'Ash vs. Evil Dead' Recap: 'Home Again'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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

For the most part, television shows do their best to stay within a certain formula or design to keep their fan base happy and to tell a certain type of story. There's nothing wrong with that of course, because we expect that from our favorite shows, but once in a great while a show comes along that defies that expectation and evolves and changes as the story progresses and in recent memory I can only think of one series that has been able to pull this off with incredible success, Ash vs. Evil Dead.

I say that because for the majority of season two we as fans have enjoyed a pretty steady diet of Evil Dead II style storytelling, where the jokes have flowed as freely as the blood making for one entertaining and fun ride...until last week that is. Because 'Ashy Slashy' signaled a paragidm shift in the show's overall tone, and suddenly the black comedy we all found ourselves chuckling at took a dark and terrifying turn, culminating with the loss of Pablo and considering the loss of a character as important as Pablo, it's safe to say we were all left wondering what the show would be like without him and how Ash would react to losing another friend and thankfully, the show wasted no time in answering all of our questions in last night's episode, 'Home Again', and unfortunately, there was little to like about the resolution we were provided with.

Case in point, we learned quickly that life without Pablo is downright awful. He was truly the optimist of the group and not having him serve as the voice of reason or the cheerleader for the Ghostbeaters made his passing hang heavy over this episode and holy cow...did it completely and utterly devastate Ash. We've seen him down before, but never like this, and he sunk to such a new low of drunken depression that wild inspiration came his way with an idea to save dear Pablo, by using the inscriptions on Pablo's body to send the remainder of the team back in time, where they could find the book before Ash's first encounter with it...thereby saving Ash 30 years of sorrow and bloodshed, and restoring life to everyone that Ash has had to say goodbye to over the years. It's a plan that no one agrees to until Ash gives them a reason to...and just like that we're back in 1982, right before the events of The Evil Dead. 

That's when the episode truly upped the ante in the horror realm, re-introducting us to Profressor Knowby and Henrietta, months before Ash would even set foot in the cabin and well, Knowby had a nasty little secret. We learned that the man that sounded mildly afraid of the Necronomicon on tape instead revered and loved its power, he simply didn't want his loved ones influenced by it and he was ready use the book to dump the demon from Henrietta's body into another unfortunate soul named Tayna. It was a plan that failed thanks to Ash releasing the possessed woman moments before learning about the evil that resided within her and naturally...all hell broke loose. Knowby fled the scene, leaving Ash and Tanya trapped in the cellar with Henrietta...

What makes this episode so dark and devastating however, is Ash's pain. He truly wants to do the right thing and save lives and well, the Evil knows this and exploits it at every single turn and that's how Henrietta was able to escape her chains and until Ash can figure out a proper balance between being a hero and doing what must be done, such mistakes will continue. But wow, this was quite the tour de force horror wise, Henrietta is ten times more terrifying than she was in Evil Dead II and her ability to move about the cellar unseen made for some uncomfortable moments and effective jump scares. But, the show didn't totally abandon the comedy aspect. We had another wonderful sequence of Bruce Campbell doing the physical comedy he is known for and the entire franchise got some awesome shout outs too, with a pair of references to Army of Darkness and Ted Raimi returned to the role of Henrietta as well and when all is said and done...this was a great way to set up the season finale. The group still has plenty at stake and it will be interesting to see how Ash gets out of the mess he's currently in and next week we will see if he finally embraces his role as the Jefe and saves the world from darkness...again. Until next time.

---