Recap of Ash vs. Evil Dead
Season 2, Episode 1:
Home
- Ash: We gave peace a chance, now it's time for war.
In an unknown morgue, the Dark One known as Ruby is fighting with her demonic spawn for the Necronomicon, and they briefly manage to overpower her, looking for a ritual in the book, but she fights them off and realizes that she needs the help of her arch-enemy, Ash Williams, in order to stop what's coming.
Meanwhile, Ash is having the time of his life in Jacksonville, Florida, partying, drinking and generally misbehaving, while Pablo and Kelly work in a seaside café. Suddenly, a storm ruins the party as a vortex opens in the sky, and the partygoers become overtaken by Deadites. They attack Ash and tell him that Ruby sent them, calling him Ashy Slashy. Pablo tosses Ash, but he doesn't get to equip it, only after using his belt to pull it closer he gets it on. Kelly slaughters one of the Deadites with a fire axe, while Ash kills another one with the saw.
Ash says that Ruby has broken the truce and remembers that a Deadite called him "Ashy Slashy", a nickname given to him by people of Elk Grove, his hometown, so he deduces she must be there. The trio head out to Elk Grove, getting the latest news about Deadite outbreaks. Ash tells Pablo to draw a sketch of Ruby so that people would be looking for her as well, and Kelly asks him why he hasn't been home. Suddenly, Pablo's hand draws the face from the Necronomicon's cover, but he doesn't let others know.
They arrive to the town without much trouble, and Ash drives to his old house. He heads inside and sees an old photo of himself with his father, but he's surprised by the gunshot, as his father, Brock, mistakes him for a burglar. The older Williams isn't exactly happy to see his son, and Pablo and Kelly rush into the house with guns. Ash introduces them to Brock and asks him for help, but the old man starts berating his son for refusing to accept his responsibilities and running away and kicks them out of his house.
The gang heads to a local bar, and Ash sees locals react to him with disgust and horror. A homeless man approaches him and accuses him of ruining his life, and Pablo hallucinates the Necronomicon's face on his cardboard, briefly freaking out. Ash heads into the bar where a waitress recognizes him, and he recognizes her as his ex-girlfriend Linda Bates, now married to his classmate Tom Emery. Tommy causes a scene by claiming that Ashy Slashy has come back to town looking for a woman, and the crowd starts insulting him, but Ash refuses to be bullied and tells everyone he's here to save Elk Grove. His words still fall on deaf ears, and he leaves the bar.
Pablo sees a man hovering above the ground in an alley and decides to follow him, and there he hallucinates Ruby and the Necronomicon, with its face binding itself to his once more. Kelly manages to make him snap out of it, and he tells her and Ash about a vision of her in front of a building with two large smokestacks. Ash assumes it's the crematorium, and they head to the local morgue and prepare themselves, with Ash strapping the Kandarian dagger under his boomstick's barrels. The three go inside, and Ash gets in a fight with one of Ruby's children, while Kelly is dragged by another one in a water-filled cage and Pablo encounters one more, but, to his surprise, it doesn't see or feel him due to his amulet and leaves him alone.
Kelly hallucinates another version of herself who attacks her and tells her to ditch Ash, snapping out of it to realize she has been choking herself. A voice taunts her, and she uses her SMG to shoot some holes in the walls that start spraying fountains of blood at her to drown her, but Pablo saves her from the pit .
Ash finds Ruby and accuses her of breaking the truce, and she explains her children have turned against her and want the Necronomicon for themselves, so she needs his help. A child kindaps Ruby and drags her away to other children who start torturing her. Ash finds them and initially hesitates to save her, but still decides to do so. He quickly incapacitates two demons with shotgun blasts and impales the third one, but it manages to knock Ash away and make him drop the shotgun from his hand. Ruby unstraps the dagger from it and stabs a child with it and fatalliy injures it, while the other two flee. Ash finishes it off and takes the dagger back, and the Dark One asks his help to get the book back
Tropes:
- Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: One of Ruby's children freaks Pablo out by contorting its body in freakish fashion.
- Ash Face: Ash gets one after banging on a pipe and making some soot fly out of it (pun fully intended).
- Amicable Exes: Ash and Linda are still very friendly with each other, much to her husband's disapproval.
- Bayonet Ya: Ash creates a makeshit bayonet from the Kandarian Dagger by strapping it under his boomstick's barrels with duct tape.
- Call-Back: Ash once again calls a heckling crowd "screwheads".
- Dirty Old Man: Brock starts hitting on Kelly the moment he sees her, calling her "filthy and fine".Brock: Brock Williams, but you can call me "Cock".
- Facial Composite Failure: Pablo is tasked with drawing Ruby's picture, but he only manages to draw a kids' cartoon portrait.
- Facial Horror: Pablo in a hallucination attempts to rip off the Necronomicon's face from his head, but starts ripping off pieces of his own face.
- Groin Attack: A Deadite grabs Pablo's crotch to toss him and make him flip over in the air.
- Ironic Nursery Rhyme: A Deadite quotes a rhyme made about Ash in his hometown to make him realize where he needs to go:Deadite: Ashy Slashy, hatchet and saw! Takes your head and skins you raw! Ashy Slashy, heaven and hell! CUTS OUT YOUR TONGUE SO YOU CAN'T Ÿ̶̗͎͂̂̒E̴̡̦̫͗͑͝E̸̗̣̍Ȇ̸̫͇̻E̵͍̝̎͛͗E̷͉͖͌̽̚E̸̹͊ͅL̸̝͗́̀L̴̢̙̘̓̇̈͠L̴̨̛̲̓́L̸͔̳͔͋̅̂!̷̗̠͑̚!̶͕͂̽́͘!̴̜̣̫͉͌̍
- Living Shadow: One of Ruby's children pretends to be Ash's shadow to screw with him.
- Negated Moment of Awesome: Pablo tosses Ash the chainsaw, and he tries to equip in mid-jump, just like in the last season, but this time a Deadite catches him leg and brings him down, while the saw hits him in the head.
- Offing the Offspring: Ruby is forced to stab her child with the Kandarian Dagger to save Ash, clearly feeling remorse after this.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Ash gives yet another one to Ruby's child as it bleeds after being stabbed by its mother and blows its head off.Ash: Sorry, creepy kid, playtime's over. Night-night.
- Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Brock is in general a Grumpy Old Man, and the first words that come out of his mouth when he sees Pablo are:Brock: You got a green card, kid?
- Shout-Out: Ash and Brock quote The Six Million Dollar Man opening at each other while talking about Ash's new hand. Bonus points for a Casting Gag with Lee Majors.Ash: Check it out! I'm better, stronger!Brock: Faster?Deadite: Yeah.Brock: Bullshit. Looks like some piece of crap made in China.
