The End of Evil: Reviewing the Final Season of the Horror Series

The fourth and final season of Evil has completed its run on Paramount+! After taking a look at the first three seasons of the series in this post, and grading it mostly favorably, it’s worth discussing how Season 4 holds up.

The showrunners for Evil were told that it was going to be cancelled sometime during the filming of Season 4 and were given an extra four episodes to wrap the story up. That sort of shows when watching this season’s episodes. Episodes 1-10 are better paced than the last four episodes, with those final four episodes feeling very much like we’re just wrapping everything up. I felt like a lot in these later episodes didn’t work great, but they still weren’t bad enough for me to totally dismiss this season as subpar overall.

If there’s one major strength of Evil during this final year, it’s just how unique and enjoyable its characters have become. At this point in the series, the three leads of the show, Kristen, David, and Ben are all clearly defined, and I really like what the show has done with them. Sure, I still don’t think Kristen and David’s characters have any real romantic chemistry (despite how much the show wants them to), but I otherwise think they all work.

In an age when many a TV series want to focus on antiheroes, Evil provides us with a cast of likeable, quirky characters to follow. Side characters, like psychiatrist, Dr. Boggs, Kristen’s mother, Sheryl, and (especially) Sister Andrea are all great. In contrast to a lot of shows out there, I don’t mind when Evil spends some time not focusing on our core group since these secondary characters are still fun.

If I had to point to a weak link in this season’s characters it’s Andy, Kristen’s husband, as well as Kristen’s four daughters. We don’t focus much on Andy this season, luckily, but I think we center more storylines around Kristen’s children then we did in other seasons. Sometimes these storylines are fine, but defaulting to something sinister going on with the girls when we need something to happen is crutch the show leans on too much.

There are definitely unresolved aspects in Season 4 that very much feel like they’re going somewhere but are then dropped (presumably when the show learned it would be cancelled). This is particularly noticeable with a Ben storyline that’s never really resolved. It’s disappointing because out of all the characters on Evil, Ben is the one who grew on me most over the course of the show’s run.

I pointed out in my review of Seasons 1-3 that Evil has some genuinely scary moments. Well, those sorts of moments are nearly absent from Season 4. Evil relies far more on black comedy in these episodes than actual frights, but that’s not automatically a bad thing. I think the humor in these episodes works well – there’s a good balance between it and more genuine, character moments.

In its final episode, Evil ends up going out with more of a whimper than a bang. The show’s creators definitely were aiming to give viewers an ending that feels satisfactory while at the same time leaving things mostly open in case Evil is picked up by another network. I almost wish the show had taken the tactic of giving us just four really good “monster of the week” type episodes to finish off the series, as opposed to trying to put a neat little bow on everything.

Despite the shortcoming of the final episodes, Evil Season 4 is still an enjoyable ride. Ultimately, this season is on par with those that came before it – it’s not great, but it’s still a show I’d recommend.

Grade: 7/10