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The Bouchard-Luria Family
Sheryl
Sheryl Luria
Portrayed By: Christine Lahti
Kristen's hard-living mother.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Leland isn't so much a "bad boy" as he is a genuinely evil human being, but Sheryl still finds herself attracted to him when he displays casual cruelty and explains his anti-moral philosophy.
- Ambiguously Evil: If it were just a matter of dating Leland Townsend it could be written off as being a Horrible Judge of Character, but she's gone as far as to advise Lexis to hit another girl in the face with a brick, then lie about it. Her behavior becomes increasingly sinister, as she helps out Leland against Kristen and shows a downright unhinged side when Leland breaks up with her, painting his office wall with blood that's implied to be hers. Later she starts trying to manipulate Dr. Boggs. She later drops the ambiguous part when she is...
- Brainwashed: Leland paralyzes her with a drug and infuses and unknown substance into her blood. Whatever it is, it causes drops any pretense of having morals at all, and she both willingly becomes the Honey Pot to Leland's Serial Killer and joins the demonic houses.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She still cares about her family after her turn to villainy and later threatens Leland with castration should he hurts her granddaughters.
- Face–Heel Turn: In Season 2, she becomes Leland's ally, although she insists their bizarre semi-friendship is "transactional". It's implied this is at least partially due to Leland brainwashing her.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: More often than not, she wears a leather jacket and leather pants, accented with loud animal print tops. Did she used to be a metal groupie?
- Manipulative Bitch: Sheryl's an excellent liar and thinks nothing of using her own family as pawns for her own ends.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: She antagonizes Andy at every turn although it's mostly because his frequent trips leave Kristen on her own to take care of their daughters.
- Silver Fox: She's attractive enough to lure men she dates to be killed by Leland.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: She becomes gradually but increasingly sinister and morally ambiguous.
- Woman Scorned: Sheryl does not let go of grudges, and even seems to take genuine pleasure in waging vindictive campaigns against others.
Andy
Andrew "Andy" Bouchard
Portrayed By: Patrick Brammall
Kristen's husband. Like her, he's an experienced mountain climber. Unlike her he spends relatively little time onscreen.
- And I Must Scream: In Season 3 he's lured away on false pretenses by Leland's friend Edward. Soon Leland and Sheryl are keeping him in a cell, mute and paralyzed.
- Commuting on a Bus: Since he runs the family business in the Himalayas, he only makes sporadic appearances.
- Hero of Another Story: He lives for most of the year in the Himalayas and guides other people through the mountains.
- Jerkass to One: Andy is a nice dude but he shares mutual animosity with Sheryl.
- Nice Guy: Andy is a goofy, caring father and loving husband.
Lynn
Lynn Bouchard
Portrayed By: Brooklyn Shuck
Kristen and Andy's oldest daughter.
- Promotion to Parent: As the eldest she has the most responsibilities over the others if/when both parents are absent.
Lila
Lila Bouchard
Portrayed By: Skylar Gray
Kristen and Andy's second daughter.
- Cheerful Child: Has tended toward smiles and reassurance despite the weird and terrifying things surrounding her family.
Lexis
Lexis Bouchard
Portrayed By: Maddy Crocco
Kristen and Andy's third daughter.
- Designer Babies: Possible, in that she was conceived after Kristen and Andy turned to a fertility lab, one that has since been linked to some sinister children on the show.
Laura
Laura Bouchard
Portrayed By: Dalya Knapp
Kristen and Andy's youngest daughter.
- Delicate and Sickly: She was born with a heart condition that the Bouchards were told could take her at any time. A serious illness happens near the end of the first season. Surgery and possibly a deal made by the Buddhist-curious Andy seem to stabilize her.
The Acosta Family
Leon
Leon Acosta
Portrayed By: Vondie Curtis-Hall
David's father, a successful artist.
- Bourgeois Bohemian: He's made quite a lot of money, and his spread in Upstate New York allows him to duck any social rules he doesn't feel like accommodating.
- Polyamory: He seems to think he's effectively got two wives, although really it's more like a wife who has an open-minded girlfriend.
Ben's Family
Karima
Karima Shakir
Portrayed By: Sohina Sidhu
Ben's sister.
- Bollywood Nerd: She's probably even more of a computer whiz than her brother, as that's how she makes her living. In any case he's been shown consulting her a couple of times.
Other Characters
Dr. Boggs
Dr. Kurt Boggs
Portrayed By: Kurt Fuller
Kristen's therapist and a sometime outside consultant to the trio.
- Agent Scully: As a scientist he doesn't believe in possessions or that demons can be exorcised. He does, however, grant the possibility that some exorcism subjects could derive a psychological benefit from believing they'd been freed.
- Ambiguously Jewish: He's played by a Jewish actor, and his beard does create a visual tie with pioneering analyst Sigmund Freud, who was also Jewish. That said, his interests seem a little more Jungian.
- Big Damn Heroes: It's impressive when he marches into David's hospital room and saves the day by being an outraged professional.
- Good Is Not Stupid: He deduces Sheryl's deception almost immediately from the clues, and he doesn't suffer bullshit from his patients.
- Honorary True Companion: He's always happy to go out of the way to help the team with difficult cases, but doesn't join full-time because he has a psychiatric practice and many patient to care for.
- Nice Guy: Boggs is a caring, considerate and non-judgmental professional who's pretty much always there for his patients. He doesn't get mad when Kristen interrupts one of his other sessions and accuses him of leaking her notes (in reality Leland stole them) and he later testifies to help David in "Exorcism Part 2."
- Secret-Keeper: Kristen confesses her murder of LeRoux to him, and he agrees to keep her secret because he very strongly adheres to doctor/patient confidentiality and he is only legally required to inform the police if she tells him she is planning a future crime. That being said, he's horrified by the revelation.
- The Shrink: Specifically a shrink's shrink. Kristen is familiar with the lingo and concepts of psychiatry even if she doesn't work as a therapist herself.
D.A. Cormier
D.A. Lewis Cormier
Portrayed By: Danny Burstein
New York prosecutor and Kristen's employer at the start of the series.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Leland replaces Kristen as consulting forensic psychologist under Cormier's watch and sets about intentionally going for unjust results. This doesn't seem to trigger any alarms for Cormier.
LeRoux
Orson LeRoux
Portrayed By: Darren Pettie
Successful professional who starts committing murders in midlife.
- Asshole Victim: It's hard to get sad about him being killed by Kristen, considering that not only is he a remorseless Serial Killer, but he's smug and unpleasant on a personal level.
- Faux Affably Evil: He tries to affect an air of politeness, but really he's just a smarmy, overconfident asshole. It's especially grating with his fake contrition when he's released from prison.
- Miscarriage of Justice: Both causes one and fakes one in "Justice x 2" when he gets sprung from prison by claiming Kristen set him up for the murders he was caught for. Another killer willingly serves as Fall Guy.
- Obfuscating Insanity: Under Leland's coaching he fakes demonic possession, which will be read as dissociative disorder in the modern legal system.
- Serial Killer: Breaks in and kills families.
- Smug Snake: He can barely contain his glee when reliving his murders, even as he claims point blank that he is innocent.
Sebastian
Sebastian Lewin
Portrayed By: Noah Robbins
An IT consultant the trio encounter in an early case, later recruited by Leland into a misogynistic cult.
- He-Man Woman Hater: Doesn't seem to be one at first, but exposure to Leland's teachings and the "Incel Army" brings out an increasingly anti-woman animus in him.
- Idiot Savant: Good with computers, questionable with other stuff. He not only has no moral problems with carrying out a mass shooting, but also believes it will make his life better, which any cursory study of past mass murderers would disprove.
- Reckless Gun Usage: Carelessly poses with multiple guns in front of the mirror thus blowing his own head off before he can hurt anyone else.
- Stereotypical Nerd: Technically brilliant, unable to talk to women, coke bottle glasses. The whole package.
- Too Dumb to Live: Winds up blowing his own head off through his incompetent handling of guns before he can hurt anyone else.
Rose390
Rose390/Richard Ghana
Portrayed By: Nora Murphy (as Rose390)/uncredited actor (as Richard Ghana)
Another young player that Kristen's daughters meet while playing a VR game bought for them by Sheryl. In reality she's the projection of a psychopathic coder named Richard Ghana.
- Creepy Child: She's an unsettling little girl right out of your average summer-release horror.
- Creepy Monotone: She doesn't speak with much inflection.
- Digital Avatar: Ben guesses that she's "a pedophile with a voice modifier." If that's not the exact truth, he's not far off, either.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: She has a high contrast appearance with lank black hair and alabaster skin.
- Psycho Serum: Ghana's ex-roommate reports that he's become addicted to flakka, a real life synthetic stimulant that can causes both bursts of extreme strength and paranoid delusions.
Grace
Grace Ling
Portrayed By: Li Jun Li
A childcare provider who claims to have prophetic visions.
- Spirit Advisor: She appears to David in the hospital after being deported back to China. Whether this is a dream or an actual spirit is left ambiguous. For that matter, she may well still be alive.
Byrd
Detective Mira Byrd
Portrayed By: Kristen Connolly
A detective in the NYPD homicide decision and friend of Kristen's.
- Dirty Cop: While she isn't shown to be explicitly corrupt for her own gain, she does abuse her authority to let Kristen off the hook.
- Expy: Blonde with a bird-themed surname and a job investigating murders, a la Clarice Starling.
- Friend on the Force: Downplayed; she's sometimes at odds with Kristen in a professional setting, but while this does strain their friendship slightly, they continue to like and respect each other.
- Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: To Kristen, after she murders Orson LeRoux. However, she's only doing the basics of her job since there isn't much interest in actually solving the case, and when she finds out Kristen is the killer, she chooses to let her go pretty much because they're friends.
Renée
Renée Harris
Portrayed By: Renée Elise Goldsberry
A lawyer hired by the diocese when an exorcism subject has second thoughts, and also an old friend of David's.
- Deadpan Snarker: As seen when she has fun with the plaintiff's attorney being named "Lemonhead".
- Hello, Attorney!: She's a high-powered attorney who's attractive enough to get David to break his chastity vows.
