Katja Herbers and Mike Colter dish to ET on the aftermath of David and Kristen's finale kiss.
The Evil cast is scaring up a new chapter. Season 3 of the one-hour drama kicks off Sunday on Paramount+, and the stars of the spooky series are promising an even wilder ride.
"It gets bonkers this season," co-star Aasif Mandvi tells ET's Lauren Zima. "It's fun for us because they keep upping the game every season. The theme of this season is demons and there’s a demon on each episode or the idea of a demon. It just gets crazier! And towards the end of the season, things really go off the rails so I think it’s an exciting, exciting season."
The action picks up moments after the end of season 2 when a newly ordained David (Mike Colter) and Kristen (Katja Herbers) share a kiss. As the new season begins, the two not only have to navigate this new reality, but contend with David's involvement with "the entity," an espionage unit within the Catholic Church. Meanwhile, Ben (Mandvi) finds his brain breaking from their unsolved cases and turns to his sister, Karima (Sohina Sidhu), for help.
"I'll just say very succinctly that we will go as far as the audience would like to see us go, but at the same time we will leave our lovely dynamic intact having the cake and eating it too," Colter says of where the season finds David and Kristen in the aftermath of their kiss. "It fits this very well and allows David and Kristen to also deal with the awkwardness and the interesting balancing act of getting work done, coexisting being in the same room alone -- sometimes with other people -- and that informs everything about how we move through the rest of this season."
"But the audience is gonna hopefully get a chance to see us live out a lot of things that they wanted us to see, wanted us to do and so it will be an emotional roller coaster for a lot of people," he continues, "and I think that’s a good thing. I think for the first few minutes, if it’s done right, it’s going to be exactly what it wanted to be: misleading, surprising, intriguing, disappointing, funny, sexy, shocking and confusing."
Adds Herbers: "You’re going to see what happens. Like, how do they get out of this? Do they get out of it because does it proceed? Does it not?"
Jokes Colter: "The kiss never stops. The kiss continues throughout the entire season 3. Every episode we're still in a lip-lock. It ends with a lip-lock, begins with a lip-lock!"
After Evil moved to its new home on Paramount+ in season 2 following one season on CBS, the cast expressed their thoughts on the freedom they felt creatively with the switch to streaming.
"It's just really nice to not have to say, 'Oh darn it!' in a situation that clearly warrants a 'F**k this s**t' or something, you know?" Herbers says. "The other liberty that we get is that we can be a little bit more gory when we get to a gory moment. Otherwise, I don't think that much has changed. The big thing that has changed is that we have a little bit more freedom in terms of how long the episodes can be, which leaves more room for horror and great details."
"Visually, I mean, sexually there are things you can explore or at least show that seem slightly more realistic but I never want to go too far into that realm because I know other networks live in that space and I find it absurd because sometimes less is more and I find it to be shock value," Colter says. "We have the same freedom but we don't live in that world... for the sake of doing it. We use it sparingly and I think tastefully. I do think we are doing a very good job with that so kudos to the editing and the writing to stay in our wheelhouse and not turn into something that we're not or trying to be."
Mandvi echoed their sentiments, adding, "It gives us a little bit more elbow room to push the boundaries and talk about things that we might not be able to talk about by our standards of practices. The beauty of having it on Paramount+ is you can binge the whole thing and it's a glorious rabbit hole to binge 'cause it's a lot of fun, mayhem and madness and a lot of comedy."
As for what else is in store for the rest of the characters this season, there's a lot to look forward to.
"[Dr. Leland Townsend] is a a terrible man but he's fun to play. He wasn’t all that successful in season 2 -- a lot of his direct attacks on David and Kristen didn’t work so now he’s going to work around the edges this season and try some new angles," star Michael Emerson says. "He’s going to try to get himself insinuated into the hierarchy of the Church and more on the inside of Kristen’s family and we'll see if he has any success there."
"Ben loses his mind -- in a metaphorical and literal sense," Mandvi teases. "Last season was so bananas for him, there were so many things that he just couldn’t explain. He’s the rational one, he’s the one that has all the answers and he was coming up short with the stuff with the bus driver and the elevator in season 2. This year we start with Ben throwing his hands in the air and needing some kind of sanity in his life and he goes through his sister and joins the Science League to find people who speak his language, who can understand. There are eyeballs coming out of toilets this season and that’s not where eyeballs should be coming out of so he’s lost. The theme for me this season is Ben's brain breaks and he’s at a loss and he’s really looking for some kind of sanity. The world is turned upside down for him and he’s trying to put it right side up again."
Evil premieres Sunday, June 12 on Paramount+ with new episodes dropping weekly.
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