A tribute to the great Paramount+ procedural

SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers from “Fear of the End,” the final episode of “Evil,” now streaming on Paramount+.

Only on a show like ‘Evil’ would a relatively happy ending involve unleashing the Antichrist on the Vatican. In the final minutes of the paranormal proceedings, psychologist Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) and Father David Acosta (Mike Colter) have been transferred to Rome, where they will continue to assess potential demonic possessions despite the desecration of their previous home base in New York. There are only a few catches. First, the assessment trio is now a duo, with scientist Ben (Aasif Mandvi) choosing to stay in the United States. Second, the baptism of Kristen’s infant son Timothy – possibly the devil’s prophet – does not appear to have fully taken place, placing a demonic harbinger of the apocalypse within striking distance of the Holy See.

Over four seasons — actually four seasons and an abbreviated run of four episodes instead of a fifth — “Evil” developed a seeming allergy to the unambiguous. Creators Robert and Michelle King had previously honed a paradoxical tone in the legal dramas “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight,” which were at once morally nuanced and blatantly absurd. With “Evil,” the married showrunners have pushed both extremes even further, shifting their focus from secular politics to existential matters like eternal souls. But while the title implies the show in absolute terms, “Evil” never had much use for a definitive stance. The final quartet of episodes may not have had the time to wrap up every thread as neatly as possible, but a bit of clutter feels completely in keeping with a universe populated by nuns, djinn, doppelgängers and telepathic priests, among many more curiosities . That includes an ending that is both optimistic and ominous, with little indication of which side will ultimately win.

“Evil” reminds me a bit of Damon Lindelof’s “The Leftovers,” in that describing every plot point out of context makes you sound like one of Dr. Bouchard. (To wit: In the latest pseudo-season premiere, Anna Chlumsky of “Veep” plays a woman who plausibly claims to be one of Kristen’s daughters who traveled through a wormhole to warn her family of coming catastrophes, but turns out to be cheating on Kristen’s husband while he wears an animal mask in the mental hospital where they are both admitted in Capisce?) But unlike ‘The Leftovers’, this show does not extends to the question of whether or not the supernatural is actually happening. Only a few judge cases appear to be satanic in nature, but that is true Certainly a conglomerate called DF Global, run by a humanoid naked goat known as The Manager.

The question Kristen, David and Ben explore is not whether cosmic evil really exists, but how to live a decent life in a world where it stubbornly persists. In dozens of cases, where the crew casually burns a bonfire as they prepare to wrap things up, “Evil” is equally critical and sympathetic to the protagonists’ chosen approach. Ben is a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic who ends up wearing a literal tinfoil hat because it helps prevent his recurring migraines, regardless of whether it’s scientifically sound or not. David is a deeply committed Catholic who tortures himself by choosing the priesthood over his obvious connection to Kristen, who serves as a kind of go-between. She is an agnostic, not an atheist, and flirts with both David and Ben’s belief systems over the course of the series. In the future, Ben’s absence might be more ominous than Timothy’s apparent fangs. David’s most important colleague and close friend, thousands of miles from home, is also his greatest temptation. How sustainable is that?

Besides their own worst instincts – Kristen once killed a man with an ax! – “Evil” pits its central trio against Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson), a grinning, bespectacled figure who is far more menacing than some of the show’s traditional horrors. (Although Kristen’s literal sleep paralysis demon, wearing her late mother’s wig, certainly got the job done.) As one of the many theater legends who populate the sets of the Kings in New York, Emerson could easily shift between the banality of the eponymous concept and its giggling nature. , hysterical extremes. It was Leland who stole one of Kristen’s eggs to become Timothy’s biological father, and Leland who nearly strangled Kristen to death in the finale when he broke into her house. Only the intervention of Ben and David, her better angels, prevents Kristen from crossing the line again.

The ‘malicious’ aversion to absolutes was most palpable in terms of tone. The Kings are masters at using the episodic structure of network television — “Evil” started on CBS before moving to streaming — to their advantage, using the stable baseline of a case-of-the-week format like a Trojan Horse used. Like ‘Good”s previous shows, ‘Evil’ can tackle any topic from social media to oligopoly and misogyny in the workplace. Such flexibility extends to the genre: “Evil” can be comical, gruesome and heartfelt, often in the space of a single scene. To take one example among hundreds, Andrea Martin’s scene-stealing sister Andrea can lure demons with a bowl of marshmallows (apparently they have a sweet tooth) one moment, and then confront her guilt over a lost love the next. You could never guess where “Evil” was going, and you wouldn’t want to. Why lose the surprise of beloved actor Richard Kind suddenly beheading a young woman with a sword?

With its creepy and religious-cynical spectrum, ‘Evil’ clearly followed in the footsteps of ‘The X-Files’. But the religious emphasis also made it unique. ‘Evil’ was consistently critical of the Catholic Church as an institution, with Kristen in particular objecting to its patriarchal nature. The show nevertheless took faith seriously – and advocated it as the ideal framework for understanding an increasingly chaotic world. We may not understand or know how to defeat the shadowy forces that work to make the lives of many worse for the benefit of only a few. We can only put our trust in loved ones and, just maybe, in a higher power, so that things can turn out for the better.

All four seasons of ‘Evil’ are now streaming on Paramount+.