'Ash vs. Evil Dead' Recap: 'Confinement'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Most sequels or continuations of a story work hard to embrace their roots, but not repeat them. After all, by treading through familiar ground a fan base will quickly express its disappointment on not giving us anything new or exciting in the story so we often get a nod or a wink to something in the franchise's past and move on...unless of course we're talking about the Evil Dead franchise and Ash vs. Evil Dead.

Because this is a series that embraces everything about its past, and sometimes revisits it in glorious fashion, which is exactly what happened in last night's episode, 'Confinement'. This is a tale that took us back to the beginning, specifically that claustrophobic feel that The Evil Dead set up so well which means that 'Confinement' accomplished quite a few things. It was a tense and scary episode filled with a brand new monster we've never seen in the ED-Universe before and we finally got to meet Baal in all of his glory and judging from what we learned about him last night, he is going to be the Jefe's greatest challenge yet. 

As it turns out, Baal is a demon with limitless power when it comes to influence. A mere whisper in someone's mind immediately compels them to do as Baal says and it seems that he has quite a power over women, able to seduce them with little effort. But alas, he's not in the this for the pleasure...he's in this to own a soul and a new skin because with a flick of his freaky fingernail, he'll remove the flesh clean from his victims and assume their identity. It's an ability that allows him to get Ash in trouble and arrested for the murder of Amber and his incarceration, made for one interesting evening. Because when the rest of the Ghostbeaters arrive to get him out of the tank, Baal makes his move, allowing for the paranoia to flow as Ruby explains that he is inside the Sheriff's Office with everyone...and he is likely hiding in someone's skin.

That's when the real fun started and this show transformed into a bit of a psychological thriller since the audience was clueless as to who Baal might be inhabiting and of course, this is when the throwback to the original film arrived. Because suddenly, once again we were trapped with Ash in a place where escape was impossible for the moment since everyone was focused on finding Baal and well...this was a stroke of genius. Much of this show has been about how Ash can never quite escape his past until he completely confronts it, something that he is doing in spades this season and here we are again, with El Jefe once more squaring off against the past except this time...there was a meat monster, a skinned human that loves to murder to deal with, and it was absolutely awesome to watch on screen since this is the brand new kind of Deadite I mentioned, and quite frankly, a practical special effects marvel. But that disgusting creature was a mere distraction as we learned that Baal walked them into a trap so he could get his hands on the one thing that could stop him...the Kandarian Dagger.  

But, while it seems as though all hope to stop Baal and his evil plans may be lost, there's apparently something special and gross happening with Pablo, since it would seem something is growing inside of him. What exactly...well we don't quite know just yet, but Ruby said he may be the key to saving the day after all, but clearly it won't be pretty. But when all is said and done, it was freaking cool to meet this powerful demon that's been hanging over the majority of season two and man...is he one scary dude. I'm not sure there is anything anyone can do against his influence and it should be interesting to see how the Jefe finds a way around his charm to once again save the day and hopefully...Pablo will be okay when all is said and done as well because whatever's going on under his skin...looks damn scary. Until next time.

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