Review by Eric Hillis (@hilliseric)
This week Ash vs Evil Dead reintroduced us to the mysterious stranger played by Lucy Lawless. After a cryptic cameo in the first episode, Books From Beyond sees Lawless' character (credited as Ruby) arrive at the scene of last week's carnage, which resulted in the deaths of Kelly's parents. Ruby digs up Kelly's father, now a deadite, and performs some rather painful Jack Bauer information extraction methods on the demon. Seems she's on the tail of our hero, Ash (Bruce Campbell), but we'll have to wait for further details in future episodes.
As promised, this episode has Ash and his buddies - the reluctant Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo) and all too eager Pablo (Ray Santiago) - arrive at Books From Beyond, a 'specialist' bookstore where Ash hopes the owner can provide a translation of the necronomicon, the book responsible for all this mayhem in the first place. Waiting for him is State Trooper Amanda Fisher (Jill Marie Jones) whose attempt at an arrest results in her being knocked out and handcuffed.
Never the sharpest chainsaw blade in the tool shed, Ash comes up with the hare-brained idea of summoning a minor demon in order to get some questions answered. The demon they choose turns out to be not quite so minor as anticipated, resulting in a standoff in the bookstore. Unlike the deadites, this demon has a very Guillermo del Toro inspired look, all protruding ribs and wiry fingers, which suggests the show will deviate from the standard zombie-like deadites to explore a variety of villainous creatures.
Three episodes in and it's safe to say Evil Dead fans are on safe ground with this latest incarnation (remake? what remake?). Each episode has had an entirely different writer, but all have delivered some fantastic dialogue, and this third episode might have the funniest Ash quips yet. Attempting to justify his doomed plan of summoning a demon, Ash explains to Pablo how it's "like spilling paint on a painting. It doesn't matter because there's already paint there." The series seems to be employing writers from comedy backgrounds, like Books From Beyond's Sean Clements, who previously penned the Comedy Central show Workaholics. So far, it's a tactic that's paying off.
If the first two episodes felt like a pilot split in two, Books From Beyond feels like the beginning of the series proper, ending on the series' first cliff-hanger. We'll certainly be returning to see how it all pans out.
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