[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Evil Season 3 finale “The Demon of the End.”]
Robert and Michelle King delivered exactly what we expected to bring the third season of Evil to a close: an insane, chilling, thrilling finale.
A quick recap of the two wildest moments: Kristen (Katja Herbers) found out that Leland (Michael Emerson) used her missing egg and they’re going to be parents?! Also, after thinking her husband was dead, Andy (Patrick Brammall) came home, thinking Edward’s (Tim Matheson) cover story (an avalanche) is what really happened, but having flashes of the room where Leland and Sheryl (Christine Lahti) were holding him — and he and Dr. Boggs (Kurt Fuller) joined a group of demons around a demon baby in the addition to the Bouchard house.
Below, the Kings break down the Season 3 finale.
So much about that ending was so chilling! Starting with Leland and Kristen’s baby?! Is his plan for it the same that he had for Lexis (Maddy Crocco)? Does this mean his focus is completely turned away from Lexis now?
Robert King: No. This idea of an ambassador is still in the works for Lexis, a sort of John the Baptist, if this were Christian mythology, so someone who makes way. We’re in Rosemary’s Baby territory, obviously, but in this case, there is someone who lays the groundwork.
What can you say about that baby?
Michelle King: It’s coming.
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
Robert: The end of the series is always about what is the most horrifying thing that you can throw at the characters. And first season was not only Kristen kills someone, but does this mean that she’s evil? Then over the course of the season, you’re trying to correct, you’re trying to find some equilibrium again. So what I would suggest is that we’re putting Kristen through her paces, really making for a horrifying situation and then finding how, Nietzsche-wise, does it make her stronger? What does she do with it?
Michelle: And whom does she talk to about it, if anyone?
Because she had mixed feelings about the child that resulted from her egg already before finding out Leland is involved, can she have any positive feelings about it whatsoever?
Michelle: I think even if she decides “I absolutely loathe everything about this,” there’s gonna be a part of her saying, “but only half of it is demonic.”
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
Robert: Yeah. The nightmare she has about the baby in the kitchen — the horrifying baby that she picks up the pacifier and kind of motherly rinses it off. And then it was Katja’s touch to have her actually nurse it with the director, Aisha Tyler. I do think that kind of mothering instinct kind of kicks in. In many ways, it’s what happens next in Rosemary’s Baby? Because what does happen next? Not that anyone wants to make a sequel to that, but how does the mothering instinct kick in, in something that you find truly horrifying?
Whatever’s going on with Andy and Boggs — whose storyline this season I loved, though I thought he was crazy for going to Leland … Will Boggs be a more willing participant than Andy going forward as it seems or might that change?
Robert: I think any writer who suffered through writer’s block will do anything — sell their soul, worship the devil — so Boggs is in this awkward position of, he is getting finally recognition for some writing, even if it’s from a nine-year-old, but it’s gonna be very difficult for him to pull himself away from that. Because Sister Andrea [Andrea Martin] can’t offer a contract, Sister Andrea can’t offer attention. So I do think in many ways, Boggs — and I agree with you, Kurt Fuller did a great job this year —
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
Michelle: Isn’t he funny?
Robert: — is a satire of that writerly instinct, of what you will give up to get around the pains of writing. And then I think Andy is another issue because how much is Andy being brainwashed coming out of that and how much can he break away from? Because when he sees that picture that Grace drew, he seems to kind of come to himself and go, “I wasn’t in an avalanche. This picture means something to me.” How much can he struggle his way to knowledge? As opposed to, I think Boggs is struggling with the devil tempting.
Michelle: I think what’s gonna be interesting for Kristen next season is she’s been put in a place where she has no one to trust. She doesn’t feel she can trust her husband. She never trusted Leland. She can’t trust her therapist. She can’t trust her mother. Everywhere she’s turning, there’s betrayal or the potential for betrayal. That’s a really rough place for a character to be emotionally.
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
She has Ben [Aasif Mandvi], though. I love their friendship.
Michelle: I love their friendship, too.
Robert: Isn’t it nice?
Michelle: So it’ll be interesting to see, but anything she would choose to tell him, he’s gonna be skeptical of. So how valuable will that be? It’s interesting for her.
Robert: You’re right about Ben and what’s interesting about Ben is, is there ever a secular way out of what seems to be a supernatural problem? I think Ben would say yes, science can always find a way around anything. So you’re right about Ben. He’s gonna be essential next year,
What can you say about what’s going on with those demons in that addition to the house?
Michelle: It’s not good.
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
Robert: To us, it was like playing off the manger Christian scene. So this is the perverse version of it, and then Boggs coming up and saying, “it’s beautiful, isn’t it?” It’s just this creepy version of an inverted Christianity. This was the baby that she saw in her dream and now it’s being born. It’s very much like the Yeats — Oh my God, we sound pretentious — but second coming, is there a demon slouching off towards Bethlehem to be born?
Kristen showing up at the end there — Christine has said Sheryl wants to take Leland down, so how does this mess up her plans?
Michelle: I think Sheryl does not always want to take Leland down. I think there are moments when she finds power in conspiring with him. So I think there’s an ambivalence there.
Robert: Yeah. Sheryl is basically adjusting for the fact that women in her life have been so put upon and downtrodden that she’s using the power even of evil to bring out what’s best in women, what’s best in herself, reaching for power, and competing with him. And then if she can find a way to bring him down, she will, but she also wants to use him as much as she can.
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
David (Mike Colter) hung up the mosquito net, but is this the end of Demon Kristen?
Robert: No. She’s too good of a character and Katja’s so good at it.
So good.
Robert: And it’s a way to get at the psychological thoughts he has about her. That, I thought, was one of the most fun additions this year, because it didn’t take any visual effects. It just was Katja playing a different side of her character.
Michelle: It’s a tour de force.
Robert: It’s a great thing when you find an acting way around what is a budgetary problem, too, which is you start running out of money for these visual effects and for demons, but Katja suddenly changing character — and I love the way that she goes from a sexual being to still playing the sex, but more Christian school girl sex, which is, I think, even more psychologically terrifying.
What does that mean for his feelings for Kristen? Now the two Kristens are bleeding into each other because he thought that it was the demon in that scene, which was so good.
Michelle: I think he’s just been extremely destabilized this last season. First of all, Kristen, whom he truly cares about, is coming at him in demon form and then the church that he has vowed his life to, they’re asking him to do all sorts of espionage things that he has questions about whether that’s ethical. I don’t know that he’s entirely sure where to turn at this moment.
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
Robert: Yes. But I really love what you’re saying that the two sort of melded together for a minute there. And he was like, oh my God. it’s Mrs. Doubtfire having to go to the bathroom and change and come back in and again. How much is it doppelganger hell?
Looking at it from Kristen’s side because Kristen and David had that conversation about how much they care for each other, but then she is genuinely happy to have Andy home and she thought he was dead, so right now, if she had to choose between the two, what would she do?
Robert: That’s a good question.
Michelle: And I have an answer for it.
Robert: I’d love to hear it.
Michelle: She would tell herself that she had chosen Andy and then the next time she saw David, she’d be just as attracted to him and just as ready to forget that she was married.
Robert: It’s the dangers of leaving home. Absence has made not the heart grow fonder, absence has made his wife turn to a priest and want to f**k a priest. The bottom line is their marriage isn’t in very good shape. So it will be to see how Andy, even almost a sleepwalking Andy, tries to bring things back together.
Evil, Season 4, TBA, Paramount+
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