[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Evil Season 4 Episode 10 “How to Survive a Storm.”]
Imagine if this was how Evil ended. Now that would be the scariest thing ever about the show if that had been the case. Fortunately, there are four more bonus episodes to wrap it up.
But first, a lot happens, including a major death, a big revelation about Leland (Michael Emerson), one shock after another for Kristen (Katja Herbers), and a scene that features drama, comedy, and horror all rolled up in one for what is a perfect example of what Evil does so well (and why, frankly, it deserves at least another few seasons).
Read on for insights from Herbers, Aasif Mandvi, Emerson, Christine Lahti, and Kurt Fuller. And be sure to watch the full video interview with Emerson above for more.
Sheryl’s Death
Sheryl (Lahti) tries to take out Leland, by drugging one of his jars. However, what she doesn’t count on is his demonic backup; after she is knocked unconscious, he’s told to take care of her. She ends up in the hospital, following a fall from a fourth-floor balcony. All they can do for her is make her comfortable. She sees her granddaughters one last time and accepts last rites from David (Mike Colter) as Kristen watches, crying. (Read what Lahti had to say about her death and more here.)
Elizabeth Fisher / Paramount+
Leland was prepared for Sheryl to make that move against him, given what she learned about his attempt to kill her granddaughter, and he knew that he would have to kill her first. “I think she was causing too much trouble now, and he runs with a crowd that’s pretty unforgiving and fairly merciless, and he has bosses that he has to answer to. So I think this was it,” Emerson tells TV Insider. “His time of wavering or trying to pick the right moment or nurse it along or make more use of her, that was over.”
Kristen and her mother’s relationship has been strained, and Sheryl has been trying to get back in her daughter’s good graces. Kristen’s feelings about her mother’s death are “hugely complicated,” says Herbers. But despite everything that’s happened and what Kristen (as a non-believer) thought was going on with Sheryl, “it’s still your mother. You still lose the person who put you on this earth. And I know that Kristen also has good memories with her.”
That being said, in Herbers’ mind, Kristen has “done a lot of her grief around Sheryl because I think she’s had to say goodbye to her over the seasons slowly.” She explains, “She kept making choices away from her family and putting my girls in danger, which I think is just the absolute worst thing that my mom could have done. And then to give Leland my egg—I don’t even know where to start. So I think she said goodbye to her mother in whatever form her mom was her mom before all that happened. I think she’s now dealing with somebody who’s severely mentally ill and who has done the most terrible things to her and who she still has a memory of whatever her mom was before that, but her mom had already passed.”
Leland’s ArrestWhile Leland thwarts Sheryl’s attempt to kill him, she does leave behind one last surprise for him, in the form of a video she has Dr. Boggs (Fuller) deliver to Kristen, showing off the backroom where Leland drained victims, including Andy (Patrick Brammall). Because of that, Leland is arrested. So was he planning for that?“He has friends in place,” according to Emerson. “The plan, like most of his plans, is going to be an improvisation based on his assumptions about who he can call and who can help him.”Elizabeth Fisher / Paramount+Will Kristen Be Raising 5 Kids Now?With Leland arrested, it falls on Kristen as the biological mother, as she learns, to figure out what will become of Timothy: Will she take him in?Kristen’s reaction to that at the end of the episode is “almost hilarity,” says Herbers. “At the end of Season 3, when she found out that she was having a child with Leland, she had two choices: either just go completely insane and sort of, in that way, be defeated by this, or try to laugh it off and just think people are just insane. And I think this season, you’ve seen her be as light and as normal as possible whenever she could. … She just thinks she needs to be grounded and normal and tries to do that even though everything around her is insane. And her being asked to take custody of this baby is just the next thing of insanity in her life. I chose to play it like it was almost funny.”So will she take in baby Timothy? After all, she doesn’t believe he’s the Antichrist, and as Herbers points out, so much of what we’ve seen of Kristen throughout Evil is her “being a real mother, a mama bear.” She says that staying away from the baby, while a rational choice, has also been “hard” for Kristen. “I think the cards point in a certain direction.”One person who’s certainly happy about how this is playing out is Leland, because, “to a certain extent, his master plan has come to fruition,” says Emerson. “It must tickle him, the irony of it, the trouble it causes her.”Leland’s Backstory, RevealedDavid, after a season of remote viewing, does the same to Leland in this episode—only for Leland to turn it back on him. What saves David when Leland’s trying to force him to stab himself in the chest is Ben (Mandvi) backing up the sewage line in his new house (next door to Kristen!). Later, he plays marching band music over the sound system in Leland’s house to remind him of his past as Jake the Flake. In a season where Ben has started to question how much he can use science to explain what’s happening to him, Mandvi agrees it was satisfying for him to fall back on “the old Ben.”RelatedWill ‘Evil’ Be Saved? Stars Say It Should Be a ‘No-Brainer’“It’s a little bit of Ben using science and figuring out how to get Leland using practical things. It’s a little bit of Ben grounding himself back in that world of like, ‘Oh, I can fix this. I can do a practical thing that is going to cause a result,’” Mandvi shares. “So when he uses the music to get at Leland and all that stuff, I think it’s just him putting pieces together, which is sort of the old scientific Ben, but it is satisfying to be able to use the tools that he knows.”And Emerson isn’t sure that Leland would have wanted to kill David then. “I’m not sure if that was the moment he would choose to eliminate his seeming number one rival. I think he would’ve wanted that moment to be a little more ceremonious and more staged, more public,” admits the star.So how was Leland able to take control of David like he did? It turns out that Leland once trained to be a priest and wanted to be a friend of the Vatican. If that surprised you, you’re not the only one.“That was news to me, but it’s a good backstory, and it explains some things,” says Emerson. “It explains his bitterness, his grievance, his singling out of the Catholic church as the thing he most wants to mock and spoil and bring down.” After all, he points out, “Who are the worst devils? The fallen angels—Lucifer, Leland.”
Herbers found that reveal to be “mind-blowing” but agrees that it “explains some of his fascination with the church. … I really love that storyline. I really find it very interesting, that remote viewing that David and Leland are able to do inside each other and how that changes both of them.”
The Quintessential Evil Scene
Before Sheryl goes to Leland’s, she returns to her office and drafts online posts about his death. Leland, upon hearing about this, makes a call and sends someone to go there immediately. And so when Boggs shows up (Kristen called, worried, he says), of course, Sheryl is suspicious. But he doesn’t have a fastener at the back of his neck where the demon’s skin connects, so he’s cleared. He worries she’s mixing pain meds … but then a demonic henchman shows up and removes his skin suit. The demon chases them across Sheryl’s office—she and Boggs climb up to the floor above from which the men used to watch her through the low glass ceiling—but the skin suit gets caught around his ankles. It’s quintessential Evil: a mix of drama, comedy, and horror.
Elizabeth Fisher / Paramount+
“That was one of my most fun scenes,” Lahti recalls, adding that they had to hold off on filming it until after the strike. “I just loved it. To me, that is the biggest appeal of this show, is the thin line between horror and comedy. And that scene, you’re right, is the epitome of the Kings’ genius that they really tread that thin line. And I just find it so original and funny and scary and compelling, and I don’t know any other show that does that.”
Fuller echoes that sentiment. “Usually in my career, I’ve probably done 60 percent comedy and 40 percent drama. And one of the things I love about Evil is the way they just amazingly combine comedy, drama, and horror in even the same scene, and that scene in [Episode] 10 is a perfect example. It’s got real life and death danger, it’s got Sheryl falling apart, and it’s got basically Charlie Chaplin slapstick with a demon, and I don’t know any other show that could do that and do all three of them so well, and that to me is the quintessential mixture,” he raves. “If you ever wanted to show what Evil does so well, I would show that scene because when I read it, I thought, this is not going to work. There is no way. There was also comedy in trying to climb up onto the other [floor].”
He continues, “This is my 10th series. None of them have come close to just combining so many different genres and doing it as seamlessly as Evil. So I don’t know how they do it, but they do.”
Boggs then tries to come up with a scientific explanation for what he saw. But does any part of him think it was really a demon? He can’t allow himself to, according to Fuller.
“I think he won’t let himself believe that, but I think he’s extremely afraid that that’s the case. I think that in his subconscious, he definitely feels like he saw one, but Boggs’ conscious mind and his sort of Ivy League training and education usually take primacy over anything that he’s afraid of,” he explains. “And I just think he won’t let himself accept that, even though, how can you not believe your eyes? I don’t know how he doesn’t, but he doesn’t. He’s desperate for his sort of therapeutic training—it’s his life—and his world would be so rocked. I don’t think he could continue if he thought that these things were real, because then you wouldn’t need a therapist, you’d need a priest. And he’s a therapist.”
Boggs has done some questionable things over the years, and we can’t forget how Season 3 ended with him in the addition of Bouchard house with the demons and the baby. So should we be wondering if we can trust Boggs or if he might have gone to Sheryl’s office off Leland’s orders?
“Boggs is normal. He has no subtext or nefarious thoughts unless he’s been triggered, and he’s usually triggered by Leland or by seeing a demon or the demon when he writes. He has made questionable decisions. Even Boggs as just a normal therapist over-prescribes medication. He’s very desperate to be famous and basically will sell people out to be famous and for his book to do well. He’s got some real character flaws, but deep down inside, he’s doing the best he can,” says Fuller. “And I think he’s gone to see Sheryl because Kristen asked him to and he cares about her. She was a patient. In my opinion, no subterfuge about that. I think that’s just him straight trying to help. But it’s sort of like anybody who gets involved with those three and what they’re doing with the church, they get caught up in it. I mean, you just can’t help it. There’s just trouble everywhere.”
What did you think of all the surprises and twists in this episode? Let us know in the comments section, below.
Evil, Thursdays, Paramount+
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