Evil: parents' guide

A serial killer slits throats, mostly off camera, and a rape is heard but not shown. Also beatings, a severed finger, gory crime-scene photos, a stabbing video and heavy bleeding during Mass. A boy is killed by his parents, and a man cuts the baby from his murdered wife.

Season 1 sticks to words like damn, hell and bitch. The streaming seasons are much harsher: Plugged In counted eight f-words in a season 3 episode and 21 in a season 4 episode, plus s-words and frequent misuse of God's name.

Season 1 has romantic tension and a demon's crude come-ons. Later seasons show sex scenes with moaning, lingerie and partly exposed breasts, including a married couple on a kitchen counter and a main character's encounter with a demon. Crude sexual talk throughout.

Adults drink wine and canned margaritas without getting drunk. Starting in season 1, the priest-in-training takes hallucinogens to bring on religious visions, and the trips are shown on screen. Two leads are also unknowingly drugged in one episode.

Demonic possession, exorcisms, a goat-headed devil and a demon who visits a woman in her bed create steady dread. Nightmares and hallucinations blur with reality, and a storyline about a supposedly possessed fetus is especially disturbing.