Season 3, Episode 3: Apparently Dead
SUMMARY: Ash (Bruce Campbell) tries to bond with Brandy (Arielle Carver-O’Neill), getting some help from an unexpected place – his dead father (Lee Majors).
REVIEW: You have to give “Ash Vs. Evil Dead” credit. It could go the easy route and just do the same thing season after season, but they’ve never been that lazy. Season two tried to get us into Ash’s mindset a bit, even taking him to an insane asylum for a few episodes, and three humanizes him to a degree, by turning him into a father – albeit as distinctly Ash-version of what that can be.
Episode three is the best of the season so far, opening at Candy’s funeral, with poor, well-meaning Ash further scarring Brandy by eviscerating her mom’s corpse when it comes back to life. Notably, Ruby (Lucy Lawless) finally reveals herself to Ash, but there’s nothing he can do unless they retrieve the sacred dagger to kill her, back at the old Evil Dead cabin, but refreshingly, Ash skips this trip, sending Pablo and Kelly (who are a bit of a B-team this season), along with Dalton, who’s dead (apparently) by the end of the episode. Meh, he won’t be missed to much. The show has enough characters as it is.
In a nice callback to last season, Ash’s pop, once again played by the great Lee Majors, gets revived by Ruby, bonding with Brandy over Ash’s idiotic hardware store commercial before Ash gives him a good chainsawing, making Brandy even more freaked out by her good ol’ dad. There are some really nice moments here, including a cool resurrection scene scored by Joan Jett’s “Crimson & Clover” (between that and last week’s “Take on Me”, the music licensing is on point this year), and the episode even ends with a song sung by Bruce Campbell and Lucy Lawless!
All in all, this is another fun, fast-paced episode, and so far S3 is shaping up to be the best season yet, but let’s see if they can keep it going. Fingers crossed they will!