Recap / Ash Vs Evil Dead S 1 E 1 El Jefe

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Recap of Ash vs. Evil Dead
Season 1, Episode 1:

El Jefe

"It's good to be back."

Ash Williams: Thought I could hide? What a joke.

It's been 30 years since the incident at the Knowby cabin, and Ash Williams still continues his existence as a hard-partying, womanizing and overall irresponsible minimum-wage worker at a ValueStop store, living in a trailer park somewhere in Michigan. One fateful night he decides to go to a local bar and find himself a lady for the night, and in the middle of the coitus, he sees a Deadite visage on her face, becoming startled. Once he comes back to his trailer, Ash recalls that not long ago he had another woman there and in a marijuana-fueled haze tried to impress her by reading passages from Necronomicon Ex Mortis, the Book of the Dead. The gravity of the situation quickly dawns on him.

At a remote house in the woods, Detective Amanda Fisher and her partner John Carson are called in to investigate a distress call. They enter the house and split up. Fisher finds a corpse in the kitchen, frozen in horror, while Carson finds a weeping woman, who turns out to be the same woman who read from the Necronomicon with Ash. She suddenly gets taken over by a Deadite and starts fighting officers, stabbing Amanda with a pair of scissors in the right hand. Carson manages to blow half of her head off with a shotgun, but the Deadite gets up and impales him on a pair of mounted deer antlers. Amanda kills the monster with a backup revolver, but notices that her partner's body is missing. Noticing him crawling on the ceiling and possessed, she attempts to shoot him, but Carson drops down on her and briefly reverts back to human form, mocking her before getting his head blown off as well.

The next morning, a horrified Ash leaves his trailer and calls Lionel Hawkins, an expert on occult literature, asking him to help translate passages from the Necronomicon that would stop the Deadites from coming after him. He asks his elderly neighbor, Vivian, to tidy up his trailer while he's gone, while suddenly he hears the ghostly voice calling him name and sees Vivian briefly being possessed. Believing it's only his imagination, he goes to ValueStop to pick up his paycheck and skip town afterwards. Unfortunately for Ash, his boss, Mr. Roper, refuses to let him leave and tells him to get back to work. Ash's younger Honduran co-worker, Pablo, offers him to watch wrestling in the evening, but his older friend refuses and tells him that it's probably his last day at the job, which upsets Pablo, because he brought his neighbor Kelly to work at the store as well. Ash clumsily attempts to flirt with Kelly, but she lets him know she's not interested in his sleazy charm.

At a diner in the town, Amanda is still recovering from the last night's events when briefly she sees a little girl possessed by a Deadite. She tries to think her mind is playing trick on her, but a mysterious woman from a nearby booth tells her that what she thinks she saw is exactly what she saw.

While cleaning up at the storehouse, Ash is attacked by a Lil' Lori doll, but Pablo saves him from it by crushing it with a shovel. Ash decides to tell his friend about the events from 30 years ago, and Pablo mentions his shaman uncle called "El Brujo", and that one man, "El Jefe", will be able to stop the evil, believing Ash is him. Ash declines and attempts to back to his trailer. Kelly is talking with her father on the phone, when suddenly she sees her deceased mother on camera and realizes he may be in serious trouble. Pablo decides to help her, despite Mr. Roper's protests, but first takes her to Ash's trailer.

Amanda goes back to the house where Carson dies and inspects it, finding a piece of Carson's shirt on the antlers and confirming that what happened last night was real.

Pablo and Kelly arrive to Ash's trailer where they ask him to help her father, but he refuses. A Deadite attacks the trailer and grabs Kelly by the throat, attempting to crush it, and Ash helps her out by chopping the demon's arm off with a thrown axe. His demeanor changes as he stops being a sleazy aging man and becomes a confident one-liner spewing badass, quickly dispatching the Deadite with his boomstick. Kelly asks him again to come help her father, but he declines and says he has to deal with the Necronomicon first and save a lot more people. He goes to get his chainsaw, when Deadite-possessed Vivian attacks him, briefly knocking him out and pinning Pablo to a wall with a knife. She attempts to gouge Kelly's eyes out with her fingers, when Ash gets up and tries to help. Pablo tosses him the chainsaw with his leg, and Ash cuts Vivian's head off, proclaiming that he's back and that he feels...

Groovy.

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Tropes:

• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: More like "Weed Induced Idiocy", but Ash and his partner were clearly high when they decided to read from the Necronomicon.
• Asshole Victim: Mr. Roper, an abrasive, rude and hateful jerk, gets possessed by the Deadites.
• Boom, Headshot!: Amanda kills both the first Deadite and Carson by blowing their brains out.
• The Casanova: Ash has become this in the present day, managing to get himself some action with the combination of his raw charm and sob stories about how he lost his hand saving children from a train. Unfortunately for him, this sort of sleaze doesn't work on Kelly.
• Casting Gag: The Lil' Lori doll is voiced by Bridget Hoffman, who previously appeared on the poster for The Evil Dead (1981).
• Coitus Interruptus: As he's doing the nasty with a lady in a bar bathroom, Ash briefly sees her face becomes demonic and stops everywhere... but still manages to continue afterr some pleading.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Possessed Carson attempts to do the same trick on Amanda as Deadite Linda did on Ash in The Evil Dead (1981).
  • The scene where Lil' Lori attacks Ash is reminiscent of his encounter with Mini-Ashes in Army of Darkness.
• Crazy-Prepared: Ash has all sorts of demon killing things in his trailer, even a contraption that launches the boomstick into his hand.
• Doom Magnet: Just as usual, Ash attracts all sorts of evil forces to himself.
• Exorcist Head: In the best traditions of the series, the woman in the house gives Fisher and Carson the scare by twisting her head around.
• Impaled Palm: Amanda gets a pair of scissors driven into her hand by a Deadite while trying to protect herself.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The Deadite woman who survives getting half of her head blown off tosses Carson at a pair of mounted deer antlers which pierce and kill him.
• The Illegal: Pablo accidentally lets it slip that he wasn't born in America to Ash.
  Pablo: Hey man, I've seen a lot between Honduras and here, try me.
  Ash: Honduras? You said you're from New Jersey.
  Pablo: Oh, did I? I am— I was from there.
• Lazy Bum: Outside of his love conquests, Ash lives a lazy and unmotivated life in a trailer park, getting drunk, wasted on weed, being absolutely useless at his job and constantly seeking ways to get out earlier.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Once he gets the adrenaline rush from killing Deadites, Ash quickly changes his demeanor, becoming a cocky and overconfident macho who nonchalantly dispatches his enemies.
• N-Word Privileges: Mr. Roper believes he's within his right to call Ash a retard because his gardener is a huge one.
• The Needs of the Many: Ash tells Kelly that he can save a lot more people than just her father by getting to a translator and reciting an incantation first.
  Kelly: You don't understand. My mom was dead, and now—
  Ash: And now a whole lot more people will die if I don't get to the bottom of what's in this little baby.
• Nightmare Face: Both Ash and Amanda experience flashes of people's faces becoming demonic, usually leading to that person being fully possessed later.
• Of Corsets Funny: The very first scene of the series is Ash tightening up a corset to hide his gut.
• Oh, Crap!: Ash lets out a Precision F-Strike the moment he remembers reciting a passage from the Necronomicon to impress a chick, now realizing that the Deadites are coming for him again.
• Pinned to the Wall: Possessed Vivian pins Pablo to a trailer wall with a hunting knife, and he only manages to free himself after Ash kills the Deadite.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: It wouldn't be an Evil Dead property without Ash belting out at least one witty line before killing a Deadite.
  Ash: Mama should've taught you to knock.
• Red Baron: Pablo believes that Ash is the mythical "El Jefe", and starts calling him such after seeing him effortlessly kill a Deadite.
• The Tooth Hurts: Downplayed. Lil' Lori manages to knock one of Ash's teeth out, but thankfully, it was a denture.
• Ultimate Job Security: As much as Mr. Roper hates Ash, he can't fire him easily due to his seniority.