Ash vs. Evil Dead - "Killer of Killers"

At its core, Ash vs. Evil Dead is the story of a hero on a quest. As previous reviews have already attested to, this show takes Ashley Williams out of the iconic Tennessee cabin (and the nonsensical, but fabulous setting of the small village in the Middle Ages) and places him quite literally on the road. Almost every episode features shots of his yellow Delta tearing down an open highway as the camera soars high above, able to see the expanse of nothingness that he can’t quite understand through his vantage, limited by the horizon and what he can see through his windshield.

One obvious necessity of the story of a hero on a quest is that our hero is always in motion, always encountering new lands and new people, necessitating the constant explanation of his or her mission. If Ash vs. Evil Dead has struggled at all, its been in the episodes that seem to revolved around explaining their story to a new character and seeing what that character has to offer (namely, “From Beyond Books” and “Brujo”).

Back on track this week, Ash, Pablo, and Kelly stop at a diner to replenish their strength after their closer encounter with the mouth-for-a-face demon that possessed Kelly in order to defeat our team. While Ash scarfs down a plate of hotcakes and attempts to wile the waitress in order to get out of paying the bill (a highlight of the episode, to be sure), the paths of the various players inch ever closer to converging.

Ruby and Detective Fisher, driven by their personal agendas, are hot on the trio’s trail, arriving at the Brujo’s ranch while the ashes from his funeral pyre are still smoldering. Looking for any trace of their targets, the two wander, frustrated, through the wreckage until the flames of the pyre flare up and the Brujo—now a well-done Deadite—races toward them. Ruby runs at it and when the two tumble in the fire, Fisher doesn’t extend the courtesy of sticking around to see if her savior survived, opting instead to tear off in Ruby’s car.

She is able to track Ash to the diner where she calls for backup before heading in to arrest him herself. A hilarious fight breaks out between the two in the men’s room, during which Ash ends up on the floor with his face in the urinal trough and the sexual overtones of the cinematography abound. Once subdued, Ash does his best explain to Fisher that she has it all wrong but, like the saying goes, seeing is believing. The Evil comes rushing through the woods and overtakes the diner, leading to what may be the best and bloodiest fight sequence in the series to date.

For me, this episode represents what this show can be at its best. The elements of the “road movie” that have, in previous installments, created some pacing problems and let large chunks of the episode fall flat, “Killer of Killers” walks a very fine line in maintaining the balance between the new format and the old splatter gore that fans expect from an Evil Dead title. Bruce Campbell gets to really ham it up in a way that people have come to expect from him and that has been sacrificed for the sake of plot development in a few earlier episodes. Likewise, Pablo (Ray Santiago) and Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo) both get a chance at actually getting their hands dirty which is satisfying not just for them but for the audience as well. When Kelly demolishes a Deadite by thinly slicing its face with a deli machine, Ash tells Pablo, “I think she needed that” and I grinned. I needed that too.

Where this show still baffles me a little bit is in its use of Detective Amanda Fisher and her entire storyline. It is an interesting concept to see how an outside source, such as the police, would be interpreting these events, but it still doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense for me. Most horror and action films are notorious for racking up huge body counts and leaving ridiculous scenes behind with little to no repercussions and while it feels knowing to try and address that here, maybe there is a reason that lots of stories leave it out. The novelty on this story has all but worn off and now that its overlap with the main plot is much more pronounced, its oddity is apparent in a way that makes this reviewer wonder about the payoff.

Great episode this week overall, I had to fight the urge to rewind that final diner scene over and over into infinity and watch that kid get caught in the fan or the figure skater get impaled with her own skate.

Lasting thought: Where did Ash’s old hand go?