Chucky’s always had a set of plastic balls located under his little blue dungarees (we know because Bride Of Chucky told us) but it’s thanks to this whacked-out third season that we’re truly getting to see how big they truly are.
Not literally, you understand – the show has to have some boundaries – but as we hit the penultimate episode of a season drawn out by the actor’s strike, the show’s creators just keep stabbing on that crazy button with reckless abandon. Not only has this season taken place at the White House, not only has Chucky killed the President and fired nukes at the North Pole (“Fuck Santa!”), but this this most recent episode has given long time Chucky fans something that they’ve never seen before.
Sure, series creator Don Mancini has always made sure hardcore fans have eaten well at his televised table, but with There Will Be Blood, he’s given us the greatest treat of all.
Brad Dourif in the motherfucking flesh.
As the White House goes into full on cover-up mode in the wake of a nuclear missile blowing up an arctic shelf, the devious Agent Pryce seems happier as a pig in shit as he organises a transition from the murdered President, to his double, Randall Jenkins and finally to the expectant Vice President, however, the President’s widow is horrified. But while the Collins family is snuck out of the White House and Randall realizes that the cover up may include silencing him for good, Grant stays behind to aid Lexi, Jake and Devon in their fight against the rising weirdness left in Chucky’s wake.
But what of Chucky? Last time we saw him, he took a fatal bullet through the heart and his withered, aged body evaporated into dust – is this truly the end of Charles Lee Ray? Don’t you fuckin’ believe it.
As the White House is a place of tremendous supernatural power, Charles’ spirit wanders around the spectral corridors of power only to come face to face with the voodoo God Demballa itself. However, as Charles is a pathological narcissist and Damballa manifests itself as whatever someone loves the most, the peeved deity has taken the form of – what else – a Good Guy Doll, who lays down the law. Charles has one last chance to impress his God an avoid being sent to hell and to do that, all he has to do is manage to kill someone as a ghost; something that’s going to be much easier seeing as Pryce has arranged for a dance to be held to purge the White House of his spirit.
Meanwhile, time has finally run out for Tiffany as her date with a lethal injection has finally arrived, butcas she scrambles to find some sort of voodoo practice to get out of be predicament, it could finally be time for Chucky’s old flame to pay the piper…
Right, so Brad Dourif has been the voice of Chucky right from the word go and yet, during Chucky’s near thirty six year reign, the actor has only appeared in the franchise, in the flesh a handful of times. Obviously he was there in the pre credits sequence of the first film getting fatally shot, he popped up in flashbacks in Curse Of Chucky and he was dotted around sporadically during Chucky’s first season, there’s one thing that the actor has never managed to do – play opposite an actual Chucky doll.
Well, thanks to Damballa’s shapeshifting abilities, the seventh episode begins with exactly that as Dourif pleas with his God (also voiced by Dourif) for one last chance. For an old, battle-worn horror nut like myself, watching the legendary actor bounce lines off his plastic alter ego feels like genuine horror history unfolding before your very eyes and I viewed these scenes with actual eleation as the two bickered, raged and bargained with one another.
The rest of the episode manages to keep that high energy feeling going strong as it focuses more on the lengths the White House will go to to keep its secrets while Lee Ray get orientated with being dead and while the dastardly acts of Agent Pryce aren’t exactly what I’d want a penultimate episode of a Chucky season to focus on, it does manage to provide a chance for another of the show’s quirks to raise its spiteful head.
Barely two episodes ago, we discussed the shockingly poor survival rate of Devon Sawa as he’s shuffled off this mortal coil no less than four times thanks to the multiple characters he’s played – well, make that five times now as President’s double, Randall, dodges an assassination attempt from Pryce only to find himself fighting for his life with a member of the secret service inside an elevator. Cue Charles Lee Ray’s ghost who, due to his ability to manipulate all the blood spilt in the White House over the years, floods the thing with gallons of plasma like something out of The Shining or Evil Dead Rise. However, when the doors open, we find poor old Randall and his suited attacker drowned and soaked with blood despite the car being utterly dry. While the old lift-filling-with-bloof trick isn’t exactly new, Chucky pulls it off with style to spare, but I have to confess, it’s a shame to see Sawa’s secondary role come to an end so quickly and I was hoping Randall would have a bit more to do than drown in an impressive blood-flood.
Still, a death is a death and it sets the scene nicely for the seance to follow which sees Dourif in prime, ranting form as he strides around the seated participants, screaming like the madmen he’s famous for playing. However, while the plot disposes of a bunch of side characters almost as an after thought (bye bye Vice President), it offers a bizarre solution to the problem. Assuming that some vestige of “Good Chucky” (remember him from Season 2?) exists within Charles, Jake volunteers to be put to death, Flatliners style, to try and appeal to the killer’s better nature on the metaphysical plane, which undoubtedly means that Chucky still has Crazies places yet to explore.
Of course, we can’t go until we mention Jennifer Tilly’s resplendent Tiffany, who is now staring her death sentence clear in the face as her voodoo possession of the jail staff fails to get her out of her predicament in time. As you’d expect from Tilly, she fucking goes for it as she’s led down the green mile, but the moment is rendered shockingly poignant when its revealed that Nica is there to watch her die and deliver a message from GG that she was a wonderful mother. After everything that’s happened during Child’s Play’s tangled history, you wouldn’t expect such a moment to hit so hard, but after Tiffany’s long term victim puts one final boot in by telling the Monroe of murder that she’ll burn in hell, the needle goes in.
Whatever happens next with either Jake, Charles or Tiffany is anyone’s guess, but we only have a week until we find out – let’s see if Chucky can execute yet another insane finale.
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