‘Evil’: Katja Herbers Talks Kristen & David’s ‘Soul Connection and Attraction’

It seems like there can’t be a truly happily ever after for Kristen (Katja Herbers) and David (Mike Colter)—she’s married, he’s a priest—on Evil, but with the show coming to an end with just the four bonus episodes left, might there be a solution somehow that makes everyone happy?

After all, yes, Kristen is married, but she is once again raising the four girls by herself; her husband Andy (Patrick Brammall), due to what Leland (Michael Emerson) and Sheryl (Christine Lahti) have done to him, is in a psychiatric hospital. And while Sheryl, before her death, did clue Kristen in on what Leland was doing in that back room in his apartment—which then led to his arrest—she doesn’t know that her husband was one of the victims.

Right now, Kristen is “compartmentalizing a lot just to be able to function,” raising four children and doing her job, Herbers admits to TV Insider. “[With] Andy being gone, I think she’s trying. They’ve been apart so much, and so she’s used to being a single parent. I mean, she’s basically been a single parent throughout the show with the little increments that he’s been home. I think she’s hoping for the best and hoping that he gets the treatment he needs and also sort of has compartmentalized it in such a way that it doesn’t occupy her all the time.”

Earlier this season, after manipulation from Leland, Andy confronted David about Kristen; the priest then told Kristen, and she told him she has feelings for him. Then, in Episode 10, David admitted, “I wish I had two lives—one for God and one for you,” and in turn, she told him, “I wish I had two lives, both of them for you.” So is there a solution to this that will make everyone happy?

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“No, I don’t think so,” says Herbers. “I think they have a real soul connection and an attraction, and those lines are beautiful, I find, because it would be possible for them to have a whole life together, but their lives are different and they can’t change. If you meet somebody so late in life… And I don’t think that there’s a way for them to do it unless David leaves the priesthood and Kristen leaves her marriage, and so I guess that’s a way.”

She continues, “But maybe this lives in that kind of romantic realm of wishing. They have a lot together. They see each other every day at work. It’s just not living its full potential of what kind of deep love this probably could be. It’s a beautiful friendship, and knowing that there’s a lot of depth behind that and more life that could have been between them that isn’t happening, I think, is kind of beautifully romantic and sometimes a bit painful, and it makes you root for them. I really like that Ben [Aasif Mandvi] acknowledges it. You see that he’s aware, and that’s, I think, a very beautiful moment in this friendship. Between the three of them, they’re such good friends. It kind of moves me.”

Ben chimed in at the end of that “two lives” exchange to ask, “what about me?” Kristen amended her statement to “three lives.” The trio’s relationship is a big part of why the show has been so good since the beginning.

Elizabeth Fisher / Paramount+

“The dynamic between the three of us has evolved over the seasons. We have personally become friends and then our characters have gotten to know each other better, and so that has sort of infused itself in the relationship and into the writing of the show,” shares Mandvi. “I think Robert and Michelle [King] saw the way we interacted when were off camera and sort of started to bring a lot of that into the dynamic of Kristen and David and Ben. It’s been great getting to let that evolve. And we are actually friends, so we do socialize outside of work. Mike and Katja have a particular kind of relationship. I have my relationship with Katja and my relationship with Mike. There is a little bit of an eye roll-y quality that I have sometimes with the two of them, which is sort of in Ben’s character, so even on set, I think there’s a kind of mirroring of our personal dynamics and our characters on the show.”

So, if David was an option, if he wasn’t a priest but Kristen was still married, would her choice be him? “I think that would be potentially possible,” Herbers says. “I don’t know if she’s going to leave her husband while he’s in [a psychiatric hospital], but I think they’ve been living such separate lives. I think she would definitely consider it, but she’s got her children to think about as well.”

What do you want to see in the final episodes for Kristen and David? Let us know in the comments section, below.

Evil, Thursdays, Paramount+