Evil Season 1 Review

Major Spoilers are included in this season review. Please read with caution.

On October 15, 2020, I started watching Evil—a CBS television series—on Netflix and finished on October 20, 2020. When I noticed this television series trending in the Top Ten and read the synopsis—basically science versus religion—I was hesitant and intrigued at the same time.

If you had been following my blog, you know I have a lot on my plate regarding reading and watching stuff throughout Blogtober Fest, but something about the show’s premise kept nagging me to give it a chance. Once I watched the first episode, I knew I was immediately hooked.

Synopsis: Priest-in-training David Acosta (Luke Cage’s Mike Colter) forms a team to investigate the Catholic Church’s unexplained mystery cases, which included demonic possessions, miracles, and other unique events that weren’t initially explainable. The team consisted of tech guy Ben the Magnificent (Aasif Mandvi) and Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers), a freelance clinical psychologist.

Although there was a major cliché in the show’s premise—pitting a skeptical against a believer—Evil handles it in a way that subverted the audience’s expectations. Instead of the believer and skeptical trying to disprove each other’s stance on the subject in every episode, the believer—David—welcomed the different viewpoint, seeing it as a strength for the team and the reason he wanted to hire Kristin in the first place. David also doesn’t pretend the religion is perfect, or that the Catholic Church is immune to doing anything wrong.

David’s primary job for the Catholic Church—as part of his Priest training too—is to investigate the cases with “unexplained” supernatural occurrences and to rule whether or not the Church needs to get involved, and if science can explain the case away—which is where Kristin comes in with her psychologist experience and religious beliefs. So, Evil’s first season is structured like “case of the week”—that added into the larger overarching story arc—but with little to no filler because of the 13-episode count.

The main trio also have great chemistry with each other—making them a fun team to watch—and the supporting characters are also entertaining, especially Kristin’s four young daughters who bring such a great family vibe to the whole series. I was surprised how important the family dynamic became over the course of the first season to Kristin’s personal character arc. The main antagonist Leland Townsend (LOST’s Michael Emerson) is also very fun to watch whenever he interacts with Kristin or her mother Sheryl (Christine Lahti).

There were moments when I had to suspend my disbeliefs to keep enjoying things in this show—similar to police procedures like Lucifer or any superhero show, but it definitely wasn’t a dealbreaker for me. The most ridiculous example was this ancient 500-year old document that nobody was able to crack, but our heroes managed to do it within 5 minutes thanks to Google. The other people who’ve looked at this document must’ve been idiots.

Overall, Evil is indeed a fun show and a good escape from reality with thought-provoking horror. I would recommend watching this television show—especially since it’s still October 2020—for a good time. Thanks for reading this season review, everyone! We’ll likely meet again when season 2 eventually drops!