Ash vs Evil Dead 210 - Second Coming - SPOILER FREE Review

PREMIERES SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11th at 8:00 PM ET/PT

Official Synopsis: Ash, Ruby, and Kelly battle the past to get to a future where Pablo is alive and the world is safe from evil, but the family from hell has other plans. Baal and Ash engage in an old fashioned brawl to save humanity and banish them back to hell.

Good: All of the things that are always great about Ash Vs Evil Dead plus - Henrietta fight, the chainsaw fight and a couple of things that will be in the spoiler section below.
Bad: To say this is bad may not be entirely accurate but the ending, on first time watch, felt like a weird anti-climax.

So we've come to the end of Season 2 of Ash Vs Evil Dead and all our questions of "what is going to happen?" and "how are they going to wrap this up?" have been answered but like everything in Ash Vs Evil Dead I felt this episode also kicked up a whole bunch of new questions. (see below for spoilers and more)

However I have started to think of the show much like a critic once said about Evil Dead II: it's like a twisted Warner Brothers cartoon - meaning it's not really about the plot or even the conclusion but rather just about characters you love getting themselves in insane situations for our enjoyment. Those holding on to logic or trying to make sense of rules and continuity should go elsewhere. There is none of that here.

The main framework of episode 10 is Ash being Ash and being the hero we've got, not necessarily the hero we need. There are awesome drag out fights - including an epic chainsaw fight, there are moments of gross out horror comedy that rival the "up the butt" scene from episode two, there's Ted Raimi as Henrietta being scary, hilarious and gross all at once, there's Kelly being put in several situations that may make her rethink the future, there are two Ruby's, a shocking return of a malevolent villain and the ever nagging question of just what is going on with Pablo. There's also so much going on in this episode that I don't want to spoil but I do want to talk about that I will have spoiler section at the bottom of this review!

This is another episode where they pack so much crazy into 30 mins that you really don't know how they do it. I did love it but it was a complete roller coaster of emotions and I weirdly found, watching it the first time round, that I had mixed feelings about where it ended. I think because I had lots of questions and was expecting an answer and it didn't come.

I felt both satisfied and confused all at once, which isn't ideal, really. I felt like there was a climax but then almost an anti-climax, followed by a tease for season three. However I do remember feeling similarly let down by the end of Season 1, although this is much better and eerily disconcerting, and so I will assume it's just really hard to finish this ongoing, whacked out road trip of a series.

My personal feeling is that as the writers room is changing next season, this set of writers wanted to wrap up their story but leave it flexible enough that the next writers could do what they want. That's my theory. 

The first two thirds of the episode though are incredible and continue Season Two's high standard of each week defying expectations, giving a ton of fan service, breaking the rules, creating new ones and generally being enjoyable and entertaining lunacy at breakneck speeds. This episode, though, is definitely more of a part two continuation of Episode Nine than it is its own thing.

While some may question that Season One and Two both ended at the cabin, I personally cannot get enough of my familiar Evil Dead surroundings and all the fan nods we got these last two Seasons. We also get the return of some of our favourite Evil Dead characters both old and new, which, again, I will never get tired of. It definitely feels like they pulled out all the stops and used their actor's time in New Zealand wisely. 

Did it end how you thought?
What were your favourite moments this episode?
What has been your favourite part of Season 2 so far?
Let us know below in the comments section!

You can hear my interview with Kelly herself, Dana DeLorenzo, HERE
You can hear my interview with he who would be Pablo, Ray Santiago, HERE
You can hear my interview with Chet and Henrietta, Ted Raimi, HERE. There's no Evil Dead without Ted!

SPOILERS BELOW!

I loved in this episode the way they tied passed episodes into it. The return of Baal in Pablo's skin and Kelly's flashback to tell herself that past-blonde-Ruby is really no good, made you feel that there was some sort of a plan to the season. 

There were so many emotions in this episode: 

• Ash getting his hand back and then losing it again was a true tragedy. I knew he would have to lose it again (he's not Ash without his chainsaw arm) but Bruce Campbell played the joy of having two hands again so well that when Baal, dressed as Chet, took a chainsaw to it again, I was legitimately devastated.
• I also felt that the two Ruby's thing was excellent as you realised they couldn't kill past Ruby or modern Ruby would cease to exist, even once blonde Ruby sadly dispatched pink haired Ruby with the dagger, any removal of past Ruby would undo too much, time wise, which put Kelly in real and terrifying jeopardy.
• I genuinely thought for a minute that we'd lose Kelly and get Pablo back! The way this series has cemented Kelly and Pablo into indispensable and loved characters is just wonderful. The tension is real knowing either could die at any minute. Ash is foretold, Kelly and Pablo have no such destiny, that we know of.
• The heroic, ass kicking moments for Ash were fantastic and his fist fight/chainsaw fight with Baal had so many exciting fist-pump moments I couldn't believe it but the return of Brock Williams and what appeared to be Ash drowning his father for real, kicked up all the questions but all the upsetting moments you could possibly imagine. Yes maybe it was a cop out resolution to the "what is Brock's secret?" but it leaves the door wide open for his return and answers in the Third Season.
• Pablo's return and the ghostbeater's hugging again was genuinely moving. I was so happy to see his return but why does he still have the book on him? what will that mean going foreward?
• The parade/speeches back in Elk Grove was weird, unsettling and confusing for so many reasons - so wait they went back to the future? the town threw a parade in Ash's honour? why? how did they know he saved the world? why were the ghosts of Brock, Cheryl and Chet there? How could Ash see ghosts? How was Ruby there? Was the post credit "book being discovered in the woods" sequence in the present or the past?
  
  I want to know everything you guys think below - just mark your comments with SPOILERS if you do!

Season Two has given us more than we could ever want and the fact we're getting a Season Three is amazing and definitely reason to rejoice. The way the marketing and the interviews lead us to believe that Pablo really was gone made it so much fun to wait and see what happened but also means we can trust no one. Bruce has said in interviews, about a possible crossover with the remake/reboot, that it is a case of "never say never" but what if the end of this series is intended to do just that. A whole new writers room for Season Three is both exciting but also a worry, why did that happen? what conflicts were there? where was Craig DiGregorio this season?  does this mean a different tone for Season Three or will Bruce and Rob Tapert continue to, basically, run the show? Who knows - we have a year to wait and find out. 

There's only one question to ask right now though and that is, with Season Two over... what do we do now?