Late Showing - EVIL (on Paramount+)
It's cozy!
When you watch an episode of Evil (on Paramount+), as when you watch a show on most streaming services, a small button pops up during the opening credits. “Skip Intro,” it says. But on Evil, there’s a notice next to it: “Skip intro and you will be haunted.”
This little detail is a small indicator of what’s to come as you watch the show. It’s cheeky, clever, and… a little traditional when it comes to television. After all, back in my day, you couldn’t skip the opening credits! Back in my day, the opening credits were worth sitting through!
Really, Evil is only traditional in one way: it’s a show that truly believes in the structure of the TV episode. And in a streaming landscape that is rife with over-stuffed, over-long, over-serious “it’s just a 10-hour movie cut into episodes” shows, Evil’s insistence on structuring its episodes as, well, episodes, feels extremely masterful. It’s a show that, while certainly binge-able, isn’t made to be binged. Watching an episode of Evil is an experience in its own right; an episode of Evil has a beginning, middle, and end, and while it continues the overall storyline, each episode has its own case-of-the-week to ground it.
What are these cases each week? Let me back up. Here’s the show’s premise:
Kristen (Katja Herbers) is a forensic psychologist who, upon being unfairly fired by the Queens DA office, is offered a job by David (Mike Colter), a priest-in-training who works as an assessor for the New York City diocese of the the Catholic Church. David’s job, alongside his technical expert Ben (Aasif Mandvi) and now Kristen, assesses cases of potential possession to see if they require exorcisms. Throughout their cases, they begin to unravel a vast network of demons operating throughout the city (and the world)— and their primary antagonist, Leland (Michael Emerson), appears to be working with them. Not only that, but he’s also Kristen’s professional nemesis and a man obsessed with manipulating and annoying people into committing evil deeds.
Each week’s case provides creative and compelling forays into various hauntings, possessions, and societal issues, and each serves as an interrogation into the faith and doubt of the main characters. Kristen is a lapsed Catholic, now agnostic, who doesn’t have time for faith amidst caring for her four young daughters while her husband leads rock-climbing expeditions in Nepal. Why worry about the beyond when your immediate life is worrying enough? Ben is a staunch Atheist who places his faith in science, while believing that perhaps it was his rejection of Islam that drove his mother to her grave. He thought atheism would give him certainty, but it turns out that science can’t explain everything. Finally, David’s faith in God is steadfast, and he clings to his beliefs with desperation in order to keep his own demons at bay. And while his faith in God is sure, his faith in the church constantly wavers.
Despite their differences, the three characters become friends because they are bound together by their own empathetic natures. Whether they believe a haunting is caused by a demon, a psychological disorder, or a scientific anomaly, the evil they see affects them.
Here is where the show’s wry sense of humor comes in. There’s a gleeful absurdity with how the dark elements of life are handled. Demons in Evil have a cartoonish appearance, as if they’ve jumped out of centuries-old illuminated pages. They’re horned and red-eyed and gross.
And annoying. The minor ones tempt their victims to be selfish and petty. The major ones use social media, cryptocurrency, and modern malaise to convince swaths of people that clout and imagined slights matter more than common humanity. Demons aren’t busy creating serial killers. No, a demon’s most powerful tool is distraction.
In the first season, David teaches Kristen about the various types of possession. There’s demonic possession (the classic), physical pain (possession of the body but not the soul), diabolical possession (“basically, the story of Job”), diabolical infestation (the haunting of an item or house), diabolical subjugation (inviting a demon into your life), and diabolical obsession (constant overwhelming and irrational thoughts). Being me, a certified fan of the Conjuring movies and a devotee of The Exorcist, I love these detailed ins-and-outs, the rituals and procedures, the nitty-gritty of it all.
Overall, however, these distinctions don’t matter. Our team of assessors may debate the various classifications, but at the end of the day, what matters to them is that there is a person suffering and they can help. Possession can be a personal crisis, an illness, an obsession, an irritation, a fear of change. It’s anything that grips you, maintains control, and keeps you from joy and goodness. Their calling may be to exorcise demons, but their mission is to find and help the lost people of the world.
Evil lets the complexities of faith and doubt exist simultaneously, and even revels in the dissonance. The show doesn’t preach so much as it warns its viewers that love is powerful— and that love’s power can be channeled in disparate ways. Kristen, who feels like a lesser mother as she secretly puts a store bought cake onto a plate to pass off as her own, loves her daughters with a ferocity that frightens her. Her desire to protect them leads her to do terrible things. David, a sensual man who experiences visions of golden splendor, is unsure how to balance the immense love he has to give with his impending vow of chastity— is being a priest really a more moral choice than loving someone, than having a family? Can love go too far?
Amidst all of this, I don’t want to lose sight of one important thing: Evil is FUN. The characters are people you look forward to spending time with. They’re funny and flawed and real and would be great company over a burger and beer. The aesthetic of the show is earthy and autumnal, full of thick sweaters and worn leather and rich wood. The warm glow of its gorgeous, often candlelit interiors makes the show particularly distinct from the prevailing dark, gray look of serious television. The stories are populated with a fantastic group of supporting characters, played by beloved character actors like Kurt Fuller, Andrea Martin, and Wallace Shawn. And lest you forget what your originally came for, there’s drooling demons and strawberry-jam blood-and-guts to satisfy that horror itch. Evil is goofy and weird and delightful. Overall… it’s cozy!
There is so much— perhaps too much— television you could be watching these days, so I understand that it’s often hard to pick and choose which shows you’ll take part in. But I would advocate that you make some time— and maybe even do that 30-day trial of Paramount+— for Evil. Skip it, and you will be haunted.