Ash vs. Evil Dead - "Tales from the Rift"

As has become routine for the series, the most recent episode of Ash vs. Evil Dead starts with all of our characters in different places, coming together and apart. Every time it feels like the crew might be back together someone wanders off! Last week we had Kelly, Pablo, and Brandy all together before Pablo got Brujo-fied and went to find Ash and Kelly left on a mission of her own.

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

It’s from this separation that we got one hell of a showdown. Kelly has reached her breaking point and, armed with the Kandarian dagger, she goes looking for Ruby. As she declared in the end of last week’s episode, she’s done being fucked with. Not only has Ruby directly tricked and betrayed Kelly, Pablo, and Ash, she also represents the evil that killed Kelly’s parents in front of her. As viewers of the show and fans of the genre we can’t help but feel a sense of fatalism when Kelly enters the old Victorian house. She may have a mythical weapon and the power of her righteous fury, but she’s still fighting an ancient power and she is far out-matched, and she fails. Ultimately, we are forced to watch Kelly bleed out and die on the floor, only to become a vessel for one of Ruby’s baddy buddies. That does not feel good! And while it might be fun to watch Dana DeLorenzo play evil, I can’t help but worry that it won’t be as fun as having Kelly around.

Elsewhere in Elk Grove, Pablo and Ash try and succeed in opening a rift between the dimensions while a few more Knights of Sumaria watch on and ultimately become monster fodder. This sequence presents us with some pretty dope monster design as well as gross creature assimilation that feels like a knowing homage to John Carpenter’s The Thing.

What we don’t get enough of, for yet another episode, is Brandy! Her character is starting to feel more like an afterthought who appears when it’s convenient to roll her eyes at Ash or to move the plot forward. We know that Ash’s progeny are going to be the key to Ruby’s newest evil plot, but it doesn’t seem like too much to ask that Brandy be allowed some characteristics of her own in the meantime. No matter what is coming, it would certainly be better served by her and Ash’s relationship if she werre more well-drawn than it has been to this point.