Evil Creators Robert and Michelle King Break Down Kristen's Big Decision and That 'Devastating' Loss

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Season 4, Episode 10 of Evil, "How To Survive a Storm."]

Twisters alone aren't a big enough disaster for Evil. In Thursday's episode of the Paramount+ drama, both a hurricane and a tornado hit Queens — hello, climate change — while Kristen (Katja Herbers) hunkers down at home with her daughters, alongside David (Mike Colter), Ben (Aasif Mandvi), and Sister Andrea (Andrea Martin). The storm damages the Bouchard house, but the real devastation comes courtesy of Leland (Michael Emerson), who kills Kristen's mother, Sheryl (Christine Lahti), as she fights to take him down.

Earlier in the episode, Leland nearly claims another victim when he moves in next door to the Bouchards. David, convinced that Leland will kill Kristen or her daughters if he isn't stopped, goes against the church's teachings, and risks his soul in the process, to try to kill Leland using remote viewing. It's a bold move that backfires when Leland takes control of David and nearly forces him to stab himself instead. As it turns out, Leland knows how to use remote viewing because he was training to become a priest before he turned to the dark side.

Kristen and Ben help rescue David, but Sheryl isn't so lucky. She goes down swinging — poisoning Leland, tanking his company's stock, and nearly slashing his throat — but just as she's about to finish the job, a demon knocks her out from behind, and Leland throws her out of a fourth-story window. She survives the fall just long enough to share some painful goodbyes with her daughter and granddaughters in the hospital. But she does get to twist the knife one last time: Sheryl leaves Kristen a video with evidence of Leland's crimes, which leads to his arrest.

As for baby Timothy, the possible Antichrist is back on Kristen's doorstep. With both Leland and the baby's surrogate mother, Leslie (Molly Brown), in custody, the police and Child Protective Services turn to Kristen, Timothy's biological mother. The episode ends with Kristen choosing whether to take Timothy in, looking frazzled and almost amused as a cop asks for her decision.

In a different world, that cut-to-black gag would have been the last shot in Evil's fourth season. The series has since been canceled and then granted four "bonus" episodes to wrap up the story, meaning Season 4 isn't officially done yet. But "How To Survive a Storm," written by Rockne S. O'Bannon and Anju Andre-Bergmann and directed by John Dahl, was the season's original finale, and it feels like it. It's a dangerous, tragic, and sometimes romantic episode that sets up a major shift as the show heads into its final four episodes.

As Evil looks toward the end, series creators Robert and Michelle King spoke to TV Guide about crafting Sheryl's death, Kristen's upcoming journey, and how last year's strikes affected that sweet exchange between Kristen and David. Plus, they weighed in on whether there's hope for the show to be saved. (For more, head here for Christine Lahti's thoughts on Sheryl's fate.)

When did you know that Sheryl was going to die this season?
Robert King: Probably around 406 — 405 or 406. We really did know that the only way to get Sheryl's story to go to a next step was to drive it to a head. TV can't always go back to the status quo, because if you do go back to the status quo, there's no real step up in drama. And [she and Leland] have been working together, working at cross purposes, they were engaged for a while. It felt like it could only come down to one thing, which was a devastating climax between them.
Michelle King: Yeah, it felt like we weren't honoring the characters or the relationship if we just tried to say, "Oh well, it all blew over and it's OK again."
Robert: The other problem we faced is, once Kristen cut off connection with Sheryl, Sheryl was disconnected from the main story in a way. So we were trying to find a way that they would be brought back together, even if momentarily, but also that the stories would align more.

She's been going out in a blaze of glory for the past few episodes, but then she's hit over the head, so there is something kind of mundane about her ultimate end. I was curious what kind of conversations you had in the writers room about how Sheryl should go out.
Robert: The thing that kept coming to mind was Kubrick's The Shining, when something that might have been purely psychological suddenly — Grady comes to the refrigerator door and unlocks it. You just knew the only way that could happen is if the supernatural was real. It felt like, as mundane as it is, Leland was getting help from something that probably could only be supernatural. So I think that was the intent of it. Anyway, theirs was kind of this dance to the death that only one of them could win.

I was relieved that she got a moment with her granddaughters, even though she couldn't speak. But was there ever a version of the hospital scene where Sheryl was able to say a little more?
Robert: Yes, she did, and then it always felt like, she doesn't seem that close to death. The more everybody has a soliloquy, the more it feels like that's not really what happens on people's deathbed.
Michelle: Just in Batman.

When she was able to speak more, what was said?
Robert: She was a little more aware of warning Lexis to be careful. And then there were a few more words with Kristen about apologizing, and that the thing that mattered to her most was being respected by her daughter, and things like that. It was really [laughs] — at a certain point, it was like, No, we don't want to go that far.
Michelle: You're either dying or you're not.

Can you say whether the video that Sheryl left for Kristen explains what happens to Andy? At the end of Episode 10, does Kristen know what Leland did to her husband?
Robert: As you saw at the end of 10, there were two envelopes left with Boggs. One was for Andy, and one was for Kristen. And what Sheryl did, which you'll find out in Episode 11, is, Andy gets his own summary of what his problem is. Kristen gets her own summary that will put Leland in jail. So I think what Sheryl wanted was a way for Andy to kind of explain his own story to Kristen. 

ALSO READ: Evil's Christine Lahti on Sheryl's regrets and her quest for redemption

David's story in this episode reminded me of Kristen's story in Season 2, in terms of debating whether there can ever be a just murder. I'm curious what made you want to send David down that path.
Robert: To me, that is one of the more interesting questions to anybody who's religious.
Michelle: Or even not religious and just with an ethical framework, or [they] tell themselves they have an ethical framework. And really, how much do you think you know in terms of right or wrong? Because there's a commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." Do you really think you know more than that?
Robert: If everybody follows their own logic of killing, the world is just the chaos that it is now. I mean, Gandhi's sense was, you need to allow for Hitlers if you really follow nonviolence. It felt like an interesting dilemma for David, especially because of the Luke Cage-ness of Mike Colter, a man of action having to restrain himself or not restrain himself. What do you do for a loved one? What would he do for Kristen and Ben, but not for anybody else? Maybe he'd do it for Sister Andrea. But how much does self-defense allow proactive action?

Was that always where you imagined his remote viewing heading this season?
Robert: Yes, we always thought it was going to come to a head with Leland, and that there would be a battle. Aurin Squire, who's one of our most loved writers in the room, knows about remote viewing and brought it to us, and every time we had a question about it we kept coming to him. The more you heard about it, the more you thought, "This is as bizarre as hell." … And once you realize [the possibilities in] that, you can realize, "What about two people doing battle with remote viewing?" So that was what this episode was about: one who was superior — Leland had more superior talents that way — working against David. That felt like a really interesting way to bring the remote viewing to a head.

This episode reveals that Leland was training to be a priest and wanted to be a friend of the Vatican. How long has that reveal been in the works?
Michelle: A while, but not from the beginning. You know, I'd be curious to know when they knew that Darth Vader was the father, but it was a bit like that. It was meant to be something of a surprise. But no, it wasn't a conceit from the beginning of the character.
Robert: We were always playing off the idea of Lucifer being an angel, and because of pride, having a fall and bringing all these other angels with him. Leland's story was always a little bit echoing Lucifer's story of being among God's chosen, and by choice, stepping out of that. Leland just had a very good reason for it, which is, through remote viewing, he found that he was doing dastardly things. But then he went 100 percent over to the other side.

To talk about Kristen, she's such an active character, but it felt like this season there was a lot that she had to choose to ignore to preserve herself, not only with the baby, but also with Andy being away. I'm interested in why it was important to end the season, originally, by pushing Kristen to make a choice.
Robert: To me, the season is about the baby, the Antichrist. Is it the Antichrist? How much is it nature versus nurture? All these themes that were running through the first three seasons, we wanted to drive to a head with Kristen, who's an interesting conflict between a very modern woman and also having these roots of someone who wants to mother, who doesn't mind having four daughters, treats them almost sometimes like comedy. To be faced with this new baby on your doorstep, basically, and to have to choose, "Do I want to be another mother to someone?" And is this a baby that is damned because of, supposedly, the roots, or is it a baby that can be turned just by good parenting?
Michelle: Or the miracle of baptism.
Robert: Yes. To us, each season was trying to follow a theme. This theme was very much about, "Can you stop evil, even though it seems predetermined?"
Michelle: Also, we like the idea of making the unpredictable television choice, because the average woman on TV does not take in the baby.
Robert: We try to end every season — you could call it a cliffhanger, but what we're really looking for is a turning of the [page] to a new chapter in someone's life. And so now Kristen's faced with this choice: Does she do it or does she not? We'll know right away in the next week, even though the original attempt was, you weren't supposed to know for another year. So then part of it is to start Kristen down a new journey. That'll be a journey of four episodes, but it will be a journey.

The last look on her face before the episode cuts to black is so funny. What was scripted there? Or directed?
Robert: Well, John Dahl directed it, and it was an interesting scene, because everybody outside the door — the cops, the baby, everything — was shot before the writers strike back in May [2023]. We only shot half a scene because we had to do it on the location. Everything working in Kristen's direction — Kristen, David, Ben — was shot on our set and wasn't shot till December, after the strike. So everybody had to kind of put themselves back in that place. But Katja had the advantage of knowing a little bit of how the episodes were cutting together, to play that perfect comic look on her face of, like, "Is life not ludicrous?" I can't believe there's a better look in TV than the look she gives, which is a laugh-out-loud moment for me, anyway.

The Bouchard house, the structure of it, has just been through so much. Is that house ever going to catch a break?
Both: Not so much.
Robert: First of all, we love the set. It does become a team center, like the Avenger team meets in the garage. And it has such a good design with the trestle going overhead, that also adds sound. We just love it. The problem is it's haunted. If you believe in the supernatural, it was an entryway to hell. So they should probably buy a new place and get out of there.

I have to say, I cried when David said, "I wish I had two lives, one for God and one for you," and then Kristen said, "I wish I had two lives, both of them for you." What is it about this stage of their relationship that you enjoy writing?
Robert: For me, there's something inherently dramatic and romantic about love that can't be returned — love that can't be returned physically or sexually. David has such a belief in God and his faith and his commitment. He is so torn, because there's no one he loves more in the world than Kristen, and we hopefully have seen that over four seasons. That was a rewrite post strike, actually, because that scene wasn't yet filmed, and we thought there wasn't enough drama in the moment. When everybody hides out in a hurricane, they go to a room without windows, and all you hear is this craziness above and things crashing. But it was supposed to be late in the night, and the girls are asleep, and Sister Andrea's there, and they were the only ones up. And we needed them to say something. It wasn't till after the strike that that was scripted and then shot.

The comic beat at the end when Ben jumps in with "What about me?" was also very fun. 
Robert: Also the location is very good, with her chin on the edge of the bathtub as he's leaning up against it. That was all John Dahl.

Is there anything you can say about whether there is hope for this not to be the end of Evil?
Robert: There's always hope. But the world has changed a lot financially, and I do think the show is probably hampered by the fact that it has four seasons. Usually, that's a reason to want more. But because subscription is about gaining subscriptions, it just doesn't feel like — as much love as there was for this year, and as much as it has increased the business for Paramount+, I do think they're struggling financially. My guess is not, but Michelle and I keep pushing. We're becoming irritating the way we're pushing.

New episodes of Evil Season 4 stream Thursdays on Paramount+.