At the end of the last episode before leaving Pablo’s uncle’s farm, Ash had a new cybernetic hand to replace the wooden one lost in ‘Books From Beyond’, Pablo had a medallion from his fallen uncle the Brujo, and Kelly had memory loss as fallout from her demonic possession.
Well, didn’t see that coming…
This episode opens with Michigan State Trooper Amander Fisher and Ms Knowby arriving at the farm of the Brujo, as his funeral pyre and talismans still burn. As they investigate the farm, Amanda spies the Oldsmobile and trailer in the distance. Before they can pursue, The Evil attacks, possessing the still smoldering skeleton of the Brujo. It rushes at Amanda, and Ms Knowby impales it with a scythe. It calls her Ruby (finally!), a double-crosser and says, “The others will never let you get the book for yourself, and neither will I.” And with that, Deadite Brujo drags Ruby into the funeral pyre, where it suddenly explodes over the title card…
With Ruby seemingly dead, Amanda takes her car to pursue Ash, noting with mild panic that his hand has vanished from the car. Ash she leaves, The Evil follows.
Somewhere down the road at the Western Moose restaurant, Ash is wolfing down some pancakes as he lays out the plan he worked out from his vision quest with the Brujo to Pablo and Kelly; he has to take the Necronomicon back to the cabin. He doesn’t want them to come with him, citing the danger, but they refuse to be left behind. After convincing Ash to keep the team together, he is approached by old acquaintance Lem, a militiaman/survivalist. He offers to let Ash try out some new weaponry in an exchange for some ammo on Ash’s “store discount”.
Probably unwise for Ash to leave a man only nine days sober at the bar…
Leaving Lem at the bar, Ash tells Pablo and Kelly that they need to make a stop on the way to the cabin, then sends them back to the trailer as he tries to work out how he;s going to pay the bill.
Outside, Amanda has finally caught up to Ash, and seeing his friends leaving, calls her superior Lieutenant Boyle to come and make the arrest.
As Pablo and Kelly wait in the trailer, they try to sort through what happened between them while Kelly was possessed by Eligos, but are interrupted when the Necronomicon reacts violently to Pablo’s new medallion. As they contain it and discuss Kelly’s new apparent lust for revenge, Ash tries to pay the bill by seducing the waitress.
It goes about as well as you’d expect.
As Ash waits for the waitress in the bathroom, Amanda bursts in instead and finally gets the drop on Ash, arresting him.
And The Evil gets closer.
Lieutenant Boyle arrives as Amanda marches Ash out of the bathroom. Ash tries to explain himself when The Evil attacks, killing and converting nearly everyone in the diner to Deadites except Ash, Amanda and Lem. Lem runs off, leaving Ash and Amanda to fight these new Deadites…
These two gets some good hits in during this week’s battle.
After last week’s disappointing episode, this was a welcome return to form. I’d seen earlier in the production notes that Michael Hurst would be directing this and the next episode. Hurst is an old collaborator of Rami’s and Campbell’s, having played Iolaus in ‘Hercules: The Legendary Journeys’ and ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ and directed several episodes. I figured out of all the directors who weren’t Raimi, he would be the one who would get this material the most. And I think the episode speaks for itself in that regard; this was fun, over the top, and gory as Hell. More importantly, it gets the plot back on track and finally got our two divergent story lines coming together, with Amanda now firmly enmeshed with Team Ash. Some of this credit should also go to writer Nate Crocker, who’s script again feels improved on last episode’s effort. He and Bruce Campbell manage to shake as much cringing as they can out of Ash’s attempted seductions in this episode.
The action in this episode was great; I don’t believe for a second that Ruby is dead; though I am pleased that I can finally acknowledge in universe that that’s actually her name. But her brief fight scene and demise was done very well. The final battle in the diner is the major set piece for this episode, and it delivers on all fronts, being in equal parts funny and horrific.
The inclusion of Lem, played by Peter Feeney; another ‘Hercules’/’Xena’ alumni; is an interesting addition that promises for a potential fascinating detour as Team Ash arms up for their final push towards the old cabin
My only real complaint about this episode is Ash’s male gaze interactions with Amanda; but the point of them is to remind us that while Ash got old, he never really matured. Hopefully that’ll improve in the coming episodes, but I doubt it.
The improvement of this episode over the last was a palpable relief to me; I don’t want to not like anything in the Evil Dead franchise, after all. We’re back on track it seems, and next week’s detour into militia and survivalist territory will hopefully build on this and be fun.
