[rating=7.00] “Bait”
There felt like there was a something missing from this week’s Ash vs. Evil Dead, and I’m pretty sure that was Sam Raimi. Whereas last week’s pilot reveled in the madcap insanity of Raimi’s original vision, “Bait” felt a bit stunted. It wasn’t bad by any means, but this week’s director, Michael J. Bassett, lacks the flair Raimi brings to his projects, and it felt weird to watch an Evil Dead that wasn’t stamped by its creator’s unique visual style.
Of course, it is, perhaps, unfair of me to wish Raimi could direct every episode. It’s rare for a television series to be guided by a single director’s vision, and switching it up week to week is more or less how this game is played. While the episode may have lacked Raimi’s sensibilities, it was still, more or less, pretty Evil Dead.
We pick up immediately after the events of “El Jefe,” with Ash, Pablo, and Kelly still standing in the trailer, covered in blood and surrounded by carnage. Pablo quickly finds himself pulled in two directions: towards Kelly, who wants to go to her father’s home to save him from his resurrected wife, and towards Ash, who needs to get the Necronomicon translated to put an end to the latest deadite invasion. Ash initially has no interest in saving Kelly’s father; he’s got bigger fish to fry. It isn’t until Kelly takes off, Necronomicon in hand, that he acquiesces and agrees to help out.
While on the way to Kelly’s parents’ house, Ash and Pablo fend off another deadite assault. Mr. Roper, their boss, whom we last saw being attacked by a deadite horde, as stowed away in Ash’s car, and he jumps out to cause mayhem on the road. The scene plays out well enough, with all the over-the-top blood and gore that Evil Dead is famous for, but it’s the first instance where Raimi’s presence is truly missed—both in direction and dialog. Take on its own, the scene works—it’s funny and it’s scary, but some of the spirit is missing. I’m probably just being nitpicky.
Pablo is still having problems adjusting to the reality of his situation, and he’s left mainly to scream and try to control the steering wheel while deadite Roper assails Ash. The car and trailer narrowly avoid a few accidents while Ash stabs his former boss with a broken beer bottle. After being told that he’s a pathetic loser who can never defeat the evil, Ash, quick with a quip, holds Roper’s head out of the window just in time for it to be smashed by a passing car.
Back at Kelly’s, she and her dead are grateful and surprised to find their beloved mother and wife (played by guest star Mimi Rogers) returned to them. It seems as though her body had never been found, and authorities had just assumed she was dead. Apparently she had been living in Ohio for the last six months, suffering from amnesia. Their peaceful and happy reunion is interrupted as Ash and Pablo kick in the door in search of a little action—as well as the book.
Ash is of course incredulous—he’s far too familiar with the deadite’s tricks to blindly fall for something as simple as this, despite the protestations of Kelly and her father. The situation is made weirder when Kelly’s mom invites the two of them to dinner—friends with their daughter or no, I’m not seeing a situation where parents invite a couple of strangers to share their roast beef after kicking in the front door. Perhaps that should’ve been their first indication?
Pablo and Ash get cleaned up in the RV as Ash tries to warn Pablo about the trickery of the deadites. Pablo, seeing this as an opportunity to impress Kelly’s parents, doesn’t want to hear it. He thinks they should be grateful for the meal and the warm welcome, backing up his claim by saying the mom’s eyes were brown and beautiful, like her daughter’s. He then admits that Kelly never took the book, he only said she did so Ash would help her. And now that they’re here they should just be glad nothing was wrong.
Ash knows the truth though—Kelly is merely bait being used to lure Ash into a trap. He’s on his guard as they eat dinner, grilling Kelly’s mom endlessly. After several minutes of interrogation, with no cracks in the façade in sight, Ash rears back and punches Kelly’s mom—to the horror of everyone else at the table. Just as Kelly’s father rises to throw Ash out of the house, Kelly’s mom stands up, her true form revealed. She slams Kelly’s father’s head onto the table, forcing a fork into his eye, and mayhem ensues.
Kelly runs away as the mom disappears, leaving Ash and Pablo alone in dangerous territory. The two search the house as Kelly cries in her old room. There she discovers her mom, once again in human form, singing a lullaby. She explains to Kelly that she just blacked out, and that she’s trying to fight the evil inside her, and she thinks she’s winning. Pablo and Ash once again kick in the door, telling Kelly not to listen to her. Kelly’s mom then hugs her daughter and tells her it’s okay. Then she says that she never got into an accident—she committed suicide because she couldn’t stand her daughter.
Now that Kelly fully understands the insidious plots of the deadites, Ash lets loose with the chainsaw and boomstick, unfortunately getting his chainsaw stuck in the wall in the process. As the two struggle, Pablo tries stabbing her in the head with a chef’s knife, but mom merely pulls it out of her skull and attempts to kill everyone in the room. Ash finally gets himself free and does what Ash does best.
After burying Kelly’s parents, Kelly agrees to join Ash and Pablo in their crusade against evil. The trio head out into the sunset, on the way to the bookstore.
On the other end of the narrative, Detective Fisher is still searching for clues about the incident in the farm house, which leads her to Ash’s old trailer park. There, she finds a business card for the bookstore and gets a description of Ash. Armed with this knowledge, she too makes her way to the store, ostensibly to lay a trap for Ash and his gang.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens as these two narratives converge. Previews for the next episode suggest that things aren’t going to go smoothly—Fisher clearly sees Ash as a threat, and it’s probably going to take a lot to convince her otherwise. Also in the preview, we’re giving a little hint at a larger role for Lucy Lawless, who was absent this episode. There’s still no word on who or what she’s playing, but the preview seems to suggest that she’ll be an antagonist. I’m starting to think she’s most likely this season’s Big Bad. That’s just a theory though, and I’ve been wrong before.
