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NEW YORK, June 13 (UPI) -- Mike Colter says that his character, Father David Acosta, still is dedicated to fighting the wicked in the fourth and final season of Evil, but he's no longer as trusting of his employers at the Roman Catholic Church as he once was. The horror dramedy follows Acosta, psychologist Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) and tech wizard Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi) -- an unlikely trio tasked by the church with investigating alleged demonic possessions and hauntings.
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The cast also includes Michael Emerson as villain Leland Townsend, Andrea Martin as ass-kicking Sister Andrea and Christine Lahti as Kristen's misguided mother, Sheryl Luria.
New episodes stream exclusively on Paramount+ on Thursdays. The first two seasons also stream on Netflix.
"The church lies in terms of what their purpose is. It's always a problem when you talk about government and organizations. There's always an ulterior motive, and I think we've been dealing with that since the first season," Colter told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
"I've always, as David, been defending the church, always thinking positively, giving them the benefit of the doubt," Colter said. "This season, David is definitely torn."
Faced with disturbing visions and his disapproval of the church's business practices, David now defers to his trusted colleagues, Kristen and Ben, for more psychological or scientific explanations instead of automatically accepting the show's strange goings-on as supernatural.
"He feels like a lot of times they say things that make sense to him, and he's not so quick to jump down the spiritual realm anymore," Colter said.
"He defers to them first before we start talking about exorcisms, before we start talking about going to the church and figuring out what we need to do because he's seen it all," he added.
"The world's become a little more clear for him. He's not as naive this season, and I think he's getting more and more tired of being sort of duped by the organization that he hopes to work for, for the rest of his life."
Season 4 also finds pragmatic, competent Ben having doubts about his core beliefs after he is haunted by magical jinn.
"This season, he really gets shaken with that, and he gets uprooted in a way from his certainty because this thing is happening to his body and he's seeing things that he can't explain," Mandvi said of Ben.
"You have a person who's trying to explain something scientifically and just can't. He starts to lose his mind a little bit, so, I think, for me, it was really fun to play the unraveling."
Kristen, meanwhile, is a working mother of four rambunctious tween daughters who has been through the emotional wringer by the time Season 4 kicks off.
Not only has Kristen's mother, Sheryl, strained their relationship by hooking up with Leland, the personification of evil, but Kristen's husband, professional mountain climber/guide Andy (Patrick Brammall), also was briefly believed to be dead until it was revealed Leland actually kidnapped and brainwashed him.
Season 4 also finds Kristen and her friends dealing with the birth of the anti-Christ via surrogate, using Kristen's stolen egg and Leland's sperm.
"There's a lot more that she has to deal with and, for me, that was very exciting. How does she deal with this birth of that biological child of hers?" Herbers asked rhetorically.
"It can't possibly get any crazier, and then it gets even crazier than that. It was a real challenge to play, and I loved every minute of it."
The cast -- whose members are hoping for a cancellation reversal or pickup on another platform -- said the show carries an important message about people of different backgrounds and beliefs learning to work together and eventually regard one another as family.
"I think it's really wonderful. We listen too little to each other in the real world, or at least [that's] what we see represented on TV and social media, and I think that's the power of our show," Herbers said.
"You have a debate, and people let each other finish, and they consider what the other person has said, and they might change their mind or think about it. That's a really beautiful thing that our show does, while keeping a certain banter and keeping up friendships where they're not afraid to argue."
Added Mandvi: "This idea that you can also collaborate and be friends with people who you disagree with, in terms of their worldview -- the show is a testament to that."
"Probably, also, the three of us, in terms of our characters, serve a purpose to the ultimate end," he added. "Without one of us, the thing becomes sort of unequal. We all need the scientist, we need the believer, we need the psychologist. Those things all work in harmony."
Mandvi noted fandom only seems to be growing since Evil was released on Netflix.
"More people have found the show," he said. "There's something for everyone."
