We were intrigued by CBS series Evil — about a sceptical forensic psychologist and a priest-in-training who team up to investigate supernatural phenomena — right from the beginning. And season one did not disappoint, all the way up to that jaw-dropping finale. So what’s up with season two?
Well…it hasn’t start filming yet, according to creators Robert and Michelle King at the show’s New York Comic Con panel. But that didn’t stop the Evil gang — including stars Katja Herbers (Kristen Bouchard), Mike Colter (David Acosta), Aasif Mandvi (Ben Shakir), Michael Emerson (Leland Townsend), Christine Lahti (Sheryl Luria), and Kurt Fuller (Dr. Kurt Boggs) — from whipping up a quarantine-friendly season two “trailer” with the help of Zoom and some dramatic music, sound effects, and random footage.
Honestly it’s kind of adorable, if demons can be considered adorable? And the tone is kind of fitting for Evil, to be honest. “I like the particular kind of horror that we trade in on this show, where we walk a fine line between scaring people to death, or tickling them,” Emerson, who plays the show’s excellently slippery antagonist, said. “I like being in that place where it could fall either way.”
Fortunately, the panel did go a little deeper into season two beyond that quaran-trailer. But first, it touched on that season one finale, which heavily implied that Kristen Bouchard — scientist, sceptic, lover of canned margaritas, mum to many young daughters — has turned to the dark side.
“I think we don’t know, first of all, if she did kill [serial murderer Orson LeRoux],” Herbers said. “I think we’re meant to think that she did, and we will find out if she did. But we don’t officially know that.”
Evil was often eerily timely in its subject matter throughout season one — addressing systemic racism, “incel” violence, cyberbullying, and other very current topics. So will the pandemic, which has obviously affected the show’s schedule behind the scenes, be influencing the plot in the new season?
“The show has a natural inclination to go to plague, because of Revelation. And because this season has, like, an avenging angel character that is supposedly good, but talks in terms of evil, evil killing millions of people and so on. So in many ways, it’s there. I wouldn’t say we lead with that because we’re afraid of following the herd.” Robert King teased.
King shared some concept art of the angel, who looks to fit right in with Evil’s previously seen creatures (like George, the demon who invades Kristen’s nightmares, and Leland’s demonic therapist):
“There is [also] a character named Abby who is a version of George,” King added. “We have, I would say, five or six new scary things this year. We don’t want to give away too much because it’s often fun to be surprised. But I think we were more intent on this year of having scares that were essential to the plotting of the show. Sometimes, in the first season, they were there because they were thematically correct. They made sense with where we knew we were going, with the fertility clinic for example. But what we were aware [of] this year was essentially building the scares into the plot.”
Obvously, no date yet for when season two of Evil might hit CBS — “coming soon” was the official word — but late 2021 seems like a decent guess.