Last week’s ‘Books From Beyond’ ended with the season’s first genuine cliff-hanger: Michigan State Trooper Amanda Fisher handcuffed to a shelf as bookshop owner Lionel Hawkins rises once more as a Deadite. She actually gives a good accounting for herself given her current handicap, until Lucy Lawless’ (STILL) unnamed character charges in and rescues her, declaring herself, “Your new best friend.”
After the title card, Team Ash is driving through the rolling hills of Michigan by way of New Zealand, on their way to see Pablo’s uncle, the titular Brujo. Kelly is ill after the encounter at Books From Beyond, but that is forgotten when the EvilCam emerges from the woods by the roadside and attacks the Oldsmobile and trailer.
This is significant, as it’s the first time we’ve ever seen the EvilCam in the entire Evil Dead franchise.
It’s…a dirty CGI cloud.
There’s really not much else it could be, all things considered. And this is a passable realisation of what should not be seen.
Team Ash manages to escape, via combination of after market modifications to the Oldsmobile, and the talismans set up on the Brujo’s property.
Back at Books From Beyond, Lucy Lawless’ character gives a massive info dump to Amanda regarding Deadites and the history of the Evil Dead universe. We still don’t know her name, but we know who she is now; the daughter of Professor Raymond Knowby, the archaeologist who discovered the Necronomicon and partially translated it in the cabin that Ash visited 30 years earlier. This new Ms Knowby blames Ash for the death of her father, her mother (Henrietta; the “witch” in the basement of the cabin in Evil Dead II) and her sister Annie (Ash’s ally who didn’t survive that fateful night in the cabin), and she has been hunting him ever since…
Back at the Brujo’s property, Team Ash meet Pablo’s uncle. He is none too impressed with Pablo or Ash, but he offers to help Ash embark on a vision quest to unlock his true potential. However, Kelly is reacting badly to the talismans on the Brujo’s property, and Pablo stays with her in the trailer to keep an eye on her, and to start building a mechanical replacement for the prosthetic hand Ash abandoned (oddly) in Books From Beyond.
Speaking of hands, we learn how Ms Knowby has been tracking Ash; she shows Amanda Ash’s severed hand from Evil Dead II (which independently murdered Annie, truth be told).
And it’s still twitching…Damn, that’s just grody.
Meanwhile, as Ash embarks on his vision quest into the heart of who he truly is with the help of the Brujo, it becomes clear that Kelly did not escape cleanly from the encounter in Books From Beyond. Eligos has possessed her, and after swiftly overpowering Pablo, Kelly tries to take on Ash within his vision quest…
Again, a much more subdued episode than previously seen from a gore perspective. However, unlike last week’s episode, we learn a lot more about what’s going on, with the mysterious Ms Knowby setting herself up as a new piece on the board and formally joining forces with Amanda, while the audience is given a deeper yet understanding into who Ash is and just what exactly he’s been doing for the past 30 years whilst hiding out.
Having a family member of the Knowby’s hunting Ash is a great idea, and it’s clear Lucy Lawless’ character is somewhat obsessed. But while hunting someone for 30 years is one thing (even if she’s technically barking up the wrong tree, so to speak), keeping their unpreserved hand for all that time is all kinds of disturbing. And how’d she know it was Ash’s after all that? Did she get it fingerprinted??
The title character is played by Dominican actor Hemky Madera, who plays the modern witch doctor with the right mix of gravitas, annoyance and nonchalance to sell us that this is a mystic fighting Evil in his own way. Hopefully they’ll keep him around for a while.
The main draw here is Ash’s vision quest, and it is suitably unnerving and hallucinatory. Bruce Campbell does good work here adding more dimensions to Ash, and even an interesting take on the more implacable movie monsters of old in his final scene. This is also the next advancement of the overall plot of this season, as we learn where Ash is going to have to end up to end this, which should come as no surprise to anyone even remotely genre savvy.
Finally, Dana DeLorenzo does a great turn as the possessed Kelly, being convincingly creepy and threatening and frightened in equal measure.
An improvement over last week’s episode, with a cliffhanger that convincingly leaves Ash himself in peril. New series director David Frazee’s first episode adds new elements to the Evil Dead franchise while moving the story forward at a good pace.
