Summary
The dark ones have come and it’s absolutely glorious. The penultimate episode of Ash vs. Evil Dead was all out action, and the best of the season so far.
With the news this week of the cancellation of Ash vs. Evil Dead after three wonderful seasons, we were left hoping that these final two episodes would be a fitting send-off. Some concern may have been had about the possibility of this season’s climactic episodes not delivering as well as the previous, but all concern would have been swept swiftly away after just five minutes of watching Judgement Day.
Episode nine fully embraced the weird, gory craziness that is the Evil Dead franchise and it pays off perfectly. You could almost feel that in some way, the Raimis and other members of the creative team maybe had a feeling that cancellation was a possibility after this season, so they decided to go full Evil Dead for the finale. Quality has never been a problem for this show and I can only imagine the sad news of cancellation has come about due to low viewership.
Anyway, on to Judgement Day. We begin where we left off last week with Ruby and Kaya performing a ritual on Zoe, the last surviving Knight of Sumeria. This ritual is to create a new page of the Necronomicon out of Zoe’s skin, which makes for lovely viewing. Once this is done, Zoe, now with a large square of skin missing off her back, tries to escape but doesn’t get particularly far before a doorknob comes alive and attacks her. Kaya finishes the job in that most unsettling of ways; thumbing her eyes.
Ash, Pablo, and Brandy return back to the house where Brandy is feeling the after-effects of “coming back from the dead”. Pablo begins to have another vision, now so intense it causes temporary blindness and sees Ruby and Kaya through the eyes of the Necronomicon itself. Roles are then given out as Ash heads off to deal with those two and regain Kelly’s body back from Kaya; Pablo goes to the rift and Brandy stays guarding the house. Another heartwarming father/daughter moment follows, as Ash entrusts Brandy with the “boomstick”.
What follows for the rest of Judgement Day is absolute chaos as the “Dark Ones”, the demonic overlords of evil, manage to make it through the rift in search of the Necronomicon. If they retrieve the book and add to it the pages they possess, evil will conquer the living world. Pablo is the first to realize this after he questions why the rift is already open when he reaches the cellar.
Brandy is the star of the most glorious scene of this whole season of Ash vs. Evil Dead as she is chased by the presence of evil around the house, trying to use the “boomstick” to no effect and then ending up in the garage where her phone turns into a deadite, bites her thumb off and taunts and attacks her pretending to be a voicemail from her mother Candace, who we saw killed in the season premiere. This scene out of all the wonderful action in Judgement Day was this franchise at it’s very best balance of horror and a hell of a lot of fun!
Ash reaches Ruby and Kaya, taking Kaya hostage before Ruby explains that she needs to stop the Dark Ones from passing through the rift, not realizing that it’s too late. The Dark Ones appear at Ruby’s house, removing the soul of Kaya from Kelly’s body, putting it back into its own and burning it. They then suck Ruby “The Betrayer’s” soul out of her body, leading to this week’s “Ash Quote of the Week”, giving Ash enough time to grab the Necronomicon for himself and sneak away with Kelly’s body.
The Dark Ones realize Ash has taken the book and once Ash gets back into Elk Grove, they have already turned the town into a deadite-filled pit of mayhem. Pablo goes to find Brandy back at the house and after she defeats the deadite phone by running it over with a lawnmower, the two of them head back into the town. Ash crashes the Delta through a bar window trying to avoid the people running around and screaming, and the Dark Ones appear again, throwing Ash out of the car and claiming the book.
He meets back up with Pablo and Brandy but the Dark Ones have already attached their pages, which creates an earthquake, followed by a sinkhole, followed by a gigantic hellish demon. I think this season finale is going to be something special!
Pure action is exactly what we need at this stage of the season and pure action is exactly what we got. An incredibly fun episode, Judgement Day capped off by Brandy wielding the “boomstick” like a true Williams and seemingly Ruby’s true demise at the hands (or the cloaked black shadow things that might be hands) of those she betrayed. The design of the Dark Ones was appropriately terrifying and their actions even more so.
While it is sad that we won’t be getting any more from Ash vs. Evil Dead after next week, three wonderful seasons are so much better than none, and this is going to be a final battle to remember!
Ash Quote of the Week: “Oooh, I’m Ruby, I’m melting, f**k off, bitch!”
