can hack ICE. Or maybe only because they have lapsed Muslin Mandvi on the payroll, which has optics of its own.

Hey, it’s a CBS show. You just wish it were a better one.