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Ash vs. Evil Dead Review 3.5 – “Baby Proof”
Loading...Ash vs. Evil Dead Review: 3.5: “Baby Proof”
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the review of the fifth episode of season 3 of the hit Starz series Ash vs. Evil Dead. I’m Bryan Kristopowitz.
Okay, so we’re at episode five of season three, the mid-point of the season, and there’s been no announcement about the future of Ash vs. Evil Dead. Star Bruce Campbell said that he and everyone else involved with the show would know by mid-March what was going to happen with the show. Would Starz give it another season (the season two and three renewals happened fairly quickly), or would episode thirty be the last episode ever and the last time we see deadite ass kicker Ashley Williams in anything? Well, it’s beyond mid-March at the moment and we don’t know. No one has said anything.
I know I’m beating a bit of a dead horse here with all of this “if you’re a fan of the show you have to support the show and watch it and buy Starz” stuff. I know there are tons of fans in areas of the world where buying Starz isn’t an option because the show comes to them via different channels and avenues. Those fans can still show their support for the show by buying DVDs and Blu-rays of season one and two, talk about the show on social media, and make sure that their friends know about the show, too. Every bit helps.
Meanwhile, Ash vs. Evil Dead nerds within the Starz bubble need to make sure that they’re onboard. Buy Starz, even if it’s just for a few months. Get the Starz App. Talk about the show on social media. Buy the DVDs and Blu-rays, too. Maybe, by May, when everyone else in TV announces what they’re going to be doing come fall 2018, we’ll find out that Starz agreed to do another season at the very last minute. That seems to be the ultimate cutoff at the moment. May. So keep buying, watching, and talking about the show. That’s what we have to do.
And now, the fifth episode of season three of Ash vs. Evil Dead.
Episode 5: Baby Proof
Directed by: Daniel Nettheim
Written by: Luke Kalteux
(All images courtesy of Starz)
The second episode of season two of Ash vs. Evil Dead, the one where Ash fought a dead body in a morgue and ended up actually passing through that dead body “up the butt,” is one of the most messed up episodes of the show’s run so far. I’d imagine that some would even say that it’s the most messed up episode of the show’s run so far. Well, after watching episode five of season three, Baby Proof, there may be a new most messed up episode of Ash vs. Evil Dead yet. If it isn’t the new most messed up, it’s damn close to being the new one. Damn close.
Baby Proof picks up right where last episode, Unfinished Business, left off, with Ash (Bruce Campbell) and the hitchhiker Natalie (Samantha Young) trapped in the attic of Ruby’s house with Ruby’s demon baby. Ash and Natalie are still chained to one another via the sink they had to rip out of the wall, and the demon baby is out of its crib and pissed off. Normally, dealing with a demon baby would involve Ash destroying the little creature with his trusty chainsaw or boomstick shotgun. That’s just what Ash does. However, this time, Ash isn’t too keen on killing the little devil sonofabitch, at least not immediately. There’s something strange about this little guy, stranger than you’d expect. The little demon baby has a little chainsaw hand.
A chainsaw hand? How the hell could something like that happen? Holy crap. The demon baby is Ash’s kid! We, the audience, already knew that, but Ash sure didn’t. And when he realizes what he’s dealing with, he decides the best course of action is to capture the “little shit” and sort of hold him hostage so Ash can then confront his real enemy, Ruby, head on. Capturing the little demon baby is easier said than done, though. First, the demon baby is quick, much quicker than middle aged Ash. Second, Ash is still attached to Natalie via the sink. It’s hard to trap a scurrying hell creature when you’re cuffed to a sink and a terrified obese woman. And third, Natalie wants nothing to do with capturing anything. She wants to shoot the little shit, kill him, and get the hell out of Ruby’s house.
And so that’s what happens. Ash tries to capture his demon seed while also contending with the sink and Natalie’s need to kill the little shit.
The scene then shifts to Ash’s trailer, where Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo) and Brandy (Arielle Carver-O’Neill) are still trapped with a deadite Pablo (Ray Santiago) outside trying hard to get inside. Kelly is also contending with the nasty leg wound Pablo gave her when he bit her last episode (Kelly’s leg wound still looks like Pablo’s deadite mouth and still talks like a deadite. It wants to swallow Kelly’s soul and take out Brandy, etc. You know, the usual deadite stuff). Everything seems to be at a standstill. Kelly and Brandy can’t get out, and Pablo can’t get in. But then Pablo heads to the roof of Ash’s trailer, finds a weak spot, and manages to get at Brandy, pulling her up through the roof. It’s at this point that Kelly activates one Ash’s hidden weapon stashes. A boomstick shotgun usually pops out of the hole in the floor. A giant marijuana pipe pops out instead.
A struggle ensues. Brandy gets back inside the trailer and fights with deadite Pablo. Kelly also fights deadite Pablo and the deadite Pablo mouth on her leg. Kelly figures out that whatever she does to the wound she does to the actual deadite Pablo, too. She shoves objects into the wound, with the objects then coming out of deadite Pablo’s mouth. While that is going on, Brandy grabs the Kanadarian Dagger and attacks Pablo with it. Kelly is immediately upset by this development as she doesn’t want to kill the deadite Pablo as that action would also kill the “regular” Pablo. Kelly wants to find a way to get the evil out of her friend so he can then continue on with the fight. She can’t do that if Pablo is real deal dead.
After the dagger attack, it looks like Pablo may, in fact, now be dead. Pablo isn’t, though. Instead, Pablo, or Pablo’s spirit, is stuck on the other side, where his uncle Brujo (Hemky Madera) and the naked woman wearing the mask (Hannah Tasker-Poland) are waiting for him. Brujo tells Pablo that he must go through some sort of weird beard blood ritual in order to come back from the dead and become the next big time Brujo. And while all of that is going on, back in the real world Kelly and Brandy are watching Pablo’s limp body change. The black marks on Pablo’s body change. It looks like someone is trying to slice Pablo’s body open. It’s all pretty awful.
Back to Ash and the demon baby, Ash can’t find the little shit. It’s somewhere in the house. He can hear it via the duck toy it pulls around behind it. But where the hell is the little creature? Ash also finds some disturbing evidence on a desk that shows Ruby has been following him for a long, long time. She has pictures of him with Brandy’s mother getting married in Branson and having sex in Ash’s car. Why the hell has she been following him for so long? And why did it take so damn long for her to reveal herself to him? Before Ash can figure any of that out, Natalie finally acts. Natalie knocks Ash out, takes the shotgun, and goes after the demon baby herself. To say that it doesn’t end well for Natalie would be a serious understatement.
Ash comes to and starts freaking out. Where the hell is Natalie? Where is his boomstick? And where the hell is the little shit? And it’s at this point that in the episode where, if everyone involved in the show doesn’t get letters complaining about what we see, there’s no such thing as outrage anymore, at least when it comes to premium cable TV shows. Ash finds what’s left of Natalie on the floor. She’s been decapitated. Ash finds the demon baby nearby and tries to corner it. The demon baby escapes Ash’s clutches and decides to enter Natalie’s dead body and use it as a weapon. You’d think the demon baby would enter from Natalie’s neck, shift itself around inside Natalie’s torso, and then pop its head up through Natalie’s neck. That would have been the “tasteful” thing to do.
Yes, it sure as hell would have been. Instead, the demon baby enters Natalie’s body through Natalie’s crotch.
Yes, you can say eww at this point. I did.
The rest of the episode deals with Ash trying to trap the demon baby inside Natalie’s body. He manages to do it, eventually. And how he does it will make you go eww again.
Baby Proof definitely feels like a “middle of a TV season” episode. Nothing really gets resolved, but there is a kind of reset for the remaining episodes. Pablo changes as a result of the Brujo spirit world training stuff he goes through via the blood ritual. Kelly makes sure everyone knows how much she loves Pablo and how much she wants to take Ruby out. And Brandy’s relationship with her father Ash moves forward. Brandy ends up making a choice, and I’d say she made the right one.
I’m still amazed that the show got away with the whole “demon baby inside the dead woman” sequence. Yes, it’s premium cable and there are no restrictions on content (it’s why Starz was so damn attractive as an outlet for the show), but it’s also a baby entering a woman’s dead body through her crotch. It may be a demon baby, but it’s still a baby. And the scene where the demon baby sticks its head up through the woman’s crotch… Jesus Christ. When Ash says “That is so wrong on so many levels” he isn’t fucking kidding. Will fans dig this whole sequence, celebrate it because it’s so fucked up and insane, or will it cause some fans to cancel their Starz subscriptions because, even for them, it’s too far? It will be interesting to see if anything happens in regards to that.
Did the sequence bother me? No, because the whole thing is so goddamn insane. I expect to see stuff like it on the show. It’s also meant to be comedic, and, yeah, it is. It’s gross, sure, but it’s also funny. And ridiculous. But I can see why someone might take offense to it.
The rest of the episode was decent. The stuff in Ash’s trailer paid off, with Kelly showing just how much she loves and cares for Pablo. And Kelly’s new determination to go after Ruby should be fun to watch in the next episode. I am worried, though. Even if Kelly has the Kandarian Dagger can she and she alone defeat the evil, wicked, and immortal Ruby? I don’t really know.
The Brujo stuff was a little too weird for me, mostly because I didn’t quite buy all that was happening in that spirit world. We know that Pablo’s uncle, the Brujo, isn’t evil, but was that really him? Why couldn’t it have been the Dark Ones messing around, covering their bases, and creating another avenue to get at the Chosen One? I’d like to know a little more about this stuff.
Brandy’s big decision, at the very end of the episode, is, as I said, the right decision. It will allow her to become a participant in the rest of the season, instead of just someone watching the evil act around her. If she gets blood on her again it will be because of something she did in a proactive manner.
So where does the show go from here? Will the Ghostbeaters reunite and attack evil as a team? What will Ruby do next? Will Kelly survive her pending confrontation with Ruby? And where are the other Knights of Sumeria? Shouldn’t they get involved in a bigger way now that their brother Dalton is dead? Shit’s getting real, man, and the good guys are going to need all of the help they can get. Am I right?
Bring on episode six!
