The Best of ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ – Season 2

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Episode 207: ‘Delusion’
Original Air Date: November 13, 2016

‘Stop talking to me, I’m working here.’
 
‘Oh, I like it, you’re staying in character. Hey, after we get out, how about some role-playing? Maybe Nurse Ratched needs a little injection from Dr. Groovy, what do you say?’
 
- Nurse Ruby and Ash Williams

It is definitely safe to say that season two of the STARZ series, Ash vs Evil Dead, was quite the bold venture. After all, it offered up quite the different type of story. One that progressed problems with the evil, sure, and took the time to introduce us to another monster from the realm of the Necronomicon in Baal. But it also… took the time to really explore the life and times of Ashley J. Williams. After all, we returned to his hometown in season two. We met his pop, Brock Williams, played brilliantly by screen legend Lee Majors, and we also came to learn just what kind of a lasting impact that weekend in the cabin had upon Ash’s family and the people of his town. Which, spoiler alert… wasn’t all that great. In fact, Ash was a pariah because of what happened back then.
 
To the point where he was called ‘Ashy Slashy’ and driven the hell out of town, and well… going this route allowed for a bevy of big moments to happen. Such as the surprise return of Ellen Sandweiss, who reprised her role from The Evil Dead here, and Ted Raimi found his way into the series regular lineup as the loveable Chet. And the return of two ED alums, alongside incredible storytelling that took our understanding of Ash to new heights, alongside some evil and ugly surprises from the book, such as Pablo’s unfortunate journey in this tale… made it difficult to really single out one particular episode that one could declare as the absolute best of season two. For everything here was carefully crafted to seamlessly tie together in a great big ten-hour Act 2 if you will. But upon deep consideration, one story met those criteria after all… one that actually managed to one-up the boldness present here.
 
Specifically… ‘Delusion’. For this was a story that wowed us by having Ash be separated from his friends and his quest to fight evil, to battle his own demons in a place he never thought he would find himself, a psychiatric hospital. Where apparently, he had spent the last thirty years following the Cabin Incident and was being treating for a psychotic break. One that ended the lives of everyone in the cabin and where he was never healed in the slightest in the wake of that slaughter. Which allowed for a vastly different type of tale to come into play. One where the audience was kept guessing as to whether or not everything, we’d seen so far in this saga was a lie, courtesy of some wonderful surprises from a casting standpoint. Since everyone we’d met in the show from a Ghostbeaters standpoint, were here, in different roles. Hammering home madness and removing hope from our hearts that Ash was indeed a flawed hero. 

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​That in turn, led to a juicy story that slowly revealed that this was nothing more than a long game on Baal’s part to break Ash. And his desire to do so led to some wild moments. Some of which were supremely dark in nature, such as when Ash was forced to try and fight his way out at the end, making it seem once again that he was nothing more than a cold-blooded murderer that knew no bounds, and his final scene with Linda in the hospital, was both devastating and hopeless, since it seemed in that moment, Baal had won. But this story also allowed for some great comedy to come into play and for Bruce Campbell to just enjoy the playground he’d been given and let’s be honest… who didn’t want an Ashy Slashy puppet after this particular tale came to a close? 
 
But what matters more here, is that this episode offered so much more than a bold ‘what if?’ type of tale. For it also… (SPOILER ALERT FOR SEASON 3) laid the groundwork down for the series finale. Because this is a show that was always about Ash’s journey into becoming a true hero, and in order to do that… certain things have to happen. Such as facing obstacles from the past and that is in many ways what Ash does here. Sure, one could argue the entire season does that since he returns home. But it is here, in this out of the way ‘asylum’ where Ash really reflects upon the past thirty years, because of the horrors that Baal puts him through. Allowing for him to process the survivor’s guilt he’s felt for ages on end and confront the hard truth that he was left with no choice on that dark and dastardly night. And while we don’t see what comes out of the work until later on, what happens here makes more sense when watching the series, a second time through.
 
If anything, all the elements we’ve discussed, make this a brilliant episode when all is said and done. Because it’s just rare to see an established franchise such as this one, take risks in the middle of the season to deal with something as heavy and as important as mental health and PTSD. But this story understood the need of addressing such matters and was perhaps, ahead of the curve and potentially influenced the arrival of the elevated horror stories that explored such matters in the years following this episode. Which is why this was the best episode that season two of this storied saga had to offer and well, now that we’ve reached the end of this magnificently fun and cerebral journey, the time has come to explore the last stop on our ‘best of’ tour… the moment when Ashley J. Williams… finally decided to embrace heroism and the sacrifices it requires. Until next time.

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