Ash vs Evil Dead - Family - Review: "These Benighted Times"

I confess. I was worried that season 3 would be a huge disappointment after the way season 2 ended. But I really enjoyed the way the season started.

What do you do with an annoying nickname? You claim it for the name of your new hardware store: Ashy Slashy’s Hardware Store and Sex Toy Emporium.

Ash had a crowd outside his new store for opening day. I couldn’t help but wonder what was the biggest draw…the hardware or the sex toys.

Pablo decided to stay in Elk Grove with Ash. He’s opened a food cart outside of the hardware store. It wasn’t surprising that Pablo would stay near Ash.

He’s always been more loyal to Ash than Ash deserves but, well, Ash did bring him back to life after he was cut in half. Ash thinks Pablo works for him, but given Ash isn’t paying Pablo…I don’t think so.

I loved the way they re-woke evil for the new season. I have known people who considered The Antiques Road Show to be hell forced upon them by their grandparents.

Apparently, as learned as he is, the resident antique expert has never read the Horror Movie Rules, because the first thing he does when a woman brings in the Necronomicon for appraisal is to begin reading aloud.

Given the book and its author are evil, it didn’t surprise me that the warning about reading from the book was after the spell to awaken Evil.

Now, we have a new season!

Kelly, who is running a bar with her unique sweet talking style, caught the antique expert saying the spell on the bar TV.

She tried to give Ash the heads up, but he, as usual, was too distracted to pick up the phone. Pablo, still sporting the tattoos, got a more personal indicator when new tattoos appeared and started bleeding.

Pablo was about to tell Ash about the tattoos when his wife appeared.

Yes! Ash is married! And the romance and wedding were pretty much as high class as you’d expect from Ash. I lost it when Ash finally nailed her name in his memory: Candy Barr.

Her memories of their relationship aren’t that stellar. The only reason she’s approached Ash is that their daughter is under attack by one of “his” monsters.

Yes! Ash has a daughter! It doesn’t surprise me that Ash would have at least one kid out there from encounters he was too drunk to remember. It does surprise me that he was married to his kid’s mother.

Obviously his daughter is going to hate him…or at the least, be difficult. Well, it’s more like she’s a chip off the old block, which, I suppose, is the same difference. Regardless, I love how his daughter appears on the canvas.

I hope her addition is a benefit to the show. So frequently, this type of addition of a child is a death knell to the quality of a show.

Ruby is back as well. She arrived at the set of the show where the antiques expert read from the Necronomicon.

When the expert hesitated to give Ruby the book I thought he was going to warn her that it was dangerous.

But it sounded to me like he didn’t want to hand it over because it was too important. They say genius often lacks common sense. I did love that he immediately translated Ruby’s other names.

Ruby’s not done with Ash. Words fail my description of what Ruby did with the Necronomicon. Whatever it was, it seems apparent she’s not finished with Ash. I think the net result of….her ritual…was to direct all that evil at Ash.

At least that’s what I thought until I realized that the Deadite had gone after the girls in the high school before Ruby began eating Ash’s drawing in the book. I’ll definitely be watching next week to find out what her plan is.

Ash, his wife and Pablo head to the local high school to rescue Ash’s daughter. The father/daughter introductions went…well..in this situation, describing himself as ‘the old sperm shooter’ might be the most accurate description.

Ash’s instinct that one of the teens would be a Deadite was good. Luckily, it wasn’t his daughter.

This week’s Deadite fight took place in the school’s music room. It wasn’t my favorite Deadite fight but ‘death by cymbal’ isn’t the worst way to be killed off on this show.

Actually, I’m having a difficult time deciding which was my favorite death; ‘Death by Cymbal’ or ‘Death by Harp’. The Harp looked pretty cool.

I was missing Kelly, but she made a pretty timely entrance and saved Ash and Pablo from the Deadite Mascot. She looked darned happy to be back too.

She had with her a “Knight of Sumaria”, who actually bent a knee to Ash. I kind of felt bad for Pablo. He really looked like he wanted to give Kelly a bear hug.

There’s a part of me that wouldn’t have minded getting to know Candy a little bit more. On the other hand, I’m looking forward to watching Ash be a father. I hope it lives up to the potential.

Great season premiere. The controversy surrounding the creative direction of the show had me a little worried, but this premiere put all my concerns to rest.

I did have a bit of the same problem I had with the series premiere in that it took longer than I would have liked to get Ash back into the game.

I’m not generally really hard on this show. A lot of Ash’s general Ashyness can grate on me, but in the next minute the show charges into insanity and I’m grinning ear to ear or, as in the case of Ruby’s…um…eating(?) Ash’s picture, being gloriously grossed out.

I got everything I wanted from the season premiere. I really hope that the addition of Ash’s daughter works. What did you think of the episode?