Evil finally became fun to watch in Season 2 by leaning into the silliness of its premise

Slate

"Evil, the horror-drama about a Catholic anti-demon taskforce investigating possessions, hauntings, and other religious mysteries, took a while to find its footing," says Daniel Schroeder. "The first season of the show, which follows Dr. Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) as she joins priest-in-training David Acosta (Mike Colter) and mythbuster Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi), wasted too much time on church politicking and Dan Brown-style intrigue. We simply do not need to see fusty investigators from the Vatican show up with a book of ancient prophecies and a demonic org chart, nor the church getting sued because of a botched exorcism. Evil kept getting bogged down in bureaucracy. But in between the show’s alarmingly gruesome exorcisms and actual courtroom drama, you could still find comedic bits in the first season, like a demon with an ordinary name like George, or Bouchard’s nemesis Dr. Leland Townsend, played with a permanent smirk by Michael Emerson. From the moment Emerson appears, it’s clear he knows what show he’s on, just waiting for the rest of the cast to catch up. And as of Season 2, which saw the series jump from CBS to Paramount+, they have. For all its holy trappings, Evil is really just another iteration of the procedural, but with crosses and bibles instead of handcuffs and cop cars. And once it figured out how seriously it should be taking Christian mythology—which is not seriously at all—everybody could loosen their ties and start having fun."