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Evil S3E10: “The Demon of the End” — THAT DID NOT JUST HAPPEN

David sits in his room, looking surprised.
Photo Credit: Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+

The following contains spoilers for Evil S3E10 “The Demon of the End” (directed by John Dahl and written by Rockne S. O’Bannon).


We have arrived, folks: the Evil season finale. S3E10 “The Demon of the End” is wrought with grief and dread, exciting new directions for the plot to go, and a lot of questions regarding how much worse our heroes’ lives are going to get. It’s been a hugely eventful season with a balance of tone and writing that continues to get better. If there’s one thing I don’t like about it, it’s that I have to wait to get more answers. But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy this finale, so let’s go! 

It’s especially painful to see Father Ignatius weeping over the Monsignor as he holds his body. Something I didn’t think about last week is that Grace doesn’t actually know who Leland is—or at least what he looks like—so she is unable to tell the team who specifically attacked her. Grace gets relocated to the Vatican for safety, and Ignatius steps in for now to work with the assessors. This week’s case hits close to home—literally—as Kristen’s new next door neighbor Sheila needs their help. 

Father Ignatius weeps over the murdered Monsignor.
Photo Credit: Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+

Sheila’s family has been hearing growling in the walls, blood from the faucet, and her kid saw an eyeball in the toilet—just like Ben weeks ago. Likewise, Laura has been hearing growling noises coming through the vent of the shared wall from Sheila’s daughter, with whom Laura has been talking. Unfortunately, Sheila does not have a daughter, so there’s definitely a demonic infestation.

Getting on the video call to talk to Andy, Kristen and the girls are surprised to instead see Edward on the screen. Kristen dismisses the girls and has Edward confirm that Andy was caught in an avalanche and the search party is ready to give up. Kristen is understandably distraught, but the girls hold out hope on account that Grace foretold that Andy would return. It’s incredible how smart the daughters actually are—like a hive mind, they immediately coordinate together and try to poke at Leland in Bumblebee Valley. As expected, the notification pops off on Leland’s end and Edward, in the same room, glances off screen, destroying the facade for the girls. Kristen is still caught up in the shock of possibly losing Andy and cannot be convinced otherwise. 

David tells Kristen that even though she might not believe in God, sometimes it helps to just pretend and pray anyway. Katja Herbers once again proves why she is one of the best actresses working on television today as Kristen breaks down sobbing, begging God to save Andy and offering anything in return, including taking the girls to Mass. And, shockingly, it seems to work, and Andy shows up on the doorstep!

I was absolutely petrified that this wouldn’t actually be real, and Kristen would have to deal with a second round of trauma if he was an angel or ghost or something. It sure seems that he is in the flesh, but he’s definitely not completely okay. He has no memory of any of his trip, and when he sees the drawing of the room that Grace made, he freezes and briefly blacks out. At night, he’s wandered into the unfinished part of the house, staring straight ahead. When Kristen finds him, he whispers, “I’m trapped.” And he’s friendly to Sheryl sometimes! I’m still not entirely sure Andy is marked for safety yet. 

Ben and David examine a case file in shock.
Photo Credit: Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+

On this week’s “Things I didn’t have on my Bingo card,” we have Sister Andrea bashing a series of demons to death with a shovel. Sister Andrea visits the Bouchard home after a series of words in different languages appears on the wall in the unfinished part of the house, including Andrea’s name. It turns out that the exorcism performed for Sheila just pushed the demons into Kristen’s house. We get an extended sequence of Andrea roaming the house, smashing in the heads of multiple demons in between imparting advice to Lynn on being a nun. 

Surprisingly, when Lynn confronts her mother about her curiosity about being a nun, Kristen is furious, yelling at her daughter that no, she does not want to be a nun. I was actually kind of shocked at this. I know Kristen’s been under a lot of stress, but I was frankly kind of mad at her for this outburst. We get a little more context for why in the next scene, when she explains to David that last night was the first night she prayed since she was 14—she stopped praying because God didn’t stop her parents from divorcing. Now that the prayer for Andy seemingly worked, she can’t reconcile that with her inability to believe in religion. 

I think we might finally be free of Demon Kristen. Praying for Kristen, David is interrupted by Demon Kristen, who continues to try to tempt him using his love for his friend. An irate David shouts at her to get out, prompting Sister Andrea to give him a large mosquito net. Remember that Andrea sees the demon as a giant mosquito, and asks David to “humor me.” Ready to shed his demon once and for all, David erects the mosquito net over his bed, leaving a pouting Demon Kristen to fade away. I’m glad they did away with this plot point, because keeping her around put the show in danger of spinning its tires on the David/Kristen dynamic. Real Kristen also firmly tells David that they’re not going to talk about their near-tryst anymore. 

Demon Kristen and David pray together.
Photo Credit: Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+

The last we see of Father Ignatius, at least for now, is when David encounters him visiting the site of the Monsignor’s death. Ignatius confesses that when he said he saw God at the moment of his own death before reviving, he was lying. “I wish I took comfort in the thought of God,” he laments. That moment really stuck with me. When Ignatius briefly died, he didn’t see God. So what happened to the Monsignor? Is he not reunited with his loved ones in death? It’s a grim feeling.

The last five minutes of the finale go hard. David is praying in his Demon Kristen-free bedroom, and he sees his angel appear, whispering “38 days, woe to Babylon.” Andy hears noises in his house, and upon investigating, finds in the unfinished part of the house a room, with that horrible demon baby in a manger, surrounded by nearly every major demon character introduced so far gathered around it. What’s more, Dr. Kurt walks up behind Andy, remaking, “beautiful, isn’t it?” Andy is understandably speechless. What’s going on here? Is Andy in worse shape than we thought? Is Kurt in worse shape than we thought? How is Andy going to relay this to Kristen, and are the girls safe? 

I had a lot of predictions for the season finale, but Kristen and Leland being biological parents was a sucker punch I couldn’t have guessed. It’s incredibly well-executed: after learning that her missing egg was not in fact fertilized a couple of episodes ago, but instead sold, she investigates: It’s DF, Sheryl’s workplace. Of course it’s DF. The slow horrific realization dawns on Kristen as Leland looks at her from across the room, smiling, and says “We’re going to be parents.” This is not good. The egg is from RSM, so we already know that place is trouble, and now Leland has used it. Is that the demon baby we keep seeing, as a premonition? And now that Kristen knows that Sheryl works for DF and is closely associated with Leland, how is that going to shake out? Gaaah, everything’s about to get really bad for everyone! 

I want to once again applaud Evil for how it handles the subject of religion. Each of our characters have different beliefs concerning spiritual matters, and every belief and experience is treated with respect. The characters don’t harbor resentment for each other for their differing beliefs, and the overall plot doesn’t ever suggest that a certain belief is wrong. It’s really refreshing. 

Wow! What a season. A lot happened in Evil over the past 10 weeks, and there was rarely a dull moment as things continue to get weirder and scarier. It shows no signs of slowing down, either: just as Sister Andrea keeps warning us, the battle between good and evil is going to continue to ramp up, and the spiritual attacks will only get more intense. And we’ll be there to root for them when Evil returns.


Evil streams Sundays on Paramount+.

Written by Hawk Ripjaw

Hawk Ripjaw has been sharing his opinion on film and TV since his early teens, when the local public library gave away prizes for submissions to their newsletter. Since then, he's been writing for local newspapers, international video game sites, booze-themed movie websites, and anywhere else he can throw around some media passion. He watched the Mike Myers Cat in the Hat movie over 50 times in two years, for science.

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