Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Evil’ Season 4 On Paramount+, Where Kristen, David And Ben Might Just Be Trying To Prevent The End Of The World

It’s been almost two years since the eventful finale of the third season of Evil, which looks like it is setting up a pretty epic battle between the forces of good and evil that have been circling each other throughout the series. But, as any fan of Michelle and Robert King’s shows can attest to, even when epic things are going on, they still allow a lot of room for humor and character development. That is certainly something we see in the show’s new, final season.

EVIL SEASON 4: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We see Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) turn a corner and walk towards the camera in slow motion, disbelief on her face.

The Gist: She’s in disbelief because Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson) is not only being congratulated for his announcement that he’s going to have a baby, but he’s saying to Kristen that they’re having the baby together. This means that somehow the egg of Kristen’s that went missing ended up with Leland. As he tries to tell her that this child will be the antichrist, the mother of four seems to revel in the idea of Leland changing diapers and feeding an infant at 4 in the morning.

The other thing that leaves her in disbelief is that her mother Sheryl (Christine Lahti) is working with Leland. She tries to say that she only took the job after Kristen’s husband Andy (Patrick Brammall) threw her out of the Bouchards’ house. But Kristen doesn’t want to hear it; as far as she’s concerned, her mother is out of her and her family’s lives.

Despite Kristen’s recent shunning of all things religious and spiritual, she’s still working for the Catholic church, teaming with Father David Acosta (Mike Colter) and Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi) to investigate claims of demons and possession. Father Ignatius (Wallace Shawn) tells them that local parishes near a particle accelerator on Long Island are protesting that the atom-splitting installation will open a portal to hell.

David is still haunted by not only the sexy Kristen demon that belies the feelings he has for her that are just under the surface, but by the saint in his other visions telling him “38 days, woe to Babylon.” And as the people running the accelerator try to tell the trio that there’s nothing to see there and that a video showing a sacrifice there was a prank, David knows something is there, and he gets a note from one of the cleaning staff telling him that the team is being lied to.

A priest who is a physics expert, Agostino La Russo (Jeremy Crutchley), is sent by the Vatican to push the investigation along. His concern isn’t demons or a portal to Hell; he feels that the accelerator will open up a succession of tiny black holes that will engulf the planet. Ben, who is also familiar with what the accelerator does, doesn’t think so. But when the trio goes back to look into what the cleaning guy told them about, something happens to Ben that makes him see things his scientific mind can’t explain.

In the meantime, Andy is ordered back to Leland’s lair to get some subliminal messages from both Leland and Sheryl, which leads him to confront David about what he might be doing with Kristen.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? We’ll make the same assertion about Evil that we did before its third season: It’s a spiritual cousin (pun intended) of The X-Files.

Our Take: During the run of Evil, Michelle and Robert King have pretty much nailed the balance between the show’s demon-of-the-week stories and its overall mythology, in ways that even the aforementioned X-Files did not. And in the show’s extended final season, it does feel like they’re going to start tying all of the show’s various story arcs together. Even the demon-of-the-week stories have some relevance to the overall story.

Despite the scope of this final season, though, the show is still accessible to fans and non-fans. Would you want to jump into this show at the beginning of its final season without watching the first three? Probably not. But if you do, the demon-of-the-week stories will still draw you in, even if you’re not sure what’s going on with the continuing story.

It also has its sense of humor intact, showing the Kings’ rare ability to effectively mix funny moments in with the creepy and scary. It helps that the world around Kristen, David and Ben is so well-established, with even Kristen’s four daughters an integral part of the overall arc. For instance, oldest daughter Lexis (Maddy Crocco) goes to Sister Andrea (Andrea Martin) because, despite her mother’s insistence that they’re done with the church, she still wants to be a nun. And Dr. Boggs (Kurt Fuller) is seeking the nun’s assistance with the demons he sees.

In other words, the Kings and their writers are doing a good job of keeping everyone in the mix, with the pending half-demon child that Leland is going to have using Kristen’s egg being the threat that will hang over the entire season.

Sex and Skin: Part of Kristen’s new sense of abandon is to have some wild kitchen sex with Andy. It’s certainly a scene we wouldn’t have seen during the show’s CBS days.

Parting Shot: After David talks about “38 days, woe to Babylon,” Kristen informs David and Ben that she’s having a baby… in 38 days.

Sleeper Star: As evidence that the Kings like to recast people in different projects, Carra Patterson, who is one of the co-stars of the Kings’ series Elsbeth, plays the scientist in charge of the particle accelerator.

Most Pilot-y Line: “Why is a priest fucking your wife?” is how Leland decides to put the idea about David and Kristen in Andy’s head. The more he says it, the more annoying it is.

Our Call: STREAM IT. If the first episode is any indication, the final season of Evil is going to culminate in an epic confrontation between good and evil. But what we’re looking forward to the most is the fun that the Kings are going to have on the way to that confrontation.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.