As seen last season with the surprise death of Detective Amanda Fisher’s untimely meeting with the antler of a stuffed dealer’s head, Ash Vs Evil Dead’s speedier format maybe isn’t ideal when dropping a murderous bombshell. After all, we had barely gotten a chance to know her despite the character featuring in almost every episode and while her shock impalment at the hands of a callous Ash duplicate was stunningly unpredictable, you can’t help but feel it was at the cost of the character.
I only bring this up because the last episode, Last Ride, tried this trick again when in the last seconds of the episode, Ash’s father, Brock Williams was messily spread all over the street minutes after finally reconciling with his son thanks to Ash’s possesed car.
Was it funny. Hell’s yes – of course it was. But as I mentioned before, Ash Vs Evil Dead has a reoccurring habit of prioritizing a shocked laugh over character concerns – so was this one worth it?
After the contents of Brock Williams’ skull was Jackson Pollocked all over the road before Ash’s horrified eyes, it becomes apparent that his possessed Delta Oldsmobile is no longer the beloved automobile he would have sex in when he was younger. However, before he can lay down some pain that would make it fail an MOT on sight, the raging racer snares Pablo with some writhing tentacle-like seatbelts and traps him inside with the traumatised Lacey, the daughter of the town sheriff.
As the demonic Delta roars off with it’s prize, Ash seeks out old drinking buddy Chet (who unsurprisingly, is drunk) in order to borrow his car to give chase forcing to let his friend in on what’s been going down and to break it to him their not actually going to a titty bar called Mammary Lane. Meanwhile, while trapped inside the Delta, Pablo has another confab with the Necronomicon itself after having yet another confusing vision concerning his own death and the book actually offers helpful advice on how to dispose of it as it would rather be sent back to hell than destroyed at the hands of Ruby, Ash or Pablo himself.
Speaking of Ruby, the former Dark One has joined forces with a progressively darker Kelly in order to hunt down the remainder of Ruby’s demon children who have been trying to obtain the Book Of The Dead in order to free their father, Baal, a demon who utilises paranoia to distort the mind.
With all this going on, Ash preps his saw and loads his broomstick for a final, bitter showdown with his car at a deserted Demolition Derby (every town’s got one, right?), but has El Jefe got what it takes to strike the killing blow on the vehicle that’s been with him since the beginning.
When I heard that Lee Majors, the Six Million Dollar Man himself, had been cast as Ash’s dad, I personally thought that this potentially could be a work of genius. Imagine if they’d gone on adventures together, killing Deadites much in the way that Indiana Jones teamed up with his dad in Last Crusade, bickering in the way only a father and son do while trying to score chicks way too young for them. Alas, we never got that stunning vision as the legendary Lee Majors takes an early shower after Brock’s brain gets raspberry jammed by the screeching wheels of a possesed car; and despite the obviously chucklesome sight of a mourning Ash trying (and failing) to respectfully close the eyes of his dear, departed dad despite the consistency of his skull being that of a crushed melon, I’d have to say it probably wasn’t worth it. Usually I would follow any decision that an Evil Dead entry would make into the gates of hell itself, but even though it did score some big laughs out of me, the squandering of the potential of having Ash awkwardly team up with his old man was too good a concept to waste. It’s Lee frickin’ Majors, man – c’mon!
As a result, a perfectly decent episode suffers, which is a shame damn shame, because it contains some truly important shit that moves the show along too. While Ash’s time with Chet is mainly an excuse for Bruce Campbell and Ted Raimi to dust off a few rapid fire, Three Stooges-style back and forth bouts of wordplay.
“Dude, there’s a chainsaw in my backseat.”
“Yeah, that’s mine.”
“What’s it for?”
“Um… ice sculpture?”
“Oh. And the shotgun?”
“Uh, that’s mine, too.”
“What’s that for?”
“In case they don’t pay for the ice sculpture.”
It may not be an intricately scripted interaction, but it’ll warm the heart of anyone who wanted to see these two share the screen from the days of Hercules and Xena: Warrior Princess.
Speaking of Xena (how’s that for a seamless segway), both Lucy Lawless and Dana Delorenzo get to perform a first for the Evil Dead franchise by having a women only battle against Ruby’s demon kids. While the series usually has the women get possesed and terrorize the men, it’s genuinely nice to see the ladies peel off and kick ass on their own, even if the Aliens-style sequence feels a little at odds with the rest of the episode, especially when it concerns a middle-aged man spectacularly dueling with a living car…
A potentially great episode that does some nice heavy lifting when it comes to its separated cast, its nevertheless let down by the show’s insatiable need to keep things as random as possible. Usually it’s a blessing that succeeds in separating it from other shows of it’s ilk, but here, for once, Ash Vs Evil Dead’s desire to be as stupid as it can be catches up to it with one comedic death too many.
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