Season 2, Episode 10: Second Coming
SUMMARY: An old enemy returns to confront Ash (Bruce Campbell), leading to a bargain that could cost him and Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo) their souls.
REVIEW: Season two of “Ash vs Evil Dead” has been a mixed bag. After a weak start, the show came roaring back to life with a handful of gloriously inspired episodes set in Ash’s old home town, only to once again tread water, and then, in the last three episodes, give us installments which may be the best the show’s ever been.
I was hoping for an insane finale that would do something crazy like send Ash further back in time or at least have him interact with the younger Ash (although this might be tough on a Starz budget). Instead, this was a pretty average episode, with the big surprise being that Baal (Joel Tobeck) isn’t really dead.
Once he reveals himself to be hiding in Pablo’s (Ray Santiago) corpse, it turns into just another episode, with Ash fighting him as he takes on other forms, such as Chet (Ted Raimi) and his dad (Lee Majors) also comes back for a quick cameo as a kind of Obi-Wan figure (complete with a glowing blue ghost at the end).
The big showdown comes with the proviso that Baal’s going to fight without powers, but that doesn’t last long, costing Ash his briefly restored hand. In the end, the younger Ruby (Lucy Lawless) who just killed her older, mortal self, betrays Baal, inexplicably sending our heroes back to the present day, where everyone seems aware of what Ash did, making him a hero. How did this happen? A quick glimpse of Ruby in the finale, and the fact that the now restored Pablo still has his Necronomicon tattoos suggests all is not as it seems, so we’ll see.
All that said, it felt, to me anyways, that this finale was on autopilot. All the really creative stuff, such as the relationship with Chet, his dad, the asylum plot and 1982 had been done. This tried to pull everything together, and it was watchable and occasionally fun, but not much else. Hopefully, with a season three definitely happening, the showrunners will be able to churn out a more consistent season. Eliminating a few episodes for a tighter, shorter run would be my idea, but that’s not gonna happen. Even as it is though, this was still a fun season and I’m glad the show is coming back.