Ash vs Evil Dead Season 2 Episode 3 - "Last Call"

Episode three of the second season of Starz' Ash vs Evil Dead is dollars to Deadites every bit as good, if not better, than the first. After the second episode ends with a ragtag bunch of hooligans absconding with Ash’s beloved car, “Last Call” opens with a mournful montage. Shots from Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 flicker by, surrounded by a beautiful haze that can only be described as rose colored.

It isn’t just the car that’s missing, however. More concerning, depending on who you ask, is the fact that Ash decided to hide the Necronomicon in the backseat after going to great lengths to retrieve it. This could have been a totally boilerplate episode, where the gang fights off the regular gaggle of ghoulies in search of the car and the book, but the show’s in no rush and neither is its hero.

Ash, reassuring his compadres that he has a plan, leads them all to the local watering hole, Shemp’s, where he introduces them to an old bartender buddy of his. In totally characteristic fashion, Ash suggests they throw a rager, with drinks and ketamine aplenty, and wait for the theifs to show up with the car. From here, the episode splits, following two parallel storylines of the same night.

Our B-plot concerns the youngsters who unwittingly stole much more than they bargained for. Parked on the foggy sidelines of an empty football field, the kids smoke and drink, blissfully ignorant of the unadulterated evil in their midst. When one of them finds the book and reads a portion aloud (because, of course they did) the Delta goes all Christine on them. The car stalks the kids one by one, intercutting a kill in between every few minutes of party footage.

“Last Call” also tosses in some much-needed character development and drama. Pablo’s visions have been well-established, but we've gotten very little Kelly in the first few episodes. This week finds her agreeing to take off with Ruby to get out of the rut she feels she has fallen into.  We also get a little resolution between Ash and his dad, after the two duke it out verbally and then on a mechanical bull.

By the end of the episode, the Delta is still in the wind and our gang seems to have shrunk, it’s more of a down beat than we’ve had in awhile, but it feels right. In a show that experienced some inconsistencies and lags in its first season, this episode feels like evidence of progress; and for a show that was awesome to begin with, progress is pretty damn groovy.