Evil Stars Katja Herbers and Mike Colter on How the Show Could Have Tackled Climate Change in Season 5

When it was announced that Season 4 would be the last for Evil, co-creators and showrunners Robert and Michelle King said in a statement, "In many ways it was a dream project, but sadly evil will outlast Evil." Fittingly, since the series ended on Paramount+, the cast has continued the fight against evil off screen. 

TV Guide spoke to Evil stars Katja Herbers and Mike Colter in Asheville, North Carolina, in late October, one month after the region was devastated by Hurricane Helene. Herbers and Colter were volunteering to help local survivors, while also working to illuminate the link between extreme weather events and climate change. 

"We're here because it's nice to help the people who are immediately affected, and also because we're hoping to use the little platform we have to emphasize that these are unnatural disasters," Herbers said. "These are man-made disasters. The fossil fuel industry is the reason this is happening. They've known since the 1970s that what they were doing was going to cause this. They hid that information. This is all very well documented, and now we're here, and some of the people that we've seen have lost everything they own."

While Herbers and Colter celebrated how communities have come together in the wake of the storm, they noted that the responsibility to rebuild shouldn't be placed on the shoulders of the people suffering after a disaster. "Nobody is coming to help them of the people who caused this. The fossil fuel industry receives billions in subsidies a year," Herbers said. "They're making trillions of dollars in profit. That money should be going to helping these people and to fixing what they f---ing broke."

She added, "I cannot think of anything more evil, to make a link to our show, than to knowingly destroy our livable climate."

The links to their show were already apparent. In Evil's fourth and final season, the episode "How to Survive a Storm" brought climate change to the forefront of the story when a hurricane hit Queens. That episode was originally meant to serve as the season finale, before the series was canceled and granted four bonus episodes to wrap up the story. But if Evil had been renewed for a fifth season (or if it someday returns, which the cast and creators have advocated for), the stars had ideas for how else the show could comment on the escalating crisis — and put its unique spin on the forces behind that crisis.

"We wanted to possibly, in a very smart and tactful, nuanced way, go after some of the people behind the curtain with Big Oil," Colter said. "Those diabolical minds, sociopathic minds, that do not see the individuals that are affected — to see what it is about them that created the monster that they've become. There's no amount of money that can fill the empty hole."

While they can't take on the fossil fuel industry with the help of fictional demons, Colter and Herbers are still speaking up, and they urge everyone to do the same. "I strongly believe that we all have to become climate activists, in whatever shape or form you can be that," Herbers said. "You can start off however you feel comfortable. You can look into joining places like Extinction Rebellion, Scientist Rebellion, Climate Defiance. You can donate, if you have money, to the Climate Emergency Fund that helps these climate activists do the disruptive action that they do."

The fight, unfortunately, seems likely to be relevant long after Evil's end. "As long as we keep burning fossil fuels in the way that we are, it is going to get worse," Herbers said. "[Hurricane Helene] might be a story that isn't your story yet. Maybe you're just seeing it on the news. It will become your story."

But, like their characters, the stars are energized by the chance to do something good. "We are, by chance, alive in maybe the most important moment in history," Herbers said. "What better purpose can you find in your life than to try and actually save humanity?"