TV Review: Ash Vs. Evil Dead – Season 2, Episode 9

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

Season 2, Episode 9: Home Again

SUMMARY: A despondent Ash (Bruce Campbell) decides to use the Necronomicon to travel back in time to 1982, where he hopes to destroy the book before the younger version of himself ever discovers it.

REVIEW: “Ash Vs Evil Dead” is on a very solid run. After a pair of episodes that suggested Ash’s battle with the Deadites might in fact be a figment of his imagination, the show keeps the momentum going with a clever new conceit. While the rest of the show made it seem like it was a sequel only to the first film, this episode explicitly mentions his adventures in ARMY OF DARKNESS (making the theatrical cut canon), which gives him the bright idea to use the book to go back to 1982.

Now, the issue here is, if you can travel back in-time, why didn’t this ever occur to Ash before? Even someone as proudly thick as he should have had that idea before now. Whatever. At any rate it makes for a fun episode, with Ash starting off a drunken wreck over Pablo’s (Ray Santiago) death. So despondent he’s drunk and doing donuts behind the wheel, with a duck-taped up Pablo’s corpse riding shotgun.

Now, before you assume the makers use any big time fx to pair the older Ash with the younger version, that’s not quite what happens. Maybe they’re saving that for the finale, but here anyways, Ash arrives at the cabin long before the young Ash shows up. Most of the episode is devoted to him fighting a demon version of Professor Knowby’s wife, and trying to rescue an unfortunate student from its clutches. There’s one awesome scene where Ash’s leg gets infected, but rather than hack it off, he sucks the venom out and has to deal with a pesky critter crawling out of his body. Familiar, but fun. Meanwhile, Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo) and Ruby (Lucy Lawless) have to deal with the haunted woods, including the infamous “rape tree” from the first movie, which they deal with before anything too nasty goes down.

While I’ve no doubt the showrunners are saving the big guns for the finale, this is a good episode – actually one of the best of the season so far. They have a lot of fun with the era (tons of music in this one – the licencing costs must be insane). This definitely promises a strong end to the season, so hopefully they won’t stick the landing. I doubt it though, it seems they’re on a good, consistent run and I’m eager to see how it ends.