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Ash vs. Evil Dead Review 3.7 “Twist and Shout”
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Hello, everyone, and welcome to the review of the seventh episode of season 3 of the hit Starz series Ash vs. Evil Dead. I’m Bryan Kristopowitz.
Okay, so, there’s some news on the Ash vs. Evil Dead season 4 renewal front, but I don’t know how reliable it is. I mean, as far as I can tell, this “news” hasn’t been reported anywhere else, or at least confirmed anywhere else. The people actually involved in the show haven’t said anything, either. However, a website called Renew Cancel TV announced last week that, via “Starz insider sources,” the show has been renewed for a fourth season.
I have no idea if this Renew Cancel TV website has a good, or really any, reputation in terms of breaking news on TV show renewals and cancelations. And, again, this news doesn’t seem to have been reported or followed up on anywhere else. You’d think that if it were true it would be everywhere, as the fate of the show has been a consistent story across multiple horror and TV show websites since season 3 started. Bloody Disgusting hasn’t said anything. 1428 Elm hasn’t confirmed anything, and that site has been monitoring the show’s ratings all season long.
So what should we all make of this “news”? Hope that it’s true, I guess? What else can we do at this point?
And now, the seventh episode of season three of Ash vs. Evil Dead.
Episode 7: Twist and Shout
Directed by: Mark Beesley
Written by: Caitlin Meares
(All images courtesy of Starz)
Warning: This review contains spoilers.
Twist and Shout begins with Ruby (Lucy Lawless) watching the very final stages of the metamorphosis of her demon child. When the cocoon (or whatever the hell you want to call it) bursts open, a full adult human plops out. And this full adult human looks exactly like our hero Ash. However, this demon Ash doesn’t have the same personality as our actual hero. This demon Ash is something else entirely. It’s almost like he’s a pet or a robot, obedient to the orders it is given by its leader, Ruby. And the first thing that Ruby tells the demon Ash is to cut off its chainsaw hand. With a hacksaw. Man, that’s messed up. Why not let her son use a chainsaw to do it? Cutting off its hand, regardless of how it’s done, is going to be painful, sure. But a chainsaw is going to be a hell of a lot quicker than a hacksaw. What a bitch.
The scene then shifts to the basement of Ash’s hardware store and the wall and the nearby rift entrance. Pablo (Ray Santiago) is still there along with Knights of Sumeria leader Zoe (Emilia Burns) dealing with the aftermath of the opening of the rift. Zoe should be distraught since her entire team was just killed, but she’s holding herself together as best she can. She’s trying to see the bigger picture, mainly the potential end of Evil in Earth. Pablo sort of sees this and tries to console her. However, Pablo notices something odd in the wall. Someone, or something, is trying to communicate with him through the wall. It isn’t a deadite or a demon.
It’s Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo)! Kelly? Why is she on the other side? The audience knows what happened to Kelly last episode, but Pablo doesn’t. Pablo is shocked that his friend and the love of his life is no longer alive and stuck in a weird kind of purgatory. What the hell? Kelly tells him everything that’s happened to her and what Ruby intends to do. Kelly then disappears, terrified of whatever the hell is with her on the other side. With this information in hand, Pablo decides that he needs to find the Jefe, Ash, now.
Back at Ash’s house, Ash comes up with a plan to protect Brandy, who just announced that she wants to go to the prom. Working with the demon Kelly (Ash doesn’t know that the real Kelly is dead), Ash decides that Brandy should be followed at all times by either himself or Ash. Brandy is okay with this scheme. She knows that she’s in the middle of something scary and terrible. Brandy still isn’t convinced, though, that her guidance counselor is actually the evil Ruby. Brandy wants to go to the prom and confront her counselor and see if she really is evil. Ash isn’t keen on that, but, as long as she’s got back up, maybe Brandy will be okay. Going to the school will at least allow Ash to possibly confront Ruby himself. Meanwhile, the demon Kelly is laying the groundwork for Brandy potentially turning on her father.
At the high school, the prom is in full prom mode. There are tons of kids there, there’s dancing, the music is blaring, and some of the kids are doing drugs, like a young couple that is smoking a joint the boy apparently found in the school itself (more of Ash’s stash!). Ruby is there, disguised as the guidance counselor. And the demon Ash is there, too. The doper kids meet the demon Ash, and the demon Ash tells them about the dangers or drugs. Would the real Ash do that? Of course not. The real Ash also wouldn’t chainsaw two kids who weren’t deadites. The demon Ash would, though. And that’s what he does. The blood flies more than usual here.
Brandy finally arrives at the prom with demon Kelly in tow. Brandy finds Ruby quickly and tries to decipher, for herself, if Ruby really is a good guy or a bad guy. In the middle of the conversation, Ruby finally gives up “the truth.” She claims to have known that Ash, Brandy’s father, is really a demon. Ash is a demon? What? Brandy doesn’t want to believe it, but then the demon Kelly can’t refute Ruby’s assertions, so what the hell is Brandy supposed to think? Is her father really a demon?
The real Ash arrives at the school and knows that something is messed up about the whole place. It doesn’t take long for the real Ash to find the demon Ash and get caught up in the demon Ash’s bloody demonic shenanigans. The school’s security officer shows up and immediately suspects that Ash is “back” to his “Ashy Slashy” ways.
Now, while all of that is going on, Pablo arrives at the school and meets up with the demon Kelly. Now, he doesn’t know, one hundred percent, that Kelly is dead and that the Kelly he sees at the school is a demon of some kind. He suspects it, but he has to know for sure. Pablo converses with Kelly and, in the midst of their back and forth, figures out that the Kelly before him is the demon one. And the demon Kelly, rocking a sort of British accent, kicks Pablo’s ass.
Back at the prom proper, Brandy is still trying to deal with the idea that her father is a demon. It can’t be true, can it? As she grapples with that, the demon Ash arrives and starts slicing kids with his chainsaw. The blood and gore flies again as the kids, terrified beyond belief, try to get away. The real Ash shows up and tries to explain to Brandy, once again, why she shouldn’t trust Ruby. It’s at this moment that Ruby throws herself at the real Ash and guts herself on the real Ash’s chainsaw. See, Brandy? Would the real Ash kill a high school guidance counselor? He’s just trying to keep his secret a secret!
And then the real Ash, finally, confronts the demon Ash. It isn’t an epic confrontation, though. It’s over pretty quickly, actually. A bit of downer, actually. Why didn’t we get an extended dueling chainsaw sequence? Probably because there’s an even bigger downer coming.
Ruby, pissed off that her big demon Ash plan just went to shit, picks herself up off the ground and starts screaming about how pissed off she is (she’s doing this with her intestines sticking out). And Ruby is mega pissed. Brandy freaks out as it seems as though nothing makes sense. Ash isn’t a demon, though. In a split second, she understands that and tries to go back to him. And in a split second, Ruby breaks Ash’s heart.
Ruby launches the Kandarian Dagger directly at Brandy. The Dagger hits Brandy in the back. And Brandy dies in her father’s arms.
Goddamit! Why does this shit keep happening to our hero? Why can’t anyone besides him survive?
Is Brandy dead, though? Is she full on dead? Or is something else going on? The episode ends with Brandy, alive, in another place. The other side? The rift? Possibly. And wherever she actually is, she’s more scared than ever before.
She’s being hunted by something. Something terrible.
Twist and Shout is another episode in season three that should have been longer as there’s quite a bit of stuff going on in it. An extra ten minutes or so would have allowed for a few more scenes to flesh out what’s going on. That isn’t to say that the episode that we got is bad or anything like that. However, there are a few sections that end up somewhat lacking because there’s only so much you can do in a half hour. The “demon Ash killing kids at the prom” section should have been longer and bloodier. If the second half of season three is meant to be scarier than the first half (and based on what happened in episode six I think it’s obvious that that’s what’s going on), what’s scarier than a chainsaw wielding maniac carving up kids at the prom?
The fight between the demon Kelly and Pablo should have been longer, too. Not much longer than it actually is in the episode, but there should have been more to it. And the confrontation between the real Ash and the demon Ash should have been epic, or as close to epic as a TV show will allow. The actual confrontation lasts, what, a few seconds? We don’t get dueling shotguns or dueling chainsaws. All we get is a pretty cool shotgun attack on the head of demon Ash and that doesn’t last all that long. What the hell?
I will say, though, that the brief sequence where Ruby gives a big speech with her intestines hanging out is Lucy Lawless at her acting best. If the show was up for any awards, this scene would be the scene the Emmy awards show would feature. And I have to say that the bit where Ash puts on a cup before trying to find the demon Ash is hilarious. The sequence also makes you think “Why the hell hasn’t Ash been wearing that thing the whole show?” Look at how many fights he gets into. At some point a demon/deadite is going to go for his balls, right? Even if it’s by accident it’s going to happen. Whatever happened to “better safe than sorry?”
Zoe also got shorted this episode. She should have had an extended scene of some kind so we could get a better sense of who she is and what kind of suffering she’s going through. She just lost her entire team. I know that she’s all about working with the chosen one and fighting Evil and whatnot, but shouldn’t she get a scene to grieve? Perhaps that will happen in one of the remaining three episodes?
The dueling Ash thing, which has been done multiple times in the Evil Dead universe, should have been an epic battle of, like, two minutes or so. There should have been sparks, objects in the room getting cut to pieces, and random people getting sliced up by demon Ash because why not? That doesn’t happen. Did the producers just run out of time to do it, or is something else going on? Is it possible that the demon Ash body, now without a head, will now grow into something else, some other kind of deadite perhaps? The demon Ash has been a major part of the plot since the beginning of the season. He/it is just going to die in two seconds? Disappointing. I will say, though, that star Campbell tweaks his usual Ash vs. Evil Dead performance just enough to make the demon Ash a different kind of douchebag, which makes you despise him even more than you would if he was just some random deadite. And listening to demon Ash talk about the dangers of drugs is hilarious.
Now, that was a stunt naked guy, right? Would Bruce Campbell do that kind of nudity nowadays?
Dana DeLorenzo is terrific as the evil Kelly. She’s still Kelly, but she has that glassy eyed stare thing, the whole “just about to burst out laughing because I’m so evil” thing going on, and she’s using what sounds like a British accent. Amazing stuff.
Poor, poor Brandy. She’s just so confused, she doesn’t know what to believe, and then wham! Dead. I should have seen that coming, especially after Kelly’s death. I didn’t though. So what happens now on the other side, in the rift? Will Kelly be able to save her somehow, or even help her? Is Kelly even “alive” anymore in the rift?
Man, what the heck is going to happen in episode 8?
Twist and Shout is a bit a disappointment for what didn’t happen (again, more dueling chainsaws is not a bad thing), but the episode certainly upped the ante for Ash and the remaining Ghostbeaters. How the hell are they going to fight back against Ruby, especially now that Ruby has absolutely nothing to lose? Can Ash save the day once again?
Bring on episode eight!
