Will ‘Evil’ Be Saved? 7 Burning Questions We Still Have After Series Finale
Evil may be over, after four seasons and four bonus episodes, but the finale was definitely designed for it to continue, should it be saved—and we’re really hoping it is.
The series ended with Kristen (Katja Herbers) and David (Mike Colter) continuing to assess, only now in Rome, while Ben (Aasif Mandvi) took a lucrative new job back in New York. Meanwhile, Leland (Michael Emerson) was locked away in a cabinet in the silent monastery, where Sister Andrea (Andrea Martin) began following the church being shut down. And baby Timothy, well, let’s just say he was not looking so innocent the last time we saw him.
Below, we take a look at the burning questions we still have after the series finale.
Evil, Complete Series, Streaming Now, Paramount+
How long will Kristen and David stay in Rome?
Right now, it is just temporary, for six months. There wasn’t any funding for them to continue as they were in New York, but if the show does continue in any way, we have a feeling that something will bring them back stateside. After all, Ben didn’t go without them, and it wouldn’t be the same without the trio working together.
Will David ever leave the church and get together with Kristen?
Prior to the bonus episodes, Herbers had told us that in order for there to be any sort of happy future for Kristen and David, her character would have to leave her husband and Colter’s the priesthood. Well, Kristen’s husband cheated on her, so she left him, but while Kristen and David were in Rome together at the end of the series, they weren’t together because he’s still a priest.
They “never seriously went down the path” of getting them together, according to co-creator Michelle King. But co-creator Robert King admitted that was something they struggled with after the Josh Charles–Juliana Margulies situation on The Good Wife. “We wanted to suggest his passion for his vows, his passion for making a decision and sticking to it is just as important in his makeup as having sex with Kristen—especially when you can still have Kristen as his friend,” he explained to TV Insider. “The temptation for them both will always be there because you can’t just turn that off when there’s so much heat between them.”
How demonic is baby Timothy?
In the final scene of the series, baby Timothy’s eyes flashed and he had some quite demonic teeth. Herbers told us she liked that ending, saying, “Baby Timothy might not be the sweet little baby that I thought he was. And Kristen’s decision to sort of just keep going and give him a pacifier and say that nothing’s wrong and put on sunglasses and walk into Rome I think is really exciting. And the nurture-nature debate that our show has had from the beginning I think comes back there as well where I think Kristen thinks that she can just love any child, as we’ve seen her do—even with a demon baby in her nightmares—and that she could potentially un-demon this child by loving it enough. I think it’s funny and the whole finale is just so funny while also being quite scary. I’m very proud of it.”
The Kings actually disagree when it comes to the baby that was said to be the Antichrist but was baptized. For Michelle, “When Sheryl [Christine Lahti] had him baptized, it did clear the way for a primarily angelic baby that there were still flashes thereof. So I think the 60 is right to move on from him. I don’t think he’s a great candidate for them, but you never know, as with any baby, how they’re going to mature.” But for Robert, “I think it is the Antichrist, that Lexis, that tale was really her true satanic nature in her and that Kristen has been chosen partly because she would be a good mother to protect this baby as it makes its way to manhood and some demonic Antichrist presence. That to me is the punchline at the end of the joke, that we love Kristen, but also is she the mother of the living Antichrist? Did Leland get his way in the end?”
How long will Leland remain neutralized?
Leland tried to kill Kristen, and she would’ve killed him if David and Ben hadn’t intervened, said Herbers. The series ended with him in a bag, being put into a cabinet in the silent monastery. “We wanted Leland not to be killed in a prosaic pragmatic way, but kind of vanquished in a magical way, fitting with some of the symbolism of the show,” explained Robert King. As Herbers pointed out, “People are able to come out of cabinets at some point you’d think.” Clearly, it’s a way to have him still around so that if Evil does come back, so can Leland.
Will the 60 succeed with an apocalypse?
During their Zoom meeting, the 60 celebrated their success in tricking the Entity with the location of their “black mass” and the new tech they had to plant evil and despair right into the human brain. Henry (John Carroll Lynch) spoke of, at their next meeting, preparing to welcome the apocalypse and the new Antichrist. Robert King thinks that they’re “wrong” to move on. “The steps Leland took in my worldview of the episode are turning out well for him, even though he’s in this little box,” he added.
Will there be more Evil of any kind?
The good news: Everyone wants to do it. The bad news: It has yet to be saved. “We’re here, we have our ideas for future episodes,” said Robert King. “If Paramount+ or Netflix or Amazon Prime don’t want to pay for ’em, we’ll just probably do it with sock puppets at home because we are enamored with the show and wanted to keep doing it.”
Herbers thinks it should be a no-brainer. “I think if I were some big studio, I would want to give the Kings what they want. That’s just my reasoning. I think they’re brilliant and we’ve proven we’re in all the top 10 ratings and we have been, so it seems like we’re pretty profitable. Actually, I’m almost a little bit surprised that it hasn’t happened yet, which makes me think, well, maybe is it then not happening?” she admitted. “I don’t know what’s going on, but it seems like it has a very dedicated fanbase. And now that we’re so successful after having been on Netflix… I was very optimistic for a little while, and now I’m just like, I don’t know. Maybe it’s not happening. But I think as long as our numbers stay up and people keep watching it and telling other people about it, and maybe our numbers grow and when the other seasons come on Netflix, blah, blah, blah, maybe at a certain point there’s just no way around it.”
Mandvi agrees: “I hope we do because I think it’s a great show and I think the writing is so good and there are so few shows, I think, in the world of television and streaming these days that—I’m on it, so I’m obviously biased, but I actually do think it’s a tremendous show and I think the Kings have created such an interesting world, and it was premature, the ending. I think we do have a lot more stories and a lot more journeys to go on with this show, so I don’t think the Kings were ever done with it.”
Could we see more of the evils of the justice system if the show continues?
If there had been a fifth season, the Kings wanted to do more with “how demonic” the court system can be. “There were going to be more demons kind of infecting the courthouse and Kristen was going to have to be much more involved. All three would have to testify. We were trying to satirize the work we did in Good Wife and Good Fight. So we were even going to pull in—we did bring in Richard Kind—a lot more of the actors from Good Wife and Good Fight and kind of show, hopefully in a very meta way, self-reflecting of—a lot of the buildup of those shows was how justice can go wrong,” revealed Robert King. “But in the world where there is evil, how much of it going wrong is in the human makeup or in the demonic makeup of the show?” Considering how much fun that likely would have been—just look at the scenes in the bonus episodes with Kind and Lynch’s characters—if there is any more of the show, we’d love to see that incorporated.
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