‘Evil’ Series Finale: Creators Michelle & Robert King On Whether Supernatural Series Really Is Over, That Baby At The End & “Satisfying Closure”
SPOILER ALERT: This article contains details about the Evil series finale “Fear of the End,” which dropped this morning on Paramount+
In the end, Evil truly brought evil to the heart of the Catholic church with a potential Antichrist baby now being wheeled around the sunny Vatican by its mother Dr. Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) and its priestly guardian of sorts David Acosta (Mike Colter).
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Talk about going dark.
“The punchline at the end, is this kid possibly, or probably, is the Antichrist, and Lexis (Maddy Crocco), the second youngest, is probably going to be this evil protector to him,” says Evil co-creator and finale director Robert King of the fanged and white-eyed baby staring up at his mother. “Then it comes down to Kristen, who’s always mother first to protect those two, and actually probably to the detriment of humankind, but to the benefit of her family, which is just comic to us.”
In typical King fashion, there was a lot that was comic about Evil and its 50-episode run on Paramount+. There has also been a growing chorus, from a frequently posting Herbers and others, to keep Evil going in one form or another after the streamer announced earlier this year it was exorcising the series.
A chorus that the Kings themselves have added their voices to.
In that fashion, the finale episode “Fear of the End” penned by Rockne S. O’Bannon & Nialla Lebeouf sees the Catholic church partially dragged into the digital realities of the 21st century in its battle against the forces of darkness and muted demons on Zoom. Plus, Herber’s and Colter’s characters are now based in the Holy See to lead a revitalized Assessors program. But The Good Wife, The Good Fight and Elsbeth bosses Robert and Michelle King being who they are, with the sensibilities they have, wanted Evil to have a “proper ending,” as Michelle Kings says, without simply wrapping it all up.
The partners in both life and production chatted with me about the end of Evil after four seasons, how many more seasons they would like the show to have, “Katjaisms,” and working with CBS Studios in these turbulent times. They also talked about the power and privilege of having, at least for now, a “satisfying closure.”
DEADLINE: I know this is supposed to be the end of Evil, but it sure looks, or feels like, you guys are setting it up for more.
ROBERT KING: Well, we are in love with the show and felt it ended too soon, and Katja Herbers, who’s the star of it and plays Kristen, is clearly running with that, because she loves the show.
I mean, usually the shows we do, Good Fight, Good Wife, everybody’s on it is pretty much “Okay, that was telling a good story, and now let’s move on to other pieces in our career.” Here, I just think all the actors were just having a great time.
I love this show. I love these people. Even if Mike refuses to smile.
Hoping you watched @evil over the weekend. New episode coming Thursday! pic.twitter.com/6lLl1kpODD— aasif mandvi (@aasif) July 23, 2024
DEADLINE: So, could there be more Evil?
ROBERT KING: It feels like there’ll be two more seasons. Michelle, I’m not stepping out of our bounds with saying we wish we could do more, am I? Because it’s just cool. It’s a fun idea, a fun cast.
DEADLINE: Michelle, as Katja has made sure everyone online knows, the show is doing great on Netflix, so…
MICHELLE KING: We’re real delighted that it is, in fact, popular on Netflix, that it’s gotten a ton of viewers. You know, really all you want is your work to be seen.
ROBERT KING: If we’re a victim of anything, it’s a timing. Obviously, since the strike, but also the Wall Street reevaluation of the business, there’s been a change in attitude on things. And obviously, as you probably know, with Paramount+ there is as some reevaluation of what they’re doing and the decision was made to end the show. And I think the popularity of the show didn’t really hit until after some of those decisions were made.
DEADLINE: So, are you guys in discussions with other outlets about continuing the show?
MICHELLE KING: I think we should just leave that be. I don’t think we can answer the question.
DEADLINE: Fair enough, but where are the Kings in what feels like collapsing media environment of 2024?
MICHELLE KING: The Kings are very happily still working with CBS Studios with an overall deal.
ROBERT KING: And the Kings are trying to stop from calling ourselves in the first third person.
DEADLINE: But it worked so well for Richard Nixon for all those years.
ROBERT KING: (laughs) We have a show coming out early next season on Paramount+ called Happy Face, which is already shot. Jen Cacicio is the showrunner, and she did a wonderful job. And it’s about a real-life serial killer called Happy Face in real life, and his daughter, who is trying to keep him out of her life, and it’s with Dennis Quaid. We’re also doing Elsbeth, which is not streaming but on network. We’re still kind of like some of the network design.
DEADLINE: Why?
ROBERT KING: It seems like it’s better for showrunners. You know, no one’s counting your show over your shoulder.
DEADLINE: Robert, you directed the final Evil episode. To both of you: What are your feelings now that it’s that Evil is, at least for now, done?
ROBERT KING: It’s emotional. It was a very emotional to direct, especially the last several days, because the cast was not willing to give it up.
When you’re doing four episodes after a strike that took people out of the business for six, eight months, everybody wanted to do more. Katja was emotional. So, I think there was a real sadness with it, but also there was probably a little more willingness to push the envelope.
DEADLINE: How so?
ROBERT KING: Of not following the script 100%. There was always contribution of the actors. Of why don’t we do this and not this?
DEADLINE: Such as?
ROBERT KING: Well, the very end was not in the script.
DEADLINE: With demon baby Timothy?
ROBERT KING: Yes. Originally, it was like Timothy’s eyes turned white, and Kristen looks at it and goes, “Is that a trick of the sun or not?” Then she just turns around and goes away with David. Katja was the one who pushed it to: “No, I should see it and see in it something more certain.” I said, “Okay, well, let’s talk to visual effects, we’ll put in teeth too.” And she said, “Then I should cover it.” It was all kind of a Katjaism, which is what I call it, a Katjaism, to kind of push the envelope where she’s complicit. It’s not just a trick of the eye. She’s complicit in what’s going on, and I think that made it much more interesting.
MICHELLE KING: In terms of the emotion of it. I think I certainly had some of the sadness that Robert’s describing. But, on top of that, I felt proud of the show and grateful that we did get these last four episodes to land the plane.
DEADLINE: Really?
MICHELLE KING: Yes, because plenty of series just cut off, and are not allowed to resolve in a way that’s satisfying. And I was grateful that we did and feel good about the result.
ROBERT KING: And that was David Stapf and George Cheeks. you know, our great collaborators over there at CBS Studios. I hope with everything, you know, we keep doing it with them.
DEADLINE: This end of Evil, at least this iteration, is, like with the end The Good Fight and other shows that you guys have done, this ending kind of encompasses everything and makes a very distinct play of not wrapping everything up. Why did you decide to take that approach?
MICHELLE KING: Well, it did make sense to us of wanting to give satisfying closure to the story. Which, to my mind, is means respecting the characters and respecting the audience, but also not feeling like we want to see people die, characters die, you know? We wanted to give it a proper ending without necessarily the finality of death.
ROBERT KING: I gotta tell you, I think that’s our taste too. I don’t think we’re into wrapping things with either a dark or a pretty bow. It’s always about, “Okay, let the audience imagine what happens that next week and that next month.” The problem is, if you cut it off, there’s no way for the audience to kind of fill in the gaps that you left.
DEADLINE: Really?
ROBERT KING: Yeah, the best endings, in my mind, are ones that make you reevaluate the show. That make you go back and go, “Oh, was I misunderstanding this beat? Was it really this?”
I think what we wanted was a very pretty ending that seemed too pollyannish for its own good. You know, like the Burt Reynolds heist movies that ended with people on the beach sipping cocktails, and that was where you thought the pre-ending was. And then, no, the punchline at the end, is this kid possibly, or probably, is the Antichrist, and Lexis, the second youngest is probably going to be this evil protector to him. Then it comes down to Kristen, who’s always mother first to protect those two, and actually probably to the detriment of humankind, but to the benefit of her family, which is just comic to us.
DEADLINE: Why?
ROBERT KING: Because when characters you love and embrace throughout the show are shown to have an evil side, or, in case of Kristen, kills someone, you protect them because you embrace the show. But in fact, the show … does it have a false narrator to it.
Michelle, you must have a better explanation of that than I do.
MICHELLE KING: I don’t have a better explanation, but I think I have a slightly different take on it. I mean, there’s a question, when you see the baby, are you thinking, “Oh, wow, is it in fact, the Antichrist, or did the baptism take hold and bring out 95% angelic in the way that some medications work, treating 95% of symptoms, and yet there’s still 5% of the demonic there.” There are different ways to look at it.
ROBERT KING: To me, what it’s about is Kristen being the mother she is, covers for this baby by plugging the pacifier in his mouth, to cover it for David. She doesn’t want David to see it. So, it seems like that relationship will be fraught and kind of a little bit cat and mouse going forward.
DEADLINE: With that, what was Evil like for you guys amongst all the projects you’ve done, and did it meet the intentions you had at the beginning?
MICHELLE KING: I’ll speak just only for myself. It absolutely met the intentions of the ability to explore different ideas about faith. Have characters who have different ideas about faith, and yet speak about it very respectfully with each other, and then just get to do some completely crazy things along the way, you know, like have a nun use little marshmallows to get demons out of the wall I mean.
You can’t ask for a whole lot more than that,
DEADLINE: Especially if Andrea Martin’s doing it.
ROBERT KING: Oh, my God, she can do anything.
For me, when you go from something as serious as Good Wife and Good Fight, which had some of the absurdity, but then we were able to go to this. As a writer, it was fun because it made metaphor real. When you talk about a glass ceiling – literally, you can make it the glass ceiling. You know, almost everything in that show was a version of metaphors that you could then see materialize into real things.
That was great.
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