Evil (2019) s02e06 – C Is for Cop

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 it’s an awkwardly shot scene, with Mandvi trying to talk to Colter about his newfound potential spiritualism without, like, acknowledging he’s starting to believe in the supernatural. Because of his night terrors. Ron Underwood (Tremors, Pluto Nash) is the director, and I was paying attention to his horror chops, but this one particular conversation flops.

And ends up being Colter’s most significant contribution to the episode outside being perturbed boss Peter Scolari wants him to cosign on a white cop killing a Black lady. The A plot is Katja Herbers dealing with the ghost of serial killer Darren Pettie and telling daughter Maddy Crocco to lie for her. Crocco’s the only daughter who appears in this episode and, just like with the last one, seems entirely new to the show despite having been on since the start. “Evil” has done a lousy job defining the daughters solo. Outside a lengthy walk and talk with “Extreme Law & Order” producer Fredric Lehne about mystery tattoos, there’s not much to the killer cop arc. It’s engaging, sure, but because it’s about shitty white people defending killer cops and Herbers trying to be an ally to men of color Mandvi and Colter, but… I mean, she’s still a white lady.

With a cop friend, Kristen Connolly.

Connolly might give the episode’s best acting as it turns in the screws on how her kind of corrupt cop works.

Mandvi’s subplot involves trying to go Dream Warriors on his night terror (voiced by Ciara Renée, suited by Ashley Edner). Renée’s latest tactic is bringing up Mandvi’s previously unknown backstory, which includes genetic engineering gone wrong. Genetic engineering was one of the first season plotlines, and they’ve ignored it so far this season, so maybe they’re bringing it back. Though Mandvi seems somewhat resolved with it after he consults with Colter.

Christine Lahti also seems to have one heck of a character arc brewing—she terrifies Crocco because she’s practicing hipster voodoo—which ought to be fun.

Herbers is outstanding in her arc—Underwood does direct the hell out of it (as much as one can do a done-in-one TV gig)—but it’s just character building. Character building is fine, obviously; it’s just a cop-out of a significant subplot.

It’s a good episode, but it’s one of those “good episodes for ‘Evil’” situations. And, wow, is Scolari good as the piece of shit priest boss. Though I can never tell if he’s in on the joke.

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) 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.