Last night’s “Ash vs Evil Dead” was a blood-soaked plunge into the series that was absolutely necessary after its premiere on Halloween. Episode one was merely a pre-setup (a prologue, if you will). It introduced/re-introduced Ash to the viewers and got us back on track with the Evil Dead. “Bait,” the second episode, was pure setup. In order for the show’s ragtag crew to be a crew, Kelly needed motivation to follow Ash, and it was made clear in the premiere that her family was going to be the only vessel for that to happen. (Although, somewhat naively, I believed Ash would be saving her family). So while last night’s episode served one purpose: make it believable for Kelly to jump on board, it managed to deliver some deep laughs and amazing throwbacks.
It takes a lot to get a legitimate hard laugh out of me, but “Bait” literally (I don’t use that word lightly) had me clutching my stomach in laughter. In addition to just being hysterically splendid because it’s Bruce Campbell and Ashley J. Williams and the two cannot go together without being funny, the show took a fair amount of stabs at lazy horror films that I found genuinely hilarious. Moments like Pablo pointing out that it didn’t “feel right,” so Ash could quickly follow up with a deadpan “it never does,” and Ash’s trailer door blowing open at the most opportune time, only to deliver an empty scare. These pokes at common horror tropes were subtle enough not to take you out of the show’s element, while still making an impact. However, there was a bit of lazy horror in the episode itself that wasn’t meant to be ironic, most of it dealing with Kelly’s deadite mother.
Ash’s absolute resistance to believe that Kelly’s mom was simply a mom made for some really great comedic moments. But once it was clear that he was dealing with a deadite, things started to feel a bit too reminiscent of everything that’s come before. I can imagine this will continue to be a difficulty for the show’s creative team. There have been, and continue to be a lot of throwbacks to the films, which is wonderful and no one in their right mind would want that to end. But at what point does a throwback become laziness and/or the inability to build on the Evil Dead concept? It felt a bit borderline with Kelly’s mom, especially when she had her moment of tricking Kelly by singing that lullaby and claiming not to understand what’s happening. Great throwback, or lazy writing? Like I said, this may become a difficulty for the show’s writers. But it may not.
The flip in director didn’t bother me as much as it bothered Mr. Disgusting. I didn’t love Bassett’s direction as much as Raimi’s but what this told me is that Ash and the general Evil Dead idea can still shine thoroughly bright through someone else’s lens. This entire series is going to be a sequence of pass/fail exams: did the change in director work? Will it hold up as a series and not just a film? The general Ash shtick might get old, how will they build on it without losing their audience? Could the series survive a pass of the writing torch? There will be lots of little tests to pass, mostly coming from the long-time fans of the franchise who’ve had the show under a microscope since it was first announced. This is a show that’s under a lot of pressure to be awesome. Luckily for the viewers, it’s a show that doesn’t care if you think it’s awesome or not. Too much caring…too much self-awareness could take all the fun out of something like this.
Overall, it was a really badass episode, especially for what I like to call a “building block” episode, which can tend to lose a bit of steam in all the development. And I have to say, I absolutely cannot wait to see where the police investigation aspect of the show will take us. Ash has never had to answer to the cops for all the carnage he has undertaken, so the prospect of him butting heads with the law is electrifying.
