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Ash Vs. Evil Dead Review 3.2 – ‘Booth Three’
Loading...Ash vs. Evil Dead Review: 3.2: “Booth Three”
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the review of the second episode of season 3 of the hit Starz series Ash vs. Evil Dead. I’m Bryan Kristopowitz.
While doing press for last week’s season three premiere, Ash vs. Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell revealed to Entertainment Weekly that the show hasn’t been renewed for a fourth season by Starz and that the show is in “television limbo” at the moment. The people who run Starz want to see if there’s still an audience for the show, and that he and fellow producers Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert won’t know if Starz is interested in a fourth season until “the middle of March.” So that would give us until, what, the third week of March before we find out?
Well, if the initial ratings for the premiere are any indication, a fourth season doesn’t look good at the moment. According to this article over at 1428elm.com, AvED, the show’s rating among the 18-49 demographic is down over 50% from 2016. Fifty percent? Half? What the hell, man? Where are the Ash vs. Evil Dead fans at?
Now, it’s true that the season premiere had to compete against the mid-season premiere of The Walking Dead and the end of the Winter Olympics and the “delayed ratings” are not in yet (those would be the DVR ratings), so maybe the ratings picture isn’t as bad as it seems. However, with the show gone for over a year, you’d think that fans would have been stoked about the return of Ash and would have shown up for the season three premiere in droves. That, apparently, didn’t happen. And that sucks.
Campbell also revealed in the EW article that, if AvED does get cancelled that a fourth movie might happen. That would be cool and all, but, at the moment, if people aren’t interested in watching the show, why would they show up for a new movie? I’m sure some financing person would ask that question while Campbell and company looked for investors for a fourth movie. What the hell would they tell those financing people?
Come on, people. We have to watch the show if we want it to continue. Watch it live, watch it on the Starz App, and talk about it afterwards. Get your friends and family interested in the show. Make Starz understand just how important the show is and that it needs to continue. Campbell has said that he thinks the show could last for five seasons. Let’s make sure that happens.
Watch the show. Watch it.
And now, the second episode of season three of Ash vs. Evil Dead.
Episode 2: Booth Three
Directed by: Mark Beesley
Written by: Rob Fresco
(all images courtesy of Starz)
Booth Three starts off with Ruby (Lucy Lawless) driving down the road and trying not to give birth to something (there’s an object in her stomach that desperately wants to get out). Ruby isn’t opposed to giving birth to whatever is inside her, but she would much rather do it somewhere else. Unfortunately for Ruby, the thing inside her bursts out and she ends up crashing her car. Two people walking on the side of the road, a man and a woman, see Ruby’s car crash and attempt to provide assistance. Looking inside the car, we see that Ruby has been ravaged by whatever was inside of her. We also then see the thing that came out of her. At first, the thing looks like a human baby. Upon closer examination, though, it’s actually some kind of weird beard deadite monster thing and it promptly bites the man. Blood then flows everywhere and Ruby emerges as being just fine, despite having her internal organs exposed for all of the world to see. And the deadite monster baby thing? Ruby hopes that it will be the new chosen one.
The new chosen one? Isn’t the chosen one supposed to be Ash?
The scene then shifts to Ash’s house, where the newly reconstituted Ghostbeaters are trying to figure out what to do next. Pablo (Ray Santiago) is happy to see Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo) again but he isn’t too keen on her new pal Dalton (Lindsay Farris). Dalton sure seems to know quite a bit about evil, the deadites, and the Sumerian language, but Pablo doesn’t trust him at all. Where the hell has Dalton been since evil appeared in the first season? Dalton, meanwhile, doesn’t trust Pablo. Dalton has seen the Sumerian “tattoos” on Pablo’s body and knows that there’s a chance that Pablo will become a demon. Kelly just wants both Pablo, her best friend in the whole world, and Dalton, to get along. Evil is out there and it has to be destroyed and they won’t be able to destroy it if they’re divided.
While all of that is going on, Ash (Bruce Campbell) is trying to connect with his daughter Brandy (Arielle Carver-O’Neill). It’s an awkward situation for both as Ash has no idea how to be a father, and Brandy has just been thrust into an incredibly weird situation. Plus, she saw her mother die right before her eyes, killed by her best friend who was taken over by a demon. How the hell is she going to get through all of this, especially if her only means of support is the idiot Ash?
Ash, as the leader of the group, decides that the best thing is for everyone to go back to their normal lives, at least for the moment. There’s no point in letting the whole town know something is up when Ash and the team aren’t entirely sure they know what’s up. Yes, they know that evil has returned, but what does that mean? Is it going to be the usual deadite stuff, or is it going to involve something like Baal from season two? They’ll figure it out eventually. Maybe. Ash tells Pablo to go back to the hardware store and get it open for business. Kelly and Dalton should get back to doing whatever they were doing before evil came back. And Ash gives Brandy a ride to school.
After one of the most awkward sex stories anyone would ever hear (Ash has no filter), Ash drops Brandy off at school and then heads back into town. Ash’s destination: the local sperm bank. Apparently, Ash has been a frequent customer at the sperm bank over the years, and he’s worried that he may have other kids out there. Ash hopes that the nurses at the bank will let him know if anyone has ever requested his seed.
Brandy isn’t comfortable in school. It’s where all of the bad stuff in her life happened and it sure seems like everyone in the school is looking at her. Why? What do they know? Brandy goes to see her guidance counselor, who just so happens to be Ruby, and asks Ruby for advice. Ruby tells Brandy all she knows about Ash, the “Ashy Slashy” legend, and how she’ll always be there for her if she needs to talk, etc. Of course, the only reason Ruby is nice to Brandy is she needs her to fulfill the prophecy spelled out in the Necronomicon.
Back at the sperm bank, Ash doesn’t get much cooperation from the nurses at first. He eventually lays on his personal charm and the “local hero” card and gets the one nurse to agree to look into whether or not anyone asked for Ash’s sperm. While that’s going on, Ash decides to provide another sample for the bank and heads to a free booth to get down to business.
And that’s when the demon jizz hits the fan. One of the nurses is possessed by evil, one of them dies in horrible fashion, and Ash is attacked by the woman in the porno magazine he’s using to “get started.” A huge brawl ensues, with Ash fighting both the demon nurse and the porno magazine. Instead of blood, though, man goo is the weapon of choice for the demon nurse, and things get nasty and sticky pretty damn quick. The magazine woman is pretty formidable, too.
And while all of that is going on, Pablo is visited by a naked woman wearing a weird mask (Hannah Tasker-Poland) who tells him that Brujo, his dead shaman uncle, is trying to contact him. Apparently, the powers of the brujo will be useful to fight off the evil.
Booth Three is a small step down from the season premiere, mostly because of the way it starts. It would have been more satisfying to air this episode directly after Family as it feels more like a companion piece to that story. I wouldn’t have started the episode with Ruby’s car crash and big demon baby reveal. That seems more like the middle of something. Once the episode switches to the Ghostbeaters it’s comedy gold (or damn near close to being comedy gold).
The scene where Ash tells Brandy about how he met her mother is, as I said, one of the most awkward sex stories of all time. Ash has no filter and doesn’t seem to grasp that he shouldn’t be telling Brandy the story that he’s telling her. It would have been best for everyone if he just said that he knew Brandy’s mother, they had some good times, and leave it at that. Telling Brandy about the sex he had with her mother in the backseat is cringe inducing.
The whole sperm bank sequence is brilliant. Ash talking with the nurses is funny stuff, especially the bit where we find out why the bank couldn’t use Ash’s father Brock’s sperm despite being a frequent volunteer, too. When the evil shows up and takes over the one nurse, the action moves into typical slapstick territory and is fun to watch. Yes, we’ve seen this kind of fight multiple times on this show, but it’s still fun and funny. And using sperm as a projectile weapon is, sure, kind of juvenile, but hilarious. How would you react if some demon creature was flinging jizz at you?
The whole Pablo-Kelly-Dalton thing is probably going to end badly, but I’m not sure for who yet. We don’t really know much about Dalton, so there’s a good chance that he could be the first to go among the group. But Pablo seems to be in even more danger than last season. The tattoos are coming back, and who the hell knows if this naked woman/Brujo thing is a good thing or a bad thing. What if it’s all a big trick by the deadites? And why wouldn’t Pablo’s uncle, as a spirit, want to somehow harness the power of evil to do something nefarious? We don’t know how cool or boring the spirit world is in the Ash vs. Evil Dead world. It could be awful. And what if Brujo is bored and just wants to use his nephew for shits and giggles?
And how is all of this going to play out for Kelly? If something bad happens to Pablo again, is she going to be able to continue on without freaking the fuck out? Kelly is strong, sure, and plenty badass, but how much nasty stuff can one person be expected to deal with?
And then there’s the Ruby stuff. She’s messing around with Brandy at school, using her to fulfill the Necronomicon prophecy, all the while nurturing the demon deadite baby that likes to snack on human body parts. How far will she go in order to complete her big scheme? And kudos to the special effects team on Ruby’s gross as fuck disemboweled body makeup. Absolutely disgusting and sure to be an exclusive action figure at some point in the future. A cool poster, too.
Ash vs. Evil Dead is in a bit of a holding pattern at the moment. We know that bad stuff is happening and even worse stuff is coming, but we’re not sure what, exactly, is coming. Hopefully, when all is revealed, it’s as nasty and awful as we expect it to be. And hopefully it will be fun watching Ash and the Ghostbeaters take it all on.
Bring on episode three!
