Mike Colter and Katja Herbers star in the incisive new procedural from Michelle and Robert King.
Holy hell, kids!
And: Holy hellkids!
Credit: ELIZABETH FISHER/CBS
The CBS drama (airing Thursdays at 10 p.m.
ET) investigates religious mystery with secular science.
Terrifying, inexplicable supernatural enigmas have even-more-terrifying high-tech explanations.
Toothy hellbeasts are crowdsourced invasions into your personal information.
Satan is the internet, kind of, and who would disagree?
Evilbegins when forensics psychologist Dr. Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) meets David DaCosta (Mike Colter).
David is an assessor for the Church, examining events demonic and miraculous.
Youre primed for cynic-believer friction, and romantic tension.
Important to point out thatEvilcomes from creatorsMichelleandRobert King, who also currently produceThe Good Fightfor CBS All Access.
David is pleasantly devout without being orthodox.
To see God, he sips psychedelic tea.
And hes an incredulous investigator, more Scully than Mulder.
When a woman says her rageaholic boss has been possessed, David recommends contacting human resources.
Hes no more convinced by the parents who think their troubled son requires an exorcism.
We have to get our own psych eval, he explains, before I can request any church action.
Kristens a married woman with four daughters.
And David is a priest-in-training, a few years from lifelong celibacy.
So the fact that thereisexplicit sexual chemistry is thrillingly dangerous: church action, indeed!
A cheerful agnostic, a conflicted Catholic… who are we missing?
Right: The third member ofEvils team is Ben (Aasif Mandvi), an apparently non-practicing Muslim.
All three leads are immediately likable.
Herbers could be some undiscovered Mara sister, wry and tough and stylishly exhausted.
Mandvi was an apex blowhard onThe Daily Show, but he makes a good disinterested regular guy, all-denim-everything.
Colter is incredible in a very tricky role.
The once (and future?
)Luke Cagestill has a superhero build, and his softspoken charisma shades into unsteady torment.
Davids religious passion is an internal struggle.
He prays like hes running away from something.
When he shrooms upward toward an angelic vision, his wide smile looks ecstaticandpitiful.
Theres a religious revival happening on television.
The Emmy-winning second season of AmazonsFleabagsent Phoebe Waller-Bridges singleton into the confessional booth with Andrew Scotts man of god.
And the final season ofThe Good Placerefracts the great mysteries of the afterlife through whiteboard philosophy.
In theory, these shows could be enjoyed by literally anyone.
(Lodge 49was made for all humanity!)
But its just as incisive, and vastly less optimistic.
Those other series tend to aim for a hard-won generosity.
The niceness can be a virtue or it can curdle.
But when it comes to religious inquisition, theres a madness missing.
So far, the teams investigations have a 50-50 hit rate, at best.
The third episode ends with a suicide soundtracked by Warren Zevon!
At least that was darkly funny.
Episode 4 is just plain dark, with an implication of parent-child violence that makes everyConjuringfilm look sentimental.
Hes eitherthe devil himselfor an intensely dedicated troll: Whats the difference, really?
Emersons delicious as always, but I worry his maniacal focus on David and Kristen could turn cartoony.
(In fairness, real-life trolls are cartoonishly evil.)
Meanwhile, Christine Lahti seems extraneous as Kristens mother, a hedonist grandma out of a much lighter procedural.
Its paranoia is far-reaching, and very bleak.
