[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Evil Season 3 finale “The Demon of the End.”]
After a couple of insane finale cliffhangers — what else would you expect from Evil? — the wait for Season 4 is going to be long.
Sure, we’re wondering what the future holds now that Leland (Michael Emerson) used Kristen’s (Katja Herbers) missing egg and they’re going to be parents as well as what’s going on at the end there with Andy (Patrick Brammall) and Dr. Boggs (Kurt Fuller) gathering with the demons (and baby) in the under-construction addition to the Bouchard house. But there are also a few other lingering threads at the end of the season. We turned to creators Robert and Michelle King to get answers in addition to their teases about what’s next after those cliffhangers.
What can you say about Season 4? Anything about when it picks up, the threads to keep in mind, a tone?
Robert King: I’m not sure about tone. We have the writers room coming together end of September. What we really like doing is picking up the season right where the earlier season let off, but as you’ll probably see, our daughters are getting older because the actresses are getting — they’re the ones that always push you to try to find a leap in time. It was always interesting that Breaking Bad, so much of it happened in a very limited time, all of the seasons, and then suddenly they decide to do a cut forward to that so much has happened. We’re probably going to have to find a time where that works because our daughters are getting older, but I have a feeling we’ll try to pick up right where we left off tonally.
Michelle King: And also in terms of plot, there’s so many questions, you’d feel like you were leaving good stuff behind if you didn’t explore those answers.
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
Robert: And I would say that tonally, we found a sweet spot in Season 3 of this balance between how much comedy and how much horror you could have in each episode. And we’re getting a lot of the same crew back that does such a great job with creatures, makeup, everything.
After Andy had the flashes of that room, he collapsed. Is it detrimental to him to remember? Should we be worrying that there’s a ticking clock on his life?
Robert: Not necessarily on his life, but you’re exactly right. Some kind of brainwashing has gone on that when he sees an image that breaks through — the image being the one that Grace drew of the room he was stuck in — it kind of comes back. One can imagine that he sees that bumper sticker again — “today is the first day of the rest of your life” — and what will that do to him? What will that bring back? Because I think Andy is a real person struggling to get out through this brainwashed version of himself.
Is the brainwashing why we’re seeing that really weird dynamic between Andy and Sheryl (Christine Lahti)?
Michelle: Yes. That is proof that he’s damaged.
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
Robert: That was what the room grabbed at first. They hate each other so much. So maybe the first tell to Kristen was, “Oh my God, they’re ready to hug and embrace.” There even seems almost something erotic between the two, which is terrifying to Kristen.
That girl Crystal who was talking to Laura (Dalya Knapp) — what’s going on there? Will the thing about breaking the glass specifically come up again or is it more about making Laura do things and getting to the family through someone other than Lexis (Maddy Crocco)?
Robert: That one, the second, because the bottom line is the stranger calls, the scares are coming from within the house now. Evil works best for us when the scares come closer to the homestead because I do think those are the things that terrify us. It’s not something happening in a Gothic castle or some horrifying haunted house. It’s when the haunted house is our house which is most terrifying.
Leland and the monsignor’s blood…
Robert: The masturbating? We’re not saying it’s the best thing in the world… We had felt that Leland, the seasons up to this, had been too funny and the danger of evil wasn’t enough there like it was with the incel the first season. It was kind of starting to seep away how truly evil he is. So the fact that he would kill a monsignor and kind of squeeze out the blood from his clothes into a pot, put it by his bed as if he’s smelling it, as if it’s perfume, and then masturbating seemed like a very horrifying thought.
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
So it’s nothing that we should be thinking about, like with the sigil map and the cannibalism…
Robert: No, although I do think the show tries to invert a lot of the Catholic iconography and philosophy and blood — the drinking of the blood, eating the bread — is so much about Catholicism. I do think Leland’s thoughts are often the reverse of that and turning what is beautiful and transcendent into something very disgusting and Craigslist-y.
Speaking of the sigil map, how will you continue to play that out going forward? At the same pace? Will it be speeding up?
Robert: I don’t think we can answer that.
Michelle: That’s premature.
Robert: The good news about the sigil map is it allows you to play both. I think sometimes we think the pace is good. Sometimes we go, “Oh, you know what? I wish we could move a little faster with connecting the dots.” Because sometimes the episodes are just fun because they’re standalone, other times you want to connect the dots over the course of the season to mean something more.
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
Will Father Ignatius (Wallace Shawn) continue to work with the team?
Michelle: That’s our hope.
Robert: Our hope is we want Wally Shawn. We would write anything for Wally Shawn. So, yes.
What can you say about David’s (Mike Colter) vision at the end there about 38 days?
Robert: Yes. The woe to Babylon is something from Revelation. So clearly there’s something that David is catching onto that will help him next season with this bigger story. The more David gets visions that help them, the way Sister Andrea’s [Andrea Martin] helped, the more he’s in danger, but the more he also possibly can help and save Kristen.
Speaking of Sister Andrea, why did Kristen’s house seem to want her there? And how much will that be part of Season 4?
Robert: We have Sister Andrea back, so a lot, our hope is. We like that Sister Andrea is making a connection with Lynn [Brooklyn Shuck]. But we’re also attracted to the idea of a liberal, secular mom being horrified when one of her children becomes ultra-religious. So I do think it plays on two levels, the comedy of Kristen not wanting Sister Andrea back because she feels her daughter is being co-opted.
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
Michelle: On the one hand, she’s worried that she’s losing one daughter to evil and then now she has to worry about losing another daughter to the sacred. It’s coming at her from both directions.
Robert: One of the things they say to never do when you don’t want to strain your marriage is add an addition. So I do think there’s something evil about this addition, but it may be the evil of the normal of, they’re having plumbing problems, but haunted houses are not all ghosts coming in the attic. Sometimes it’s just the terrifying nature of getting a contractor and waiting on him to build a house.
The pop-up book at the end, going from “The Demon of the End,” the finale title, to “The Angel of the Beginning,” what does it symbolize for the direction of the show going forward? Is that the Season 4 premiere title?
Robert: You ask a very good question. That was our intent, but when the writers room gets together and they bring all their experiences and their insanities together, sometimes you go, no, let’s not do that. Let’s set this on Mars with Elon Musk, creating, whatever, it’s all become something else.
But it was supposed to be that there is something hopeful, that it’s not all a season that is ending with everybody in the s**t. There is some hope there, which we think there is. In fact, the original intent at the end was to have that angel coming out of the pop-up book to say the word “hope,” but that felt a little corny to us. So just the image, we hope, gets this idea that we’re not just ending on the worst thing, we’re ending on some possibility of transcending the evil.
The finale was so entertaining: Leland and Edward (Tim Matheson) singing while dragging Andy, Sister Andrea killing demons…
Robert: That is my favorite place, by the way, is him singing “Kids Today,” with Tim Matheson as they’re trying to drag out a body. [Laughs] You’re right.
Evil, Season 4, TBA, Paramount+
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