Where were we? Ah, yes! The smashed-in brains of Lee Majors!
This week’s episode picked up right where the last episode left off, with Ash helplessly tending to his very recently killed father, who had just been run over by Ash’s own demon-possessed car. Attempting to combat the demonic Delta, Pablo opens the door, making himself vulnerable to the power of the Necronomicon in the backseat. He’s sucked inside as the car drives off with him and the daughter of the Elk Grove Michigan police chief trapped helplessly inside.
Ash enlists the help of his drunk-driving buddy Chet (Ted Raimi, again just nailing the comedic sensibilities of this show) and together they speed after the car. Truly, Mr. Raimi is one of the highlights of this episode. His rapid-fire back-and-forth exchanges in the car with Bruce Campbell are priceless. I’m loving these callbacks to the screwball comedy inspirations for the Evil Dead series as a whole. Eventually, though, Ash leaves Chet behind and continues pursuing his beloved Delta on his own, finally cornering it at an old demolition derby site.
Meanwhile, Ruby continues to hunt down her demon spawn with the help of Kelly, finally cornering them back at the spooky old crematorium where we first met them at the start of this season. Kelly expresses her continued distrust in Ruby, who has clearly not been telling the whole truth of this situation they’re in. Finally confessing the full danger of these demons, Ruby explains just how evil and powerful the “father” demon is. It would be apocalyptic if the demon children managed to summon him. Satisfied, Kelly helps join in the fight.
I gotta say, it’s pretty awesome to see Lucy Lawless hunt demons. I’ve spoken before about how frustratingly few times they let her in on the action, so seeing her get to finally kill all the demons was awesome, and exactly what I wanted. Yay Ruby! …I guess. She’s probably still evil. This scene was cool, though.
Back at the demolition derby, Ash fights off his car, while Pablo fights off the book inside, continuing to have frightening visions. He’s now even speaking directly to the Necronomicon, which can talk back in its own demon voice. In a clever callback to the Mechanical Bull contest from last week’s episode, Ash mounts the top of the bucking car, and fight/rides it around the arena. Eventually, he stabs its motor with his chainsaw hand, killing his beloved car and freeing his friend- but Pablo has another plan.
Having seen a graphic vision of being impaled with a pipe and encouraged by Ash to crawl into the car’s trunk to die, Pablo understands what must be done to destroy the Necronomicon. The book coughs up a scrap of paper with a curse written on it, and Pablo reads it out. A portal opens in the trunk of the car and Pablo tosses the book into it. Proud of their job well done, Ash and Pablo walk off, feeling they’ve successfully accomplished their mission of destroying the book.
Of course, all is not what it seems. Ruby collapses, physically hurting from the feeling that the book is now gone. In the last shot of the episode, the trunk of the car opens yet again, with a fiery face rising out and at the camera, presumably the face of the powerful father demon.
Overall, this episode was pretty cool. Pablo got a lot to do, which is great. I love Ray Santiago’s performance as this character, and seeing him used to his fullest potential is great. I was a little disappointed by the episode’s plot, as the majority of its runtime was spent just wrapping up the loose ends from last week. It had some fun moments and strong performances, but not a lot of the series’ typical splat-stick violent physical comedy and very little plot.
