‘Evil’ Bosses Talk Sheryl’s Motivations & Why Andy’s ‘Trapped’

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Evil Season 4 Episode 2 “How to Train a Dog.”]

Let’s just say that we have a feeling Sheryl (Christine Lahti) wants to take Leland (Michael Emerson) down even more than ever before after the latest Evil episode.

Sheryl tries to gain some footing at work, but it’s run by a misogynistic board of men and demons, so that’s easier said than done. When she speaks up in a meeting, offering up her connection as Kristen’s (Katja Herbers) mother—the biological mother of the Antichrist— Leland shuts her down; the board doesn’t like hearing from women because they consider them to be weak. He suggests she prove herself by getting Greg Bruni (Danny Mastrogiorgio) in line, with the demon inside him starting to peep through.

She does just that by cutting his finger off. She delivers it to the Manager, but even that’s not enough to get a promotion. Leland says to give her something, which is how Sheryl ends up on the executive floor in the corner office, which has a very low glass ceiling which allows Leland and other men to look down at her from above. “I’m coming for you, assholes,” she promises. But how much power can she truly gain at this company?

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“I think she’s always worried about not having power in life, that men have power, and she’s worried about that for her granddaughters and she’s pursuing what she thinks is an institution that will get her more power,” executive producer Robert King tells TV Insider. “But of course, there’s a glass ceiling there again.”

There’s also the question of just whose side she’s on; she says she’s not on Leland’s side, and that’s obviously true, but is she on Kristen’s or just her own? “I don’t think Sheryl always understands her own motives,” says executive producer Michelle King. “So on the one hand, she may believe that she’s on Kristen’s side and her granddaughters’ side, but in fact, she’s pretty self-serving.”

Elsewhere, Kristen’s husband Andy (Patrick Brammall) continues to go through it, thanks to Leland and Sheryl’s manipulations carrying over from last season. In this episode, Kristen finds him on the floor under the bed (he says he had a nightmare about being trapped), a doctor finds injection marks between his toes leading to concerns of drug use, and the kids find him curled up in the tub, ignoring his phone (it’s Leland calling to try to activate him once again to whisper in his ear, but the girls, even though they have no idea what’s going on, shut him down and calm their father).

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“He’s really in it,” Michelle King says of Andy this season.

Adds Robert King, “I think Andy’s trapped because some of this is stuff beyond his understanding and not beyond Kristen’s understanding. But some of it is his own failings, too. It’s difficult because he’s been away for so long, it’s hard for this family to get any rhythm back together again. As soon as he is, there’s another problem and now it’s off again. So it’s a difficult one for a family, especially Kristen who has been doing so well with her daughters on her own.”

How do you think Sheryl’s going to handle Leland’s latest move? How do you see this ending for Andy? Let us know in the comments section, below.

Evil, Thursdays, Paramount+