Evil Season 2 Creators Talk “Language and Sexuality” in Move to Paramount+

The sophomore season of Evil made its debut on Paramount+ late last month, after initially airing its first season on CBS to critical and fan acclaim. The supernatural horror procedural series, which has already been renewed for a third season, has definitely been taking fans on a wild ride in its newest batch of episodes — and apparently, the move to streaming has brought some interesting new changes. In a recent interview with Variety, co-creators Robert and Michelle King spoke about the Paramount+ move, and revealed that it actually allowed them to make positive changes to Season 2. Apparently, this included re-adding scenes that had initially been cut for time from the hypothetical broadcast version of the cut, and also editing in things “to do with language and sexuality.”

“We had footage that was a little like, ‘Oh f-ck, we’ll never get this past standards and practices!’” Robert King explained.

“We are now editing with Paramount+ in mind,” Michelle King echoed. So it will feel like a streaming show.”

“It’s been tough to do sin with network standards,” King added with a laugh.

Evil follows forensic psychologist Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers), David Acosta (Mike Colter), and demonic henchman Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson) as they investigate the supernatural. The series is just one of multiple major CBS titles to be making this move to Paramount+, with both SEAL Team and Clarice doing the same.

“I think the difficulty is TV deals with status quo; you want to keep returning to the status quo each year,” Robert King said of Season 2 in an interview with Entertainment Weekly last year. “What we’ve been doing since Good Wife is that when you break the status quo — when you either fire Cary Agos [Matt Czuchry] or kill Will Gardner [Josh Charles] — you actually create true drama. Not drama that is recyclable the way TV does, but you bring in real-world concerns and events. So I think the second season is going to be dealing with some death. Now, that is not really what you put on the poster to bring people in. [Michelle laughs] But if we’re just talking as writers, you know, death is an interesting part of life, and I think so much of our entertainment just pushes it aside because everybody loves a little bit of a song and a dance, but there is a sense we’re dancing around the edge of a grave.”

Have you been enjoying Season 2 of Evil on Paramount+? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

New episodes of Evil debut Sundays on Paramount+.