It’s been a very experimental season so far for Ash
vs Evil Dead. The Starz series has seemingly gone out of its way this
year to break its own format and stretch the boundaries of what you’d expect
from Evil
Dead. So it’s really saying something that Sunday night’s episode, “Delusion,”
was their most unconventional yet, for better or for worse.
The episode opens with a montage of the most outlandish
moments from the original trilogy, before cutting to Ash waking up in a
hospital bed. His doctor, who is quite clearly ancient demon Baal in disguise,
explains to Ash that he’s been a patient of this asylum for the past 30 years,
and has hallucinated the events of the entire TV series so far as a coping
mechanism to help process his murdering of his friends in the cabin in the
woods back in the original film. In order to truly move past his delusions, Ash
is told he must destroy the Necronomicon, which we last saw him throw through a
portal in the trunk of his car. Ash, of course, refuses to believe Dr. Baal’s
story, and is forced through a series of antiquated mental health treatments.
Some of these are humorous, like the demon-doctor’s Ashy Slashy therapy puppet,
while others are truly disturbing (being repeatedly electrocuted alongside an
undead Chet).
In his stay at the hospital of horror, Ash meets alternate
versions of his Deadite-slaying team: Pablo is an orderly, Ruby is a nurse, and
a particularly fantastic Dana DeLorenzo is alternate universe Kelly - a deeply disturbed
inmate.
After a failed escape attempt leaves both the bizzaro Kelly
and Pablo dead, the doctor again attempts to get through to Ash, this time with
surveillance of Ash killing them both (something we didn’t see him do.) Looking
out the window to clear his head, Ash sees his car pull up outside of the
facility. Something changes within him and he confesses to all the killings
that have happened so far, pledging to find the Necronomicon once more. In the
final shot of the episode, the drawing of Pablo hanging on the wall calls out to
the “Jeffe” one last time, further suggesting this whole episode was a lie
projected into Ash’s mind by Baal.
