'Evil's Most Shocking Episode Changed the Show Forever (2024)

Evil is definable by how very undefinable it is. It isn't a show that's easily shoehorned into a box. It's a "case of the week" procedural, it's a horror series, it's a drama, and, at times, even a comedy. That said, there have been defining moments in the show that have left their mark on it going forward. Most would point to Season 1's fourth episode "Rose 390," where the show dares to point to the parents of an evil child, who threw his own baby sister in the pool to drown her, as having killed him, claiming he's "missing" (the attempted infanticide would land at number three of Entertainment Weekly's list of the 30 most shocking TV moments of 2019).

That episode proved that Evil wasn't afraid to take risks, that taboo subjects were never off the table, and dark moments can get even darker. But there's another episode that changes the show going forward — and looking back — in a much subtler way, and that episode is the sixth in Season 3: "The Demon of Algorithms," the episode where we see that Kristen's (Katja Herbers) husband Andy (Patrick Brammall) is being held hostage by Leland (Michael Emerson)... and Sheryl (Christine Lahti).

Evil

TV-14

"Evil," the 2019 TV series from creators Robert and Michelle King, is a gripping exploration of the intersection between science and the supernatural. The series stars Katja Herbers as Dr. Kristen Bouchard, a forensic psychologist drawn into a world of dark mysteries and unexplained phenomena. Alongside priest-in-training David Acosta (Mike Colter) and tech expert Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi), Kristen is tasked with investigating a series of bizarre cases for the Catholic Church, including demonic possessions, hauntings, and miracles.

Release Date

September 26, 2019

Cast

Mike Colter , Brooklyn Shuck , Katja Herbers , Dalya Knapp , Marti Matulis , Maddy Crocco , Kurt Fuller , Michael Emerson , Skylar Gray , Aasif Mandvi , Christine Lahti

Main Genre

Horror

Seasons

4

Creator(s)

Michelle King , Robert King

Network

CBS , Paramount

Sheryl's Complicated Journey Begins in Season 1 of 'Evil'

Christine Lahti's Sheryl is an enigma in a show that is chock-full of them, and to understand why "The Demon of Algorithms" is the series' most shocking, one has to understand her journey. Sheryl is Kristen Bouchard's mother, and the grandmother of Kristen's four daughters. When we meet Sheryl, our first impressions suggest that, despite perhaps being a little flighty, she is supportive of Kristen. What is also made evident is that she is more keen on being the "fun grandma" as opposed to a responsible one, gifting the girls an inappropriate VR game without supervision (the aforementioned "Rose 390"), and in the following episode not noticing that the girls have walked out of the house with their friends to follow a masked girl to the cemetery.

Sheryl is also shown to be selfish, to a fault. She meets Leland at a restaurant, who plays on her desire to find love and invites him to Kristen's for dinner. Needless to say, Kristen is less than impressed that Leland is in her home and playing with her daughters, and after forcing him to leave (a great Kristen moment) tries to convince ("demands" may be more appropriate) Sheryl to stay away from Leland. A truly supportive mother would, at the very least, try and respect her daughter's wishes, but Sheryl defiantly meets up again with Leland on the down-low, and they engage in sex.

Here's where things start to get murky when it comes to Sheryl. She goes to new lows, giving Lexis (Maddy Crocco) advice on how to deal with a bully by telling her to hit the bully with a rock, and then lie about it when Kristen finds out. It's part of Leland's instructions for Sheryl to influence Lexis, we believe, but it could easily be that her stellar grandparenting includes giving terrible advice. If it's the latter, then it would explain why Sheryl makes the stunningly bad decision to accept Leland's marriage proposal. Oh, that's not the stunningly bad part. That is reserved for asking Kristen - the same Kristen that flat-out forbade her from even seeing Leland again - for her blessing, leading to Kristen forbidding Sheryl from seeing the family again.

Sheryl Goes Deeper Still in Season 2 of 'Evil'

In Season 2, Sheryl goes from bad mother and grandmother to... bad? It looks to be heading that way, as Sheryl sinks even deeper into the grasp of evil in Evil. She's already on the wrong side of Kristen, but after Leland breaks off their engagement, she deceptively visits Kristen's therapist under a fake name... and soon after takes Leland back. She begins making sacrifices to Eddie the doll, a creepy porcelain-headed doll in the vein of Annabelle. After being paralyzed and injected with an unknown substance, which Lahti says the Kings refer to as a youth serum, she is rejuvenated, and empowered to do the forbidden.

That includes drilling a hole in a man's head (but not killing him, as Lahti herself believes), staging Satanic rituals with Eddie dolls, and performing sinful acts at the behest of Leland's cohort Edward (Tim Matheson) which earn her a place in a secret society that represents the 60 demonic houses on Earth. That place is formalized by an initiation ritual and the acceptance of a sigil: a shrunken head in a jar. Season 2 wraps up with Sheryl attending a gathering of the 60 demonic masters with Leland, looking on as the newest member of the group eats the flesh of a deceased member.

"The Demon of Algorithms" Changes Everything for Sheryl on 'Evil'

Now to this point, even though Sheryl has done some pretty questionable things, and some decidedly less than wholesome ones at that, you never really got the impression that she was so far gone that she would put those she loves in peril. Lahti has expressed that Sheryl would do anything for her family, and, in a strange way, is doing all of these things to protect them.

But then comes "The Demon of Algorithms," and the shock of seeing that Andy is being held captive by Leland and Sheryl, and it changes the series irreversibly. We know that Andy and Sheryl have a contentious relationship, but that Sheryl would go to such a degree, regardless of her rationale, is a step too far and a cause to question what we know of her. She hasn't done anything til then that is criminal in nature. Weird, occultist, and evil? Sure, but not this.

It forces us to look back at her previous actions in a new light, with the illusion that she is in greater control of the situation than how it appears being questioned. Is she actively working with Leland to push Lexis toward her demonic destiny? Is she fully aware of that being the end goal for her granddaughter? Probably, and it's not something we would have even considered before. As Evil has done all along, it plays with expectations, and the expectation that a matronly figure would never intentionally bring evil into the lives of her family is one of the most impactful sacrifices in the series. And the complete absence of any guilt at being discovered by Kristen to be working with Leland, and a willing participant in the baby shower of the Antichrist, would suggest that Sheryl has fully embraced the dark... and may pull Lexis in with her over the series' fourth, and final season.

Evil is available to stream in the U.S. on Paramount+

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